However, despite the fact I was never able to provide any apparent solutions to my mother’s problems, she made it clear having me around helped in some way. I would listen to her whinging about the world without complaint, provide a sympathetic shoulder for her to cry on when she was miserable, and if she was really down I was the ‘dog’ she could kick. I was always there for her and it was clear she needed me in some way, so I could never abandon her, even if at times she was like an emotional vampire sucking me dry.
We lived in a small house in a rather old-world town in Lincolnshire in the North East of England. My Father had passed away when I was 12 years old, and my mother was never the same after he went. I was 19 when the events to be described here occurred. I had few (if any friends), I was a virgin, and I spent most of my time looking after my poor (apparently) sick Mother. She was 57 years old, no longer working, and surviving on the meagre amount my father left, plus a disability pension she was awarded because she was suffering from ‘stress’.
Despite her ‘illness’ mother was quite able to occasionally pop round to see her friends and go out shopping when she wanted. Indeed it was mostly when she was home that her apparent infirmities seemed to become manifest. She did the cooking, but everything else round the house was down to me. I was at college at the local Tech three days a week (studying Art and Design), but when I was home my days were filled with cleaning, washing, and caring for mother. That said she never appeared to acknowledge my efforts around the house. If she said anything it was usually a critical comment about something that was not ‘up to scratch’.
She was moderately short in stature (about 5.1) and relatively thin (possibly the result of her nervous condition) but not unsightly, and indeed there were photos around the house which showed she had once been quite attractive. She had a nice figure, brown hair (often in curlers), brown eyes, and full (even sensuous) lips. She had, however, let herself go, and when at home she spent most of the time wandering about in an old dressing gown. Her face was weary and worn and starting to show lines, but she always seemed to me like a potentially good looking woman, who, with a little extra work, could still be quite fetching. She didn’t really look her age apart from wrinkles on the back of her hands, which curiously enough now always remind me of her.
Perhaps that’s where it all started. It was only her and I in the house, and although I was her ‘punch-bag’ I was also her only companion. She would hold me sometimes, when the mood was on her, and cuddle me and tell me I was the only man she loved. It didn’t happen very often but there were those few times when she seemed to appreciate me being there. As I said she wore a dressing gown a lot of the time, and sometimes not a lot underneath. I confess it was hard for a pubescent and virginal boy not to look when the gown slipped and showed too much of her underwear. I never consciously thought about my mother in a sexual way, but some part of me was very much aware she was a woman and had ‘attributes’ that were both unfamiliar and interesting. In truth there were probably times when I was too close to her.