I’ve only just wiped the mess off my chest when I hear the knock at the door, my sphincter loosening with horror as I realise how close I’ve come to being caught spraying jizm all over myself.
“What is it?” I warble, appalled, reaching for my mobile. I check the time, surprised to see it’s the middle of the night at 2:33.
“Can I come in?” she asks through the wood. “I can’t sleep. I’ve got so much on my mind.” There’s a pause before she goes on with, “I need to sort this all out, Sean. I’ll be a wreck at work on Monday if we don’t put all this to bed.”
I’m vaguely aware of her poor choice of phrase, but can’t ignore the plaintive plea in her tone.
“Please, Sean,” she says, knocking again, her rapping persistent and woodpecker fast. I know from experience she won’t let it lie. If my mother has her mind set on an objective, she usually achieves it.
Just ask my dad.
Agitated, I glance round my room. It seems free of any DNA evidence but my stomach still flutters when I look at the door. After the awful encounter downstairs I’m embarrassed to face her.
“All right,” I shout back when she carries on tapping. “Come in if you have to.”
The relentless rap-rap-rap ceases abruptly. There’s a pause and I imagine my mother hesitating and chewing her lip. When the moment stretches to a few seconds I begin to think she’s lost her nerve, but the door opens a moment later and she enters enveloped in a large fluffy robe.
I don’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed to see she’s not naked.
“Sean?” she blinks, tiny and vulnerable inside the dressing gown.
I’m in bed, with the sheet up to my chest. I don’t say anything, and neither does she.
We just look at one another for a while until she sighs and says, “Oh God, Sean.” My mother shrugs and shakes her head, adding “I…” but getting no further.
There’s another difficult pause before my mother looks at the bed and asks, “May I?”
I nod in assent, knowing she wants to sit, which she does when I shift sideways a bit.
The bed dips as she settles. I’m acutely aware of her presence, the awkwardness swelling between us.
It goes on. The proverbial elephant in the room with us grows bigger and bigger with each passing second.
“I didn’t know,” my mother eventually says.
To which I reply, “Didn’t know what?”
She shifts her rump and clears her throat, eyes going everywhere but me. “Well,” she begins. “You know … About seeing me nude. I didn’t know you were bothered.
There’s more silence until she breaks it again.
“When?” she asks.
“What?” I say, pretending I don’t have a clue.
“Did it start.”
“Did what start?”
She sighs and the bed moves when she squirms. “This … this fancying me — or whatever it is.” My mother glances at me and waves a hand in the air, then looks away.
My insides curl with embarrassment. I’m mortified, my face heating up. I don’t want to answer at all. What I want is for her to go away and leave me to feed on chagrin for a few months, but, in the end, knowing she won’t let it lie, I blurt out, “Last Christmas,” my cheeks burning hotter.