She smiled. “Just like when you were younger. You never wanted to go to bed. You’d just cuddle up to me because you knew I had too much of a soft spot for you. It’s always been hard to say no to you.”
Mom kissed the top of my head. I felt the need to reciprocate, so I lifted my head long enough to give her a quick kiss on the cheek. When I resumed my resting position, my head slipped even lower. I was making far too much contact with her breast, but I didn’t want to go back to sitting normally.
“You always just want me to be happy,” I said. “Always. I want to make you happy too, but I never know how.”
“You make me happy just being you,” she said.
“That’s another one of your ‘mother’ responses.”
“That’s what I am. I can’t help it.”
“You’re more than that. You need other things too.”
“Well… maybe. They’re not as important though.”
I looked up directly into my mother’s eyes. She flushed slightly at the intensity of my gaze. It was strange how I suddenly felt as though I understood her better than ever before, despite my not-fully-lucid state. Or perhaps it was precisely because of that state of incomplete consciousness that my mind went to the places it did.
I moved my hand to Mom’s breast, the one I hadn’t been using as a pillow. She maintained eye contact, though her lips parted slightly as she sucked in a quick breath.
“It shouldn’t all be about me,” I said. “I know it is, but it shouldn’t be.”
“That’s just the way things are,” she said.
“They don’t have to be that way.”
“Honey, you’re tired. I don’t want you to do anything you regret later.”
Mom’s hand moved to cover mine, but she didn’t try to pull me away from her chest. Maybe she was forcing us both to acknowledge what I was doing.
“I won’t regret anything.”
“Yes you will. I know you. A little indirect conversation about porn is enough to make you feel awkward around me.”
“Well… I know better now.”
I squeezed her breast gently, forcing a faint gasp from her lips, and I noticed she wasn’t wearing a bra. My mind was disturbingly clear and focused. I knew what I was doing, even if she didn’t believe it.
“Please stop, sweetie. You’re going to feel so bad about this tomorrow.”
“You’re making this about me again. Why is it never about you?”
Mom finally pulled my hand away from her chest. She took me in her arms and cradled me in a very motherly way. She didn’t know what to do with me, and I suddenly felt bad for putting her in that sort of position. I relaxed into her embrace and sank down so that I was lying across the couch with my upper body in her lap. I didn’t want Mom to feel bad, I wanted her to be happy, just like what she wanted for me.
“What am I going to do with you?” she whispered.
I shrugged and didn’t answer. I didn’t even know what the answer was.
I nuzzled Mom’s breasts through her shirt as she held me to her. I was done trying to pretend they didn’t exist. My instincts as her son and my sexual reactions were both telling me the same thing. The voice of morality in my head sounded small and distant in comparison.