But the best time for both of them was when they arrived back home, indoors and in private, they consummated their relationship, neither of them thinking of the other in true terms anymore. Jess thought of Tom, not as her son, but as her lover, her soulmate, her other half. For Tom, occasionally he would forget and call her ‘mum’, but more or less, he called her ‘Jess’ or Jessica and thought of her more as his girlfriend rather than his parent.
One thing he had discovered about Jess, was her willingness to participate in anything sexual, no matter the location, so long as there was no fear of being caught.
As she explained to him one day, ‘It’s not the fear of being caught that bothers me, that is part of the thrill, it’s the possibility of being caught by someone who knows who we are and that all we have, would come to an end’.
Tom knew exactly what she meant, he was in a relationship, it mattered little to him that she was his mother, he just knew that he loved her more as each day passed.
It was just before Christmas when the phone rang and Jessica reappeared looking slightly nervous, ‘That was my solicitor, they have received an offer of compensation and they want me to go in and see them.’
It was a couple of days later that she took herself off, seemingly to Tom, that she was gone for hours as he did some of the housework he had promised to do. When she did finally return, she seemed to be in shock, sitting on the couch and staring into space.
At first. Tom felt worried as she re-told what had been explained to her by the solicitor, it was only when she told him the amount, that his jaw dropped. ‘Bloody hell Jess, that’s a serious amount of money, you should never want for anything in the future.’
She asked him if he wanted anything, but Tom was loath to take any money, it was hers to use wisely. ‘I had an idea on the way home,’ she told him, ‘How would you feel about moving?’
Tom was puzzled at first, surely, they didn’t need a bigger house, ‘Move where Jess?’.
Slowly she explained her thoughts, ‘How about we sell this big house, the insurance when Brian died, paid off what remained of the mortgage. ‘I thought perhaps we could buy something smaller, maybe along the coast, about fifty or sixty miles from here. ‘It feels good when we go into town and nobody recognises us, I wondered if we moved far enough away, where no one knows us, it would be like starting over, a new life, a new proper relationship. ‘Don’t say yes or no now, think about it, not just about now, but maybe ten years or even twenty years, I’m going to be an old woman then while you will still be young and I don’t want you to be tied to a potential pensioner’.
Tom did as she asked, waiting until Christmas Eve before sitting her down and giving her his answer,
‘I think it’s a great idea, I get fed up of having to hide our feelings for each other, so long as we put enough distance between us and the village, I can’t see any reason why it would not work. ‘There is a condition though, you have to let me find a job, just like normal people. ‘As for our age difference, currently, you don’t look all that much older than I do, I’m betting that in ten years, you will hardly have changed while I’ll look nearer your age and anyway, so long as we are together, what does it matter’.