This is a true story, a love story; some of the details have been changed, some altered by the fog of time, but this is my memory of the events as they happened so very long ago. It is a memoir, so it's very slow and not particularly erotic. I've done what I can to bring some of the passion I remember into my account. I hope those who have the patience for it find it worthwhile. Thanks for reading. The characters are all over 18 years of age.
*
It didn't happen overnight. It took years to break down those thick walls, the ones built through centuries of conditioning, by church and state, popes and presidents, priests and principals, authority figures large and small. Those codes of conduct are impressed upon our brain cells before we're barely conscious; they don't simply disappear with the wave of a hand, or more to the point, the brush of a thigh.
Maybe some people smash through the wall in one determined push; I don't know. But for others of us, the wall comes down in pieces; brick by brick, stone by stone, over years, so at the time you don't even realize it's happening. That's how it was for my mother and I. And when it did come down, when that very last brick was thrown aside and we became lovers, what was unleashed was as powerful and unstoppable as if the Colorado river had burst the Hoover dam, sweeping us away, drowning us in its passion and unrelenting fury.
Looking back, it seems inevitable, that one day she would lay beneath me and welcome me into her; it was built into the dynamic of our relationship, although neither of us could have seen it then. We were mother and son, but as I matured and my parents relationship deteriorated, I willingly became her confidante, her therapist, her best friend. There was no coercion; I wasn't forced into service; she was my mother, I loved her and genuinely wanted to help her. I took pride in being the favorite of her children, the one she came to when she needed to talk. It took me years to understand that the sexual relationship that developed later was merely a physical demonstration of the emotional relationship we'd always had. Although we didn't touch until well past my eighteenth bIrthday, what became an all-consuming sexual passion was an expression of the relationship we'd had since I was thirteen.
Did she seduce me, or did I seduce her? I think we both engaged in that game over a period of time, but I remember the moment when I first made it apparent that I saw her not only as my mother, but as a desirable woman. The memory of it still brings up the same breathless excitement I felt that day.
I love everything about women: their hair, their eyes, their noses, their lips, their smiles, their breasts, their thighs, their conversation, their insights, their laughs and cries; but if there's one characteristic that can drive me to distraction, it's those lovely, curvaceous, ovoid mounds of pleasure we call the derrière.
Big or small, soft or firm, stuffed into a tight pair of form-fitting jeans, wrapped and caressed by a snug-fitting skirt or proudly displayed in a thong bikini, I am powerless before the majesty of an exquisitely shaped booty. I had no choice in the matter, really. The first important woman in my life had a figure defined by generous hips and a well-endowed backside, and long before I would actually explore its hills and valleys it was my erotic obsession, filling the dreams of many an adolescent night.
My mother's ass was "The Ass", the defining derrière of my desires and the rear by which all other rears would be judged. In contemporary terms, her generous cheeks were of the Kim Kardashian variety; exquisitely shaped, erotically charged mounds of flesh that seemed to promise both the thrill of the climb and the sweet release of descent.
My mother was an unconventionally beautiful woman, in the mold of Italian movie stars of the day. She combined elements of Anna Magnani, Sophia Loren and—oddly enough, Joan Baez, adding up to an exotic beauty of uncertain origins. Some thought her Italian or Spanish, some thought her Middle Eastern. She was none of these, but her dark hair and coloring suggested mystery and another world. She was smart and generous, but also needy. She could be maddeningly self-centered one moment and selfless the next; angry and bitter, but full of laughter and love. She was in her prime in her late 30's and early 40's; she was petite, with shoulder length black hair, parted evocatively to the side, and her figure was full in the manner of those aforementioned Italian film stars, her breasts large and round to match her earth-mother hips.
She preferred to wear form fitting stretch pants, not the leggings of today, exactly, but flattering nonetheless—and I delighted in the way her hips and ass filled them. She must have been aware of how I stared at her( somehow, women always are); I was young and not capable of subtlety. And my stare was relentless, to the point of causing me anxiety and frustration. I didn't know then what it did for her, but years later she told me the erotic thrill she got from my gaze was when she first began to fantasize about "us".
So I could hardly be blamed, after a long adolescence of obsessing over my mother's beautiful bounty, that one fateful day well past my 18th birthday and into my early adulthood, I could no longer keep my hands to myself.
We had taken on the task of cleaning the basement in preparation for a renovation project, boxing miscellaneous junk and sweeping up, when, as we both bent over to pick up some trash, I found my face inches from her backside. For a moment, the thought entered my mind to kiss those full, exquisitely curved cheeks, to take them in my hands and bury my face in her soft pillows—-but instead I took the broom in my hand and gently, but provocatively, swatted her with it. Jumping, she shrieked in laughter and surprise and turned to look at me, daring me to repeat the gesture. I did so gladly, and chased her around the room for a few seconds, like the proverbial dirty old boss chasing his secretary around the desk. We giggled and laughed like naughty schoolchildren.
I was ecstatic; I had broken through! I had flirted with her, I had let her know how I felt—and more than that—she enjoyed it, no—she went so far as to encourage it! Oh, I couldn't wait to do it again!
The promise of that day, the thrill of it—takes my breath away, makes my heart beat faster—even today, forty-some years afterwards. That was the first moment, the first break in the ice, when I knew something was possible between us, From that moment on, it was all I could think about. Strange, how it's all I think about now, these many years later.
Of course, our lives didn't immediately become a porno-version of a Marx brothers routine, with endless repeats of me as Harpo chasing the young beauty around the deck. Life went on, there were difficulties in my parents marriage, and in her loneliness, my mother would come to me to talk about things. Sometimes she'd tear up, sometimes I'd give her a shoulder to cry on. We didn't talk about "the broom incident".
The slow escalation in our flirtations was precipitated by a much more rapid deterioration in my parents relationship, and an equally fast increase in her emotional dependence on me. My father was an alcoholic, although in those days we didn't recognize it as such. He was just one of the boys, went for drinks after work and then tended to stay out all night, forgetting to call home. He didn't do it every night, but often enough that I remember holding my breath, my stomach in knots, staring at our driveway and waiting to see if he was going to come home on time every evening. If he didn't, and he neglected to call, there was going to be hell to pay.
In most respects he was a good man, a good provider, and dependable. I loved him, and so did my mother. But he could be emotionally distant, removed, pre-occupied. I realize now these were all symptoms of his disease, but it didn't make it any easier for us then, and in time, his neglect broke my mother's heart.
So my mother came to talk with me. I was her oldest child, the most mature, and I've always been a good listener. I don't know that I imparted any great advice, what did I know of marriage or relationships? But I listened, and maybe that was enough. My mother was a stay-at-home housewife in the years when everyone's mom seemed to be at home, and she didn't have many friends in the community—certainly nobody to confide in. So it was up to me. I was the only one.
We talked...a lot. And after she cried a little, I'd hold her hand and she'd look at me and say,
" ...why can't he be more like you? Sensitive and caring? You're going to make someone a wonderful husband someday."
Following those discussions, we often went out, to clear the cobwebs away, I suppose. She and I might go shopping, for something diverting like books or records, or pile my two sisters in the car and grab a bite to eat someplace quick. Those excursions helped us out from under the cloud. They also served to cement our emotional bond, the way a date does for a young couple.
As we grew closer emotionally, we began to be more physically expressive with one another, where we hadn't before. We embraced more frequently, and openly, hugging in the mornings or later when I'd return from my job at the factory. Sometimes we'd even kiss, a peck on the cheek as a welcome home. We held hands; as we read the paper at the kitchen table, she'd reach across to me and touch my hand, encircling it with her fingers. She'd give me a warm smile and we'd go back to our papers, hand still in hand.
The more affectionate we were towards one another, the more we began to flirt. Our flirtation was fun, and at first, very innocent. We weren't aware of its relationship to our deepening feelings for one another, how a growing physical intimacy was revealing something akin to romantic love. But what started as innocuous tickling or swatting one another with bath towels, slowly developed an erotic charge, particularly as it became more verbal.
One night in particular stands out in my mind. We were at home, in the kitchen. She was wearing a particularly tight pair of black knit slacks, white halter top tied behind her neck, revealing her bare back. Her luxurious black hair lay loosely about her shoulders. For all the world, she looked like a beautiful Italian movie star.
I was late from work, and she had saved dinner for me. I was hungry, but as I stared at her shapely ass in those tight slacks, I wasn't thinking of dinner. To this day, I don't know what mad impulse drove me to do it; I was young, I was horny, and maybe working in a gray factory building all day, devoid of women and windows, led to pent up frustrations that had no choice but to boil over.
Whatever it was, as she placed my plate in front of me and turned back towards the stove, my hand involuntarily shot out and slapped her fine, soft, round tush.
Spinning on her heels to face me, she gasped in mock indignation, failing to hide her obvious delight. Barely repressing a smile of self-satisfaction, she assumed a tone of recrimination ;
"Jeremy! What's gotten into you?!?"
Sitting in my seat at the table, I shrugged. I hadn't thought far enough ahead to imagine my next move;
