Why does a young man’s marriage break up? In these turbulent days there are probably many possible reasons ... but in this case I think it was entirely down to my Mother.
Don’t get me wrong, she wasn’t directly involved. She was never anything but kind and generous to my wife. The problem was that my earliest sexual experiences ... sexual fantasies that is ... were all focussed on my mother: the way she dressed, the way she looked, and the way she cared for me. And as we all know, our earliest sexual experiences tend to form our later sexual tastes, and I supposed I developed what is commonly referred to as a ‘fetish’ ... well a number of fetishes actually. One for small pert breasts in low-cut bras, one for stockings and suspenders and high-heeled shoes ... and one for the idea of incest!
However, it took me a long time to realise that I was totally immersed in these fetishes. I suppose I unconsciously tried to mould my wife into looking and behaving like my mother ... or rather like the way my mother did in my childhood. I tried to dress her as I wanted her to look ... old fashioned. I even convinced her to wear stockings for me (occasionally), and to walk about dressed only in bra, panties and stockings and suspenders. In the end my incest fantasies also began to surface, and I managed to persuade my wife join in with these ‘games’. In the heat of sex, for example, I encouraged her to whisper things like ‘fuck mummy’ or ‘mummy wants your big cock’ just as I was coming to orgasm.
She was very obliging, but I guess she hated it. I’m sure she thought I was weird and perverted, and in the end this must have contributed to the end of our marriage. Well I guess I am both weird and perverted, and I would be deeply ashamed if it ... if it wasn’t for the fact that most people are just as weird and perverted as me ... it’s just they don’t admit it!
About the same time as my marriage ended my Father fell ill, and died shortly after. Inevitably this brought Mother and I much closer together. She lived in a small bungalow in Cornwall, not far from the sea., and I would drive down at the weekends to comfort her. I suppose she also was seeking, in her way, to comfort me. We would sit in her small living room and talk about all sorts of things late into the Saturday night. On Sunday mornings she would bring me breakfast in bed. Later we would usually go for a walk along the cliff-tops, and then I would drive home again late in the evening.
I started these visits more out of duty than anything else. My fetishes were just fantasies, and they seem to be separated from the real world (and my real mother) by some invisible, impenetrable wall. I never once had any conscious sexual thoughts during my visits ... at least not to begin with anyway. Over time, however, I began to look forward to (rather than dread as I had initially) these visits. Whatever else they were, they provided me with company and a chance to talk about myself and my problems. I never dreamed, however, where these conversations would ultimately lead.
My Mother was 58 years old by now, but still slim and fairly graceful. To me at least she did not look old. She no longer seemed to try to dress attractively, however, as she had when I was young. Now she wore large baggy sweaters and trousers mostly. Her hair was tied back and she never wore make-up. Indeed it was only very late at night when we were still talking, and after she had bathed and changed for bed, that she ever seemed in any way female! Then her hair was let down, and she would wear a dressing gown over her night dress. This was the only time I saw her legs. But as the legs never wore stockings anymore, and as I never sat staring at the seams of those stockings (creeping secretly up to her thighs and to her almost always hidden stocking-tops, as I’d done as a boy), I never really looked very closely. Anyway, she was my Mother, and whatever fantasies existed in my perverted loins, they would never dare surface in her actual presence.
But things changed one dark Saturday night in November. The weather, like the sea just a few hundred yards away, was wild and stormy. Rain spattered heavily in large uncompromising drops on my car as I approached her cottage. The wind, driving the rain in sheets almost horizontally, managed to soak my clothes entirely even in the short run from my car to her door. She opened the door, holding it with her foot against the insistent gale, and ushered me in.
“Oh my goodness”, she exclaimed. “What an awful day!”.
I stood there dripping on her carpet and said with a broad smile. “It certainly is. I feel like I’ve just been hit by a wave. It even tastes salty!.”
She examined my clothes with concern. “You poor thing, you really are soaked. I think we’d better get you out of those wet clothes.”
“Don’t worry Mother”, I answered with a smile. “I’m not that wet, and besides I don’t have anything else to wear”.
“Rubbish”, she replied in her normal forceful manner. “I’ll run the bath for you, and while you’re having a soak I’ll slip your things in the dryer!” As I’d been late arriving, and as I really was both wet and chilled, and rather tired from the drive, I reluctantly agreed
My clothes were not dry by the time I’d finished my bath, so Mother lent me a dressing-gown. After a simple meal we headed for the small lounge intending to sit warming ourselves in the two armchairs by the open fire. As Mother came in behind me she produced with a flourish a bottle white wine and two glasses.
“You need warming up inside as well as out,” she said smiling.
“I’m fine”, I said softly. “This cottage of yours is so cosy and warm I could just drift away”. “Well a glass of wine won’t stop that happening!” she laughed.
Over the next hour or two we worked our way through the entire bottle, chatting amiably as we always did. Slowly the conversation deepened and mellowed, and we began talking about life in general, and our lives in particular.
Finally she asked me a leading question, one I suspect she been wanting to ask for a long time. “Tell me John, what really happened to your marriage? You and Sheila seemed so right for each other ... I simply couldn’t believe it when you said you were parting.”
I suppose I was tired and comfortable and slightly drunk. I was staring wistfully into the dying embers of the log fire.
“Lots of reasons I guess,” I whispered. “We were very different in many ways. We wanted different things ... intellectually, emotionally, physically ...”
Mother looked at me saying nothing.
“My interests were different to hers I suppose, and she wanted me to be loving to her in a way that just didn’t come naturally to me. And I think that there were parts of me that I just couldn’t share with her.”
“Are we talking emotionally here ... or physically”, Mother asked softly.
I laughed, “Both I guess!”
There was a moment’s silence, and the she said, “Tell me what you mean. I’m not sure if I understand.”
“You don’t want to listen to all my problems” I murmured. “Especially not all my personal problems ...”
“Yes I do ... tell me.”
I was so comfortable, warm and relaxed that I forgot, I suppose, who exactly it was I was talking to. I began to ramble, slowly spilling out my problems and with them some of my frustrations.
“Women can be so damn difficult. They change from day to day, and what was right and good yesterday is wrong and bad today. I could never seem to please her. Early on I tried as hard as I knew how ... rushing home from work, taking her out, spending as much time with her as I could. But the more time I spent with her, the more she wanted. But at the same time she never really seemed happy, contented ... satisfied, although the fact that she didn’t ever satisfy me seemed irrelevant!”
I paused musing to myself. “None of that’s true really I guess. It was all my fault ...”
Mother downed what was left of her drink and reached for the bottle. It was empty and she tutted to herself. Then she said, “I don’t think it was all your fault at all John, it always takes two to make a relationship, and two to break up. Your Father and I had many ups and downs, but while we both hung in there it worked.”
I glanced up at her. “It’s not the same” I whispered. “If I’d have been married to you, I’d have made it work too!”
She put the bottle down and looked at me quizzically.
“I guess that was part of the problem for me,” I went on dreamily. “She was not you, and could never be. I suppose I moulded the woman I wanted to spend my life with on my experiences with you. You were so caring, so strong, so feminine ... so damn sexy!”
“Sexy!!”, the word exploded from my Mother’s lip in genuine surprise.
Suddenly I came back to the reality of where I was and who I was with.
“Err ... I mean ... er ... feminine”, I spluttered.
I suddenly felt very embarrassed. I’m sure I went bright red. Inside I felt like I’d been caught masturbating by my mother, pleasuring myself over a dirty picture ... only in this case it was worse. The dirty picture was actually a picture of my Mother, dressed in flimsy and exotic clothing! I squirmed inside, not knowing what to say.
I kept my gaze firmly on the fire and said nothing else.
But Mother had noticed my embarrassment, and was looking at me strangely. “Sexy?”, she said again. “Did you really think me sexy?”
I said nothing.
