The next day, while at work, Angela was surprised to receive three increasingly desperate sounding texts from Susan, pleading for her to get in touch. She waited until she was home before finally responding.
"Oh, Angie, thank you so much for calling...I'm feeling terrible."
Angela was stabbed with remorse.
"Are you ok? Has something happened?"
"No, it's not that. I mean, nothing new. I just...hadn't heard from you, after we talked about, you know, Jeremy. And I...I just don't want to lose your friendship."
"Well, I was pretty shocked I suppose."
"I can understand, oh God, don't think I can't. I would be as well...it's just, well, I don't have anyone else to talk to. I haven't told anyone else. I haven't dared to. And you've been my best friend for so long, it would just kill me to lose you..."
Angela's heart clenched at her friend's anguish. But she checked her tongue from reassuring. "You sound different about this than last time we talked."
"I, guess, I'm just realizing how enormous it is, what I've done. I've been thinking a lot. When we talked, well, I think I was just so excited. The idea of being wanted, still being wanted as a woman was so new."
"But didn't you plan it?"
"I don't think I really planned it, Angela. That sounds terrible. Really, I think...I was just sad and it got out of hand. I didn't really expect it to go so far."
"Are you saying that you are having regrets? That you won't let it happen again?"
There was a long pause. And then Susan replied in a small voice. "No. It's too late for that. We did it again last night after dinner."
Angela felt a surge in her chest. Her tone came out sharply. "Wow. I really thought that you of all people would be able to control yourself!"
"I can't Angela! You can't possibly understand. I hardly do myself. It's just...so compelling."
"What's so compelling? See, you can't even say it any more!"
There was a pause, and then a meek voice on the phone. "Doing it with my son is so compelling."
Angela could imagine Susan hanging her head even as she spoke into the phone. She took a deep breath. The emotion pounding her chest was not only a brew of jealousy and arousal. It was also a kind of triumph. Forcing Susan into the open was making her put all her cards onto the table.
"So Susan, here's the thing. It's not really what you've done. Or are choosing to continue to do. It's more the secrecy of the thing. I mean, you didn't really tell me how this came about. I mean, how can I really expect to understand if you are hiding things from me."
"Hiding? Like what you mean?"
"Oh, you know, how this really came about. I can't follow what you said when we talked. It's like you want me to think this just happened and got out of control, and yet it also seems really planned. Like you tricked him intentionally."
"I didn't...trick him. It's just...we got talking."
"Well that's what you need to tell me about properly. You sat on his bed in your revealing nightie -"
"It wasn't that revealing!"
"That was the very word you used!"
"That was, you know, the second night."
"You see, you're trying to trick me again now. Intentionally saying one thing and meaning another." Angela knew that she was pushing her friend, letting the guilt and anxiety Susan must feel confuse her. Even as she did so, she was both surprised, even aghast, at her willingness to so torment her friend - and aware that a deep part of herself was enjoying it. Turning the tables.
"I don't mean to trick you. I'm sorry." Susan implored.
"So I think you need to tell me all. Like what were the fantasies that you and Jeremy shared."
"Those? Well, you know, pretty personal."
"Why are you hiding from me?"
"I'm not hiding Angela. I'm sorry. I...I talked about my Cinderella fantasies I suppose you might call them. All those chick flicks we've watched. Well, that's pretty much my fantasy. Going out to fancy places, being bought expensive clothes."
Angela rolled her eyes. Much though she loved her friend, she could be unimaginatively suburban in her tastes.
"And", said Angela, crossing her fingers, "how about Jeremy. What are his fantasies?"
"Oh, they're pretty kinky. I mean, I suppose not really kinky in this day and age. Sort of, you know, a woman's submissiveness I suppose. Not really Fifty Shades of Grey, I'm sure, but maybe a little like that. And, well, he said he's recently found that he can be really turned on by lingerie. Old fashioned silk stockings, you know, the sort with garters. Sexy knickers and stuff. I guess he's probably seen them a lot in those racy London shop displays."
Angela felt a flutter deep down in her groin. And a point won. Yes, she thought, maybe your son saw them in a shop window. Or maybe he found them one night shoved down inside his bed sheets, all sticky and marked with a woman's pleasure.
"Are you still there?" Susan was asking.
"Yes, yes, just, you know, processing all this."
"What can I say that would help keep you as my friend Angela?"
"Well I'm not going to suggest that you stop having sex with your son," Angela spat back tartly. "Because you're going to continue, aren't you?"
"Yes. If he'll keep wanting me." Susan's tone was not exactly defiant. More bluntly honest, like she had struggled with this same question herself.
Angela softened. "I'm sorry Susan. I've been too hard on you. I'm not really criticizing you. I do get it, I do. And I'm sure it many ways it's wonderful. For both of you actually."
"You really think so?" Susan sounded cautious.
"For sure. He's a lucky boy. Which growing young man wouldn't want this, really?"
"Are...are you making fun of me?"
"No. No, I'm sorry, did that sound glib? No, I really meant it. I've actually being doing a little reading myself, on the web. Doing some searches I guess. Trying to understand. And frankly - well, there's certainly a lot of writing about mother and son. Erotica for sure. But also some blog stuff. And, well, a lot of the most personal ones sound pretty positive. Like it was a beautiful phase in their lives for both of them, if they can get past the judgment and the guilt."
"Really? You don't think it's not all just, you know, porn - like that movie I showed Jeremy. Just acting."
"No, I'm not talking about porn. There's a lot of that too, but I agree that's mostly kind of fake stuff. Just packaged. No, I mean real stories."
"You don't think I'm...unique, then?"
Angela laughed. "God no! Sorry, if you thought you have finally become less ordinary, you're probably more in the suburban mainstream than you realize."
Susan laughed also at this with a sound of relief. "You don't think I'm going to mess Jeremy up for life?"