How Can It Be Wrong

If one word could describe my mother it would be fun. She's always been fun, even during the awful months after dad's death five years ago. She's cheerful, funny, frivolous and irreverent. And I can't love her more. And so do many others. Women like her have loads of friends.

"Hi, chicken cheeks." She's always using these really stupid terms of affection.

I am sitting on a stool in the kitchen reading and eating a bowl of cereal when she passes behind me. She always gives me a peck on the cheek, or I peck hers, but this time I turn absently as she bends to kiss me and we inadvertently connect on the lips, then she pass by and I turn back to the newspaper. But she stops a few paces away, hesitates a moment, then backs up to me, "That was great," she says, "the first real kiss I've had in years. Let's try that again."

I laugh and offer up my lips and she leans down and put hers on them and kisses me tenderly for a moment then pulls away, kissing me on the forehead. "That was great, honey lips. Thanks," and she walks away.

"Great?" I laugh, "I can do a whole lot better than that."

"Really?" She stops and backs up to me again and again she puts her lips on mine but this time I give her my best shot, including a little tongue. It surprises me when she doesn't flinch and it shocks me when her tongue pushes back at mine. But it feels great and I lean into her and she leans into me and our lips travel over each other's, our tongues timidly probing and our breath hot on each other's face. Finally, she pulls away and kisses me on the cheek. "God, that was great. I haven't necked in years. I used to love it."

"Do we have to stop?" My words sound really silly but I'm really enjoying this and she seems to be, too.

She smiles at me coyly, "What? You want more?"

"Sure," I say, turning round on my stool to face her. "I'd love to neck with you."

She hesitates for just a moment then she takes my hand and leads me to the couch in the living room and we sit down together and lean into each other and are at it again, kissing tenderly but this time with a little more eagerness, too. After about a minute she pushes me away again, "Boy," she chuckles, "that takes me back to the rumble seat in my dad's roadster."

Feeling a little giddy, I laugh, too. Kissing my mum; who ever thought! "What else did you do in that rumble seat?'

She flashes a dazzling smile, "Well, wouldn't you like to know, Mr. mother-kisser."

I smile back, "Well, as a matter of fact, yes I would like to know."

She sits back and pretends to dreamily scan her memory, "Ah, those were the days. I was a bit of a vamp back then ..."

"You, a vamp?" I laugh. Really, I couldn't imagine it. My mother is pretty, in a girl next door kind of way, and has a pretty, trim figure but she's way to open and honest and too much fun to be a temptress.

She pretends to object. "I was, too." She hefts her breasts, "Good tits, great ass, decent looks ..."

"Put it about a bit did we?" I tease, intrigued.

She winks, "A bit, now and again. It was fun."

I teases some more, "Care to put it about a bit again?"

She pretends to be slighted, again dramatically, "I could ... if I wanted to. The sun hasn't set on this old body yet."

I smile mischievously, "But, boy, how the son would like to."

It takes her a moment to get it but when she does she bursts out laughing, "Good one, pucker lips," then she leans in and kisses me again, not passionately or anything, just a long lingering kiss, really enjoyable. "But it would be difficult now," she says, with her lips still on mine.

"Why?" I mumble back.

She pulls away a little. "I wouldn't know how to go about it these days. For instance, in my day, when a girl got kissed the guy always put his arms around her. I see that no longer applies."

I kiss her nose, "Oh, some of us still do it the old fashion way. I myself do from time to time. Here let me show you." I take mum in my arms and when I pull her into me, she sort of half lays on the couch and we kiss again for while before she puts her head on my chest.

I stroke her hair when I say, "I'm kind of shocked we're doing this."

"Me too. Maybe we should like, ah ..." she looks up at me and giggles, "stop."

I love the sound of her giggle, "Maybe, but then again, maybe not."

We are both quiet for a minute or so, I'm thinking, and I'm pretty sure she is, too. "I'm really liking this, mum."

She looks up at me again, "Not too weird?"

I kiss her forehead. "I'm not feeling weird at all. You?"

"Nope, not really. Well, a little, the necking ... and with you, I haven't necked like this in an awful long time."

"Have you missed it?"

She sighs, "I try not to think about it. I didn't really want another steady man after your father and I can't do this with just anyone, so ..."

I laugh and squeeze her, "Well, I'll neck with you any time you want."

"That's sweet, chickadoodle." She shifts on the couch and when she does I lie further down and she lies on top of me and nibbles at my lips for a moment, then she pushes herself down and puts her head on my chest again.

That's when I tell her something that has been on my mind for the past year. "Ever since I've become an adult, I've wanted to get closer to you ..."

"Closer? Than this?" She laughs.

"No," I squeeze her again, "I mean as a friend, well, really even more than a friend. Not sexually, I don't mean sexuality, I mean I've just wanted to connect with you on a higher, more complex level. You're too interesting, too much fun to just remain my mother. The mother-son thing is just too archetypal, too restraining for what I'd like, I mean it's a bit like 'been there, done that.' We've played those roles for 20 years. I'd like to have a different relationship with you, mum. One where I don't have to be a son and you don't have to be a mother. Roles where we can grow, where are relationship can grow."

She hugs me really tight. "That's the sweetest thing you've ever said. Thank you, snuggles."

"But do you know what I mean?"

She glances up from my chest, "Ah, duh, nob nose, look where I am."

I chuckle, "So you agree, you'd like more depth, texture, complexity in our relationship?"

She puts her arms around my neck and pulls herself up to my face. "I don't really know what that means."

"Neither do I but that's the point, I'd like to find out, I'd like our relationship to grow into something other than mother-son."

She has a curious look in her eye, and maybe a twinkle, "Are you talking sexually?"

"No, not specifically, I guess I'm sort of saying that we're both adults now and I'd like a really adult relationship with you — without the baggage, wonderful as it was, of the mother-son thing. That we just bum around together, have some fun together, get to know each other in a different way. Connect. What do you think?"

"What do I think? What do you think I think, elli toes ..."

"Elli toes?"

"I was going to say elephant toes but it was too long so I shorted it, I thought 'elli' sounded more ... eli-gant."

I laugh, "So what do you think?"

"I'm game, I'd love to hang out with you," then she smirks, "I'd love to steal a little of Natalai's time with you."

"Alas, Natalai is toast." Natalai is a girl I'd been seeing for a few weeks.

"Really, why?" She looks at me with surprise. "How could you let that body, ah ... slip through your fingers?" But she doesn't wait for my answer. "God, she sure came from the deep end of the gene pool, didn't she? What a body! Did you ever do any laps on her?"

"Mother!" I say, with mock indignation.

She laughs, "So did you?"

I tried to be as casual as I could, "I took a few."

She looks up at me. She can read me like a book. "Liar, you didn't even do the breast stroke, did you?"

I laugh, "I was in the starting block but no one fire the gun."

I've always really loved my mum's laugh, "What on earth does that mean?"

I give up the metaphor, "She wanted to wait for the right man. I wasn't him." Then I wonder, "How long did you make dad wait?"

She lies back down on my chest. "Not long, a few dates. I made love to him the moment I knew that I loved him and he loved me. Couldn't wait. You're the result. It was the best night of my life. This is another."

I squeeze her, and say nothing, just letting her words sink in. My mother is on top of me, in my arms, I can feel her heat pressing into me and she has just told me that this is one of the great moments of her life. It seems to weaken me, melt me, I become more conscious of her, her hips against mine, her chest against me, her breath on my neck, the smell of her hair. "Look, this may be way out of line, but I'd really like to get into this."

She doesn't hesitate, "Me too."

"You would!"

She doesn't look up at me; she speaks the words into my chest. "Ya, I'd love it. What do you think? Would you be emotionally ready for it?"

I move underneath her so my hard-on presses against her thigh.

She pushes down on me and laughs, "I assumed you'd be physically ready, I said emotionally ready."

I laugh and then get serious, "Honestly, I don't know. You?"

"Ditto. Don't know." But she doesn't sound very troubled.

I start to caress her back, "When I said I wanted to get to know you as a person I wasn't talking about this. Honestly, that's never occurred to me."

"Never?" She chuckles, "I thought all boys thought of sticking their mums."

"Jesus, do they?"

"Its like ever male patient wanting to do his nurse. Men think that way." She hesitates and pokes me in the ribs. "God, when you think about it, you might be the only son ever born who didn't want to bed his mother. Boy, that makes me feel just great." She lightly punches me in the ribs, "Thanks a lot."

I laugh, I have been doing a lot of laughing, "Can you imagine Billy and Mrs. Harris."

"How about Freddy and Gloria?"

"Mikey and Mrs. Zimmer."

"Timmy and Freeda."

We both laugh at the absurdity of it for a few minutes then when we settle down I ask, "Did you ever think about me in that way?"

"A couple of times, well, a few more than a couple, I wanted to go over to the couch in the TV room and take you in my arms and hold you and not let you go. I don't think it was sexual, but with love it can get a little irrational, you don't always know what's behind your motives."

"Why didn't you?"

"Take you in my arms?" She thinks for just a moment, "Well, I guess because it WAS irrational, because I wasn't sure of my motives. I wouldn't hesitate to hold you if I was certain all I wanted was to feel my son against me. It becomes a tad more problematical if ... well, you know."

"And now?"

"Well, it's not quite the same now, is it? I mean, if you're serious about us dropping our conventional roles."

"I am. Believe me, I am." I hold her tight against me and we kiss for a long time and I bring my hand up inside her shirt, feeling the heat of her back while she forces her crotch against my thigh.

When we came up for air, she rests her head back on my chest and I ask, "Have you ever talked to your friends about their feeling towards their sons?"

She thinks for a moment and kisses me on the chest. "Yes. Well, sort of. No one ever admits to sexual thoughts, of course, but I've talked to others about mother-son relationships and when you do, you kind of talk around the issue."

"Do you think much of it goes on? Do you think any of your friends ..."

She silences me with a kiss. "I don't have any idea. Woman, some woman, talk a lot about relationship and when they do there's always a kind of sexual undertone. We all have our peccadilloes, don't we. I mean, human thought and conduct is infinite, isn't it. We are capable of anything."

I couldn't resist. "What are your sexual peccadilloes?"

She chuckles, "I'll tell you mine if you'll tell me yours."

This kind of shocks me, "You mean you have some? Jeez," I think for a moment, "I don't think I do, I don't think I have any. Masturbation doesn't count and the other sex I've had was so perfunctory that ... so no, I guess I don't ..."

She taps me on the lips with her figure. "It takes time to understand yourself sexually, lover lips. That's why incest is such a taboo — an adult taking advantage of the innocence of youth. It should be a taboo. Kids should be allowed to find their own way in the world of sex. It shouldn't be thrust on them."

"Can't the same be said for everything else, too, like spirituality? Shouldn't kids be allowed to find their own way there, too, rather than having the beliefs of their parents thrust upon them?"

She kisses me, "Absolutely. That's why we didn't force our ways on you. You've always been free and encouraged too follow your own beliefs: intellectual, spiritual, sexual, whatever. You are who you are. You are your own soil to be sewn; your own ground to be mined; your own earth to be plowed; your own skies to be flown; your own depths to be plumbed ..."

Laughing, I push her face into my chest to shut her up. God I love this woman. "But what are they, I'd really like to know?"

She looks up at me and kisses my chin, "What? My peccadilloes?"

I kiss her on the eye, "Ya, what are they?"

"Jeez, how many do you think I have?"

I look down at her to try and read her face but she's back on my chest again with her face pressing into my arm pit. "I haven't a clue how many you have." But I have to know "How many?"

She thinks for a moment, "I don't really know, a few probably and they may not even be peccadilloes, maybe it's just that I like some things more than others might. But one of them is a peccadillo. Ya, one is definitely a peccadillo."

I am about to pursue the obvious when she stops me, "I'll give you an example. One of my friends hates to have her breasts sucked. Just hates it, won't let her husband ever do it. Me, I always loved it. Who has the peccadillo? Probably neither, just a like and a dislike."

"I'm taking notes," I laugh, "But come on, what are your peccadilloes."

I can feel she was thinking so I don't interrupt and use the time to massage her back. When my fingers feel her bra strap I shudder and pinch at the clasp, releasing it.

When she looks up at me her face has changed, "Do you really want this kind of complexity in our relationship?"

I rub the hot, crimped skin where her bra had been. "I do, yes."

She kisses me and puts her head back on my chest. "I have a couple, maybe three. One of them is kind of shocking. Your father and I used to do it. It's not really dirty, nothing dangerous about it, not hurtful, it's just a little kinky. In a way it's kind of loving. Mostly it was just really freeing."

She stops talking and I'm waiting, holding my breath in expectation and in a minute, sensing my anticipation she starts to laugh. "Jeez, mum, come on, give it up. This is really unfair."

But she's laughing uncontrollably now. I assume she's laughing at me, but she isn't. She's laughing at her peccadillo, "Peeing."

"Peeing!" I laugh but I'm shocked too, mainly because I have no idea what she means.

And I think she pick up on that, on my naivete, because she's laughing even harder now so I can barely understand her explanation, "Peeing on each other."

"You pissed on each other?" Maybe it's the way I say it or the astonishment on my face, but my exclamation really sets her off: she's laughing so hard she rolls into a fetal position and I guess it just happened, and when it did she jumps from the couch, still out of control from laughter, and runs upstairs to the bathroom.

Pissing on each other? I'm shocked. Do people do that? Why?

"It was the feeling of intimacy," she explains when she sits down beside me about an hour later, after a long bath. "It started harmlessly. We had a lot of fun your dad and I. One day he came in to take a leak while I was in the tub. We were just talking, maybe teasing each other, we used to do a lot of that, when he just squirted at me, hit me on the breast or somewhere. Well, naturally, I splashed him back and when I did," she laughs at the memory, "he took aim at me and hit me right between the eyes." She laughs again. "Well, something happened. I can't explain it, it just turned me on, and him, too. So we did it sometimes after that, sometimes him on me, sometimes me on him. It was fun, it had sexual overtones and well, it was something we shared. I had a million ways to love that man and that was just a tiny little one of them. I'd never do it with anyone else. It was just a teeny weenie little secret we shared. A delicious dirty little secret that I love to think about."

How can anything be wrong if it's such a great memory? "And what about our teeny weenie little secret?"

She smiles, "Well, it's not so teenie, is it, peach pit, and," she laughs, "if you're at all like your dad, I doubt its weenie, either. Still interested?"

"God, ya." When she was gone for the hour I thought a lot about this and I thought a lot about my motives. Was it just lust? Did I just want to get laid? Well, yes and yes but it was a whole lot more than that, too. My feelings were overwhelming me. I felt like I wanted to climb back inside my mum, to be a part of her again; I honestly felt that I love her so much that I wanted to be in her.

She stands up and faces me. "My little inadvertent pee break gave me a chance to get a little spruced up. Have you noticed?"

"Ah, ya." She is now wearing a pleated skirt, a tight top that shows off her breasts, she never does that, and she has on some makeup, again something she seldom wears. "So you haven't had second thoughts?"

She laughs and sits down beside me again and leans into me, "And third, and forth, and fifth, but I like your reasoning for this. The idea of exploring a relationship. I really like that idea." She hesitates and kisses my shoulder. "I shouldn't let this physical stuff be a part of it, of course, but I don't want to stop it either, that would be a mother stopping her son. So, ya, twinkle eyes, I've had second thoughts." And she leans into me harder and kisses me as she has before, tenderly, like she loves me. "But it's the relationship I really want. I really want the relationship."

While I was waiting on the couch for her I wondered what it must have been like to have a husband you absolutely loved pulled from your life in an instant. I'd never really thought about it before, mainly because as a teenager I was always the centre of my own little world, but also because mum made the adjustment seem so effortless, she just continued on being a loving mother and, together, we picked up the slack. When I thought about it, I thought about how proud dad would have been of her. But it must have been tough, unbelievably tough, but she never once complained. "Come on, let's go up stairs."

As we walk hand in hand I wonder why I'm not nervous, not scared, and I suddenly understand. She wants another level to our relationships as much as I do, and if we both want the best for each other, how could this be wrong?

We fall on the bed together; I pull her to me. "You're an amazing woman, mum."

She kisses me in a way that's becoming familiar, lightly, tenderly, "Thanks for saying so, sweet cheeks, I needed that."

We lie together for a long time, just holding each other, feeling each others warmth then I jump off the bed and quickly take off all my clothes but when I lie back down beside her the phone rings and what's worse, here I am in all my naked glory and she answers it! It's one of her better friends, Susan and far from cutting her off, mum seems to be settling in for a long conversation!

Jeez, I didn't get it, she isn't even looking at me, she's just talking away at the ceiling as if I'm not there so I tap her on the shoulder and when she looks at me I point down to my hard-on which is glistening with pre-cum. But she just smiles and keeps on talking, which really pissed me off so I sit up and begin to lightly stroke the sweater at her breasts but when she doesn't really react, just a little smile, I know she's teasing me so I pull at her left leg and ease up her skirt and I brush the inside of her thigh. That got her attention, but she doesn't ring off, she just shifts a bit, opening her legs a little more so I explores upwards, slowly feeling all along the inside of her thigh until my fingers touch her panties. But nothing. Sure she squirms a bit and I can tell she's enjoying it, but her voice hasn't changed, she just keeps up the conversation as if I'm not there. So I get more daring, I sit closer to her and let my fingers wander over her panties, feeling her warmth, feeling the shape of her vulva, feeling the outline of her lips. That's when I hear the moan and when I look up, she still has the phone to her ear, but she has a hand over the mouth piece and a dreamy smile on her face. But still she talks: she talks to her best friend while I, her son, strokes her pussy.