It was the phone call that every parent dreads, the one from casualty.
"Hello, Ms Williams, this is Nurse Ratched from the Royal Infirmary. We have your son Charles with us at the moment." At this point I died a little. "It's not too serious, he's got a broken arm and some cuts and bruises but he's basically fine. Would you like to come and collect him?"
"Five minutes, give me five minutes," I said as my heart pounded.
"As I said, Ms Williams, he's basically fine. There's no great rush."
There's no great rush? When your only son is in casualty then there's always a rush. I grabbed my handbag and keys and dashed off to the hospital. Five minutes later I was at his bedside. Poor Charlie, for all his eighteen years, was looking small and fragile, my little boy. As Nurse Ratched had said, he was basically OK but, he'd been in a road accident and put his hands out to protect himself. His right arm was broken and his left wrist and shoulder were badly sprained. This, of course, left him pretty helpless but, apart from a few other nasty bruises he was shaken not stirred and it could have been worse. Once the plastering and bandaging were done the hospital issued him with some high power pain killers and I took him off home to bed.
Charlie was, and is, the centre of my life. Back when I was just a schoolgirl a drunken fumble at a end of term disco had left me a pregnant teenager and, as soon as he found out, Charlie's dad had run a mile. My school career had ended there and then and I was soon discovering just what being a single mum was all about. Forget what the Daily Mail says, it's not all dole queue scrounging, far from. Bringing up Charlie on my own had been hard but, in the end, it had all sorted itself out, I got a place on my own and found a decent job that paid the rent and was flexible about school holidays. My main concern was looking after Charlie and, as the years have rolled by, he'd grown up happy and healthy. Now, at eighteen, he is obviously looking to leave the nest but, with housing so expensive, he's finding it easier to stay at home with me.
When I got him back to the house I took him upstairs to bed and, for the first time, we both began to realise just how helpless he was. With his right hand effectively out of action and his left not much better it looked like, for a while, I was going to have to do quite a bit for him. It wasn't just the basics like dressing and feeding, he even needed help with things like going to the toilet and wiping his backside. He, of course, was mortified but, if he tried doing things for himself, then he quickly found he couldn't reach or it was simply too painful. As far as I was concerned this was nothing new; it wasn't that long ago that I'd been wiping his bottom as a baby in nappies. Eighteen months or eighteen years, he's still my little boy.
He had been home two days when it all kicked off. Bathing was a nightmare as he wasn't allowed to get the plaster or any of the bandages wet. On the other hand he's a teenager with hormones and needs to keep clean so I ran him a bath, undressed him, helped him to get in and then knelt down beside so as to be able to sponge him down. Maybe I was being a little keen to get into all the nooks and crannies when, well, he started to get a stiffy. I thought it was rather cute and I couldn't reset the temptation to help it on its way by stroking him with the sponge. He's nicely built, not huge or anything but just right. Some day he's going to make a girl very happy but, right there, right then, it popped up like a submarine's periscope. Charlie was blushing beetroot so I thought it best to try and make light of it all.
"Well, part of you is feeling better," I joked and gave it another little rub with the sponge.
"Mum!" Charlie wailed.
"What? Did you think I don't know the facts of life? It's completely normal for a young lad like you to get excited from time to time so there's nothing to be ashamed of. Anyway, whilst I'm down there, I'd best clean under your foreskin."
I reached down with my soapy fingers and eased back his foreskin. What with one thing and another I hadn't done much dating; the single mum thing tends to put most men off, so it had been years since I'd held a prick in my hands. I know it was wrong, I know it was wicked but it felt so good I really couldn't help myself and I let my fingers glide up and down its length.
"Please, mum," Charlie protested.
"I've got to get you clean," I told him. "After all, it's going to be quite a while before you'll be able to wash yourself all over so you had best get used to it." I eased his foreskin back and dabbed at his glans with the sponge. For all his protests Charlie was, if anything, getting harder so he wasn't completely hating it. When I had finished sponging I couldn't resist a few more strokes, feeling his firm flesh glide through my fingers. However, if I were to keep up the pretence that I was merely washing him, I couldn't take things any further so it was time to go back to a matter of fact attitude. Even so I did notice that it took quite a while for his erection to subside.
As I towelled him off I ended up knelt as his feet drying his legs and his prick was right in front of me. It still wasn't completely floppy and it looked so fine I had to fight hard against the temptation to lean forward and give it a little kiss.
The next day I was pottering around the house when I heard little cries of pain coming from his room. Well, when my baby's in pain I don't bother knocking and I went straight in to find out what was what. Talk about caught in the act; the poor thing had the covers turned back and one of his mucky mags, one of the ones he hides under his bed, laid out next to him. His prick was, once again, stiff and proud, and, with his left hand, he was trying to have a wank. It was quite clear that it wasn't working for him; the pain in his shoulder was stopping him from getting going properly not to mention the fact that he's right handed. I nearly turned round and left him to it but, well, the poor boy was really suffering and, when my boy is in pain, what's a mum to do?
"Charlie," I said as I sat on the side of the bed. "You shouldn't do that, you'll just make it worse, the doctor said you mustn't use that shoulder any more than is strictly necessary."
"Oh, mum," Charlie said as he blushed and hung his head.
"I'm not saying that having a wank is wrong," I continued. "From what I know about eighteen year old boys having to go for a couple of days without any relief is hard. Going for several weeks will be torture. I'm saying that with your shoulder and all that you shouldn't do it. Why don't you let me sort it out for you?"
"But, mum," Charlie started.
"But mum nothing," I said firmly. "Just think of it as another one of those things I have to do for you until you're properly recovered. Please, I just want to help make it better."
He didn't say yes but he didn't say no either so I reached down and took hold of his prick with my fingertips. With gentle milking motion I moved my hand up and down. The feel of a stiff prick in my hand was glorious and I wanted to make the most of it.
"Why don't you look at your mag, then you can just relax and forget that it's me who's doing this?" I suggested and, with my free hand, I picked up his magazine and offered it to him. He looked dazed but, after a half second pause, he took it from me and lay back so that the magazine was between us.
Now I could really concentrate on what I was doing and I put all a mother's love into giving my son the best I could. But it wasn't just Charlie who was all fired up. Just seeing him so hard, so strong, so virile. I wanted... I was scared to admit what I wanted. However that train of thought would have to wait; I could tell that Charlie was getting close, I could sense that any moment now...
He went tense and arched his back as great gobbets of sperm shot from him spraying his chest and the magazine. No wonder he hadn't objected much; he must have been desperate. I milked him dry until, as the last dribble died away, the whole room seemed to relax. I knew that Charlie wouldn't be able to cope with me being anything other than being strictly businesslike so I reached for the box of tissues on his bedside table and started to wipe him down. When he was all clean I stood up, bent over to pick up his waste paper bin which was now full up used tissues and headed for the door.
"Mum," Charlie called out.
"Yes?"
"Thanks, mum, that was..." he trailed off. "That was... well, just thanks, OK?"
"My pleasure. Haven't I always looked after you?" I said. "I've done a stew for your tea; I'll bring it up around six thirty."
"OK, mum, thanks."
When I took his tray upstairs later it was as if nothing had happened and, as I spooned the stew into his mouth we chatted about the game show that was showing on his bedroom TV set.
The next day I waited until mid afternoon before going up to his room and sitting on the bed next to him. This time the TV was showing some stupid cooking program so I knew I wasn't interrupting anything.
"I've made a fish pie for tonight," I said casually. "Would you like your relief before or after?"
"Relief?" Charlie asked.
