He -- Ben -- didn't realise just how much I'd loved the first part of his deal in the end. And, trust me, I wasn't going to tell him anytime soon. I scarcely believed me myself but I just knew -- totally knew -- that something was changing inside me.
It had been so long since I had ever been anything but a perfectly respectable wife and mother, but now it was if the clock had rolled back twenty years. I started to remember in far more detail how wild I'd been for a short period of time when I was around twenty, how much I had enjoyed being a figure of attraction for men. And here I was again, unexpectedly, almost shockingly, beginning to feel just the same way again. Only now I was acutely aware that I could turn the heads of men of very different ages in very different ways.
Ben had helped me fulfil a fantasy that was almost two decades old, and I had loved the whole experience. In many ways it had been beyond my wildest fantasy because I'd added my own son to the whole equation and rightly or wrongly (your call) I had been seen actually fucking my own son -- not that those who witnessed everything realised. With the exception of that very old woman.
It was wrong in lots of ways. But right in so many more as far as I was concerned.
And I had promised to repay my boy, to fulfil his fantasy just as he had fulfilled mine. But I had a serious attack of chicken, and no matter that I ended up just loving the muted exposure I was all too aware that I still owed my son. Sounds crazy, sounds so un-motherly, but there you have it. I owed him the second part of his part of the deal and I was comfortable with that. Nervous, excited, but comfortable. I trusted Ben completely. I didn't even think that was stupid of me, no matter that the 'rights and wrongs' scales were still present somewhere deep in my brain, oscillating gently.
As Homer often says, d'oh.
It was the rather sore morning after appearing in front of Ben's friend in the skimpiest underwear when my son outlined his second part of the deal.
And even as my inner excitement mounted, even as I began to look forward to the passion and arousal I would bring to Ben and a couple of strangers we were yet to meet, and would, according to my boy, never see again, part of me died. Or came to life.
I was living a lie.
All the wrongs came home to roost, scattering the rights as easily as a hurricane scattered a million rose petals.
I was almost forty, I was living out a near-childhood fantasy. I was -- god -- I was screwing my son!
Had I become so desperate as the years rolled past that I would find solace in helping my son play out wild and immature fantasies? Getting my own fleeting kicks before my clock finally ran out of normal time? Was I so desperate for sex and sexual antics that I would somehow pretend that I was a near-teenager in her first bloom of naughty youth and indulge the kinkiest of immoral fantasies? Did I really need, so desperately, to have my womanhood -- my pussy, my cunt -- filled and satisfied with no less than my own flesh and blood's smooth, hard cock?
I was no more than a whore who didn't charge a penny for access to her most intimate centre.
Ben's plan -- his great and oh-so meaningful concept -- for part two of the moronically agreed deal was to engage at least two other men, two strangers, in some sort of 'back to our room' session where he would bend me over any chair that might be in the room, yank down whatever panties I was wearing and, right in front of them, spank my bare butt.
He wanted other men to witness my humiliation, my pain, my naked sex, and sure, spanking games could be fun as I well-remembered, but this wasn't fun anymore. This was degradation, I now knew. Even if he hadn't been my offspring, he was still a just kid and it was showing through.
If he'd even tried to share his thoughts and plans and ideas, then maybe I might not have slumped so deeply into the pit of reality -- and sure, I knew what I said about this being his plan and anything was to be allowed, but couldn't he see? Didn't he even have, as yet, an ounce of decency and understanding in his testosterone-fuelled mind and soul?
I wasn't mad at him, didn't scream or yell. I wasn't stupid enough not to recognise my own complicity in his self-centred sex-fest and my own lack of parental responsibility. But I couldn't even look in his direction as my shoulders slumped and I turned and walked quietly from the room.
I barely heard his plaintive wails as he tried to call me back.
*****
It was three days before I let Ben engage me in conversation of any sort and a further three before I could bring myself to discuss my change of heart -- or, as I firmly believed, my coming to my senses.
"But, ma, you promised!"
It was, to a degree, my son's last line of defence or first line of prosecution depending on your viewpoint.
"Well I was beyond stupid to agree to anything, wasn't I?"
"That is so totally unfair!" he was close to tears.
I saw them for what they were -- tears of a frustrated, sexual-fantasy-fuelled teenager -- and I didn't let them affect me. I'd suffered his tantrums for nearly two decades. "So take a ticket and join the line. I keep telling you, Ben, I got carried away. Stupidly carried away. There was never going to be more than a couple of months' worth of fun and games even if it were viable, and I just gave in to the frustrations of a stupid, stupid woman, all too fast approaching middle-age after years of boredom. And now," my voice was rising inexorably, "now I have to live the rest of my already fucked-up life in the knowledge that I lost sight of everything that was right and oh-so fucking wrong, and let my own son get his testosterone-driven cock into my tired, bored, frustrated cunt!"
A wild array of emotions crossed Ben's features in the face of my anger and righteous shame, and I could see him frantically trying to work out which emotional thrust might penetrate the new armour that I was wearing, "You... you wanted it all just as much as me!"
It was a thrust that I had already been over a thousand times in my mind during the previous twenty-four hours alone, "Well I was stupid then, wasn't I? And before you say it I know there are a few others who think it's all fine and natural, and that's good for them -- but not me. I fucked this up, Ben. My mind was screaming 'wrong' but the second you got my body interested, well that screamed 'right' and the whole balance thing was destroyed. Or fucked-up, in every sense."
There was silence then, and we stared at each other, Ben trying to find another argument that might work, and me testing out which response I would need to shut him up.
One thing had changed after all that had -- idiotically -- happened. I was suddenly far more self-aware and self-assured. I knew what I wanted and needed. I carefully relaxed my shoulders, very aware and assured that I shouldn't give my son any reason to think that I didn't mean every word I said, "Ben, I love you, but I love you as a mother should love her son. What has happened, happened, and I guess I shouldn't look on it as anything but a silly mistake, but one that we shared with the best of feelings and intentions. Something might seem right but it turns out wrong, and that's life, that's learning, that's what we're all about. All we can do is learn from this sort of shit and not -- ever -- forget it, but learn to understand that we ended up getting it all so wrong. Son, I learned more about what I really want and need through all this, and hopefully you did as well -- and we can move on now with that knowledge and maybe achieve more than we ever could before we fucked up so royally. You understand?"