"We can manage it on our own," Juliet said eagerly. She was right. Of course we could manage it. Ever since I was about nine years old mother and I had taken annual trips on the river in a houseboat. True, we had always gone on these jaunts with Uncle Ted and Aunt Margareta, and that was the problem concerning the upcoming trip.
Uncle Ted's father had died, so he and my Aunt had to go north for the funeral, and to wind up business affairs. The houseboat had been booked and the deposit paid. The question was, would mother and I go on our own? We could certainly physically handle the boat and mother was as always very enthusiastic about our river vacation.
She was, perhaps, somewhat more ardent about our taking this trip than usual. I was less zealous. The thought of two weeks alone with mother on a houseboat, travelling a particularly remote part of the Great River, somehow disturbed me. It was as if the prospect stirred in me those feelings, those longings that the conscious mind managed to repress. At this point, I could not identify what it was that caused me to hesitate about the trip. There was simply a slight feeling of apprehension.
I looked up at mother and saw her beautiful but strange gray-green eyes fixed on me. Ever since I was a child, I had ambivalent feelings about those eyes. They had a hypnotic quality about them. It was as if she could read one's thoughts. On the one hand I loved to look into them, yet at the same time feared what she would see in me. Looking back, I wonder if she could read those desires that I myself could not or would not acknowledge.
I should explain that at the time I was twenty years old. Mother, whom I usually called by her name, Juliet, was thirty-six. My birth was the result of a little bit of sexual experimentation with an older boy at the same school when my mother was a young high school student.
I have never known, nor have I sought to know, who my father is. I gather that his family must have been well heeled, as money continued to be paid to my mother until the time I began my working life.
Juliet, as I shall now call her, was offered and refused an abortion. She was equally adamant about my being adopted out after my birth. The upshot was, my grandparents undertook my upbringing for the first years of my life, while Juliet continued to study. I have learned that during my first year she did breast feed me.
At that time, she was more like an older sister than a mother. When I was about five years old, Juliet began to take on more and more of the mothering role. When I was eight years of age, she had graduated as an accountant, and we moved into a place of our own. From then on, she accepted sole responsibility for my upbringing, but the older sister aspect of our relationship continued.
As I entered puberty, and became more intensely aware of myself as a sexual being, I did wonder from time to time how and when Juliet might have any sexual relationships. I had never been subjected to any visiting or resident "uncles." If Juliet did engage in sexual activity, she kept it well out of sight and sound from me. I must confess that I was not equally circumspect in my sexual behaviour, and Juliet must have had more than inkling, concerning my love life.
Our relationship as mother/sister and son/brother, was a very close one. I loved Juliet deeply, and knew that the feeling was reciprocated. From childhood right through my teenage years, I was always very proud to have such a young mother. When I brought home friends from high school, I was amused to see them staring with a mixture of wonder and desire at my very attractive mother.
At the time that the upcoming river trip had been arranged, I had decided for two reasons that it would probably be my last trip. First, at twenty the idea of a family holiday no longer appealed. I wanted to be a free spirit. Second, it meant two weeks of sexual abstinence, as I would be cut off for two weeks from my usual sex partners. Consequently, when I first heard that my aunt and uncle would not be able to come on the trip, I thought, with a little relief, that it would be called off.
Now Juliet's eagerness for the trip made me a little ashamed at my own lack of enthusiasm. With her penetrating eyes upon me, and my sense of churlishness to make me feel guilty, I finally agreed we should go.
Our trip began on a Saturday morning. The town from which we left was the last of the closely inhabited countryside. From the north of the town and for the next one hundred and sixty kilometres, the river flowed through sparsely inhabited country, its banks lined with ancient gum trees, and young stands of trees grown up since the last great flood.
One could be very isolated here in an environment that seemed as old as time itself, the only contact with the outside world being one of the five locks that were between our starting point and the next town north. It was necessary for us to take at least one week's food supplies with us.
Sitting at the steering console of the boat, I could faintly hear the thump of the diesel motor, which only occasionally intruded more loudly when the stern door of the main cabin was opened. We cruised up stream at about eight kilometres an hour, and down stream at nine kilometres an hour.
The main cabin of the boat consisted of three bedrooms, two with double beds and one with a pair of bunks, and the main area that combined the steering console, kitchen and dining areas. In addition, there were fairly spacious fore and after decks, the after deck being used for fishing and with a ladder that dropped into the water for swimmers.
After a couple of hours we had left the inhabited areas well behind. While I steered the boat, Juliet had been tidying away our supplies and making preliminary preparations for the evening meal. We had left the town at midday, and it was our custom to stop traveling at around three in the afternoon. This gave us time to swim, go for a walk in the forest that lined the banks, or try our luck at fishing.
Her immediate tasks completed, Juliet came to stand beside me at the console. I was seated and this brought her breasts level with my face. This must have happened many times before on previous trips, but for the first time, I was intensely aware of their beauty. She wore no bra, and needed none. Her breasts moved in that lithe, sensuous way they are prone to when unbridled.
Her closeness enabled me to catch the fragrance of her body. Ever since childhood this had fascinated and delighted me. I had never known Juliet to use perfume or deodorant. Her delicious body aroma came from a brand of soap she used, and which gave her an antiseptic smell. This was only slight, but conveyed a sense of cleanliness. As a child, I used to hug close to her just to catch that lovely odour. Now, whilst being reminded of those earlier days, I found a new dimension added as I felt a stirring in my groin.
I sought to suppress the feelings that were starting to well up within me, reminding myself that Juliet was, after all, my mother, however young and ravishing she might be. I tried to distract myself by pointing out features of the landscape we were passing through. My attempt sounded forced and artificial to my ears.
Fortunately, just as my penis began to harden inside my shorts, Juliet pointed out a small group of kangaroos standing close to the river. If this did not do very much to diminish my embarrassing physical problem, it at least meant that Juliet's attention was elsewhere, and would not perhaps notice my growing predicament.
As we went round a bend in the river the kangaroos passed out of sight. Fortunately Juliet decided to do some more stowing away, and with the comment, "I suppose we should be thinking about pulling in soon," she left my side.
I began to look out for a suitable spot to take the boat in. For those who do not know these boats on our river, I should briefly explain their design.
They are built on two pontoons and are rectangular in shape, being longer than they are broad. The method of tying them up is to take the boat bow first into the bank until the pontoons either touch the bank, or ground on the riverbed. The boat is then tied with four ropes, the up stream stern rope first, to hold the boat against the stream, thus:
Partially distracted from my sexual arousal, I shortly found a suitable spot for the boat and began to run in towards the bank. Juliet stood by with the upstream stern rope, and as soon as we touched the bank she leaped off and secured the rope to a gnarled old man gum tree. As the rope tightened, I put the engine into neutral and joined Juliet in tying the other ropes. This done I went aboard and cut the motor.
We were engulfed by silence. There is something mysterious and age-old in the silence of our bush. Some people are frightened when they first experience it; some have even been driven mad. One can believe that the ghosts of the ancient people of this continent still hunt across the plains and through the forests, and for those who like myself, love this land, the primal passions can begin to emerge. The thin layer of so-called "civilisation" falls away, and a more primitive self emerges.
Juliet and I stood listening. The distant sound of a tree branch falling. The soft rustle of a creature moving in the bush. What sounded like the thump of a kangaroo bounding away from us.
