At 43, I was comfortable in that feeling that I finally had it all together. The wounds left by my divorce four years ago had largely healed. Financially, I was more than secure. My children attended fine private schools, I indulged my tastes in clothing and wine, and we took regular vacations. I even still had my looks. Physical exercise had always been an important part of my life—in the dark times, it probably kept me sane—and my body was not only healthy but taut.
My work in the corporate world was generally boring, which was good. God knows, my kids provided more than sufficient challenges to keep life interesting. Zoe was the girl I was at eighteen. Exactly my height at five foot 8, she had the same athletic build I once did, along with the same cheekbones, dark eyes and brunette hair. We even wore our hair the same—down to the shoulders. The difference was that over the years, I had gained a cup size and fuller hips. Zoe was still a c-cup, and her legs went to an almost boyish bottom.
Jeffrey, my son, was a year older than her, and blessed with thick curls of black hair and intense blue eyes. A full six feet two, his body had not yet filled out, and at times he looked so slender as to seem fragile. That impression quickly departed when he took off his shirt, and you saw the whipcords move under his skin.
I was proud to say that they were both smarter and more talented than me. Zoe was a straight 4.0 student and a gifted cellist. She dreamed of training at the Juilliard, and for her it was a real possibility.
Jeffrey had a measured I.Q. Of 153, and was pursuing a double major in Philosophy and Psychology and an intellectual obsession he called "mind-body intersections." He buried himself in esoteric texts, and practiced yoga and meditation with a discipline that amazed and sometimes almost frightened me. At times, his concentration seemed like the beam of a laser.
He was also unbelievably gifted at massage, one of those magical people who could somehow intuit exactly where it hurt, exactly how hard or soft to touch, exactly how to release the tension within. It was precisely that talent that got me in trouble.
I suffered from chronic neck and shoulder pain since a traffic accident two years ago. My job, though boring, was also stressful, and by the end of the day, my shoulders were often throbbing. Always reluctant to take drugs, often there was nothing I could do but to sit in a darkened room with an ice pack on my neck and hope that the pain would diminish. That's when I discovered Jeffrey's magic fingers. In retrospect, it was so innocent.
One Saturday afternoon, while Zoe was taking music lessons, Jeffrey helped me move some stuff out of the attic when he noticed me cringe in pain.
He said, "Let's see if I can help."
Jeffrey had me sit upright on a low-backed chair. He stood behind me and began gently working the tight muscles of my shoulders and back. At first, it was just soothing. Then his fingers found these subtle triggers buried deep beneath the knots. It was as if some splinters of broken glass, each no bigger than a grain of sand, were embedded in my flesh and Jeffrey had found the precise point where they were located. He pressed on these points, and though the pressure was not that great, the sensation was exquisite—something right on that strange borderline of pain and pleasure that you sometimes find in athletics. I tensed involuntarily, but Jeff kept talking to me in this soft, monotone voice, guiding each breath I took, directing my breath into the tension, until the glass splinters melted, melted like ice crystals on a warm day, and the pain melted with them and soaked deep into my shoulders like a handful of warm oil and every bit of pain, every bit of discomfort, eased into nothingness. The release was so complete that I closed my eyes and drifted while my son's soft voice droned on in the background. It was the first time in longer than I could remember that I had been entirely without pain, and I let my body and mind float on a liquid pool of relief.
After a while, our sessions became routine. On Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, coincidentally the days when Zoe had her music lessons, Jeff would give me a massage. His knowing hands would quickly find my trigger points, as if he had a map of all of the push buttons of my nervous system. Sometimes, in response to his touch, a burning sensation would shoot down my arm, or radiate all the way down to the base of my spine. Jeffrey had studied the secrets of how breath gives you control over pain and energy. He guided me, step by step, through every deep exhalation. The combination of deep massage and his gentle monotone voice always left me as drowsy as a double martini and a long steam bath.
One day, I was drifting in that happy, almost intoxicated state when I felt Jeff's hands begin moving along the front of my body, moving lower and lower with each stroke until his fingertips were touching the tops of my breasts. In my dreamy condition, I honestly don't know if I was more amused, offended or surprised. When had my bookish son become so bold? I confess I let him play with me for a few minutes, allowing him to gently explore the boundary of my curves, and that I would have enjoyed the experience if I didn't think about who was touching me. But in spite of my reverie, I was about to put a stop to the whole thing when it happened.
Jeffrey's fingers slid down and made contact with my nipples, rubbing them between his talented fingertips as if it was part of the massage and my response was so instant, and so intense, that I was literally paralyzed. A thrilling erotic current flowed from my breasts to my heart, and then downward to my gut—a feeling so potent that it was almost nauseating—and then down further yet, all the way down to my sex, my clit, my thighs. My nipples became stiff as taffy. My panties dampened. And all of this was through my blouse and bra—I was still fully dressed! At first, I tried to pretend that I was still asleep, but I am certain my excited breathing gave me away—my God, it was all I could do to keep from moaning.
And my devious son did not stop with an exploratory touch—oh no, he just kept working on me, working on me, gently tugging, teasing my swollen nipples—and all the while, he kept talking to me, just as he did when he massaged my shoulders.
"Feel your nipples tingle . . . so nice and hard . . . so stiff . . . your breasts are so full and warm . . . feel that heat, like a liquid . . . feel it flow deep . . . all the way down your body . . . getting stronger as it goes lower . . . stronger . . . give in to it . . . give in . . . let go . . . let go . . ."
And when the electricity had traveled all the way from my nipples to my clit, I did let go, I let go completely with a delicious overpowering orgasm, and then immediately slipped into a perfect sleep.
II.
It would be impossible to describe how conflicted I felt the next day. Guilt saturated every fiber of my being. I was the adult. I was the one who should have stopped it. At the same time, I had to think like a mother. I knew how utterly sexual that experience was. But I wondered if he felt that he had done nothing worse than to cop a feel off a woman when he thought she was asleep, not that that would be acceptable. Maybe he allowed himself to momentarily forget that I was his mother, just as I had allowed myself to forget that he was my son. I reminded myself a dozen times that he had never even unbuttoned my blouse. Nothing really happened, certainly nothing worth risking my entire relationship with him. Of course a young man is going to get precocious; he is at a point where he is supercharged with hormones. It's just human nature. For Christ sake, he was still a teenager.
I had spent years, maybe even decades, getting past the guilt and shame that I had associated with sex, the deep inhibitions that my childhood had inflicted on me. It was a frustrating and often humiliating struggle for me to come to terms with my sexuality and finally learn to savor my orgasms and lose myself in sex. The learning process might cost me my marriage. Jeff was a shy kid; I don't think he even had a girlfriend. The last thing I wanted to do was to inflict that same guilt and inhibitions on him. I knew how easily he could be scarred by a cruel accusation. I decided to never mention the matter. Officially, I was asleep for the whole thing. Unofficially, I vowed to never let it happen again.
