Memoirs of Forbidden Love:
The Sexual Revolution Comes Home
Edited by Tom Hathaway
Copyright 2011 Tom Hathaway
Smashwords Edition
Republication of this free ebook is permitted, provided it is for noncommercial purposes and Smashwords and the editor are notified and credited.
Editor's Foreword
In the late 1960s, when my mother and I began the love affair I described in Taboo: A Memoir, I foresaw legions of mother-son lovers on an incest crusade to overthrow patriarchy, to render its violence and domination extinct, to break out of the old myths that still shackle our culture. Now more and more erotic pioneers are taking the plunge. We may not be legions yet, but our numbers are rapidly growing, as this collection of memoirs attests.
These are personal experiences sent to me by readers — mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, sisters and brothers — of Taboo: A Memoir. I'm pleased that my book inspired and encouraged them to tell their own stories. With their permission I have edited and sometimes rewritten them into this anthology, and together we dedicate it to all the silent crusaders out there.
Predictably, the puritanical powers have responded to this challenge with a campaign of fear and repression. These reactionaries are determined to scare everyone back into sexual regimentation. This proves the liberation movement is a threat to them.
We don't need to submit to their prudery; its power is only as great as our acquiescence. We can defy their control and create a future that offers humanity more possibilities.
It's time that we humans admitted and accepted our nature. It's time, in fact, that we celebrated it.
The blanket persecution of incest is unfair and unnecessary in these days of birth control. In the right circumstances family sex can be a positive, fulfilling experience.
We should keep in mind, however, that it is not always so. When it involves persons under eighteen, it can be harmful. There's nothing positive about child molesting. Children aren't autonomous yet, they're not fully formed, so having sex with an adult, especially a parent, can make too deep an imprint on them.
For family sex to be beneficial it must be between consenting adults. Consent doesn't mean giving in, it means agreeing, and it means being old enough to know what you're agreeing to. In our society that's eighteen. No kids allowed.
Contents
Editor's Foreword
Roomies by S.H.
Carpe Diem by E.W.
Reunited by Biological Mom
Scram by Fugitive
Revenge by M.L.
Country Life by J.T.
Better Late Than Never by Slurp
Cheater by A.L.
Good Student by T.Y.
Jitterbug by Sarge
Screed by W.M.
Dad by T.R.
Bad Back by Masseur
The Diagnosis by C.E.
Happy Campers by Wolverine
Drawers by G.M.
Bi-Bye by Convert
A Model Daughter by E.N.
On the Rebound by P.W.
Curious Boy by J.O.
Brotherly Love by Jayhawk
Sibling Solace by L.T.
Roomies
By S.H.
I'm an ad designer in New York — I like it and am good at it. I've always loved beauty and try to bring some of it into every ad I design. But my love of beauty has a painful side to it because I'm not beautiful myself. Not even pretty. There's a certain standard of feminine attractiveness in our culture, and I don't match it.
That has definitely damaged my relations with the opposite sex. Most men don't pay any attention to me, and those who do usually use me for a while until someone good looking comes along. Believe me, it hurts to be dumped, makes it harder to take a risk next time.
The model images I work with continually remind that I don't measure up. I don't want to go into the details of why I'm not pretty, but take my word for it. I'm not a hag or a freak, not even really ugly. Just not 21st-century USA good looking. Actually I'd like to drop the subject now.
But before I do, I should tell you that my brother's not so great looking either.
Now finally, subject dropped.
It turns out, though, that we're both pretty (there's that damn word again) talented artistically. Zack is a sculptor, really good. The whole family is artistic. Dad is a painter, actually more a teacher of painting, at a college upstate. Mom (they're divorced now) is a weaver.
My brother finished his M.F.A. last year and figured he was ready to take a run at the New York art world. He was broke of course, like most artists, so I let him stay at my place. I don't consider myself a real artist, but my brother is, and I liked the idea of helping him.
He slept on the fold-out couch in the living room and set up his sculpture workshop in the kitchen. (Ninety-nine percent of New Yorkers have to get used to living without enough space. The remaining one percent own the buildings.)
Zack enamels little pieces of copper with strange designs, then solders them together into fantasy constructions, crosses between creatures and machines. Small and spooky, quite powerful, they're visions of a shrunken future. They make me think of humanity rendered inhuman by genetic engineering and bionic implants. Zack likes that interpretation but says they're just what he dreams about.
Zack is no great hit with the ladies. As a man, though, the problem is not so much looks as finances. The equivalent for a man to being ugly is being poor. He says it happens a lot: A woman is interested when he says he's a sculptor, then turns off when he admits he's never sold anything. If he's not making money, he must not be real. He's been hurt by that.
So both of us are causalities of the love wars. We get along pretty well as roommates. Instead of paying rent, he does the cooking and cleaning. Some of my friends joke about me having a live-in male maid, but I don't see it that way. It's just division of labor. At first I had to put some pressure on him to get him to raise his housekeeping standards above bachelor slob level, and his culinary skills are still in the learn-by-doing stage, but we've got a functioning living unit going here.
There have been a few issues between us. I didn't like it when he wandered around in his underpants. Now I realize I liked it a lot, but didn't like the fact that I liked it. For some unfathomable reason he didn't like my rinsed-out bloody underpants hanging from the shower rod. But we found we could talk about those things without it turning into a big deal. We changed our ways to please the other person.
After schlepping his art around to dealers and galleries, Zack managed to get his first show, part of a group exhibit at a gallery in Brooklyn. (Actually it's a bookstore that displays art, but it's a start.) I was so proud of him. It did wonders for his self-confidence.
The opening, or vernissage as they rather pretentiously called it, turned into a great night, full of music and wine and interesting folks. I heard lots of good comments about Zack's sculptures. Some people, though, would say "How cute" when they first noticed them, because the figures are little and toylike, then look nervously away when they really saw them. Cute they are not. Real art ain't cute.
Zack sold three pieces that evening.
We were still excited, riding a Big Apple success high, when we got home. We drank some more wine, then smoked some grass. Totally stoned, we turned up the music and tried to do the tango. It turned out neither of us knew how to tango, but we thought it had something to do with dancing with his leg between mine and making lots of dips and glides. That was fun so we kept doing it with variations: chin to chin, nose to nose, mouth to mouth. Dancing while kissing was lots of fun, even though we giggled more than we kissed. It seemed like we were the first people ever to try it. Then the dancing became more like wiggle-rubbing together. Maybe because we were breathing so loud, we didn't even notice when the music stopped. By then his hands were inside my pants and my tongue was in his ear.
We did it right there on the couch without even folding it out. Fucking my brother turned out to be what I'd always hoped sex would be but never quite was before. We were so close, we understood each other so well that mating was the most natural thing in the world.
Over the next couple of months we really got into it. It was like we were kids again playing games. We'd never played doctor or fooled around like that when we were little, maybe because I'm three years older. Now we discovered we had a tremendous curiosity about each other's bodies. All sorts of long-repressed urges came out, and we gave into them with relief. I loved to playing bad big sister who pulls down her little brother's pants. His little wee-wee that I used to stare at with a mix of fascination and scornful condescension was now a big hairy cock that filled me up and made me groan. After uncovering it, I liked to get prayerfully down on my knees, take it worshipfully in my mouth, and suck it reverently, even as I was gagging as he rammed it down my throat while he was coming.
We tied each other up, painted each other's naked bodies with lipstick, smeared each other with chocolate syrup and licked it off, peed on each other in the bathtub but didn't lick it off.
We let it all hang out, the way artists need to — creative regression. We tried everything. I didn't like him to put it in my ass, though. That hurt too much.
We got along great even when we weren't fiddling with each other. It wasn't a romantic crush, more an intuitive knowing. Our new wickedness was a tremendous turn-on, and at the same time our underlying familiarity made us very patient with each other. We didn't have any false expectations to be disappointed by. It was so nice for both of us to be lusted for, especially by someone we already loved.
One Sunday morning we called down to the corner deli and ordered bagels and lox to be sent up. Sometimes we liked to eat breakfast naked in bed, then fuck afterwards. Lox was Zack's favorite because he said it tasted like my pussy. I wish I could say the cream cheese tasted like his come, but that was more like mushroom soup, also a favorite.
Anyway, when the doorbell rang we assumed it was the delivery man and opened the door, only to see our father standing there — surprise visit!
We couldn't tell him, Go away, come back later. The door to our bedroom was open, showing a queen-sized bed that had obviously been slept in by two people. Even more than that, the stricken expressions on our faces gave us away as we stood there in our skimpy robes. Dad knew us too well for us to be able to hide anything like that.
I thought as a fellow artist he'd be cool about it. But he freaked out, really turned vicious on us, called us all sorts of names and said if we didn't stop this, move out, and not see each other again, he'd disown us both. (As if he owned so much to dis us with — we're not talking family fortune here, more like a used Volvo and a mortgaged house.) His face was fuchsia and bloated with rage as he made his ultimatum.
Mom had left him five years ago for another man. Maybe that was why he was so bitter and didn't want anyone else to be happy.
Zack and I looked at each other. There wasn't any choice. We both pointed to the door for dad to leave.
I wish I could say Zack and I locked the door and enjoyed a sexy naked breakfast in bed afterwards, but we just sat down on the couch and cried. We knew this was an irreconcilable split from dad, and we consoled each other like orphans, very glad to have each other.
Our father's rejection was a bitter lesson for us, one we would rather not have had to learn, but it brought us closer. It's hard to find love in this world, and when you do, no one has the right to try to destroy it.
Zack and I are still together and we're damn sure going to stay that way.
Carpe Diem
By E.W.
When my grandfather died, dad and I went to his funeral together. Like many families, we were now scattered across the USA. I was in Phoenix, dad in Seattle, and for the service we met back in rural Vermont, where we'd both grown up and generations of our family had lived.
Needless to say it was a sad homecoming, made all the more so by dreary fall weather. The hills were shrouded in chilly mist, and the overcast acted as a lid, holding in the woodsmoke from freshly stoked fireplaces. The nostalgic scent took me back to my childhood.
Dad and I had both been close to grandpa. I had many memories of the three of us making snowmen together in winters and working in the garden together in summers. Even after dad and I had moved away, we still shared holidays together here at the homestead.
Grandpa had died suddenly of a heart attack, and although at seventy-six that can't be unexpected, we were shocked by having no preparatory leave-taking, no chance to say good-bye.
The service at the funeral home was mercifully short. As we filed past the casket, I know that the lifeless, waxen figure lying in it wasn't my grandfather. Where had he gone? Disappeared ... and his body would soon be disappearing into the earth.
At the cemetery the grave was already gaping and ready, a maw of crumbling brown earth next to his wife's, who had preceded him by a year. The wind was blustery but the rain held off. The coffin was lowered on stout ropes. I felt I was slipping down into it myself.
Beside the grave stood two metal stands with brass bowls, one filled with earth, the other with rose petals. The Lutheran pastor said a few parting words, then dug into the bowl of dirt with a trowel and tossed the soil down onto the coffin. My father followed him, but instead of using the trowel, he just stuck his hand into the dirt, grabbed a bunch, and tossed it in. The gesture showed a wonderful strength, but his face was forlorn.
I couldn't bear to touch the dirt, so tossed in rose petals that fluttered down onto the polished wood.
Grandpa's many relatives and friends followed, adding their symbolic fill to the void that had swallowed him and would swallow us all.
As we left, men with shovels were waiting at a discreet distance to finish the job.
Before too many more years, I knew, there'd be a new hole in the family plot to hold dad, and then, a bit later, me. We'd all be side by side together, but it wouldn't really be us, just empty hulls.
I didn't find the ritual comforting. I missed my grandfather and wanted him back. I was afraid to die and afraid for dad to die. I was crying and cold, chilled to the bone with raw weather and the specter of mortality.
Back at the hotel, dad and I headed for the bar. It looked warm and inviting, and the dim light suited our mood. We drank mulled wine, wonderfully reviving with its heat and the scent of clove and oranges.
I wasn't hungry but I wanted to eat to prove I was alive. The thought of meat was repulsive, so I had Welsh rarebit. There was something soothing about the toast and melted cheese flavored with ale, pepper, and nutmeg, a meal for a very old person or a child, both of which I felt like now. Although white wine is traditional with cheese, we drank red, a Burgundy whose heaviness and sour-bitter undertone were somehow soothing.
With dessert we had sweet port, then brandy. We talked and laughed and cried about grandpa, dredging up memories and sharing them in order to preserve them.
As I looked at dad I kept thinking: You're going to die ... and then I'm going to die ... and then? Life seemed a brief, meaningless tumult of loss. Nothing stayed, nothing was left, everything slipped away and disappeared.
We were sharing a suite at the hotel — separate bedrooms with a bath joining them. At my door we gave each other a long, consoling hug and a kiss on the cheek.
When I was alone in my room , though, I panicked. The isolation made mortality all the more clear. I turned on the TV, hoping for distraction, but it was too hopelessly dumb. I thought about drinking some more but knew I'd be sick. I thought about killing myself but was afraid to die.
I took a hot bath, thinking that would relax me enough to sleep. I turned out the lights and got into bed but was afraid of the dark. I turned on the light in the closet and left the door open a crack. When I closed my eyes, I saw an open grave with dirt and flowers falling in. I opened them and watched neon lights reflected on the ceiling. I cried some more.
I thought about as a little girl crawling into my parents' bed after a nightmare and falling asleep amid their comfort, then waking up magically back in my own bed.
I got up. I made sure my nightgown was all the way buttoned. The door to dad's room was unlatched, and I tiptoed in. I hoped he didn't think I was a burglar. "I want to sleep with you, daddy."
He said nothing. I could hear his breathing. Was he asleep? He threw back the covers, and I slipped into his warm bed and snuggled up to him. We just held each other and cried. It wasn't sexual but profoundly comforting. We slept.
I woke up magically still in his bed. I was confused. Dad was nude. Had anything happened? I didn't think so ... but we'd had a lot to drink ... maybe I didn't remember. I was embarrassed ... and hungover.
Dad woke up. He was embarrassed too at being naked in bed with his daughter, but he didn't want to seem uptight so he said "Good morning" and hugged me. Then I scampered into the bathroom.
We met downstairs for breakfast, a bit self-conscious and tentative about last night. But as soon as we started talking, the tension dropped away and we had the most wonderful conversation over waffles, coffee, and Alka-Seltzer. We were still sad, but the night had brought us closer together, and now we were sharing our mourning and helping each other through it.
"Let's stay an extra day," dad said out of the blue.
Our eyes met in an unspeakable confusion of questionings and yearnings, but the contact was too intense, so they skittered away.
"OK," I said.
His eyes flashed back into mine. "Good."
I had a few flutters of hesitation. What would happen tonight? The possibilities were scary. We had sleepwalked into unexplored territory, an area of intimacy where we'd never been before. But we needed each other. Staying another night seemed the right thing to do.
It'll cost a fortune to switch the flights, I thought, my mind retreating into practicality to avoid thinking about tonight.
The family farm had been leased since grandpa had gone into the nursing home, but we walked around the old place. The tenant was growing feed corn, and the harvested fields were strewn with stalks mangled by the reaper. In the woodlot, leaves were falling, acorns were clattering to earth, and milkweed pods were spilling their fleece into the breeze. Clouds were massing into a leaden sky.
We browsed through the barn, and dad reminded me about the old mare I rode when I was seven. Then she was an elderly gray muzzle at the end of a distinguished career pulling a plow and occasionally a carriage. Grandpa had saddled her for me, helped me mount, and held my hand until I felt secure perched up there.
We talked to neighbors about grandpa. We watched geese flying south and squirrels gathering seeds for winter. We picked apples and pears in the overgrown orchard, but they were sour, the trees too old now to bear good fruit.
"They'd be good for compote," I said, wishing we lived here and I had a kitchen and spices and big pots and would cook for him.
We were sad and tender with each other, but throughout the day an undertone of tension lurked in the spaces between us. That may have been one of the reasons we had drinks earlier than usual — sherry at four in the glassed—in conservatory of the hotel, watching rain pour down onto the adjoining golf course.
Regaining an appetite for solider food, I had trout almondine, and we split a bottle of German liebfraumilch. The wine's name, the milk of a delightful woman, stirred up an image in my mind — I saw myself holding my breasts up for dad to kiss. Disturbed by this, I tossed off a quick glass to chase it away, but it didn't leave. I couldn't help imagining the wine coursing through me and flowing out my nipples and dad kissing them, smiling. Delighting him like this was a disturbing but exciting thought.
After dinner we didn't want to go back to the bar because it had become too smoky, so we settled in the lobby in two leather chairs by the fireplace and sipped brandy. I wanted to find out more from dad about grandpa, as a way of holding on the old man, to keep him from slipping away into the vague realm of ancestors. Our conversation went from there back into family genealogy and finally returned to the present, when it was getting late and we had planes to catch tomorrow.
We went upstairs and stopped in front of his door. "Want to come in for a drink?" he asked, trying to sound casual.
I had been asked that question many times, had asked it myself a few times, but never had it sounded so fraught with unspoken tension, promise, and desire.
"Sure."
We broke open the little bottles of Scotch in his minibar, polished them off, then drank mine, sitting together on the small, over-stuffed couch. Our words had become fewer now, and we stumbled into silences. A strain between us made us avoid each other's eyes.
I thought again of the funeral, grandpa's lifeless body being lowered into the ground. I could feel my father's leg warm against mine. He was alive, but he wouldn't always be. Neither would I.
I thought of Andrew Marvell's lines, "The grave's a fine and private place, but none, I think, do there embrace."
I wanted my father to embrace me. I snuggled up against him, and he put his arm around me. I felt totally protected and terrified at the same time.
"Well ... time for bed," he said.
What did that mean?
He didn't move. I understood: he was leaving it up to me to choose which bed. That seemed a little chicken. I wanted him to sweep me away. Neither of us wanted to take responsibility for that first move. Something else we had in common.
"What if I have another nightmare?" I asked.
"Do you think you might?" His voice was small and full of hope.
I nodded.
"Then you'd better sleep here."
I nodded.
Still wishing he'd kiss me, I stood up and mutely left the room. In a daze, trying not to think, I washed up and put in my diaphragm.
When I'd been packing for the trip I'd brought it along in the spirit of, Well, you never know. Then I hadn't been thinking of dad ... or had I, deep down?
I changed into my nightgown, and put on fresh makeup. Looking at myself in the mirror, I thought, You're going to make love to your father. It seemed both a simple fact and a complete impossibility.
I went back to his room. He had turned down the bed. Nothing happened last night, maybe nothing'll happen tonight either, I told myself and felt a wave of disappointment.
He went into the bathroom. I got into his bed. He came out in pajamas, very middle-aged. We couldn't meet each other's glances; silence lay heavy in the room.
He turned out the light and got in, his breath now quicker and deep in his throat. I could hear how much he wanted me. He moved right towards me and clasped me in his arms, drew me into him. I dived into the hollow of his shoulder as if trying to hide. I couldn't, though. Dad's hands were on me, first my back, then my breasts. He kissed my lips in a way he never had before, with a deep exploring urgency. As he pressed against me, I could feel how much he wanted me.
Panic sirens went off inside. Stop! This is wrong. You'll be killed!
Dad must've felt me tensing with resistance. He whispered in my ear, "I love you," in a tone of pleading sincerity that melted me.
I hugged him with all my might, trying to calm my fear. I kissed him ravenously.
Until then, I could've backed out — he was tender enough to let me go. But now there was no turning back.
He seized my breasts possessively, fondling and kissing them through the silk. The gown came off, and his mouth closed on one while his hand stroked the other. He was groaning, and tremors shook his body.
I felt triumph that he wanted me so much — the ultimate proof of being a desirable woman.
When dad touched my moist center, though, another wave of fear ran through me. This is incest ... death penalty!
The gentleness of his caress put my fears to rest and roused my own lust. I touched his hardness with trembling fingers, wanting it.
Dad was over me, on me, and my hands were on him. He was putting it in. I could see my father's flesh entering me, feel it prodding. Suddenly my openness seemed an empty grave and his body a corpse being lowered into it. I turned my face aside and bit my lip, quivering with dread.
As he spread my lips and filled me with his thickness, though, I knew this was the opposite of death. This was life — surging and powerful. It was our life, our only one. We had it now and needed to express it, to experience it fully. My father possessed me with his energy, driving it into me.
I reached down behind and touched his testes as they moved with his thrusts, those lobes of power that had made the seed that made me. At my touch he cried out and went wild, a glorious animal at the peak of his pleasure. As he rammed his seed into me, I orgasmed too, and we exploded together in burst of life force, defying the powers of death.
The grave would get us eventually, but for now we had its opposite — passion in the flesh. I felt more alive than ever before.
We fell asleep in each other's arms, father and daughter, lovers.
In the morning I felt dead. Guilt and remorse returned with the hangover. What had we done? We'd defied the gods. What would happen to us?
Dad saw I was awake and hugged me, kissed my cheek. "Thank you, my dear. I've wanted to do that with you for years. I never thought I'd get the chance."
So he'd wanted me all this time. I had to admit I'd wanted him too. So what could the harm be? We live such a short time, are surrounded by death and loss. What can be wrong in taking joy where we can find it? It had been wonderful.
I kissed his lips as we lay father and daughter naked in morning's bed. "I'm glad ... what we did."
We both knew we couldn't get on those planes this afternoon. What we'd started was too incredible to end just as it was beginning.
Some things had ended: grandpa's life had ended, and our conventional parent-child relationship had ended. We were lovers now, but still father and daughter. This was strange, weird, but the right way for us to affirm life.
We stayed a week. It meant major expenses and job hassles for both of us. Dad's a commercial real estate broker in Seattle. Taking a week off meant putting some important commissions at risk and over-burdening his partner in the firm. I teach English at a community college in Phoenix. I had to get substitutes for my classes and pay them out of my own salary, thanks to the crummy contract the instructors have with the district. But it was worth it.
Giving free reign to our buried passion, we explored every inch of each other's bodies, making love in all sorts of ways, letting our fantasies run wild.
It wasn't a blissful honeymoon romp, however. We were still in mourning for grandpa and still in shock over what we'd done. It was a serious, tender time, full of confusion but also elation.
Breaking such ancient rules turned out to be easy to do but hard to get used to. Incest was the ultimate Don't, and defying this became a heavy stress. We couldn't quite believe we could get away with it. Maybe everyone knew just from the way we looked at each other and walked along together. Maybe they would haul us away, tar and feather us, burn us on the town square. Maybe we would go insane. We had no idea what would happen. We cried as much as we laughed. Fear, sadness, lust, and happiness all mixed together, shared in an intimacy that I had never imagined could be so intense.
It couldn't last, though. We're still two separate people with very different lives. For one thing, he has a steady lady friend. They're not — at least he's not — planning on marriage (the years with mom and the cost of the divorce soured him on that institution), but they're a couple. I've got a Significant Other too.
In some important ways dad and I aren't even compatible. Our views on society are totally opposed. He's conservative, patriotic, a fan of big business and Republican presidents. I'm a flaming anarchist dedicated to overthrowing the corporate power structure that rules the US and increasingly the world. I'm in attac and he's in the American Legion. I got tear gassed and beaten by the cops during the Seattle riots, and he's buddies with the chief of police. I didn't even visit him when I was there, I was so mad at him.
He's my dad and I'm his daughter, and we love each other in all the usual and unusual ways, but we could never live together.
But we can't live totally separate either. Our week brought us incredibly close, and now we can really communicate. Having sex has done our relationship a world of good. We get along much better now.
We've arranged to get together every few months. In the winter when Seattle is drizzly and sunless, he'll come down here. In the summer when Phoenix is broiling, I'll go up there. In between we can meet in exotic places for romantic rendezvous. I'd love to make love to him on the beach at Maui.
For trips like that, I have to admit it's an advantage to have a capitalist in the family.
Dad and I both agree our lives are better. Since nothing lasts anyway, all we can do is enjoy it while we have it.
Reunited
By Biological Mom
I got a phone call last summer that changed my life. "Hi, mom, it's me ... your son," the strange voice said.
My heart stopped beating for a moment and moved into my throat. I couldn't speak. "Uh ... uh ...." I mumbled.
"Bet you never expected to hear from me," he continued.
I had given him up for adoption when I was sixteen. I got to hold him once as a naked little screamer before he was taken away from me ... forever, I thought. I'd gotten pg. in high school, the father couldn't handle it, he was my age and neither of us were able to be real parents. Back then girls couldn't go to high school with a baby like they can now. I didn't have much choice. I cried and cried about it, then signed the adoption papers.
"So ... uh, Karen, what've you been doing ... all these years?" He knew my name but I didn't know his. I could hear a trace of a grudge in his voice. The guilt I'd been feeling for twenty-two years washed up over me again. "I've ... I've been missing you," I stammered.
I knew adoptive children could now find the identity of their birth mothers, and I'd hoped he wouldn't. Now, hearing his voice, I was glad he had. Maybe if we really wanted to and worked at it, we could heal an old wound for both of us.
"Well ... I missed you too," he said, sadness replacing the sarcasm in his voice.
"Can I ... see you?" I asked tentatively.
"Sure ... I'd like that."
I breathed with relief. I liked the sound of his voice. My son.
He suggested we get together tomorrow for dinner. I would've thought lunch would be more appropriate — dinner sounded almost like a date. I suggested a restaurant, and he hadn't heard of it — he must not be from around here. I gave him directions.
"How will I recognize you?" he asked.
I wanted to say, I'm your mother, you'll know, but I said, "I'll wear a blue dress."
We recognized each other instantly. He looked like my younger male alter ego. He also reminded me of his father, my first love. Seeing him released a stream of long-buried feelings; I was captivated by his presence.
He smiled but looked hesitant and guarded.
"I'm so glad to see you ... at last ... again." I forced the words through the tension in my throat. "Tell me about you."
"Not a lot to tell," he said
But of course there was, and we found we could talk despite the pressure of twenty-two years of compacted feelings. Gradually, after the easy surface details of his recent graduation from college and my recent divorce (not from his father, whom I hadn't seen in twenty years since he'd joined the navy), we got into deeper waters. I cried my apologies for abandoning him, told him of the remorse that still haunts me. He told me of the rejection he had grown up feeling and the insecurity that bred. I told him I would do anything to make up that neglect to him. He said just seeing him and talking to him were a start.
What a nice man! I thought.
We began meeting every day, sometimes taking a walk, sometimes sitting at my place, always talking in a flow of emotion. I look upon it now as kind of a delayed bonding. While we chatted, I felt a powerful urge, a need, to suckle him. I could see the baby he'd been then and the man he'd become, and I wanted both of them. I watched him with fascination. With a shock of familiarity we found we had many similar traits, mannerisms, interests.
As the days went on, my attraction grew deeper. Getting ready to see him, I would fuss over what to wear, select the right perfume, primp with my hair and make-up. I felt like a teenager again. When we were together I acted flirtatious and seductive. I had to struggle to keep my hands off of him. I wanted to run my fingers through his hair, stroke his face, smell his skin. It was like finding my soulmate.
Later I discovered that other reunited pairs report similar experiences. There's even a name for it — genetic sexual attraction. In some cases it's overpowering for both of them, and the relationship becomes also erotic. Unfortunately in our case it was overpowering only for me.
After trying unsuccessfully to tempt him with low necklines and short skirts, with lustful looks and invitations to dance, I broke down and kissed him goodnight ... on the lips ... with my arm around his waist and my hand on his cheek.
He politely untangled himself and said, "Gee, mom, wasn't quite what I had in mind."
I felt crushed, rejected, angry, ashamed. How could he not want me? It's a question I'm still trying to answer. I don't know why. I just know it's true. He made that clear. I ended up humiliating myself like a total fool until I alienated him and drove him away. I saw what I was doing but couldn't help myself. I was like a zombie. One day he just wasn't there anymore. Disappeared.
I searched all over, then finally hired a detective to track him down, but only to give him the letter of apology I'd written. Maybe when he reads it, he'll want to get in touch with me again. It's my only hope.
Scram
By Fugitive
My dad was cheating on mom. I saw him and his girl friend at a disco, dancing and kissing. She was plump and plain, not much older than me, the kind who'd probably have to take whatever she could get, and that turned out to be dad. He was dancing like he was trying to be a kid. It made me hate them both, and I left before they saw me.
Mom had been acting strange for a couple of months, so I think she knew about it but didn't say anything. She drank a lot more than usual and moped around like she wanted to cry, which she sometimes did.
Now that I knew why she was feeling so bad, I hated him all the more. Most of all, I wanted to make her feel better.
Dad was "away on business" a lot of the weekends. Mom drank even more then, trying to blot it out. I couldn't stand to see her so sad. One night she sort of passed out in the living room. I picked her up and carried her into their bedroom. One of my hands was on her bottom and the other beside her breast. Mom's skirt was way up — I could see her legs and underpants. I thought she looked great, much better than that girl at the disco.
I laid her on the bed, and she sort of half woke up. "Nightie-night?" she asked.
"Yeah, nightie-night," I said.
"Nightie."
"Yeah."
"Need my nightie."
I wasn't sure what she meant until she pointed at the closet. "Oh, your nightgown."
"Nightie."
I opened the closet and saw something silken hanging from a hook on the other side of the door. I brought it back while mom was trying to get out of her clothes. She wasn't doing too well, so I helped her, first the blouse, then the skirt, then I stopped. I was getting so turned on looking at her. I wanted to keep going but I thought I better not. Mom couldn't keep her eyes open, I don't think she really knew I was there anymore. She reached around and undid her bra. I'd seen her breasts once or twice, but that was years ago. Now I just stared ... got totally excited. They looked so great. It was like I could remember being there as a baby and now needed more than anything to be back, like I hadn't had any food all those years, now starving and found this delicious feast right there in front of me.
Mom slumped over on the bed and fell asleep again. I felt so sorry for her. I got in with her, just to hold her and make her feel better. I lay right up against her. She rolled a little, and her tit was right in my face. I snuggled into it and kissed it. A voice inside said this was weird and wrong, but I got to thinking about all the really wrong, weird things in the world — bombs, torture, starvation — and this seemed pretty good in comparison. I sucked mom's tits a long time. She was still asleep, but they got firm and the nipples hard.
I got so hard it hurt. I took off my clothes. Then I took off her underpants. As soon as I saw her bush, I knew I had to go back there, knew I'd been missing it all those years. I started to rub it, and it got wet ... and mom woke up.
I had one hand on her breast and the other on her pussy. She gaped at me and mumbled something, then closed her eyes but left her mouth open. I kissed it and she kissed me back. She didn't open her eyes again and seemed half asleep. She opened her legs, though, and let me keep rubbing. The sounds she made weren't snores but moans.
When I put my root in her, mom raised her hips and twisted around it, gasped and bit her lip, but kept her eyes closed. When I came inside her plunging and pumping, she opened her eyes and looked at me with wide helpless eyes and clutched her arms and legs around me. When I sucked her clit afterwards, she closed her eyes and came with wild buckings and thrashings and a shout of glory.
I've had quite a few girls and this was the best ever. No comparison.
We started in doing it regularly. She stopped drinking as much, and that made it even better. She seemed happy, and that made me feel great.
We talked about dad's cheating. She'd known about it a long time, felt terrible, but now suddenly it didn't bother her anymore. She said it was worth it because it meant we didn't have to feel bad about what we were doing.
And what we were doing kept getting better. We always looked forward to his weekends away. We did it all sorts of ways. It gave me a tremendous sense of power to see my mother turn into a submissive woman under my hands, offering herself up to be kissed and fondled. Once I sucked her for a hour, loving every minute of it, and she came three times.
One night after we fucked mom wanted me in her again, so she was sucking me to get it hard. We were both in heaven until the door banged open and a voice shouted, "Freeze!" It was dad. He had a gun. He ran at us holding it with both hands, pointing it first at mom, then at me, swearing at us.
Mom screamed and fell back on the bed. I just sort of withered. Having a cocked pistol pointed at it tends to be hard on hard-ons.
The gun was shaking in dad's hands. His face was sweaty. "You were blowin' him, well, I'm gonna blow it off ... blow both of you away."
"No!" mom cried.
He slapped her and his lips curled back from his teeth. "Killing's too easy for you ... too quick. Prison! Both of you! Everybody's going to know ... sick twisted freaks! Rest of your life in a cage!"
He called the police from the bedroom phone, waving the revolver at us. He didn't even let us get dressed. The cops came in with disgusted looks on their faces, but at least they let us get dressed before putting us in two separate cars and driving us away.
At the station three cops made me pull down my pants. One held my arms behind my back, another grabbed my legs. The third grabbed my dick. I thought he was going to castrate me, but he jabbed a cotton swab up it, hurt like hell.
Mom told me later they stuck a swab up her too, but at least it was police women and they weren't so mean.
The cops put me in a cell with three thugs and told them what I'd done. They beat the hell out of me.
Next day the cops said they had positive DNA evidence, an open and shut case of felony incest. With dad's testimony we were sure to go to prison, separate men's and women's. The sentence would probably be five years, but if we had good behavior we might get out in four, but there was no way we'd have good behavior because when the other cons found out what we'd done, they'd beat us up all the time, so we'd get a sheet as troublemakers. Way prisons are, we might never get out. The cops did their best to scare us, and they succeeded. Our lives seemed ruined right after they'd become their happiest.
Then this button-down collar from the district attorney's told us if we just signed confessions and pleaded guilty, he could recommend three year sentences. When we were paroled afterwards, though, we couldn't see each other again or we'd go back to prison. Either way, our lives seemed over.
By now we had a lawyer, a public defender, and he advised us not to sign. This made the cops mad. They took me into a little room. I thought they were going to beat a confession out of me. But instead they brought in a preacher. He gave me a friendly, concerned smile like he really cared about me, then told me mom and I would burn in hell for the rest of eternity unless we confessed and begged Jesus for forgiveness. He told me what hell was like for people who do incest. I won't tell you about it — even the Nazis weren't that cruel. But he said Jesus would forgive us if we confessed.
By now I was so scared I was getting mad and wanted to fight back. I refused to confess. He said sternly at least get down on your knees and pray for forgiveness. I said no. He said then God can't help me.
As he was leaving, the older cop said, "Sorry, Reverend, but I'm not surprised. I seen cases like this before. Once a mother and son get started on incest, there's no way to stop 'em. They're not sorry. They'll find some way to keep doin' it. You just have to shoot 'em ... keep it from spreading." He gave me a murderous scowl.
The Memphis paper ran an article with our names, jail mugshots, and a quote from the district attorney that we were "guilty of a spree of incestuous copulation." After that there were lots of hate letters to the editor about what should happen to us.
Finally the lawyer got us out on bail. Mom had to put up her half ownership of the house as collateral. We had to sign a paper saying we wouldn't see each other except when our attorney was there. I got put in a foster home, but they wouldn't let me back in school — I might contaminate the others. Mom rented a hotel room. She got fired from her waitress job.
Neither one of us saw dad, but we got a message from him saying he'd be in the front row at our trial. He said he got suspicious when he saw hickeys on both of our necks. To trap us, he waited outside the house until he saw lights on only in her bedroom.
Mom and I met with the lawyer to talk about the case. He said it looked bad. It was great to see mom again, even though both of us cried and we couldn't hold each other. As we were leaving, she pushed a note into my pocket.
I waited until I rode my bike around the corner to read it: "Meet me 9 tonight at the Rock-Around-the-Clock Truck Stop." (There's lots of things named after rock 'n' roll in Memphis since it's Elvis's home.)
I was worried we'd get into worse trouble, but I knew it was important. At the foster home I wasn't allowed out after dark, so I had to sneak out a back window.
As I rode up to the truck stop, mom was standing outside. She motioned me to follow her around the corner where it was darker. The first thing she did was throw her arms around me and give me a big kiss on the lips. Suddenly I felt a lot better. Then she said we were leaving, scramming, beating it, jumping bail, getting out right now.
I saw she'd dyed her hair blonde. She gave me a can of blonde spray and told me how to use it. She fed a bunch of quarters into the door of one of those little rooms where the truckers shower and clean up. She didn't go in with me, though — we were taking enough risks as it was.
I came out sneezing from the dye fumes but blonde. She looked me over and told me to go back in and do the eyebrows.
Then she went into the restaurant and found a trucker who'd take us as far as St. Louis. It was a long ride up the river. We were both tired but too hyped up to sleep and worried if there was news about us on the radio and the trucker got suspicious, we might have to get out fast. If we got caught now, we'd go to prison a lot longer. But the news was about other things, war overseas, murder at home.
The trucker turned out to be a nice guy. He didn't ask too many questions, and he let us out before dawn in downtown St. Louis. Glad to be just the two of us again, we kissed and hugged, then walked down to the river, afraid, happy, excited. As if following the flowing water, our thoughts returned to Memphis and the life we'd left behind — friends, school, job, dad. We cried awhile but were relieved to be free, at least for now, and knew we had to keep moving against the current.
St. Louis has this huge tall Gateway Arch by the river, a monument to the pioneers, and as the sky was starting to get pale, we saw the first light of the oncoming sun glinting the top, making the metal glow. The light slowly spread down it until the whole arch shone silver as the sun crossed the horizon. Then the river started to glow, and all this beauty filled us with hope. Maybe we could get away, stay out of prison, stay together. We were pioneers too, in a way, blazing new trails, new ways of people being together.
We had breakfast in an all-night place at Laclede's Landing overlooking the Mississippi. As we were eating, four cops came in and walked towards us. Suddenly all our hopes were smashed. How did they find us? The trucker? They were too near for us to run. All we could do was stare at each other like we'd never see each other again.
The cops sat down at another table and ordered their first donut of the day. They didn't even notice us. We relaxed ... a little.
We walked into the business district as the stores were starting to open. All we had were the clothes on our backs and mom's credit cards. We charged a whole bunch of stuff — not just clothes but suitcases, soap, food, everything we'd need. The credit card slips meant they could trace us to St. Louis, so we lugged the stuff down to the Greyhound station and got tickets for the next bus to Chicago, leaving in an hour. Yesterday in Memphis mom had taken the maximum cash advance on all her cards and wanted to try it again here, maybe we were far enough away that it would work again, they wouldn't be alerted so soon. While I watched the stuff, she went out to a bank. We knew this was taking a chance but we needed the cash and didn't want to use the plastic in Chicago. She let me hold all the cash we had. In case she didn't come back, I was supposed to get on the bus without her so they wouldn't arrest me too. If they gave her some story in the bank that she was supposed to wait there, she was going to run out. I was worried the whole time she was gone. All I could do was watch the door. When she walked back through it half an hour later smiling, I nearly cried with relief.
By now we were both totally knocked out. As soon as we got on the bus, we fell asleep hugging and didn't wake up until Chicago.
We got two cheap rooms in separate hotels, took a hot bath together at her place, then went to bed but not to sleep. Making love to her this time was different. We were now closer than ever before. It was us against the world, and we had to stay together.
Mom dyed her hair blonde for real, not just the spray. I kidded her that she looked like a Barbie doll, and she said if that was true then I was Ken. We laughed about it but then got to thinking we were going to need new names anyway. She said she'd always liked Barbara and would keep it. I didn't want to be Ken, though — too obvious. Kent sounded better.
What about last names? she asked.
I thought about it for a while, then took her hand. We should have the same name, I told her. I loved her and wanted to be married to her. It'd be easier to live together as a married couple. She looked so young anyway.
She cried but she was happy.
We looked through the phone book like it was a catalogue of last names until we found one we both liked (I don't want to tell you). We decided to take seven years off mom's age to make her twenty-nine and add three years to mine to make me twenty-one.
I didn't like my blonde hair, so I washed it out and grew a beard instead.
Mom got a waitress job at a big restaurant down by the Loop, then got me hired there as a dishwasher. We rented a furnished apartment — it wasn't much, but it was our first very own home.
We started to feel that the worst might be over, that we'd swum across the deep part of the river and could finally feel the ground of the other shore under our feet. We might make it. We began to enjoy life and each other.
Wages in the kitchen were sub-minimum, so lots of the workers were illegal aliens, from all sorts of countries. I got to know some of them well enough so that we trusted each other and started asking about ways of getting identity papers. It wasn't easy now with all the Homeland Security surveillance, but before long I had the name of a guy who ran a photo studio and made fake IDs on the side. It cost a fortune, a stack of dishes as high as the Sears Tower, but mom and I got birth certificates, driver licenses, Social Security cards, and a marriage certificate.
We decided to move once more, as kind of a cut-out in case we got traced from St. Louis. We got back on the bus and rode a long time (I don't want to say where). The bus was interesting because you not only see the country but you ride with a group of Americans you never see on TV — poor people, lots of them.
Mom and I like our new town. It's smaller than Memphis and Chicago, but big enough so that newcomers don't stand out, not a lot of crime, not a lot of cops.
Mom taught me how to be a waiter, and we both got jobs at different restaurants. I'm making more than she is because the fancy places like to have men waiters. I can't get over it — she's been doing the job for fifteen years and taught me everything I know about it and my check's bigger than hers because I'm a man. Talk about not right!
I don't want to be a waiter all my life, so I took the GED test and got a high school diploma and now I'm going part time to the junior college.
Last month we got married — a beautiful church service (we never could believe God hated us for loving each other). We told the minister we were married before by a justice of the peace but now wanted to do it right. We've made a lot of friends at church.
For our honeymoon we rented a cabin on a lake. We paddled canoes like Indians, sang songs, made love, and laughed. We did a ritual where we both forgave dad and thanked him in our hearts for being such an adulterous jerk and cheating on her.
Revenge
By M.L.
I feel a tiny bit guilty about what happened, but it's more that I think I should feel guilty than I actually do, you know what I mean? I'm going to try to be honest and not make excuses for myself, but I want to explain what happened ... and why.
When my nephew called and said he wanted to visit, the first thing that flashed across my mind was, I'll take him away from her. "Her" meaning my sister, my big sister, his mother. Appalled by this mean thought, I pushed it away and said, "Sure, Jason, come for a visit. I'd love to see you."
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