MILESTONES

I love to lie here alone late at night and think about her. When I can't be with her I close my eyes and try to hear the sound of her voice, try to feel the velvet texture of her skin and the security of her naked embrace. After a while my memory takes me to the bed we share whenever we can and I touch myself as I relive those afternoons of sensuous pleasure.

I remember the feel of her perfect breasts against my lips. In my mind I kiss the skin softly and experience the thrill as her nipple stiffens to my touch. As gently as I can I scrape my teeth lightly over the hardening flesh, before sucking it into my mouth. She responds by opening herself beneath me and my penis enters the now familiar warmth of her.

With every slow stroke of my hand I remember making love to her. I am thinking about the grip of her legs across my behind and the feel of her arms across my back as I move inside of her. I remember how nervous she was about our lack of contraception after the first few times we did this. She knew there was still the possibility of us conceiving a child, but in these precious moments she ceased to care and would whisper to me how much she wanted me to fill her with my orgasm, how much she needed to feel my release flowing inside of her.

As I satisfy myself now I think of that amazing sensation as she cries out with her orgasm and I fill her gorgeous body. Afterwards we lie still and she kisses me gently and soothes me with the touch of her hand at my neck. I lie here now and remember that. I think about how our journey started. How she became my lover. My beautiful Catherine, my beautiful mother.

In everyone's life there are events which stand out as clear milestones along an otherwise featureless road. Those events change everything and define who we were in the past, who we are now and who we will be become. For our family such an event occurred on a winter afternoon that ripped a jagged slit through the fabric of our lives.

I was seventeen when my older sister was killed in a road accident as she drove home from university on a dark December afternoon. Until then, we had been a perfectly normal middle class family with a comfortable lifestyle and happy existence. My father's job in finance provided us with everything we wanted and my mother, Catherine, gave us all of the love and care that we could have needed. She was the focal point of our family unit, the one that kept the happiness flowing through every day we lived.

At 45, she was an intelligent and confident woman who had married well and then given up her own career to bring up two children and support her husband. She was still a beautiful woman and her blue eyes and figure hinted at the attraction she had held for my father when younger. Nursing two children and the years of family routine had dulled her shine slightly, but to me she was the most special and lovely woman in the whole world. Every boy would say that about his own mother of course, but I always felt that there was something inside of her that set her apart from the rest. I knew as well that there was something between us that meant I was closer to her than any of my friends were to their own mothers. I could talk to her about anything and when I told her that I loved her as I packed my things and headed back to boarding school at the beginning of every term, I always felt a deep twist of something that I struggled to define or understand.

When my sister Julie was killed it seemed to completely destroy my mother. My father and I were devastated of course, and the shock and grief that gripped us was a dark and never ending nightmare, a black hole that seemed inescapable for a long while. But all of us knew that my mother had had something taken away from her that no woman should have to lose. As the months passed following Julie's death she did her best to cope, but everyone around her could see that she was sinking. It was then that my relationship with her took on a new dimension. Perhaps it was the only way that she could find her way back from the darkness. Looking back on it now it seems surreal and strange. At the time however it seemed to me to be inevitable, as we crossed the line from being a loving mother and son to becoming a sexually loving couple.

It began on my first holiday home from university, shortly after my eighteenth birthday. I was starting my life again after the horror of my sister's death and had enjoyed my first term of study. It felt wrong to be rebuilding my happiness when it was clear to see that my mother was finding it impossible to rebuild hers. My parents' marriage was disintegrating under the weight of their loss and I felt a sense of guilt that I had found a way of moving forward when they had not. At least my mother had not. My father, I discovered later, had found solace in an affair with another woman. My mother on the other hand seemed to have been cut adrift in a sea of loneliness.

Looking at her on the first day of my return, I could still see the woman that I loved more than any other. She had shoulder length and slightly curled blonde hair that she usually wore tied back, letting it free only occasionally and in private. Her eyes were an incredible blue which seemed to look into the very soul of anyone she chose to make eye contact with. Her figure was still good for a woman of her age, with full breasts and neat hips, despite having delivered two children. There was something about her mouth and expression that set her apart though. Not classically beautiful but suggestive of a deep emotion and seriousness that I knew men found attractive. Several of my friends had commented on her looks and, as I grew older, I was beginning to appreciate what they could see. It was her personality that set her apart more than anything though. She was warm, clever and an excellent conversationalist. Although so much of that seemed to me have disappeared in the last year, there were still flashes in unguarded moments.

I was the opposite. Quiet and reserved, it annoyed me slightly that people regarded me as shy. My mother had told me that I was a good looking boy often enough. My 'beautiful boy' as she would call me. I had inherited the thick black hair and dark eyes of my father and, now that I had grown to her height, my mother would tell me that I was just like him as she embraced me and made gentle fun of my embarrassment at her attention. Occasionally she would tease me and ask me about girls. Although I always avoided the subject and brushed away her prying, the truth was that I had little or no experience and had never had a proper girlfriend or any sort of significant sexual experience.

On my second day home I found out how difficult it was for my mother to cope. I had been out to see a friend and when I came home the house was in darkness. It was late evening and I knew that my father was out at some function or other but was surprised that there was no sign of my mother as I entered the house. It was when I went upstairs that I found her. She was in Julie's bedroom. The room had stayed virtually untouched since her death and, although my father had argued that it should be cleared, my mother had insisted that it should remain as it was.

Seeing the light from the lamp in Julie's room, I walked in slowly and quietly, not wanting to intrude on any private moment. I saw my mother sitting at the dressing table. I could see, fresh from her bath, she was dressed in a towelling robe and that, for the first time since my return, her hair was down. She was looking into the mirror and could see me standing in the doorway. Without turning round she smiled and looked at me through the reflection. I walked across to where she was, not sure what she was doing or why she was there. As I stood behind her our eyes made contact as she looked back at me through the glass. She reached one hand behind her to take mine and she pulled it to her mouth kissing it gently, as she had sometimes done when I was a child. She held it there for a few seconds and then released it. I rested both of my hands on her shoulders and asked her if she was alright.

She began talking to me. Inconsequential things about where I had been, how I was finding the work at university, anything but telling me the reason why she was sat alone in this room. I answered as best I could, not wanting to cause her any distress. After a few moments she said something that took me by surprise.

"Tom, did you think Julie was pretty?"

It was such an unexpected question that I paused before I could find my reply.

"Of course she was mum, she looked like you, how could she be anything else?"

"No, I mean really, do you think she was a pretty girl?"

"She was beautiful mum, everybody thought so. And I mean it when I say she got that from you."

At that she turned to me and looked up into my face. She reached up and put her hand to my cheek. She didn't smile at me, just looked at me for what seemed like an hour but must have been no more than a few seconds. Neither of us spoke, but for that instant I knew that I could feel that bond between us that we had always enjoyed from my earliest years. I suppose I was relieved that after everything it was still there and felt reassured that it always would be, although at the same time I felt a slightly strange sense of it being somehow different now to how it had been before. The sound and lights of my father's car entering our driveway seemed to explode into the stillness of that moment. My mother stood up to leave the room and I switched out the light and closed the door behind me.

In the days that followed things went on as they had before. My father continued going to the office each day and my mother spent most of her time alone in the house. I did my best to keep her company and to do some sort of studying. It was a strange atmosphere as we all went about our daily routine. All three of us trying our best to live our lives without doing or saying anything to catch at the scars that we knew were a long way from healed.

The thing that changed everything was when my mother told me about my father's affair. That conversation threw me into a maelstrom of emotions that blew away the previous certainties of my life. It was so unexpected that it affected me almost as much as Julie's death. I don't know what my mother's motivation was in telling me, but it left me feeling a sense of betrayal that I struggled to come to terms with. Once he knew I was aware, he talked to me about it and tried to make me understand his point of view. I didn't hate him but I hated what he had done and what he was doing. More than anything, I couldn't understand how he could continue with it knowing what it would do to my mother. I can see now that it was crutch for him. He needed something to help him feel normal again and maybe screwing his secretary was it. Looking back now I can forgive him that, but not the fact that he was prepared to do it under the nose of my mother.

A few days after I found out my mother kissed me for the first time. That sounds ridiculous, given that she loved and nurtured me my entire my life. This kiss though was different and it did something to change the nature of that special bond between us. My father was at an evening business meeting and was not expected back until late. There were of course an increasing number of late evening meetings and overnight trips. Using these codes and tacit understandings seemed to me to be ridiculous given that we all knew what was happening, but perhaps my mother hoped that if she didn't make a fuss then the whole disgusting thing would disappear.

We had eaten together and were sharing a glass of wine. My mother didn't like me drinking and warned against letting that sort of thing interfere with my university work, but that night she seemed to want me to relax in this way. I was sat beside her on the sofa and she was paying me the sort of attention she sometimes did when I knew she wanted to feel close to me. I was getting too old for it, but if it made her happy then I was prepared to let her do it. I was lying with my head against her chest and she was stroking her hands through my hair, asking me the usual questions about my studies and girls.

Maybe it was the wine, but I felt the need to make her feel secure. I wanted to take away any vulnerability that she might be sensing. Offering her any sort of emotional protection was a new experience for me and I wasn't sure how to say things properly. I told her that I was too caught up in university to bother with girlfriends and that, anyway, she was the only woman that I wanted to be close too.

She laughed. A gentle teasing laugh and it was so nice to see it. She turned my face up towards hers and called me her beautiful boy. As she brushed her lips over mine I initially accepted it as one of the million moments of tenderness we had shared in the past, as any mother and son would have. But then she kissed me again. This time her lips parted slightly as they connected with mine and I instinctively opened mine in response. The feel of her warmth and softness stung me like no other sensation had ever done before. It wasn't desperate or aggressively sexual, but the fact that she was kissing me in this way sent a wave of dark pleasure through me that shocked me.

I felt the gentle flick of her tongue against the inside of my lip and then the sharp thrill as the tip passed lightly over mine. She held me there for a while and then broke momentarily before repeating what she had done. Afterwards she pulled me close to her again and neither of us spoke. Eventually she told me that I should be heading up to bed. She smiled at me as I went and bid me goodnight. It was just a moment and just a kiss, but it was a milestone that stands out from my past like no other.

Two days later my father left for yet another overnight business trip. My mother decided that she and I should spend the entire day together. I would be heading back to university at the end of the week and she said that she wanted to make the most of me while she had me to herself. We drove out to the coast as she had loved to do when Julie and I were small. We walked for miles. Just the two of us enjoying a brief window of early winter sunshine.

As we walked we stayed close together and she seemed happy. For a while she took my hand. Pressing her palm into mine and wrapping her fingers within my own. I marvelled at the simple wave of warmth it gave me and felt disappointed when she broke free to run back towards the car as the rain started to fall.

We ate ravenously when we got home. Both of us exhausted and famished thanks to the exercise and air of that beautiful day. When it was time to go to bed she asked me if I would sleep beside her. She told me that she didn't want to sleep alone and then added as a joke that she wouldn't let any of my friends know about it. We both laughed and then she asked me again, more seriously this time, and I realised that she really did not want to be on her own.

I hadn't slept in her bed since being a child and as I made my way up to get ready it felt strange to be preparing to share that space with her. She stayed downstairs, busying herself with the business of tidying and checking doors, while I washed and then got into bed. I didn't switch the light on but lay in the darkness, listening to her as she washed and gargled in the adjacent bathroom. Lying there in just my shorts I felt nervous, although I wasn't sure why I should. I thought of our kiss the previous evening and had an unusual sense that I was sharing something that was new and different.

As she entered the bedroom she stood to the side of the bed and I looked at me as she undressed. She untied her hair and let it fall across her shoulders and then removed her clothes. Even in this simple act she was, as in everything, careful and elegant. She pulled her blouse from the waist band of her skirt and then reached to the side to unzip it. She slid it down over her hips, removing her tights and underwear in the same movement. She turned from me as she unbuttoned her blouse and I saw her reach expertly behind herself to unhook her bra as she removed her upper garments. As she turned back to me to make her way to the bed, I caught a short glimpse of her completely naked body. I knew she was perfect. Her breasts were still full and round and her slender waist gave way to the flowing lines of her hips and legs.

As she got into the bed I made to turn away, not wanting to embarrass her by looking into her face, but she turned her back to me more quickly and told me to cuddle her as she snuggled into me. She drew my arm around her waist and she held it to her as she pressed herself into me, stealing the warmth from my body and sucking it into her own. We lay like that for a little while, on our sides like spoons with her bum pressed into me. She placed her hand over mine and held it to her. I could feel the soft flush of the skin of her stomach and the gentle scrape of her nails as she stroked them over my hand. Almost without thinking, I began to follow her gentle stroking motions by tracing my touch back and forwards across her skin.

"That's nice" she whispered sleepily as I brushed my fingers as softly as I could, aware that the feel of her pressed to me was causing me to become erect. She must have felt it but, as I tried to move back gently back from her, she simply pulled me closer. She began to guide my hand and I understood that she was enjoying the feel of my touch. I knew that it was wrong of me to be taking pleasure from the sensation of the gentle pressure of her body against me, but I seemed incapable of controlling the gentle sensation as it rippled through me.

Although it was barely perceptible, I could feel her moving in a slight and tiny rocking moving as she pressed herself into me. Under her unspoken guidance I made slow motions as I caressed her. She led my hand down slightly and the very tips of my fingers made contact with the softness of the hair that spread up from below her waist. I felt a new sensation. It was as if she was sharing some secret with me that nobody else could see or taste and I marvelled at the experience.

After a minute or so she drew my hand back up to her stomach and our movements ceased. As my arousal faded it was replaced by a feeling of safety and love as we lay together. I listened to the dying noises of the outside world as we both drifted off to sleep.

My father came home the next day and it seemed as if things were changing. He and my mother looked to have found a way to come to terms with the status of their lives and were learning to function with some sense of normality, despite the situation. They still shared a bedroom, regardless of my father's affair, and this was something that I had never cared to question in my own mind.

My feelings and thoughts about her were jumbled. When we were living the routine of each day, I could see my loving and protective mother, the one who had always been there to look after me. And yet at other times I thought that I could see something else. Sometimes, I would look up from a book I was reading and find her watching me. She would make eye contact without smiling and then look away. At other times, when my father left the room for instance, she would touch my face and give me a fleeting kiss on my face, as if trying to send me some conspiratorial signal that only we understood.

I knew that I wanted to be close to her more and more. I think I knew also that I was taking myself emotionally to a place that should have been off limits. I couldn't stop myself from thinking of her as something more than my mother. Some nights, like I suppose any teenage boy, I would masturbate as I explored the mental fantasies that arose from my increasing awareness of the opposite sex. I shocked myself as I let her seep into these images. Afterwards I would feel shame and disgust, but I couldn't block the thought of her naked body pressed against me or the thought of her touching me and the sense of her mouth against mine.I wasn't sure why I couldn't sleep that particular night and I am not sure whether it was some sort of sixth sense or simply coincidence that made me stumble across them. As I left my room to make my way downstairs, I walked quietly past the door of their room. It was slightly open and, as I glanced in, I saw them both. The quilt was pushed away and I could see the slender legs of my mother hitched up around his waist. Her arms were reaching round his back and I could see his movement in and out of her as they fucked. I stopped myself and turned instantly but, even in that fleeting moment, I knew that she had seen me. Her face was open and flushed at the obvious pleasure of the act and her eyes made brief contact with mine as she looked across towards the open doorway.

Back in my bed I felt a jolt of sickening shock. I didn't understand how she could do that with him now. He was the man who had lied to her and she was with him in the same bed in which we had held each other just a few nights before. I felt a new emotion now that should have destroyed what had been growing between us. Instead it simply served to strengthen the tide that was pushing us along. It was a raw and bitter emotion. Jealousy.

The next morning my father left early for work. My mother didn't get up and I didn't wait for her. It was my last full day before returning to university and I wanted to be anywhere but in that house. I went walking most of the day on my own. Nowhere in particular just anywhere away from her. By the time I came back in the afternoon I was soaked to the skin from torrential rain and virtually frozen. She fussed around me like any mother would but I was sullen and could barely look at her, refusing to eat the meal she had prepared for me.

Neither of us spoke about the night before but she broke the taboo of the subject by telling me I needed to grow up. That stung as much as her kiss had but in a different way. She had wanted me to remain a child when she needed it and now she was choosing to treat me as a man because she needed that. I wanted to hurt her like she was hurting me and so I called her a whore. My father's whore whenever he wanted her.

She slapped my face. Twice. Hard, hateful blows that came from somewhere deep inside her. Never in my entire life had she struck me before and the knowledge that she had done so now was more painful than the actual physical contact.

I went upstairs unable to stop the deluge of tears that was welling inside of me. I went into the shower and stood there for a long time, trying to wash the cold from my body that had entered it when she had hit me. Afterwards I sat on the edge of my bed with just a towel around my waist as I tried to come to terms with how I felt.

She came into the room without speaking and sat down beside me on the bed.

"I'm sorry." She spoke quietly and looked at me but I would not face her.

She reached up and touched my cheek. The place that she had hit me, as if her touch could somehow take away the pain that was everywhere. She spoke again, "I'm so sorry my darling."

She gently pressed her lips to my face and kept saying it over and over again as she kissed lightly over my skin. She kept repeating her kiss and her words as if they were something more important than anything she had ever given me. Over and over again, the feel of her lips on my skin and the sound of her words.

She touched her fingers to the bareness of my chest and called me her beautiful boy. She stroked delicate lines over the skin as she continued to kiss and speak her words. Her touch moved down to where the towel was wrapped at my waist and she kept saying it as she hesitantly began to loosen the fold that held it to me.

"I'm so sorry my beautiful boy."

As she spoke her fingers touched my penis and I began to sense the enjoyment of her contact. She stroked a featherlike movement until she reached the very end where the head began to swell at the teasing sensation. She looked down as her hand completely encircled me and she began to make gradual and gentle stroking movements. As I grew hard she looked up into my face and for the first time we made eye contact. She spoke.

"Is this what you want? Is this what you want my beautiful boy?"

I didn't speak because she didn't need me to. She moved her hand more steadily as she worked my hardening cock and I closed my eyes. Each stroke sent a wave of warm pleasure through me. I had masturbated myself so many times, but nothing could compare to the beautiful sensation she was causing. I opened my eyes and looked down at her slender hand wrapped around me as she delicately touched and caressed me. The physical feeling was incredible, but I also knew there was something more. The real pleasure came from knowing that the woman touching me in this way and doing this to me was my own mother. Without me fully understanding it at the time, I was entering a world where sexual highs were intensified by the consciousness that my partner was a woman who I shared another type of relationship with. The woman who had given birth to me. The love between us as mother and son was becoming strangely twisted in this deep and mysterious sexual act.

After a while, she moved her face back to mine and she began to kiss me as she massaged me. Her tongue searched deeply into my mouth and her deep kiss coupled with the motion of her hand made me come. I felt an incredible surge of release as the thick spurts fired up over my stomach and washed out over her hand. The feeling was incredible. She released her mouth from mine and looked down at the stream that sprayed and leaked from me. I quietly spoke out the word "mum" as the sensation hit me, and she responded by spreading her mouth over mine again as my pleasure subsided.

She slowly decreased her motions until I was spent. She rubbed her hand through the ejaculation that was covering my skin and she seemed to enjoy the lubrication that it offered between her hand and my stomach. We stayed like that for a few moments, her just touching me in this way as we both accepted what we had just shared.

As we became still she kissed me again. This time her kiss was much lighter. She held my face in both of her hands and told me that she loved me, before telling me it was time that I came down to eat. It seemed like an unusual way to break through the intensity of our situation, but perhaps that was natural given that this was a mother and son enjoying a close and loving tryst. That was the beginning. But only the beginning. enjoy these moments most of all. When the house is empty, I lie in this single bed and think about Tom. I am certain I can smell him on the bed clothes and breathe slowly and deeply to inhale his scent. I trace my fingers over my skin and imagine his touch. I close my eyes and relive the long afternoons I have spent here with him. The slow and nervous love making that built a closeness and trust between us like no other. I let the thought of him take over my senses as I slip my hand between my legs and slowly begin to pleasure myself.

Our sex is so different to that which I share with my husband. That is urgent and greedy, with both of us focused on fulfilling our own need. With Tom it is careful and kind. Two people both wanting to give up their own enjoyment in order to please the other. As the pleasure from my own touch begins to increase, I think about the texture of his skin and the warmth of his body wrapped in mine. The feel of his mouth on my breasts and the way that he touches me so lightly, as if fearing he might somehow break me.

I remember his excited naivety the first time we enjoyed each other and how, in a strange and thrilling way, it heightened my need to take him further into the intensity of my love for him. I wanted my beautiful boy to know that there was no part of me that was closed to him either emotionally or physically. I wanted him to know that he could take anything from me that he wanted or needed. I can still feel the delicious thrill of his penis entering me for the first time. The memory of that moment excites me every time I call it back to my mind. That moment, knowing that I was entering the world of the deepest and darkest taboo, had been a frightening but irresistible journey. The erotic high that it brought me then had shocked me. Now, knowing that I was addicted to that thrill shocked me even more and made me crave it more. A virtuous circle of sexual need that is far deeper than anything else I can imagine.

My fingers work steadily against myself and I imagine the strength of him inside of me. He has the ability to make me come more urgently and powerfully than any other man ever has. It is not just how it feels physically that is so amazing when he shares this bed with me, but the knowing that he wants to make love to me as much as I want to make love to him. Knowing that he needs to have my body. Knowing that he loves to fuck his own mother. As I entice my orgasm now with my own hand, I think about him telling me how good it feels to be inside of me. How he tells me that he loves me as he presses his mouth to mine. As we explore each other I beg him to swear to me that he will never touch another woman and that he will always be mine. When I hear him promise me that, promise his own mother, then I can orgasm. It happens then and it happens now as I push my fingers inside of myself.

Afterwards I lie still and think of his face and the darkness of his eyes. I think back over the months that have passed since we first made love properly and try to remember every detail of our journey. The journey that brought us together as lovers. My beautiful Tom, my beautiful boy.

By the time our 18 year old son Tom came back from university for the Christmas holiday my marriage was somewhere near to being back on track. The sudden death of our daughter Julie a year before had smashed a hole in our family and, for a while, we had all lost our sense of perspective. My husband's way out of the misery of that time was to begin an affair. Now that had worn itself out, as I knew that it inevitably would. We had passed through the worst of the storm and resolved to rebuild our life together. I was determined to make it work.

Gradually life had returned to some sort of normality. He continued with his finance business and I continued with my mornings shopping and afternoons alone waiting for him to return home. At weekends we did the normal rounds of friends and restaurants, trying our best to enjoy the middle class life we had grown into. At night our sex was good but no more than that. We did our best to excite each other and reach the heights we had once enjoyed but we never quite seemed to find that place. I suspect that, for him, I was a poor second to the twenty something slut that he had been sleeping with behind my back for the best part of a year.

But for me, the physical dissatisfaction stemmed from something completely different. Although I didn't want it to be, I knew deep down that there was something far more complicated that was getting in the way. Although I wouldn't admit to myself, even in my deepest thoughts, I wanted Tom.

In the confused aftermath of Julie's death, our relationship had moved to a place that it should have never have gone to. It was just once. A simple act of us comforting each other in the desperate darkness of our grief. I had wanted to be close to him and share something intimate with him as an extension of the bond that ran between us. I had masturbated him. Used my hands to give him a pleasure that I knew he wanted from me. Afterwards I had sworn to myself that it would never be repeated. At the time, I could see no choice other than to try and forget what had happened and take comfort from the normal and loving mother son relationship we had always shared. But the truth was that I burned for him.

I tried to build a mental barrier to protect myself from it but when he arrived home from university for the winter break I began to realise how much I wanted him. Of course it was never discussed. We continued to show each other the affection and care that we had always done, but there were moments when the very presence of him invaded my thoughts and feelings in a way that I knew was wrong and yet felt exhilarating. It would happen in the simplest of ways. Him brushing past me or our hands touching as I handed him something. In those split seconds I would feel the force of his sweetness washing through me and I needed him. I needed to be near to him, to hold him, to lie with him and to make love to him.

Thinking about the possible consequences of acting on my longing helped me to cope with the physical need for him. He was my son and more than anything in the world I wanted him to be happy and have the security of a loving family. The sudden death of his sister had already robbed him of so much and I knew that moving our relationship outside of the normal family boundaries could result in even more pain him. Worst of all, there was the possibility that the bond that we shared could be broken beyond repair. I had already lost one child, I didn't want to lose another. So I taught myself to loathe the sensation of excitement that I felt when I was near to him physically. Even though I craved them like a drug, I tried to close down the thoughts and fantasies that floated through my head. What I couldn't control was the growing love that I felt for him when he showed tenderness or concern for me. I knew it was a love more powerful than that which normally existed between a mother and son. It was that which ultimately forced me to break the promises I had made to myself.

I can remember the exact moment when I knew that us being together was inevitable. It stands out like a milestone in my memory. We had arranged to invite some family friends to come for meal. Jason and Ruth, along with their daughter Rebecca, were people that we had always been close to. Rebeca in particular had been a school friend of Julie from when she was small. It was difficult for me to see her. Now 21, she was growing into a beautiful young woman and it reminded me of what I had lost when Julie had been taken away from me. Watching her as she smiled, chatted and flirted with Tom over the dinner table reminded me of the loneliness that had pinned me down in the year since the accident.

Ruth also had the ability to make me feel vulnerable, even though she was someone that I had always trusted. She was a strikingly beautiful woman who, regardless of the onset of middle age, had the ability to make men interested in her. My husband was one of them. When our sex life had been better we had sometimes teased each other with talk of fantasy partners. He had told me several times that he found her attractive and that he liked to imagine taking her in our bed while I watched. This had all been part of the harmless sexual games that we liked to play back then, but watching her now as she asked him questions about his business (something that was always guaranteed to feed his ego), made me remember why she had the knack of attracting attention.

Whether Tom had noticed how quiet I was that evening or had seen something in my face I don't know. He left the room briefly and then returned just I went into the kitchen to make coffee. He followed me in and, as he did so he put his arms around my waist as he stood behind me. This wasn't unusual and perhaps he was aware of the physical rush that his contact always gave me, but he had a different reason for his closeness. He pressed a piece of paper into my hand and kissed my cheek.

"What's this?"

"Read it" he said, still holding me close to him, "It's a secret message."

It was just a small slip of pink paper that he had folded in half. As I unfolded it he had written neatly in blue ink the words 'you are the most beautiful woman here this evening, all my love, always and forever, Tom'.

It was a little joke and the type of thing he often did, but for me it was one of the sweetest and kindest things that anyone had ever done for me. This wonderfully sensitive boy had picked up my unease and insecurity and had stepped in to protect me from myself. I turned round and held my arms around him. I could hear the talking and laughing from the room next door but for a moment there was just this boy inside of my heart. I kissed him. A brief act of my lips pressed lightly to his but a connection that that woke something inside of me that had been waiting for this time.

In the few seconds that our mouths were together I felt the now familiar urge to have more of him. Subconsciously I convinced my brain that I was returning the warmth and care that he had shown in that silly note. In reality I knew that I wanted to push open an emotional door to a place where there was just the two of us. I looked into his face and smiled at him.

"Thank you" I said, before telling him to take the cups through.

For the rest of the evening Tom seemed slightly different. Less interested in Rebecca's jokes and careful to make sure that he made eye contact with me whenever it seemed like I was drifting out of the conversation. As I tried to sleep that night my head was full of him.

A few days later was the first anniversary of Julie's death. I was worried about how I would deal with the day but resolved not to let a simple date suck me back into a pit of grief. I insisted that we did things as normal and that my husband spend the day at work. It was a cold and bleak December afternoon and not a good day to be wandering around a cemetery but, after lunch, I asked to Tom to drive me there so that I could take flowers to her grave. I felt that I should make some sort of effort to mark the occasion simply and so went upstairs to get ready while tom finished off the studying he had been doing.

I wasn't sure how I should dress. I knew full well that Julie would have hated the idea of me spending my days as if I was constantly dressed for a funeral but, nonetheless, I wore black stockings and a knee length black skirt. On top I wore a blue cashmere sweater that Julie had chosen for me on our last girls' shopping trip together and it made me happy as I recalled how well she had said it suited me. I tied up my hair at the back and readied myself for the trip, reminding Tom that we would both need to wear a warm coat against the cold of the day.

Tom had only recently passed his driving test and he knew that I worried about him driving, given that Julie had died in a car accident. He took his time and drove slowly through town, as careful as always to make me feel safe in his presence. We spoke little but he stayed close to me as we placed the flowers and spent a short time in our private world of sadness and loss. Driving home he switched on the radio to keep the silence at bay and respected my need not to speak.

As we drove he rested his free hand on the upper part of my thigh close to my lap. It wasn't a sexual touch, just a small physical gesture to remind me that he was here for me. I pressed my hand on his wanting to return the sense of warmth, allowing his hand free only when he needed to shift gear. Silently watching him as we made our way home, I began to realise how with everything he did he was showing his concern for me. With every little act I could feel the depth of his love for me. I knew that it was becomingly increasingly difficult to work out the border between my love for him as my son and my ache to have him as a lover.

At home we drank tea to get warm again, before Tom went up to change from the smart clothes he had been wearing into a sweatshirt and trousers. When he came back he found me in the kitchen and gave me a hug. It felt nice. As always, he seemed to know instinctively when I needed him to be there for me.

"I love you mum, you know that don't you?"

I smiled at him and nodded, stroking his cheek and telling him that I needed to go up and change. As I turned slightly to move from his embrace, he turned me back towards him and kissed me. It was the first time he had taken such a step without my lead and it surprised me in a way that I hadn't expected. Until now everything had been about me trying to stop myself from taking him with me as I gradually drowned in my own longing for him. But this kiss punched a tiny but unfillable hole in whatever wall I had tried to build. It was hesitant, but I knew that he was trying to show me that he understood the frightening excitement that tore through me every time we were close. I took over the act. My mouth loosened and I ran my tongue across his lips as I cupped his face in my hands. I felt his mouth accepting mine and we held each other as we savoured the closeness. Whether there was any way back from this I didn't know but, without speaking, I took his hand in mine and led him upstairs.

We went into Julie's room. It just seemed as if that was the place where our togetherness felt most natural. We sat down side by side on the edge of the bed and for a little while we just held hands. He reached up to cup my breast through the fabric of my sweater. The gentle press of his hand thrilled me and I guided his hand to push it more firmly against me. I closed my eyes and let the surge of pleasure his touch gave me sink into me. We didn't kiss now. I simply let it happen because I wanted it to. I moved his hand down towards my waist and helped him to pull up my sweater.

"Take this off for me, please take it off."

We moved our hands together as he lifted the sweater up over my shoulders and we let it fall to the side of us. He seemed frozen and unsure what to do next and so I reached behind myself to unfasten my bra. As it too fell away, I took Tom's hand back in mine and pressed it to one of my now naked breasts. He touched my nipple with a gentle trace of his thumb and then explored the flesh with his whole hand. The sensation of his touch was incredible. I let him take his time and dropped my hand away from him.

"You are so beautiful mum."

Hearing him call me that should have stopped me. I knew that. But it simply made me want this more. I reached towards him and pulled his sweatshirt up over his head to expose his flesh. I could see the hesitancy in his eyes and leaned forward to kiss his face. I kissed his neck. Kissed across his shoulders and licked gently over his skin. I wanted to taste him and to experience the sweetness of him. My mouth worked down across his chest. I kissed lightly across his nipples and I playfully swept my tongue across each one in turn. I moved my mouth back up to find his. As I did so, I pressed my hand against his penis beneath his trousers. He was hard and I felt a rush of adrenalin from knowing that he was experiencing the same excitement that I was.

Looking back on my acceptance of what was happening I know that I loved him and I wanted us to be close. I wanted to us to be able to share our love in the most special way we could. But I know also that I wanted the darkly sensuous nature of what we were doing to electrify him like it was doing to me.

My kiss against his mouth was now harsh and greedy and my movements became hurried. I reached beneath my skirt and pulled my knickers down over my thighs and legs. I worked my hands to his waist and pulled at the loose trousers he was wearing. Realising he had no shorts beneath gave me a slight but definite shock of excitement as I released his stiff and naked cock.

Pushing my skirt up around my waist, with my stockings still in place, I stretched myself over him. Straddling him, I moved my hand down to guide his cock inside of me and felt his hands holding me at my waist. I looked into his face as I positioned myself over him and I breathed in sharply as I let the weight of my body and tightness of my vagina slide over his cock. We stayed perfectly still with our arms around each other as I let him taste this new experience.

Feeling him cut into me that first time was stunning. I could not remember any time in my life when it had felt so right to have another person inside of me. No other sexual sensation can compare with the intensity of emotion or pleasure that the feel of him entering me gave me. Nothing mattered other than this.

I began to very slow move myself up and down, using the muscles of my buttocks to propel and control the movement. My arms were wrapped around his shoulders and I kissed his face and mouth as I began to fuck him. I could feel him gently pushing himself back up towards me as he enjoyed my movements and we held each other tightly as we made love for the very first time.

Between kisses I whispered to him that I loved him and that he felt beautiful inside of me. With his father I still insisted that he use a condom as contraception, but with Tom it felt that there could be no other way other than to have the naked flesh of his cock inside of me. Perhaps I should have thought about the risk of conceiving a child with my own son but all that mattered to me then was to feel that there was nothing between us.

Our movements quickened as we both drank in the deep pleasure. The thought of my own beautiful boy sharing this with me pressed a secret switch somewhere deep in my psyche. I loved the purity of this. The fact that we were finally acting out our tenderness for each other in the way that lovers should, but also the pure sexual thrill of the act of consensual incest that we were committing. We held each other even more tightly as we shared that sensuous connection and began to enjoy the build up to orgasm. I kissed him as I rode him. Harsh and frantic kisses that bit into both of us. I wanted to speak to him, to try and express to him what I was feeling.

"You feel beautiful my baby, I've wanted this so much, I've wanted this so much."

He didn't speak back to me and I knew that he would come quickly. His hips pushed upwards as he began to release himself and he cried out gently. The movement and rush of him inside of me, coupled with the eroticism of knowing that he was filling me with his sperm, brought my own orgasm. I don't exactly know what words I said. I think I whispered to him that I wanted him to fill me, but everything was lost in the excitement of my climax.

we stayed in position as the sensation faded. I kissed him again, telling him repeatedly how special he was to me. He returned my kisses and we embraced tightly.

Afterwards we lay together on top of the single bed and I held him in my arms. It should have been then that I told him we had made a mistake. It should have been then that I told him it must never happen again. It should have been then that I explained to him how sorry I was for what we had done. But it wasn't. Instead it was then that I began to accept for the first time that he was the only person that I wanted and that I couldn't live without this. That I needed my son as my lover and that I wanted him to need me the same way. I wanted my beautiful boy.The home they shared was modest in comparison to the one in which Tom had grown up. Catherine did her best to make it nice for them both but it lacked the obvious comfort and wealth of the large house in which Tom's father still lived. Neither of them cared. Catherine had resumed her career in publishing and she earned enough for them to live a simple but happy life together. Now 21, Tom had completed his education and was starting out his career in journalism. This had been a vocation that his father had frowned upon, insisting that he should join him in his finance business instead, but this was Tom's dream. Catherine was determined that her son should follow the career path that he wanted and that they shared their dreams together.

Catherine's decision to leave her husband had been difficult nonetheless. She had shared such a large and important of her life with him and they were inextricably linked by the children they had made. But the death of their precious daughter had caused a fracture in their lives was too great to repair. She could have survived in her marriage by letting the routine of life carry her along, but her love for Tom had been a far greater force than she could ever resist. She had left because she needed to build a life with him. It was a life that she believed was hers by right. The right that she had to love and be loved by her own son.

The nature of that love made for a complicated and sometimes difficult path. It was marked by twists and turns that reflected the different dimensions of their relationship. It was a relationship made of three contrasting and overlapping elements that ran and blended together in a strange and rich pattern.

The first layer of that love was the obvious connection between them as a mother and son. Now a middle aged woman, Catherine still saw Tom as her child. She had given birth to him and nothing could ever take away her need to protect, cherish and nurture him. Sometimes, when they lay together in bed she worried that she had robbed him of the gift of pure love that he should be able to take from her. It frightened her that he might sometimes need that motherly love and that her greed and lust for him had tainted that purity. She adored the moments when they both could recapture that. After making love she would hold him in her arms and try to make sure that he felt her care wrapped tightly around him. She needed him to know that she still loved him as her beautiful and precious child.

For Tom, this aspect of their life together was sometimes confusing. He knew that he still needed the maternal support of his mother. He was a person who lived out so much of his emotion inside of his own head. He had few if any close friends and, now that his relationship with his father was slanted by the break-up of their family, he had no one else that he was comfortable enough with to confide in. He was acutely aware that the one person who understood him and who cared about his innermost thoughts was his mother. Sometimes he needed to rest upon that. Like any child he knew that she was the only person that he could really trust to love him unconditionally. As he entered adulthood, he found that there were times when he needed to retreat back into the protection of that most natural and loving of relationships.

The most vital feature of their life was the romantic love that they shared as a partners. When they had acknowledged that they both wanted to live this way they had nervously taken this step into the unknown and found it to be a beautiful but, at times, emotionally challenging place.

Tom knew that there was no other woman that he would ever want or need in his heart. It frustrated and hurt him that Catherine might worry that he would somehow fall out of love with her. He needed her to know that the intricate complexity of their situation meant nothing compared to his need to be in her life as her partner. Sometimes, when he was with her, the attraction that she held for him overshadowed everything. Her beauty and intelligence amazed him and he wanted to be closer to her than anyone else could ever be. His love for her was based on a selfish need to have this woman to himself at the expense of everything or anyone else. He was amazed at the feel of her hand in his as they walked together and how the sound of her laughter lit him up. More than anything, he marvelled at the way that she was slowly revealing herself to him as time passed. As their mutual trust in their love grew stronger, she let him in to more of her thoughts and emotions. It was as if she was opening doors to the most secret parts of her heart and mind and he needed to search every single corner of her.

For Catherine, this wonderful feeling of wholeness was coloured by the regret she felt that they could never truly live as a man and wife. When Tom held she knew he was the man that she was born to be with. She had no doubt that somewhere deep in the past this love had been cast as their fate. She couldn't understand why that inevitable fate had been perverted by the fact that Tom had been brought to her as her child. When they made love she wished that the sperm that flooded into her womb could bring them their own child. She ached to give that to Tom as any woman would want that for the man she loved. If she could not give him that that she at least wanted to be able to grow through life with him without the division in age that haunted them. She longed to be given the time she needed to prove to him that her promise of eternal love would never be broken.

Finally, there was their sexual hunger for each other. Although they did not discuss it, they both knew that there was a part of them that was exhilarated by the knowledge that their physical intimacy was something that few people would ever experience. Those who saw them going about their seemingly ordinary lives regarded them as a mother and son living quietly in a small town on the coast. It gave them both a deep excitement to know that they shared a sensuous and dangerous secret. A mother and son locked together as they indulged themselves in a habit which provided a sexual high that only the drug of their incest could provide.

Tom was fascinated by the different ways that they entered this mysterious world. At times she would take the lead. She would dress for him in silk and stockings and take him into her bedroom. It was at these times that she would suck him into her mouth and guide him to lick and taste her in return. He loved the sense that she was controlling him. The notion that his own mother wanted this stimulated a need in him that he knew was wrong but that he needed to satisfy. He loved it when he would wake in the night and feel the urge to have her. As he reached his hand to touch her vagina, he was astonished at the way that she would never deny him. It seemed to him that she was acting out of a sense of duty as she opened herself to him. At these times he would screw her quickly and selfishly, not worrying about her pleasure and simply taking from her the luxury of her body. He adored the sense that his mother responded to him in this way and gave this to him without hesitation.

When Tom was inside of her, Catherine was sometimes shocked at the intensity of her appetite for the feeling of excitement their sex gave her. As she wrapped her legs around his back and pulled him into her she would sometimes look across to see them reflected in the mirror of the bedroom dressing table. This sight, that of her own son fucking her, would ignite a deep urge to taste the delicious mixture of sweetness and dark shadow that their incest brought.

But for Catherine, the pleasure of their sex and the tenderness of their love was stained by the fear that Tom would grow weary of the complexity of their life. Sometimes Tom would spend a few days visiting his father. This was something that Catherine knew he must do and she encouraged it, but it still caused her anguish. She counted the hours until Tom came back to her and she could have him to herself. When he returned she would ask him about his father, trying to find out whether anything that he said to Tom would cause her son to think differently about her relationship with him. She would crave Tom's reassurance.

After a few only a few days of separation from him she needed to feel close to him and to sense again his tenderness towards her. When he arrived home Catherine would run Tom a bath and unpack his bag for him. As he lay in the comfort of the hot water she would pass in and out of the un-locked bathroom, making sure that he was comfortable. She stole glances at his naked torso above the water, enjoying the sight of the firmness of his body and the familiar light of his still youthful face as he looked up at her.

After a while she perched herself on the edge of the bath, smiling as she looked down at him.

"Would you like me to wash your hair for you?" she asked him.

"Yes please mum that would be nice."

She reached towards him to sponge the warm water across his hair and shoulders, before gently beginning to massage the shampoo into his scalp. Tom loved the sensation of her doing this. The firm stroke of her fingers through his hair felt good and he closed his eyes as he let her take over the simple act of cleansing him. At these times, the closeness between them was an unspoken delight. There was something clear and affectionate about the act of Catherine doing this for him that made the act special for them both.

Watching Tom lying in the bath naked, Catherine's heart pounded, not only with sexual desire, but also with the sheer love she felt for him as a man, a lover and most of all as a son. She stood up to face him and focused on his eyes as she unfastened the buttons of the crisp white blouse she was wearing. It thrilled her to see his gaze drift to where her fingers were placed, loosening each button in turn. She would never tire of the fact that he he wanted her physically and that she had the power to seduce him.

But in this moment it was her care for him and her longing to be physically close to him that was most important. She turned slightly away from him as she removed the blouse. The bra she was wearing was white lace. She had chosen this carefully earlier in the day knowing that it was Tom's favourite. She wanted to look special for him, to please him, and for him to know that she dressed with the deliberate intention of making herself attractive to him.

She waited a few moments, letting him see her like this without looking at him before reaching behind to remove it. Still slightly turned away from him, her breasts moved freely as she let the garment fall away from her. Tom could see the swell of her breasts and he felt a surge of warm excitement at the sight of their roundness and softness.

Catherine worried sometimes about revealing herself to him in this way. Frightened that he might find the gentle spread of her hips and stomach to be less exciting than those of a younger woman but for Tom the opposite applied. He loved the way that her age gave her body these proportions and movement, and he ached to feel her pressed to him and to be held in her naked embrace.

As she pushed her jeans down over her thighs, Tom's eyes were drawn to the white lace that he recognised from the last time they had made love. In addition to that causing his erection to reach its fullest, it also sent his heart out to Catherine who he realised was working as hard to please him as a lover as she always had as a mother. She smiled at him again and leant in towards him to kiss him. It was a chaste kiss, a simple but loving press of her lips to his as she folded one arm around him. The feel of her skin against his was wonderful. She smiled again and kissed his nose before telling him to move up so that she could get in behind him. She stood up and peeled the white fabric down over her legs. Tom felt a familiar surge of desire for her as he saw her completely naked.

He eased forward as Catherine stepped into the bath behind him and sat down with her legs pushed alongside his. He rested his head back against her breasts and she folded her arms around him. Tom loved the feel of her hands and he luxuriated in her attention as cuddled and embraced him. They stayed that way for a while, him resting comfortably against her as she held him close to her.

Catherine moved her head to begin placing kisses across the back of his neck and shoulders, pausing only to speak in a soft and quiet way.

"Do you love me Tom?"

"More than anything mum. I always will, I promise you."

"I worry, you know that don't you? I worry that I'm too old for you and that you might want someone younger."

"Please don't worry mum. You are the only I want, you have to believe that. I promise, I could never want anyone else."

As they talked she began to sponge water over his chest and then touch her fingers delicately to his skin. Catherine loved to hear the words of his promises and responded by kissing again around the back of his neck and over his shoulders. Her kiss turned to tiny and gentle bites as she circled his nipples with her fingers, the movement causing Tom to shudder slightly at the sensations. Catherine sucked softly as she bit lightly to his skin of his shoulder, breaking away to speak intermittently.

"I want you always to me mine Tom. Always be my beautiful boy. I don't ever want anyone else to have you my baby."

"I promise you mum, there won't be anyone else ever, I promise you."

As he spoke back to her, Catherine's hand reached down to his penis. The feel of her touch through the warmth of the water was gorgeous. She continued to kiss and gently bite him as her hand started to draw back and forwards over him. Her movement was slow. As she caressed him, the light pressure of her teeth and lips sucking delicately at his skin increased just enough for him to feel a small tease of pain. She began to pull back a little more vigorously against the flesh of his penis at the same time, not disguising her intention to make him come in this way.

For Tom there was something exciting about the way the sharpness of the grip of her mouth balanced itself against the wonderful feeling of Catherine masturbating him, each stroke of her hand increasing the vibrancy of the deep eroticism of what she was doing. He let himself sink into the delicious sensation. He could feel the way that the soap and warm water created a gliding action as she worked him and he reached his own hand behind him to hold her head.

Catherine wanted to mark his skin with her mouth. She loved the thought that later, when they went out together, he would carry this sign that he belonged to her. No one would know that beneath his clothes he would bear this symbol of their love and of her possession of him. This mark that meant that her own son was her sexual partner and she was desperate to confirm that thought in her own mind.

She began to move her hand more quickly as the traces of semen seeping from him mixed with the soft suds. As she pumped him vigorously, Tom began to enjoy the feel of her pressing her teeth to his skin, the sucking motion of her mouth almost in time with the motion of her hand. When he came it was forceful. He felt the beautiful sensation of release as she expertly drew it from him. Leaning back against her, his sperm sprayed up across his chest, some of it smattering both of their faces like warm rain.

For a few seconds Catherine let him relax in the afterglow of his orgasm, still holding his cock lovingly in her hand and fingers. She reached up to turn his face towards him and kissed his mouth. She adored the way his mouth opened widely to engage with hers and it seemed to her that his need to do this was always more intense in the moments after he had come. Their tongues met in a soft embrace and she took a deep pleasure from their kiss.

She moved her mouth across the cheeks of his face and she licked clean where his sperm had splashed against him. Tom did the same in return, both of them lovingly using their mouths to wash clean the skin of their lover. Now when they kissed they shared the taste of him.

Afterwards they ate together, talking of what they had done in their few days apart and talking about how they would spend the days ahead. There was a comfort and security between them now, both of them safe in the knowledge that there would always be this deep love between them. Later, as they undressed for bed, Catherine kissed the mark at his neck and held him in her arms. They spent the night in their bed, making love and enjoying the warmth of the depth of that love as they would for the rest of their lives.