Getting To Know You

Why does a young man’s marriage break up? In these turbulent days there are probably many possible reasons ... but in this case I think it was entirely down to my Mother.

Don’t get me wrong, she wasn’t directly involved. She was never anything but kind and generous to my wife. The problem was that my earliest sexual experiences ... sexual fantasies that is ... were all focussed on my mother: the way she dressed, the way she looked, and the way she cared for me. And as we all know, our earliest sexual experiences tend to form our later sexual tastes, and I supposed I developed what is commonly referred to as a ‘fetish’ ... well a number of fetishes actually. One for small pert breasts in low-cut bras, one for stockings and suspenders and high-heeled shoes ... and one for the idea of incest!

However, it took me a long time to realise that I was totally immersed in these fetishes. I suppose I unconsciously tried to mould my wife into looking and behaving like my mother ... or rather like the way my mother did in my childhood. I tried to dress her as I wanted her to look ... old fashioned. I even convinced her to wear stockings for me (occasionally), and to walk about dressed only in bra, panties and stockings and suspenders. In the end my incest fantasies also began to surface, and I managed to persuade my wife join in with these ‘games’. In the heat of sex, for example, I encouraged her to whisper things like ‘fuck mummy’ or ‘mummy wants your big cock’ just as I was coming to orgasm.

She was very obliging, but I guess she hated it. I’m sure she thought I was weird and perverted, and in the end this must have contributed to the end of our marriage. Well I guess I am both weird and perverted, and I would be deeply ashamed if it ... if it wasn’t for the fact that most people are just as weird and perverted as me ... it’s just they don’t admit it!

About the same time as my marriage ended my Father fell ill, and died shortly after. Inevitably this brought Mother and I much closer together. She lived in a small bungalow in Cornwall, not far from the sea., and I would drive down at the weekends to comfort her. I suppose she also was seeking, in her way, to comfort me. We would sit in her small living room and talk about all sorts of things late into the Saturday night. On Sunday mornings she would bring me breakfast in bed. Later we would usually go for a walk along the cliff-tops, and then I would drive home again late in the evening.

I started these visits more out of duty than anything else. My fetishes were just fantasies, and they seem to be separated from the real world (and my real mother) by some invisible, impenetrable wall. I never once had any conscious sexual thoughts during my visits ... at least not to begin with anyway. Over time, however, I began to look forward to (rather than dread as I had initially) these visits. Whatever else they were, they provided me with company and a chance to talk about myself and my problems. I never dreamed, however, where these conversations would ultimately lead.

My Mother was 58 years old by now, but still slim and fairly graceful. To me at least she did not look old. She no longer seemed to try to dress attractively, however, as she had when I was young. Now she wore large baggy sweaters and trousers mostly. Her hair was tied back and she never wore make-up. Indeed it was only very late at night when we were still talking, and after she had bathed and changed for bed, that she ever seemed in any way female! Then her hair was let down, and she would wear a dressing gown over her night dress. This was the only time I saw her legs. But as the legs never wore stockings anymore, and as I never sat staring at the seams of those stockings (creeping secretly up to her thighs and to her almost always hidden stocking-tops, as I’d done as a boy), I never really looked very closely. Anyway, she was my Mother, and whatever fantasies existed in my perverted loins, they would never dare surface in her actual presence.

But things changed one dark Saturday night in November. The weather, like the sea just a few hundred yards away, was wild and stormy. Rain spattered heavily in large uncompromising drops on my car as I approached her cottage. The wind, driving the rain in sheets almost horizontally, managed to soak my clothes entirely even in the short run from my car to her door. She opened the door, holding it with her foot against the insistent gale, and ushered me in.

“Oh my goodness”, she exclaimed. “What an awful day!”.

I stood there dripping on her carpet and said with a broad smile. “It certainly is. I feel like I’ve just been hit by a wave. It even tastes salty!.”

She examined my clothes with concern. “You poor thing, you really are soaked. I think we’d better get you out of those wet clothes.”

“Don’t worry Mother”, I answered with a smile. “I’m not that wet, and besides I don’t have anything else to wear”.

“Rubbish”, she replied in her normal forceful manner. “I’ll run the bath for you, and while you’re having a soak I’ll slip your things in the dryer!” As I’d been late arriving, and as I really was both wet and chilled, and rather tired from the drive, I reluctantly agreed

My clothes were not dry by the time I’d finished my bath, so Mother lent me a dressing-gown. After a simple meal we headed for the small lounge intending to sit warming ourselves in the two armchairs by the open fire. As Mother came in behind me she produced with a flourish a bottle white wine and two glasses.

“You need warming up inside as well as out,” she said smiling.

“I’m fine”, I said softly. “This cottage of yours is so cosy and warm I could just drift away”. “Well a glass of wine won’t stop that happening!” she laughed.

Over the next hour or two we worked our way through the entire bottle, chatting amiably as we always did. Slowly the conversation deepened and mellowed, and we began talking about life in general, and our lives in particular.

Finally she asked me a leading question, one I suspect she been wanting to ask for a long time. “Tell me John, what really happened to your marriage? You and Sheila seemed so right for each other ... I simply couldn’t believe it when you said you were parting.”

I suppose I was tired and comfortable and slightly drunk. I was staring wistfully into the dying embers of the log fire.

“Lots of reasons I guess,” I whispered. “We were very different in many ways. We wanted different things ... intellectually, emotionally, physically ...”

Mother looked at me saying nothing.

“My interests were different to hers I suppose, and she wanted me to be loving to her in a way that just didn’t come naturally to me. And I think that there were parts of me that I just couldn’t share with her.”

“Are we talking emotionally here ... or physically”, Mother asked softly.

I laughed, “Both I guess!”

There was a moment’s silence, and the she said, “Tell me what you mean. I’m not sure if I understand.”

“You don’t want to listen to all my problems” I murmured. “Especially not all my personal problems ...”

“Yes I do ... tell me.”

I was so comfortable, warm and relaxed that I forgot, I suppose, who exactly it was I was talking to. I began to ramble, slowly spilling out my problems and with them some of my frustrations.

“Women can be so damn difficult. They change from day to day, and what was right and good yesterday is wrong and bad today. I could never seem to please her. Early on I tried as hard as I knew how ... rushing home from work, taking her out, spending as much time with her as I could. But the more time I spent with her, the more she wanted. But at the same time she never really seemed happy, contented ... satisfied, although the fact that she didn’t ever satisfy me seemed irrelevant!”

I paused musing to myself. “None of that’s true really I guess. It was all my fault ...”

Mother downed what was left of her drink and reached for the bottle. It was empty and she tutted to herself. Then she said, “I don’t think it was all your fault at all John, it always takes two to make a relationship, and two to break up. Your Father and I had many ups and downs, but while we both hung in there it worked.”

I glanced up at her. “It’s not the same” I whispered. “If I’d have been married to you, I’d have made it work too!”

She put the bottle down and looked at me quizzically.

“I guess that was part of the problem for me,” I went on dreamily. “She was not you, and could never be. I suppose I moulded the woman I wanted to spend my life with on my experiences with you. You were so caring, so strong, so feminine ... so damn sexy!”

“Sexy!!”, the word exploded from my Mother’s lip in genuine surprise.

Suddenly I came back to the reality of where I was and who I was with.

“Err ... I mean ... er ... feminine”, I spluttered.

I suddenly felt very embarrassed. I’m sure I went bright red. Inside I felt like I’d been caught masturbating by my mother, pleasuring myself over a dirty picture ... only in this case it was worse. The dirty picture was actually a picture of my Mother, dressed in flimsy and exotic clothing! I squirmed inside, not knowing what to say.

I kept my gaze firmly on the fire and said nothing else.

But Mother had noticed my embarrassment, and was looking at me strangely. “Sexy?”, she said again. “Did you really think me sexy?”

I said nothing.

“Well I suppose I was trying to be sexy sometimes ... for your Father,” she mused. “He had definite ‘likes’ you know.”

I glanced up. “Likes?”

She smiled warmly, and I suddenly realised that she knew instinctively that I was embarrassed and she trying to help me by re-directing the focus of this suddenly dangerous conversation.

“He liked me to dress up in certain ways for him,” she said with a smile. “You’re a man, you know what I mean. All men have particular or specific tastes. Your father liked his women to dress ‘strong and sexy’.”

“Oh ...” I said simply, uncertain where to go with this. “Er ... how did you feel about that?”

I suppose I expected her to say that she ‘put up with it’, or maybe ‘got used to it’, or even ‘went along with it ‘cos it made him happy’. But what she actually said was totally unexpected. “ Oh, me ... I loved it!” she said with a soft laugh. “It is so nice to drop all your inhibitions sometimes, and follow your physical desires. Your Father loved me very much, and the more I pandered to his fantasies the more he loved me. And you know there is nothing more erotic than turning somebody else on. So, yes, I loved every moment of it..”

I was fascinated, and before I could stop myself I had asked the question that had popped into my head.

“Did he ever pander to your desires?”

She looked at me with mock shyness. “What a question John!” I stuttered, embarrassed again. “Oh ... I didn’t mean ...”

“Oh yes you did!” She said laughing out loud. “Don’t get so worried, I’m only pulling your leg!”

I smiled shyly at her.

“And of course he pandered to my fantasies. That’s what love is all about isn’t it?”

“Not in my case”, I whispered softly to myself.

But she heard me.

“So Sheila didn’t approve of your sexual needs. Don’t be so embarrassed about it. It’s a common enough problem. Many women are brought up to believe that sex is ultimately dirty, and that anything off the beaten track should be resisted. And for a lot of women they can never get past that. The truth, however, is that NOTHING is dirty if it’s part of a loving relationship.”

I looked at my Mother again. She may have been old and shabbily dressed, but those bright caring eyes still made her look so damn sexy.

“As I said, if only She’d been more like you.” I said to her softly.

Her eyes shone warmly at me.

“We need another drink”, she said, and promptly got up to find some more wine.

“So”, she said gently, after we were refreshed with more alcohol. “What are these ‘terrible’ sexual fantasies of yours?”

“MOTHER!” I exclaimed. “I can’t tell you my sexual fantasies!”

“Why ever not dear?” she replied evenly.

“Well for a lot of reasons”, I answered. “It’s not ‘proper’ for a start! It’s a bit too personal as well ... and ...”

“And what, dear?”

“Well ... well ... there are some things ... that ...”

“Oh for goodness sake John, we both grown up you know. I don’t think there is anything you could say that would shock me. Or are you worried that I’ll think less of you ... that I’ll think you’re ‘dirty’ or something?”

I looked up at her unsure what to say.

“Please let me assure you that I am a human being too. I know about life and I know about sex, and nothing you could say would worry me or make me think any less of you. You think I don’t know you?”

“Yes ... I know, and I thank you Mother ... it’s just some things are ...”

“Are what?”

“Too close ... if you know what I mean.”

She sat back in her chair toying with her glass of wine. She was obviously considering just what I might mean by that comment.

“Too close ...” she repeated. “To you, you mean?”

“To both of us ...” I whispered.

“Ah”, she said. “I think I understand.”

“Do you?” I mused out loud.

“Forgive me if I’ve misunderstood, but are you saying that you’ve had fantasies about ... about me?”

I was silent. But my lack of denial answered her question.

“Incest ... is that what you mean?”

“Oh God!” I whispered, putting my face in my hands.

“Shh dear ...” she leaned forward patting my knee. “It’s not as unusual or strange as you think. Don’t you think that I had occasional sexual thoughts about you too ... as you were growing up? Well I did you know. There were even times when I masturbated myself to thoughts of your young body”.

I looked up at her in amazement. “You did ...?”

She smiled broadly at me. And then gazing into the fire she whispered, “Oh yes ...oh yes!”

II

For a while there was a long thoughtful silence, and then she said; “So you see it’s quite safe for you to tell me your fantasies.”

I must have looked exactly as I felt ... distinctly uncertain!

“C’mon dear, have another glass of wine to give you the courage to tell me all about it”. I took the wine glass but my eyes avoided hers.

“I don’t know ...” I began. “It’s both difficult and embarrassing to talk about such things. I ... I don’t want to offend you ... or insult you ... or ...”

“Or what?”, she asked gently.

“Oh dear!!”, I sighed deeply. “I suppose I don’t want to reveal my deepest thoughts ... and urges. I don’t want to spoil your memories of the past. Make you see them differently ... and it is very hard to reveal something that exposes your weaknesses to someone you love. If you know what I mean?”

To my surprise she laughed, and I began dimly to understand that she was actually enjoying the situation in some way. But I wasn’t entirely sure why.

“I’m glad you think it’s funny” I said, somewhat grumpily.

“Oh John! John!”, she said still chuckling to herself. “I am an old woman now and you’re a mature man, we both ought to know that sex is just one of life’s dimensions. My God, everyone has extreme fantasies. They imagine doing things they could possibly do in real life. That’s the attraction of fantasy ... the excitement!”

“Yes”, I said. “But talking about it ... bringing out into the open, that makes it ... more real.”

“Hmm”, she said thoughtfully. “And that worries you?”

“Yes ... of course!”

“Why ... are you afraid that talking about it in front of me will ... well ... turn you on?”

“MOTHER!!” I exclaimed. “How can you say that? Are you trying to humiliate me!?”

“NO ... no, of course not.” She lent forward and patted my knee again. “I was actually trying to help you. You said that these thoughts ... these feelings ... had affected your marriage. Maybe it’s time to talk about them ... to work them through?”

“Work them through?”, I exclaimed, looking up at her for the first time since this conversation had begun. “What do you mean?”

She looked away from me and shrugged her shoulders and said nothing for a moment. Then she said slowly, “I don’t know really ... I’m not sure. Maybe it’s I that shouldn’t be saying these things?”

For a long time we both sat in silence staring at the fire. But for me the meaning, the implication of her words, was slowly filtering through. As I sat there I suddenly realised that I was hard ... that my cock was rigid in my trousers ... and that my heart was starting to beat very fast indeed. I wondered to myself if I had misunderstood just what she was saying ... what she was seemingly ... albeit vaguely ... suggesting. And then quite suddenly I made an inner choice. I took a deep breath and consciously relaxed back into my chair.

“I don’t remember exactly”, I began with an effort, “when my love for you as my mother changed into something else. I think if I had to locate it I would say that it’s when father was away in France ... and you let me sleep in your bed because I had nightmares. One night when you were asleep and I was cuddling you, my hand touched your breast ... and then I spent the rest of the night inching more and more of my hand around it ... until I was cupping it entirely. It’s the first time I ever remember being ‘turned on’, so to speak”. Mother said nothing, but remained looking at the fire.

“A few days later I came into the bedroom as you were getting undressed, and you didn’t stop or try to cover yourself. I have this clear image, even now, of you standing tall in a white bra and panties and suspenders and stockings, and black high-heeled shoes. You walked around for a while dressed that way, and even cuddled me for a moment. I can still see the cleavage of your breasts in that bra, right in my face, and still hear the sound of your nylons rubbing together as you sat on the bed. I was intrigued, fascinated. I even dreamt about you ... about making you taking you clothes off for me, just so I could look.”

“I never realised ...”, she began. “I am so sorry John ...”

I guess that moment was a pivotal point in our conversation. But, as I had already, if only half-consciously made the choice of where we might to go with this, I tried to change the mood.

“Oh no Mother”, I said softly, but with a grin. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. I had a lot of fun, and a great deal of pleasure thinking about you and your wonderful body!”. I wondered what she would say ... which way she would take the conversation now. I think I even held my breath for a moment.

For a while she was silent, looking at me. I met her eyes, but trying not to hide the glint that was now beginning to grow in them.

At last she whispered “So you thought about me when you masturbated?”

I nodded. “Always”, I said.

Another pause, and then she said gently, “And mummy never knew ...”

Something in the way she said the word ‘mummy’ sent an electric thrill through my whole body.

“And what did you do to me in your fantasies?” she asked at length.

“Well ... “I began, and faltered.

“Tell me”, she whispered softly. “Tell mummy ...”, and I felt my erection leap uncontrollably at the word.

What was she doing? Where were we going? Did I want to go there?

She laid her hand on my knee, very softly and whispered. “Tell me John ... Johnny... it will do you good ... it will do us both good.”

And suddenly I knew without a shadow of doubt that wherever it was I did want to go there ... that I wanted to go there very much indeed!

III

After a long, highly-charged, silence I began to answer her last question.

“In one of my fantasies I learn the art of hypnosis ... and I test it on you ...”

She lent back into her armchair and rested her hands back on her waist. I glanced at her face and saw the beginnings of a long slow smile starting to caress her lips.

“Oh yes ...”, she murmured.

“Yes,” I replied. “I would take you into a deep hypnotic trance ... and then make you do all sorts of things for me.”