Amnesia

"Didn't we just go through this bit? I know I need to say it and believe me, I mean it. I was--"

"Mum! No, it's me who needs to say it!"

"Oh don't blame yourself for my silliness!"

Ben shook his head again, "You weren't silly, you were drunk. I was the fuckwit! Sorry, I mean idiot."

"Ben... no. The fuckwittery was all mine," I hoped my use of the word, more or less, would reassure him that for once I wasn't upset by his use of bad language; that the circumstances of my stupidity were more important just now, "I've been a moron I know, I and I just hope that you can forgive me--"

"Actually," he interrupted me without a thought, it seemed, "Actually I wasn't an idiot in one respect but in the other... oh, mum, I really am so sorry!"

"Ben, my angel, don't punish yourself for not stopping me from making a fool of myself. I don't even remember who it was..." I trailed off as Ben's suddenly quizzical look took on a confused and, I have to admit it, plain scared aspect. My mind started to turn in a whole new direction.

"You don't remember, mum?"

"No, Ben." I looked into those familiar eyes, wondering quite suddenly what was going on behind them. Was I really starting to think straight? Warped, but straight? I could almost see my son's thoughts, his frantic reasoning. I couldn't quite bring myself to believe it, but I suddenly felt sure that he was thinking that he needn't have said anything to me and I would have been none the wiser. But he would never have been sure would he? Rightfully so, maybe because my memories might have returned. Just as they were returning a little now. I shook my head but it wouldn't clear as the white noise inside me began to grow and grow. "You offered to help me inside, didn't you?"

Ben shrugged, flapped his hands uselessly, nodded.

I remembered now. Remembered his strong arms around my waist, guiding me up the stairs. Remembered my surprise at how strong those arms were, how well-muscled my son had become. My heart lurched as the next memory hit me. "You helped me in here, didn't you? Into my bedroom?"

I watched as Ben's eyes almost rolled in their sockets, his colour high and rising. Another nod.

My mind really was spinning as the next memory crashed over me. I remembered slumping against him, more closely than I had any need to do, in my drunken state aroused -- maybe playfully aroused -- at the sensation of a strong young man against me. And then another... "Oh god! Oh Ben, I did, didn't I? I asked you to help me undress?" The wall that had held back the memories crashed down and I almost shrieked. I never let Ben speak or rather, if he did then I didn't listen, just spilled the recollections from me in a garbled rush as they made themselves shockingly known to me.

"I did. And you asked me if I was sure, really sure and I said I was. I sometimes get so fucking horny when I'm a bit pissed but you never knew that, did you? But I said I was and you helped me sit right here, right on the bed and you leaned over me and you slid the zipper of my dress down my back and helped me stand so it slid right off me and there I was in knicks and bra and fuck-all else and I could see it, you know? I could see how my body in the lace was turning you on, how your eyes were fixed on my nipples underneath the lace of my bra and I got so fucking hot. Oh my god I was so hot and so pissed and that's no fucking excuse but I wanted you to see them and that's why I asked you to undo the bra." I gulped but didn't slow down, the memory of how stupid I'd been spinning my brain in my skull, "And that bra was off in seconds and there I was standing there with my naked tits right in front of you and all it did was get me hotter yet and it was me, wasn't it? It was me that started to pull the knickers down as well, and you went to help me, didn't you? You were shaking like a leaf but you wanted to see my pussy so badly you leaned down and oh fuck, Ben, I leaned in to you, pushed my tits up against you, didn't I? Wanted to feel your face against them. Holy fuck Ben I was so drunk! I put your hands on them didn't I? Wanted you to feel how hard my nipples were, how turned on I was. And, oh no, oh fuck! I told you I was soaking wet, horny beyond words, grabbed one of your hands and put it... oh fuck, put it against my pussy, told you to feel it, feel my cunt!"

I gasped then as full realisation hit me -- hard. Underneath the duvet, I put one hand against my womanhood, remembering the stains that had decorated it and my thighs. My eyes must have grown as wide as dinner plates when I made that final link.

I didn't care that I was naked -- he'd fucking seen it all anyway, hadn't he? -- I just pushed the duvet back and leapt to my feet. That time Ben did look down briefly and a flash of something that was nothing to do with a son's natural look at his mother passed over his features. I drew back my right hand and let go with the hardest punch I had ever thrown in my life.

To his credit, Ben was up from where he'd landed on the floor before I could follow the haymaker punch with a kick -- my father had taught me well -- and he was out of the door with my cries of rage ringing in his ears.

*****

After wrapping my throbbing knuckles in a tea-towel full of ice, my invaded body in a protective robe, and my thoughts in whisky, I sat myself at the kitchen table once more. Ben had, fairly naturally, disappeared from the house and it took me three tumblers of the fiery liquid before I could even start to think.

The rage had subsided and a part of my troubled mind kept reminding me that it was my own actions that had precipitated everything -- Ben was only twenty and for sure, he should never have succumbed to my actions, but there again... and there was my problem. Perhaps I'd been too much to refuse? I know I'd been precipitously aroused, pushy even -- that wouldn't be unusual -- and even if the right and proper thing to do would have been to have dumped me in my room and ignored me, well... perhaps I was hitting him at a vulnerable moment?

Perhaps I was full of shit. He should never have taken advantage of me like that, drunk. Any woman drunk, come to that. Or maybe... I downed another whisky.

My hand was throbbing and while one part of me was almost crowing that he had it coming, deserved every bit of pain I had caused, another, darker, part of me tried to interrupt that he had had me coming. Judging by the stains, I'd sure had him coming!

A vague and distant tremor deep inside made me pause for thought even further. All the while I had been raging about my disgusting son's actions in taking advantage of me, but was I being right? Hadn't it been me taking advantage of Ben? How could he have refused me what I wanted? I must certainly have turned him on enough to have a great deal of fun with him -- the soreness told me all I needed to know about that -- and if he'd thought in the crazed minutes when it all started that maybe I was so drunk I wouldn't remember, or that he'd never get another chance...

But no! No, I was being stupid beyond words and my son, my own flesh and blood, had... he'd taken advantage of me. He'd touched me, he'd... my own son had fucked me! It didn't matter that I might have been -- okay, I was -- asking for it, quite literally, he still should have denied me...

I was alternating between moronic giggles and remorseful, then angry tears. It should never have happened! It would change everything. How could I have wanted it that badly? How could I have wanted a young, muscular, attractive guy like...

I was on my sixth or maybe seventh whisky and this time I couldn't deny the tiniest thrill that coursed deep inside me. Sure it was wrong of him -- but maybe understandable. It was me that had been definitely wrong so why the fuck had I reacted so nastily when he finally returned?

Oh yes, because I was a woman and he should have shown respect whatever my state of inebriation, that's why!

I almost dropped the glass when I said, out loud to the empty kitchen, "Jush wiss I could member more bout it!" I giggled, gasped, and screwed the top back on the whisky bottle in a sudden panic.

I somehow doubted I would see my son again that night -- maybe that month -- and wasn't unhappy about that just then. If anything I was more confused than when I'd started to think and drink. Or even than when I'd come home drunk at the weekend.

I took myself off to bed.

*****

Two days passed and there was still no sign of Ben, and apparently none of his friends had seen him either -- or were admitting to it. I started out thinking he would just be cooling off and would be back before long, but then I got to wondering if he thought that maybe I had taken my anger to other authorities or that he was maybe just too scared or embarrassed to return while I was around. His phone was still going straight to voicemail, but I left a few voice and text messages. They started with me asking him politely to come home and talk, graduated through pleading, and by the second evening were reduced to the three simplest words I could think of. I love you.

For all my confused thinking -- shifting the blame from me to Ben faster than a tennis ball travels from one side of the net to the other in a men's professional tennis match -- I was starting to think that what had happened was the product of both my bad behaviour and the natural state of easily aroused young men everywhere. An aberration, a freak of circumstance, something to be deplored, and yet something that was in some way understandable.

Or was I just making excuses for him as usual?

Or maybe for me?

By the Sunday afternoon I was no wiser and seemingly no closer to having a son back in residence. Dressed in a ratty old t-shirt and an equally ratty skirt, I started on a fresh bottle of whisky at an abnormally -- I promise -- early hour in the afternoon and could do nothing other than sip drinks and watch far more insipid television programmes. The apparently endless whirling of my few remaining brain cells had reduced to the occasional flat-footed lap of my skull and the heat and whisky were sending me ever closer to an early evening slumber when the front door squeaked open with an almost apologetic whine.

My somnolence disappeared in a fraction of a second and I was on my feet and calling Ben's name before he got to the living room door where he stood with his head bowed. I stopped, suddenly terrified of terrifying him.

"Ben? Angel? I've been trying to call you for days -- to say sorry and to say you're more than welcome here -- so very much more than."

My son raised his head, shrugging an acknowledgement to the wince I gave at the sight of the still livid bruise around his left eye, "I kinda got that message from your calls, mum. And really there's no need for you to apologise. That should be me."

"Come here," I opened my arms and he tentatively accepted my embrace, his body rigidly upright in mine, his arms tight against his sides even as I hugged him. "Please tell me you're home for good?"

I felt his nod before he added, "As long..." He took the longest deep breath, "As long as we can just clear the air. Now."

I released him and stood back "Of course. And trust you to be more grown up about things than me, Of course we need to clear--"

"Mum, please! This is hard enough as it is!"

"Okay, okay, sorry. Go on then, angel." I held my breath.

It took him a few seconds to start, and I could see that he was going over words that he must have already rehearsed a hundred times.

"Mum, you must know what happened and maybe you know why, but maybe not. Sure I'd seen you a bit p... drunk before but it seemed different last weekend." For some weird reason, it calmed me, a calmness that broadened as he began, no matter how unworldly it all seemed. "When you asked me to help you upstairs that was all it was to me, I swear, but then... then you seemed so different when we were actually going up... it's so hard to explain."

"You're doing great so far," I told him, partially because I had remembered just that sensation, and partially because I wanted him to keep going.

He gulped some air down and managed to actually look at me briefly before continuing, "Well when we got in your room and you were... you asked me to help with the dress... I just can't explain why I did what I did. You always look great when you dress up and go out, but last weekend I'd already seen you on the way to the cab and, well, you really looked so great."

I raised an eyebrow, surprised and trying hard not to feel delighted by my son's words. After all...

"Mum, I haven't ever thought of you that way before!" He took a deep breath, "Sexually, I mean. But... but I have to say this. I need me to say this. But you looked so... sexy and, and there you were asking me to help you out of that dress and, and then you were standing there in that tiny little bra and panties set and, and--"

Ben's voice was getting faster and faster and I could see his admission was taking its toll on him regardless of the amount of rehearsal time he'd spent, "Ben, it's okay!"

"No, mum, no! Let me finish. I know -- really, truly, completely know -- that I should have just left when you said to unhook your bra but I was just so fucking turned on -- sorry, so very turned on -- that I just had to do it. I could see your nips through the bra and although I've peeked down your tops and stuff like most teenage guys do I'd never seen you that close and I just wanted it so much and, and then you tried to get your panties off I lost it! Lost control. I wanted to see it all and, fuck it I wanted to touch and you didn't even seem that pissed any more but maybe that's just wishful thinking and, and I tried to help and you pressed against me and your t... boo... br..."

"Tits," I said without thinking, "Best word for me."

Ben nodded, seemingly thanking me, "Yeah well, when you pressed against me and your tits were in my face and I... your panties slid down and you were naked, that was like the last moment I had to pull away, my last chance. And I know I should have, but... oh mum, I wanted you to take things further so I could make the excuse and say I was just doing what you wanted and then you put my one hand on your tits and the other... the other..."

"My pussy," I whispered.

"The other on your pussy, yes, oh fuck mum you were so hot, so wet. I know it was wrong, totally, but mum I wanted it all then. I wanted to touch your tits, feel your pussy, I wanted to suck you, kiss you. Mum! I just wanted so very, very much, all of you!"

My mind was almost numb, "You wanted all of me. To fuck me, yes?"

"Yes, yes! To fuck you... To put my... hardness in you. Mum, I wanted all of that and -- I don't care whether you believe this or not -- mum, I wanted to make love to you as well!"

My jaw dropped as my arms opened wide.

Ben almost pitched himself into those arms, the word 'sorry' cascading from his lips even as I started to stroke his hair and say the words that every mother gets so used to from when their offspring are tiny: "There, there, angel. It's okay."

My son's shoulders heaved as he sobbed against my neck and I dragged him back to the sofa, sitting him next to me without breaking contact, without stopping my comforting words. My mind was back to its whirling best. I broke off from the 'there, there' refrain for long enough to ask, softly, "Did I ask you to make love to me?"

Through his sobs, Ben shook his head, "You just said that you wanted me... in you."

"That I wanted you to fuck me?"

He nodded, "Yeah."

"And you wanted to do that and wanted to... make love to me as well?"

Another nod, another "Yeah."

"You told me you loved me over and over, didn't you?" The memory was fuzzy, but present, and my heart was flipping, somersaulting, its rate doubling as I received a third nod, "Do you realise I've just remembered something?"

"Wh-what?"

The memory crashed through me with a vivid clarity that almost had me gasping, "I know you did, and I loved hearing that but thought if I said the same back then... it would change things. That maybe we could get away with that one drunken fling as something... just purely physical if I never said anything about love..." My mind was supplying all of the details that had been missing all week and it was both terrifying and exhilarating, "If... if I just made out that it was fucking pure and simple -- hah -- to satisfy my needs then we could get over it, forget about it. If you didn't want to know me like that afterwards then neither of us would lose any sleep--"

"Mum, no!" Ben shocked me by lifting his head from my shoulder and shaking it furiously from side to side, his hair flapping wildly, "It's not that way at all! I've been thinking all week I fucked things up totally, that it really was just you wanting a cock, any cock... but, if you..."

I held my hand up, then said, slowly, "Ben... I'd blanked this from my mind, but it's true. That's what I felt. I've never really thought about you in any way other than as my boy, my little Ben, but... last weekend a light came on. It was when we were going up those stairs through there," I nodded towards the hallway, "Then it all came through fully formed -- fears as well. And that makes me all the more sorry for hitting you."

Ben's mouth was opened in an incredulous circle. He snapped it shut and shook his head as if to clear it. "It seemed like it was something that had been hidden from me -- by me -- as well. And then there it was."

"Didn't you used to call those the 'magic' stairs?"

Ben risked a half smile, "Yeah. And they seemed pretty magic last Saturday."

He stared at me to see if he had taken a step too far. If he had, I didn't care right then, "You know something? I'm not disagreeing."

My son's eyes switched from me to the door to the hallway and I could tell that he wanted to say something but didn't have quite that much nerve. My mind did it's by-now-usual whirl and I blanked my logic circuits long enough to say, "Want to call it a night now and show me the way to bed again before this whisky gets me too pissed?"

Ben's switching eyes locked onto mine, "You mean..."

"Ben, angel, I'm not sure what I mean," I gave my son a tremulous smile, "But I think it's something to do with wanting to show you -- and me -- what I was repressing so heavily last weekend. You sure you're okay with that?"

He shot to his feet, trying to drag me with him, "More than you could ever imagine, mum."

I let his hands pull me towards the door and then guide me onto the stairs. His right arm snaked around my back and it was like an electric shock to the memory circuits as I recalled in precise detail the strength that I had felt just the weekend before. My doubts disappeared, to be replaced by a sensation that was ninety per cent desire and ten per cent thrill at the thought of a barrier that was going to be broken. And not broken again because this time I was fully aware of my actions.

We clattered awkwardly up the stairs, awkward because each step was taken faster than the last to the point where we almost ran the last few feet from the top of the stairs to my room. Once inside there was a pause as my son, my gorgeous Ben, stared at my old t-shirt, clearly wondering if I was about to change my mind.

I grabbed the front hem of the garment just below the faded picture of, appropriately enough, Lois Griffin, and pulled it a little away from my stomach, offering it to my boy -- my Family Guy. He took a long shuddering breath and put his hands beside mine.

Together we pulled the t-shirt up and over my head -- together so that he knew this was on my terms, acceptable to me, desired by me -- and I stood there in that ratty skirt, a decent white cotton bra all that stood between nakedness and my son's even more eager eyes. I watched them closely as they roved over my body, watched a small fire start to grow inside them, the lust and longing taking flame.