An Epic Novel

Note to self:

Let's see, I've started typing this out on the laptop at home with the intention of writing a debut novel -- I'll throw out a few ideas as they come to me and see if I can't come up with something vaguely appealing -- hah! I'm sorry, but this sounds so ridiculous even as I'm typing it in. I mean I'm doing this because my Uni professor in English proposed it as a way of starting things off -- the first tentative steps in a hundred-mile journey, so to speak.

Write about what you know, Alan, he said. But I don't know anything. Okay, that's not quite true, I mean, I got into university so I must know something, mustn't I? Yeah. They're not the things that go into a novel, though. What goes into a novel are the trials and tribulations of real life's obstacles and how they're overcome (happy ending) or not (tragedy).

Well, reader (me, for now...), that's a start, I suppose. So tomorrow (set myself a timetable?) I'll build on this incredibly weak preamble and, perhaps, come up with a few solid ideas.

Must try harder.

But I'm trying! It's just, well, I just need something to concentrate my mind while trying to write. In the old days, you remember you could chew on your pencil while watching the clouds float by o'er vales and hills outside the window. You really can't do that with a laptop, there's nothing to chew on. Maybe the flash drive? Wow, now there's an idea -- an edible flash drive. Not edible as such -- I mean, that'd defeat the whole purpose...unless you were a spy, of course. No, the sleeve of the flash drive could come in different flavors...interchangeable for the hesitant future would-be writer. Nicotine flavor?

Stop it, your mind is wandering again. Okay then, concentrate. Let's get back to basics. I'm trying to write a story -- let's see, probably one that is light but dramatic? Romantic but not slushy? Sexy but not trashy, and...why am I pacing my room, like an expectant father? Inspiration is what I need, so let's see...sexy? Well, my Mum's sexy, but you're right I really shouldn't go there. Who else is sexy? Besides the long list of movie stars of course, I mean, I want to keep it real...

Now that I've mentioned 'sexy', I suppose I'd better hide this file away in a deep folder inside another deep folder somewhere so that Mum doesn't come across it accidently. She's not computer-challenged, to put it in politically-correct phraseology, she's simply disinterested and only uses the laptop to access her emails. Even those are not very hot (yes, I've been through them -- I mean, wouldn't you if the account was left open out there on the table for all to see?) So, no secrets there. She seems to actually lead quite a boring life even though she's pretty. Why? I dunno, don't ask me...

Still, I should be careful -- I mean, I've already used the word 'sexy'; how long will it be before I start to use words like 'orgasm' or 'cunnilingus' or those other words I used to look up surreptitiously in the dictionary (I still think it strange how the dictionary in the public library used to seem to fall open at these pages...). Alright then, this SEXY little piece will go into the folder I use for 'those' pics I like to keep to myself.

I'm all a-tremble.

Mum has just brought me some ointment (?) and a cup of coffee and said I seem a bit worried, and stroked my hair.

Well, I am trembling.

You'll see why when I take you through it. You'll remember (well, it was only yesterday, duh...) I was looking for things to inspire me to write something perhaps along the sexy line?

I've admitted Mum is pretty. If I wasn't her son I'd say she's probably the hot fantasy of most of the men in our street. The hypnotic sway of her ass as she sashays down the road in clothes which might try but fail miserably to hide her curvaceous full body probably ignite a simmering jealousy in all those unfortunate wives who suffer badly by comparison. But she seems quite oblivious to the effect she has on others. Anyway, I'm her son, so let's keep it on the straight and narrow and say she's pretty (...and pretty hot - sorry, couldn't resist it).

So with a curious feeling about this enigma that is my Mum, I found myself drawn to her bedroom in search of inspiration. It was still early afternoon and she wouldn't be back from work until later, I'd have enough time to enter her inner sanctum and root around for... whatever.

I know, I know -- you're saying, 'Well it didn't take him very long to go from planning a sequel to a Tolstoy novel to rooting around in his Mum's knicker drawer'. Remember I'm still in the planning stages here and, after all, even Anna Karenina must have worn some kind of underwear occasionally when she wasn't doffing it under the noses of appreciative cavalry officers.

A lady's bedroom is another world. Apart from the heady scents which make you feel giddy and light-headed, and the various ointments and unfathomable unguents which share any and all available horizontal surfaces with endless shades and thicknesses of makeup, there is a sense that you are making an unforgivable intrusion into her private space, and that entry is strictly by invitation only.

But in my defence, I'm young and therefore irresponsible.

As I delved into Mum's panty drawer and was hooking out various frilly items, noting in passing that they included a black suspender belt, and holding them up to the light to see to what degree they were see-through, there was a sudden rattling of the front door and a bang as it closed behind "Oohee, Alan? It's me -- you home yet?" my mother.

If I'd had a spare half hour or so to solve the problem, I might have gone onto something like Twitter and typed, 'Hey. Got a problem and need quick advice...' and then taken the best reply as the most suitable solution to my quandary.

As it was, this was a WTFOMG?!? moment.

I could a) shout out, "Yeah, I'm in your bedroom perving your knickers!" resulting in immediate homelessness and ostracization from respectable society, or

b) close the drawer, exit the room which Mum will see me coming out of and have a maximum of about four seconds to come up with some lame excuse before breaking down and pleading for mercy in a flood of tears, or

c) do what I did, which was to quickly close the drawer and scoot myself under her bed while drawing my legs up to my chest and praying to everything that is sacred that she wouldn't notice me. I'd seen it work on stage in many a farce, so...

Yeah, you're quite correct. Within the space of a couple of minutes my projected literary masterpiece had sunk from high art down through cheap fap material to finally rest in the stinking cesspit that is low farce. Go figure.

So there I was under the bed and there were Mum's legs in a down-to-the-knees-length dress, nylons and three-inch heels pointing towards me. She'd called again a couple of times while making her way upstairs, and the sound of my bedroom door opening and closing told me she was doing the rounds and ascertaining that she was indeed alone in the house.

From five feet or so above her trim ankles, she let out a deep sigh and flipped her shoes off in my direction, narrowly missing my head. I couldn't very well shout out, 'Oi! Watch where you're kicking those things!' She'd have had a heart-attack.

Then the hem of her skirt defied gravity and rose up and out of sight, there seemed to be a bit of a wiggle while one leg was raised and then returned, bare, to the carpet. The same process was immediately followed with the other leg, and then her two bare, ruby-red toenailed feet were standing there side-by-side playing out some kind of rhythm on an invisible carpet keyboard.

Then followed the soft 'swish' of her bundled-up tan hose and white panties falling onto the bedroom carpet just in front of my nose. The fragile panties formed a cosy, frilly number eight shape, the kind they make you decipher on a webpage to check you're not a bot, nestling inside the dark brown cocoon of her tights. I was entranced (as well as still being scared shitless, of course...), but the spell was broken the very next moment by the depression of the mattress above me as Mum lay down on it. There were now mere millimeters between my head and the bed springs.

Nothing seemed to happen for a while as Mum seemed to bounce a little bit and adjust herself for comfort, pressing my ear down repeatedly as she did so. But then she emitted this low growl, a sound completely alien to anything I'd ever heard come out of her mouth until this moment. As it was still reverberating around the bedroom, the bed itself began to rock. Other noises emanated from her throat, some quiet, "Yeah, yeah, c'mon, c'mon...", some like steam escaping a burst pipe, "Oooooh, ohhhh, urrrhhh..." some screamed to the rafters, "Fuck me harder, you fucker, that all you got?! Oh God, if only you were black, now DO meeeee...DO me right up for fuck's sake..! umpf, umpf...That's it screw me senseless... you can have my ass as a reward!!...yeah, I thought you'd like that you dirty bugger..."

And the bed for its part did a tremendous job under the circumstances -- she was bucking, she was writhing, I could only imagine the contortions she was going through as she lifted her ass high in the air and then had it pounded back down only to lift it up again in anticipation.

Her screams and pleas were becoming more and more high-pitched as she approached a strangled cry to go down in history. "Aieeeooouuuh...!!" would be an approximation to what I heard -- but imagine that sound as it would be yodelled by someone who's just been bayonetted.

Then with a thump of her body back onto the bed, all became quiet except for Mum's gasping as she took in gulps of air.

What now?

The bed bounced again, only this time relatively gently, and there were Mum's feet once again, only this time pointed away from me. Then her flowery dress fluttered to the floor, followed a couple of seconds later by a white bra.

Mum's feet padded away towards her en-suite bathroom. My God, she must be totally naked! I only had a split-second to jut my head out from my hiding place and take in two lovely swings of her gorgeous pale ass before she entered the bathroom and swung the door shut behind her. Almost immediately there was the sound of rushing water as she turned on the shower and began to adjust the temperature and that was my signal to get the hell out of there.

I couldn't get back to my room quick enough, but, oh, she'd checked there, hadn't she? -- so I slid quickly on tiptoe down the stairs, quietly exited the house, pulled the front door gently to behind me and went off down the pub for half an hour to give what I estimated was a respectable amount of time and also to go over and make sense of what I'd just been through. As I sat over my pint, I rubbed my swollen ear. It had taken a thorough pounding up there in Mum's bedroom. Mum, my Mum, this gentle creature who is always ready to offer up a smile of assurance, of encouragement, this soft, pretty face that is one of the foundations of my whole being -- my Mum, wow, my lovely Mum­ is a slutty tigress!

So, a short while later, noisily re-entering the house, still rubbing my swollen ear, I encountered Mum sitting demurely in an armchair, legs crossed at the ankles and wearing fluffy pink slippers, perusing a magazine and sipping a cup of coffee.

"Hey, you."

"Hi, Mum."

"Why are you rubbing your ear?"

That flustered me straight off, and I garbled something about not looking where I was going and walking into a lamppost (Ha! Really? That the best you can come up with? You can see how I would have immediately crumpled under any form of interrogation earlier. Shine a torch in my eyes and, "Yes. I'm guilty, take me away, lock me up, throw away the key..." Weep weep...)

"That 'cause you're drunk? I can smell the alcohol on your breath."

"No, no. I met Luke on the way home and he persuaded me to go have a pint with him. He's got girl problems and wanted someone to talk to." (I think I'm getting better at this.)

"Luke? I can't believe he has problems with any girl. He's a hunk."

As she said this a small smile spread across her lips, and now I've just realized something I forgot to mention about him. He's black.

"Well even the best of us have our off-days."

"Mmm, I see you're including yourself in 'the best'. Does that mean your girlfriends haven't any cause for complaint? No, don't answer that, and just what is it with your ear? It looks like you've come out of ten rounds in the boxing ring. Come over here and let me have a closer look..."

I went over to where Mum was sitting and knelt down in front of her chair. She leant over to observe it closely, giving herself a better view and also giving me an equally good view down her neckline to find she hadn't bothered putting a bra back on after her shower. The tan-lines adorning her ass were now replicated low down across her breasts, just above her dark nipples. (What is this? Normally I would have averted my gaze out of respect, but now her whole body was like a magnet to me...) She blew on my ear and I winced. So then she gently licked it and that sent a quiver through me. The scent of her freshly showered body filled my nostrils.

"Ooh, it looks quite nasty, you sure you weren't squashed under a meat truck?"

Should I answer that? I didn't. It was hopefully a rhetorical question.

"I'll get some ointment to cool it down."

"Okay, well I'll be upstairs. I'm in the middle of this project I'm doing for English."

So I made my escape as quickly as possible, probably walking at an odd angle because of the boner I was trying to disguise.

Which brings us up to the present. Mum applied the ointment and dabbed some on my nose for good measure, served me a mug of coffee with some biscuits, again looked worried about the (mental?) state I was in, gave me a warm hug and kiss on the cheek and left me to my work and my reminiscing.

I'm not making much progress, am I?

How to continue?

Well, it's next afternoon. I spent last night in a fitful sleep. As you can imagine, a lot of things were swirling through my head. Strangely enough, it wasn't having to lie through a matinée performance of Mum's greatest fantasy, i.e. being shafted by a Big Black Cock, no. It was immediately afterwards when I watched her pale, smooth bum swing through that door. She's got an incredible bum! There are still vague bikini tan-lines around it from that scorcher we had last summer. You should have seen her in a bikini, wow...I'm only a poor English Lit student so I don't have the words to describe it (don't tell my professor...) -- but put it in the context of her slim waist and long, long legs and add the bit where it wiggled (winked?) at me as it went sauntering through the bathroom door and you'll begin to understand the passion stirring inside me.

As for the novel, ah yes, that epic novel... to get back to why I'm writing this in the first place, I'm now toying with elements of Madame Bovary, a wife enchanted with illicit romance (but, I think, without the agonizing death by arsenic...) together with elements of myself in a version of the young Holden Caulfield trying to come to terms with what is happening around him.

You (whoever you are) have not read this yet so you can't tell me whether to run with the idea or use it for fire-lighting.

I've just had an enforced break. Mum came in and asked could she use the laptop to send off some emails and family pics to an old school-friend. I duly signed out and placed this epistle safely into its assigned cubbyhole.

She must be a really slow typist (strange, because I know she types a lot at her job...) and it took her ages before she returned it to me. She was quiet when she handed it back. I asked was there any more of that ointment because my ear was still bothering me. She silently went and brought it, but instead of coming across to me and applying it lovingly to my ear, she flung the tube across the room from the doorway with a "Humpf!" and stalked out, leaving me nonplussed.

Hmm...

Okay then, it's now around forty-five minutes later and I'm still sitting here unable to continue writing. Why? Because I'm confused, conflicted, concerned, con... (add your own).

I can just see my professor getting all excited over this state of affairs --

"This is really marvelous, Alan. Now we're getting somewhere. Use it, Alan, let the turmoil show through in your writing..." and then the question, "What's the problem? Where's the problem? Why is there even a problem?"

It's my Mum.

"Your Mum's a problem? Do tell..."

Alright, you asked for it. My Dad died about four years back, and since then, my relationship with Mum has evolved into a sort of co-dependency, a kind of protective bubble for the both of us. (The professor's hanging on to my every word. Is that because he got a good look at Mum on Open Day last month and decided she's hot?) We've got each other's backs, so to speak, and I won't allow anything or anyone to hurt her. She for her turn dotes on me and I'll do anything not to disappoint her. Just now, this one act of her throwing the tube of ointment across at me and slamming the door behind her makes me feel I've done something unforgivable and I simply don't know what it is. It can't be the fact of me sneaking into her bedroom, which I regret and not just because I was almost caught, because she doesn't know about that.

I think it's simply that I'm in love with her. No, not as mother and son. It's difficult to explain these feelings. It's in everything. I find myself looking forward to her coming home from work in the afternoons so we can do things together, I love laughing with her, I love her in the morning when she's in the kitchen in her ratty housecoat and dishevelled hair, preparing me breakfast, I love secretly observing her break apart and hide her secret tears at some silly Rom-Com she's watching for the fifth time on the box. Those kind of moments are when I want to make her world better, to hold her close in my arms and hug her and kiss her and... maybe I should stop there?

I've got to laugh. I've just imagined my professor on the edge of his seat, tongue hanging out, urging me on, more, more, wanting the full dirty.

The fact is, there is no dirty.

I love my Mum with all my heart, but that's it. (Cue: disgruntled professor marking my paper 'Fail. And don't bother seeing me after class.')

Now I really am going down the pub.

You'll never guess...

...where I'm typing this from, the next day.

I'd stayed at the pub until Last Orders. A couple of mates had turned up, Luke one of them, girlfriend in tow, and we all had a good time. As usual, at some point, our bladders fit to burst, we all trooped off to the Gents to do our stuff. You don't think I was being too gay when I nonchalantly took a surreptitious gander at Luke's penis as we were standing there, do you? I mean, I had to see what all this kerfuffle was, about BBCs.

Okay, sigh, that's one up to Luke.

We all said goodnight and I turned down their offer of a late portion from the local chip shop and made my way slowly back home. I took my time because I was still trying to figure out how to repair whatever it was I had to repair in my relationship with Mum. And it was with a deep foreboding that I went through the garden gate, walked up the path which I wished were infinitely longer, and used my key to open the door to discover...

"Hi love! Great, you're just in time! I'm about to watch 'Notting Hill' on the box. Yeah, yeah, I know it must be about the sixth time I've seen it, but for some reason I feel like, tonight, it's really appropriate. D'you wanna join me on the couch?" and Mum expectantly held out a glass of red wine towards me.

I was dumbstruck for the moment. Not just because of the wine which, in retrospect, was the second glass she'd poured out, the first already sitting waiting on the low coffee-table, but the fact that she was wearing a diaphanous black negligee that was low, low cut at the front, obviously braless, and swirled down to her bare feet. Her hair was loosely up at the back, and the hand which wasn't offering me the glass was fiddling with a black satin bow which was the only thing holding the outfit together at her breasts.