Back From College Pt. 02

"Shame, I could use the money. House needs some real refurbishing."

"Who says you'd get it? I earned it."

"But I suggested the idea, just now."

"That's not how patent law works. You can't suggest something and get a cut forever."

"What if I suggest you stay at home a month? We don't bring New York forward?"

"OK then mom." I agree to it, then close my eyes. We're going through some turbulence and I like to be relaxed as possible. When we're about to land I'm jolted awake and I realize: for an hour I was asleep on mom's right shoulder.

"How long was I out for?"

"Too long, you missed the best scenery."

"As usual."

The plane lands, we get off, and another cab takes us home. It's easier now with mom. We seem friendlier, less awkward. If this is how our future is to go I'm happy with it. No tension, just another friend like Tara or Laura.

As we take our luggage in I go to my room. Just like I did when I first came home from college. Mom tells me: "dinner in two hours, it's that chilli chicken you like."

"Thanks."

I check Instagram and there's more pictures of Tara along with her boyfriend. Apparently they went to an exclusive club the postgrads run, one I was never invited into. Must be twenty new photos on her profile, all hammering it home that they are loved up, all with a hundreds likes and hearts for comments. OK social media is bad for you. I get off. I download some past papers of the bar exam and begin studying.

I hear a shout: "sweetie dinner's ready." I'm hungry, I run down the stairs to the kitchen and I see something I never imagined.

My mother is there, the chilli chicken is there, but my mother is wearing something I never thought she'd know exists. It's lingerie that looks like bondage gear. A black, nearly see-through basque with straps barely covering her nipples. Strips holding it up around her neck. Chains connecting the straps to what look like handcuffs around her arms. Black high-heels and opaque stockings.

I'm open-mouthed, not knowing whether to run away, ignore it, or say something. Eventually I say something.

"Mom you look. Well you look, I've not seen you like that."

She's silent as she walks towards me. I can push her away now, like in the hotel room. She anticipates that I might, keeping her arms folded around her.

"You going on a date?" I ask. It's absurd but the only other explanation is she's about to leave with a dominant man.

"Stay here, first date at home?" What does that mean? She's asking me to date her?

"Me and you?"

"Darling. You've had no luck with men. I've had no luck with men. We argue but, I love you."

She's close like in the hotel now, she lets her arms down.

"I love you too mom but I'm your girl, your daughter."

"One night then? Like last time?"

"Can I have some chicken?"

I sit down at the kitchen table, and she sits down next to me. I knew she tried to stay friends, and didn't push me away like I pushed her. And I occasionally wondered but never quite knew if she still felt attracted to me, like we did that night. Now I know. It's obvious. My mother lusts for me, desires me, and wants our relationship to become sexual again.

I cut myself some chicken legs. I need to talk it out first.

"Mom, firstly, is this why you've not been trying to date?"

She nods.

"Ok I mean, I guess for me too you know I've rejected a few guys, and some girls too but mainly guys. I rejected them and like, in my head they just don't happen to be right for me. But maybe you know, I guess, maybe I'm comparing."

She takes some chicken herself and says: "me too sweetie. One guy was lovely. Gentlemanly, sweet, reminded me of your dad. He wanted to commit. Why the hell, honest to God why didn't I just say yes and be settled again? Married again? I remembered being with your dad, I remembered that night with you and something just told me: it's not going to be as good."

"After four years we're still in the same boat as each other." I tap her arm as I say this. I'm getting used to this again, showing some physical affection. But it needs to be at the right pace.

"So we kinda ruined each other." Mom says with a laugh, eating a mouthful of chicken.

"Like I doubt if you go on Amazon, at the relationships self-help section, there's many books on how mothers and daughters can be a successful couple." We laugh, our situation is comically ridiculous and we know it. I think of Simon, of some of the Hinge matches I briefly saw on mom's phone, and I realize beyond doubt now: both of us are turning down good guys because in truth we want each other.

We finish our chicken. "Can I show you something?" Mom asks. I nod, she turns off the kitchen light, and takes from the cupboard some candles. She lights them and from the fridge brings out a homemade chocolate mousse.

"Imagine this is a restaurant. Our first romantic dinner. Let's eat this as a couple. Just for tonight."

We take a spoon each, and keep eating. It's delicious mousse. My mom always was an excellent cook. But I keep admiring her in her sexy clothing. In her mid-forties, she is looking well. Forehead has some wrinkles, but her face maintains the cuteness that attracted men when she was younger. Her figure, as much as I can notice through the basque, has some middle-aged body fat but distributed so it suits her. Her legs look strong enough to wrap around her prey.

This mix is, I think, what would attract me in anyone. That mix of maternal caring - enough flesh to lie on and be soothed by - and tasty curves. She has it. Is it my mother I want, or just an older woman? Should I try looking for somebody like her? But why, I've got her now. Why keep searching when the form that makes me thrilled is here, and is feeling mutual desire for me.

We get to the last bit of the mousse. Mom scoops it up first, and offers her spoon to me. I take it and as I'm swallowing she kisses my lips. It's good, she's wearing a pink lipstick with a sweet peony scent. Or maybe that's the perfume she has on. Either way, the look, the smell, the taste of her lips - they're all gorgeous to me.

"So our first dinner date," I say to end the meal. "You know at least in movies, when they finish dinner someone asks 'your place or mine?' But we're already living in the same place."

"Although I owe you. Last time we actually did it in your room, so it's my turn."

It all seems ready. I like my mom sexually, I'm accepting that now. She clearly likes me in that way too. But I still want to know how we proceed, how we figure things for the future.

"So how are we going to work? I get not going on the apps anymore, but if we were actually to be, like, girlfriends, how would we manage it?"

"I haven't planned anything. I just wanted to know if you still liked me, or if that night would stop us ever being close again."

I kiss her briefly on the lips. "Yeah I do like you mom, so much. And I love you, know that. If I've been cold or, difficult, it's just cos as I said, there's no rules for this situation."

"I know, I guess we wouldn't be able to do the normal things. Like Valentine's, we can't just go to a restaurant like the other couples."

"It's gonna be hard." I say it with disappointment.

"We're crazy here aren't we?"

"Do we need like, separate psych wards?"

"What would happen if we were trapped in the same psych ward?" I like this version of my mom. Feels like she could be my age, be a date. The age difference, the family thing, sometimes she can disarm it.

"You'd be fine, you could pull off the hot cougar look in a straitjacket."

We laugh again.

"Sweetie we are crazy. You're right the whole idea of us, being an us, it's not something I can really imagine."

"OK mom. Well thanks for dinner. It was delicious as always."

"Alright I'm probably gonna have an early night. Relax then unpack tomorrow."

"Sure." She gets up, turns round, and I notice her ass in the lingerie. It's good. I can't resist. I pinch it. She turns round.

"Did I give you permission?"

"I need to ask?"

"Only girlfriends are allowed my butt."

"But you don't have a girlfriend."

"Then noone is touching my butt."

I smile and pinch it again.

"What did I just say?" my mom asks, in a telling you off voice I heard too many times as a child.

I stand up. I place both hands on her ass, the ass that's barely covered by her clothing.

"Thanks for the lovely dinner date," I kiss her. We kiss hard. I pinch her ass harder and she grabs my back to pull me into her. We keep our tongues together for... Well I can't say exactly but it feels long enough to cover the four years we were apart. Our tongues together melt the blockages in my heart that I built up to guard myself from her.

The kiss ends, and I tell her: "You owe me a night at your place." She smiles, and takes me upstairs by the hand. We get there, she lights some candles and I say: "you can keep that on for a minute."

I undress, and sit up fully naked on her bed. She kneels on it, and crawls towards me, sitting up over me and pressing her hands down on my shoulders. Her legs straddling my sides, we kiss again.

I want her very close to me, so I pull my mother down onto my body. Her head on my left breast, her body between my legs, I think quickly how we can take this forward.

"I'll see you every chance I can. Come to NY whenever, I'll head here during leave. No dating others. We'll hide it, but any chance we get we'll make love."

"Ok baby. You know, I've loved you so fiercely since I first felt you kick. I just think, who else to spend my life with? You're the one I've loved, you're the one I can now be loved by."

We kiss, and I undo her basque to get to her naked skin. We pull down her stockings and sit up, the two of us, no clothes just heat and affectionate passion between us. I check her out again. The lust I felt earlier returns. There's something sexually alluring about that mature woman. Softer flesh communicating safety and unconditional warmth. I have the best of everything. A woman that I'd fancy regardless, but with her in particular I know how her heart is one of perfect love and absolute goodness. Love focused on me, from a person who will always care and bleed for me.

I climb on her and let her relax back down. We kiss, and I rub my clit on hers. She moans, I moan, but I remember that night. I owe her.

I go down, kiss and suck her clit. I put two fingers inside her, and with my other hand reach her left nipple. Everything now is focused on pleasuring her. I suck, run my tongue around her clit. Press on the top of her vaginal walls. Squeeze a nipple and squeeze again. As I continue it's like the years we've had together are making sense. Of course there was childish misbehaving, of course there was teenage rebellion, of course there was awkwardness after our first time.

But now there is only love. It's ironic, after searching across states for somebody right, in my first and best love I found the one for me.

She cries out, and I feel a rush of fluid over my fingers and reaching my neck. She's cum, and she motions with her hand to pull away from there. It's enough, she's satisfied. Her face is glowing brightest crimson. Her smile - I don't want that smile ever to leave. I've been a good daughter finally - I've been a daughter who's loved her mother and brought her to bliss.

I move my pussy up to her face. I want to feel it from her. I kneel in-between her mouth and as I hold the headboard she licks. It doesn't take long. I build up, I moan, I cry for more, and as I release the tension we've held in since graduation, I send my waters over her. I don't usually squirt like this. No man's ever made me soak. But the juice that comes out, it goes over her entire head, down her neck, reaches her breasts and trickles to her navel.

I lie back, and I suddenly notice I'm protective of her. It must be hard being the selfless one always. Sacrificing and worrying about someone who too often responds with rudeness. We're to have a healthy, giving, equal relationship now. So I lick my juice off her face, pull her towards the pillow and hold her close on my chest. Our hearts beating fiercely, our breath eventually calms.

"How was it for you, girlfriend?" I ask her.

"My new title?" she replies with a smile.

"Any others you'd like?"

"I mean, it's usually been mom, sometimes 'ok', sometimes 'shut up'." We laugh hard, this moment has ended forever the blocks between us. "So you don't like 'Friend With Benefits'?"

"No," I'm not giving any snark now. The time calls for vulnerability. "This is real love. You're my mother and my girlfriend, my partner. You'd be my wife if the government let us."

"Darling really? I like wife."

"Just between us then. I, Grace, take you Siobhan to be my wife. I promise to love you and keep you as long as we both shall live."

"And I Siobhan, take you, my beloved daughter Grace, to be my wife. I will, I promise, love you, keep you, protect you, as long as both you and I shall live."

"Where do you want to go on honeymoon? It's gonna be a delayed honeymoon but we can make plans."

"I've not thought. With your dad there wasn't one, we were busy sorting his visa."

"How about Macchu Picchu?"

"Yes, it's always been on my list."

"Alright, well let's make plans. But for tonight, let's simply be newlyweds."

We kiss again. Newlyweds. Girlfriends. Lovers. Wives. What do they do on their wedding night? I think they do what I'm about to do to her.