Date Night with Mom

***

We walk another six blocks. We joke, we laugh, and we flirt all along the way. I tease her about being a secret pothead and she gives it right back saying that I sounded like her Dad and that I needed to loosen up. The free spirited young woman that spent that year in Europe was still in there and it was a joy to see her peeking out again. When we weren't chatting Michelle would hold me close and lightly hum "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" in time to the steady matching sway of our bodies. It was the nicest six block stroll I'd ever had.

Laura's house was a large old bungalow that had seen better days. The white paint was cracked and peeling and the shingled roof looked long overdue for repair. It was a nice place but it desperately needed some TLC.

I unlatch the waist high gate and swing it open for Michelle. She leads the way up to front porch. Both the screen door and inner door were currently propped wide open. The sounds of light adult contemporary music drifts out into the night from inside.

"Laura?" Michelle calls inside.

"Come in!" A reedy voice responds.

We walk in and quickly find ourselves in a shrine to decades gone by. The easy listening music along with the stereo it came out of was from the 80's, the furniture and shag carpets were straight out of the 70's, and the groovy hippy décor was pure 60's. The place was stifling, even hotter than outside, and the loud buzz of a large floor fan vibrated in the corner. The ceiling was close enough to touch with ease and the light from two huge elaborate mismatched lamps was low and yellow, giving the den the feel of a fire lit cave. There was no computer, no television, no sign of any sort of digital technology at all. Books sat in unsorted one to two foot stacks along the walls and between the furniture and there was a bundle of three rolled up yoga mats lined up beside us at the door. The place smelled of incense, weed, and freshly baked bread.

We hear some activity going on down the hall in the north corner of the room and head that direction. We enter into a bright cluttered kitchen and I could immediately see the source of the bread smell as three loaves sat cooling on a rack next to the oven. Across the room the back door was also propped open in an attempt to allow a breeze to flow through the house.

The woman I assume is Laura stood at the sink drying a handmade clay mug with a worn old cloth that looked older than me. She turns and gives us a sun-creased grin.

"Why Michelle! Would you look at you!" The woman says. "Looking good babe!"

Michelle straightens the hem of her dress. "He he, yeah, I'm on a date...with him." She thumbs my way. There was a subtle slur to her words though she tried her best to act sober, it didn't seem to bother Laura one bit. "Sorry to bother you so late."

"No bother at all. I can never sleep when the moon's so close." Laura says as if that was a normal thing to say. Her pale icy blue eyes shift to me.

Laura looked to be in her late fifties, though her tanned and wrinkled face made it hard to guess. She could be anywhere from fifty to her early eighties and it wouldn't surprise me. Whatever her age she looked in fine health. She was wiry and she stood and moved with a robust vigor. Her hair, which was held back in a simple pony tail, was the color of brushed steel and it stood out in contrast with her caramel sun spotted skin. She was small, about Michelle's height, but had a big energy about her. She wore a plain grey-blue cotton linen dress and had a flour dusted brown apron tied around her waist.

She gives me a good hard look up and down then says bluntly. "Well! You're a dashing young stallion."

I give her my most dashing smile.

"Can't be much older than your son." She adds.

Michelle glances nervously my way then answers. "He's mature for his age."

Laura squints her eyes, takes in a deep breath through her nose, then says. "Yessss. He is." She crosses her arms and studies me. "You...are an old soul and a very wise man. Inhibited though." She then gives my date a sidelong dart of her eyes. "I see why you called."

Michelle laughs as I look back and forth between them wondering if this was some sort of private joke between them.

"Uh...thanks, I think." I respond. "Good to meet you Laura, my name is..."

Michelle suddenly clears her throat and gives me a flash of her eyes. I quickly clue in. She'd just mentioned Michelle's son, she had surely heard his name mentioned somewhere along the line. There was nothing to be gained by inviting a comment on the identical name. I grasp for the first name that pops to my alcohol dulled mind.

"...Craig." I finish my statement.

My mother has to stifle at laugh at my use of my goofy roommate's name.

Laura looks suspiciously from one of us to the other. "Okayyy." We were busted. She knew it was a lie but she didn't know why we'd told it. Michelle and I both giggle like the tipsy fools we were.

I pause as Laura looks at me closely and takes my measure. She nods slowly, obviously approving of what she saw.

"These for me?" Michelle asks to break the scrutiny, motioning to the three spliffs sitting on the square green kitchen table.

"Yep." Laura nods without looking her way. She waves her hand. "Pay me next time."

"Thanks."

Laura comes around the table continuing to give me the eye even more closely. "You are creative. A reader, definitely. You have empathy. An artist? A...teacher? Hmmm."

I look to Michelle who just shrugs.

"I'm a man of mystery." I quip.

"Pffft!" Laura scoffs. She walks right up to me and feels my new silk shirt between two of her strong knobby fingers. She looks to Michelle. "The boy likes you."

"I hope so. He asked me out after all." Michelle giggles.

Laura's pale eyes narrow. "Did he now?" She looks back up at me with what I thought was a glare, instead she surprises me by reaching up and pinching my dimpled cheek like a grandma would. "Smart boy!" She pats my cheek with a calloused palm and backs away. "You figured out nature's second greatest joke. Good for you lad." I noted she was making a point out of not using the fake name I'd provided.

"Joke?" I ask.

She smiles and nods. "Aye, and a cruel one it is. The male libido blossoms in May, the female's in September. A whole season between them. As the woman's flower opens to her full bloom..." She gives me a puckish smirk. "...the man has begun to wilt."

I chuckle and puff up defensively. "No wilting here, I assure you."

She nods approvingly. "Atta boy." She looks to Michelle. "I expect you won't be staying for a visit."

There was some serious unspoken woman to woman communication going on right now between them in the few seconds they look at each other.

Michelle nods. "Nah, just long enough to get a cab. We should get going. We're still on our date."

"Here, take some bread with you." She doesn't wait for an answer. Turning she finds an old paper bag she had tucked in behind her spice rack, empties out old crumbs with a shake over the sink, then slips one of the still cooling loaves into it. She comes up to me and pushes it into my stomach.

I take the offering. "Uh, thanks."

"Yep." She says. She takes one last long look at me before proclaiming, her eyes focused around the loaf she'd given me. "Musician! You're a musician."

Off to my right I see Michelle's head snap her way, panic in my date's brown eyes. That had been way too close to the mark for her liking.

Keeping my cool I nod. "You got me."

The eccentric old gal takes my left hand and runs the tip of her finger over the hardened tips of mine. "You're a guitar player."

"Got me again." I lie.

Laura waggles a finger my way. "Ha! Man of mystery my wrinkled old rear end."

I chuckle as Michelle relaxes once more. Placing the joints into her hand bag she says. "Thanks for this Laura."

Laura gives her a wave. "Not a problem. You can see yourselves out."

Dialing the cab company Michelle heads out of the room.

"Nice to meet you." I say politely as I give Laura a nod of a goodbye.

"Hmmph, you too...Craig." The false name was bitter in her mouth but her tone was pleasant enough.

I turn to leave then pause and look back. "What's the greatest joke?"

"Hm?"

"Nature's greatest joke. What is it?"

Her wrinkly face brightens. "Armadillos." She replies directly. "You ever see one of those little buggers run on those teeny legs of theirs? HA! Silliest damn thing I ever saw."

I'd been expecting something puzzling yet wise and profound. The answer to the mystery of life wrapped in a bow of enigma. Instead I got Armadillos. Turns out Laura was just a daft old pothead after all.

With a plunder of three joints and a loaf of freshly baked bread Michelle and I make our way back out to the front stoop and sit hip to hip on the creaky old porch to wait for our cab.

Michelle leans into my shoulder with a bright laugh. "I thought we'd been made. Caught red handed. Ha ha ha ha! I feel like I'm in high school again, skipping class or something. Ha ha ha ha!"

I cannot help but laugh along with her, the joy was infectious. "I can't believe I said Craig!"

"Ha ha ha ha!" Our duet of laughter rings out into the quiet street beyond.

***

Michelle pulls one of the joints from her purse, brings it to her lips, then lights it up. Hers was a practiced hand. The intense and unmistakable sickly sweet aroma of pot instantly fills the air. She tosses the lighter back into the handbag, takes a deep toke, and hands me the spliff.

I take a long draw and hold it in my lungs as Michelle slowly relaxes and lets the smoke drift from her mouth and nose, a halo of white smoke hovered around her for a brief moment before gradually fading. I hold it down as long as I could. It tasted of earth, lime and pine needles. I try to let the smoke out as smoothly as my date had but I was not as experienced with this as she was and I soon find myself in the grips of a coughing fit. Michelle rubs my back and takes the joint back from me.

"Smooth!" I croak as my coughing jag finally subsides.

She giggles. She takes another long deep drag from the joint and passes it back. I was more prepared for the experience this time and take my toke with just a bit of wheezing and throat clearing. We sit quietly as we share the joint, each simply enjoying the physical presence of the other in this moment of sharing.

"Laura's quite a character."

"He he, yeah." Michelle croons blissfully.

"Good marketing mind." I joke. "Free loaf of bread with your reefer." I motion to the bag sitting off to my right.

My date giggles.

We settle once more into a pleasant shared quiet.

The high hits me like a ton of bricks! One moment I was sat there a bit tipsy but overall okay and the next I was floating on air. The whole world bends around me and I feel my perceptions and my anchored sense of self shift off axis. A wave of warped euphoria quickly follows.

"Oh damn. That stuff's strong." I mutter. "Oh wow!"

She laughs. "They call it Trainwreck."

"No shit! I see why."

She takes another quick toke, flicks the cherry from the tip with one of her long nails, then stashes the roach away. I put my arm around her and she snuggles in close as we ride our high and await our taxi. We listen to the 80's easy listening drifting out from the open door behind us and savor the moment.

The heat didn't even bother me anymore. Nothing was bothering me anymore. I was out with the girl of my dreams and having a damn good time. Everything had an ethereal waver to it now yet there were touchstones of reality all around. The feel of Michelle's warm flesh, the smell of her sweat and perfume and marijuana, the very real urges pulsing up from my groin. The lovely buzz accentuated the little things. Every brush together was a delight to the senses. Tonight was a fantasy made real, a wonderful dream come to life.

Michelle was feeling good too. She relaxed into me and her soft hands ran up and down my leg, then up my stomach and chest, then across my exposed forearm and hand. She even nuzzles my pec once and comments on how good I smelled. She plays with one of the buttons of my shirt but leaves it fastened. To get any closer together one of us would have to crawl inside the other, yet still we tried. I had an arm around her shoulder and she had hers around my waist. She made cute little mewling hums as she too succumbed to the magic of the evening.

Emboldened by my high I really look at my date. Openly staring at her fine body. I drink in those healthy womanly curves and allow my eyes to feast on what I could see of the sweaty mounds contained within her dress. She sees me ogling her and she does not disapprove. She likes my eyes on her. She runs the tip of her middle finger up the crack of her cleavage. She bites her bottom lip and with nervous eyes waits for me to say something.

I give my head a shake. This was my fucking MOM!

"Do you always get your date's blazed?" I ask suddenly, purposely trying to sever the flow. "Jesus I'm baked! Ha!"

She sighs wistfully and shrugs. "Maybe I should. Could be my 'go to move'." She finger quotes the last three words, referencing my own tactic I'd confessed earlier.

We chuckle politely. She is giving me a long lingering upward look from the corner of her eye. I could sense something building. Changing.

She reaches up and...hesitantly...strokes my cheek with the palm of her hand. I smile.

She lets out a huff, pulls her hand back, and looks away. She then asks with transparent frustration. "What the fuck are we doing here Noah? What the fuck are we doing!?"

"Having a date. A pretty damn good one too."

"Noah."

"It's just a first date. We're just having a good time."

"It's been...a long time..."

"I know. I know. Me too." I say softly. "Let's just enjoy the time we've got."

There is no smile this time. No giggle or flirty quip. She sits still, staring out into the night. I can feel that she wants to pull away from me but I don't let her.

I brighten my voice and try to get things back on track. "So, you still want to go grab that dessert now or...?"

"Noah..."

"Mm?"

"Noah..."

"Michelle?"

I feel her shoulders rise and fall with a deep breath. She was gathering herself. She looks back up at me and gazes deep into my eyes. There was such such an exposed vulnerability to her all of sudden. Oh my God she was beautiful!

She swallows. "I...I've got some dessert at my place." She waits a beat then asks in a voice just barely loud enough to hear. "Would you like to come back to my place Noah?"

It goes silent as I look down into her deep brown eyes. The desirous fire that had been smoldering in that gaze all night long had now become an open flame. However, at the edges of this libidinous inferno was an underlying fear, true chilling fear, that threatened to douse the fire. The booze and the weed helped suppress this fear, but it was still there. I recognized it because I was feeling exactly the same way.

Fear and lust are strange bedfellows and I found myself feeling new emotions I never had felt before. Highs and lows unimagined before this moment. We can't...yet we must. The bodily fought the cerebral, each knowing it was now or never. Life or death. Michelle and I were each being torn in two but we were suffering this agony together. Each of us could see the taboo dilemma reflected back at them from the other.

I loved my mother but I lusted for Michelle. She adored her son but yearned for the handsome young man holding her now. What should be simple was anything but. It was all messy and confusing now. What had been black and white just hours ago was now only gray. The clarity of right and wrong muddled together into an opaque haze.

We hear the cab pull up in front of Laura's place but our eyes are locked on each other.

"I can't keep doing this Noah. You don't know what you're doing...to me." She whispers. "Take me home or...we need to stop this. Now." She takes a breath to say something more...

I grab her head in my hands and pull her into the deepest, hardest, and most passionate kiss of my life.

"MMMMM!" She tenses at first, unprepared for wild intensity of it, but after a second she melts in my hands. Sliding her arms around me she embraces me with all of her strength and kisses me back with all she had. "Mmmmmmm!"

Hours of escalating barely contained sexual tension are released into this single kiss. I had kissed this woman countless times throughout my life but never like this. This was a wild lovers kiss fueled by base instincts. Deep and uninhibited and blissfully ignorant of consequences. Two hot sweaty and aroused animals doing what came natural. We truly tasted each other for the first time and it was but an appetizer for what was to come. The first flash of lightning in an approaching storm.

Her hands grasp at my back. Her soft body pushed into mine. Our tongues battled and danced in equal measure. Our smacking sucking lips stay firmly together.

The forbidden nature of our kiss...made it all the sweeter.

A sharp brusque voice invades our private bubble. "Hey! You guys need a cab or what?"

We part and stare at each other with fierce lust in our eyes. The only thing I wanted in that moment was to throw her down on this old porch and fuck her like savage beast.

"Here and now." I hiss.

Michelle bares her teeth and snarls right back. "Here and now."

I take her in my arms. We are nearly tripping over each other as we scramble our way to the waiting taxi.

Laura's gift of bread sits forgotten on the front step.

***

We pile into the backseat of the cab in a clumsy heap of arms and legs. I bark Michelle's address to the driver then proceed to forget his existence. With our first lover's kiss having broken the boundary into the forbidden zone our lust for each other had now been unleashed.

As the car starts to move Michelle and I were all over each other!

Kissing, heavy petting, and making out like two horny teenagers left alone for the first time. She smelled good, tasted good, and felt good. We were both hot and sweaty and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way! The musky animal scents tapped into primal desires. I wanted to clean her sweaty body from head to toe with just my tongue. We growl and sigh with escalating passion.

"Hey, settle down back there." The cabbie warns.

We ignore him.

I have Michelle pinned into the corner. My right knee is panted between her legs and she hugs her thighs hard around it and presses her crotch into my knee. Even through my pants and her panties I could tell it was hot down there! I press down into her, kissing her hard and deep, as she runs her long nails up my back.

"Calm down I said!" The pesky voice intrudes.

We ignore him.

I pull back to stare into her eyes. Arcs of sexual electricity sizzle between us. I run my fingers through her flowing brown hair with one hand as the other grabs her left tit and gives it a hard squeeze. Her eyes flare and she sucks air in through clenched teeth. Bringing her hands around from my back to my front, her nails clawing me all the way. She slips the fingers of one hand into the placket of my brand new silk shirt between two of the buttons. I feel her fingertips touch the skin of my chest. She then brings the other hand in from the other side and hooks her fingers into the buttoned seam. Both hands hook the cloth and grip it tight and I watch a devilish grin spread across Michelle's beautiful face.

I look down then back up to her. My eyes widen and I whisper. "You wouldn't dare!"

Her evil smile widens.

With an explosive burst of strength she tears my expensive silk shirt wide open! Buttons go careening around the interior of the cab, ricocheting in all directions. In an instant her hands are on me, one hand pawing at my suddenly exposed chest and abdomen while the other grips my cock through my trousers. Michelle was off the hook...and I loved it! I grip her hair and pull her into my bare tummy.