My Neglected Mother

Martin's mother, Fiona, is in a loveless marriage to Martin's dad. Starved of physical and emotional affection she responds to her only son when he offers comfort.

Comments etc welcome as always.

Sylviafan

Mum and I had our first adult kiss on a Saturday afternoon in September. I can remember the date exactly because it was the day of my twenty-fifth birthday. I was going out on the razzle with a bunch of my mates in the evening, so mum said she'd come round to my flat in the afternoon for a small family celebration. What a life-changer that turned out to be. I should mention that the celebration couldn't have been any smaller unless I'd just been there by myself. We're a very small family; I've got no brothers and sisters and only one cousin, who lives in Toronto.

I'm Martin by the way, Martin Bishop, and physically I'm quite like my dad: about five-eleven and a hundred and fifty pounds; good-looking, if you're not too fussy, with dark-brown curly hair and brown eyes. I'm a sales rep, like my dad, selling cars for a big Mercedes franchise. The basic salary is rubbish but the commission is stellar and I'm pretty good at selling, though I say it myself. It's not what I want to do for the rest of my working life, I've got an idea that I'd like to write novels, but that's probably years away and in the meantime the car business gets me a nice flat and a nearly-new car and life is pretty sweet.

Dad was away on business that weekend, apparently. It was funny how many evenings and weekends he had to spend away from my mother because of "business". I had a pretty good idea of what he was actually doing when he was away, and it wasn't selling paint products, which was what he was employed to do. I'd seen a text message on his phone once, from a lady that he worked with, and it wasn't the sort of message that a female worker normally sends to a male colleague. I hadn't said anything to mum, but I felt that the time was approaching when something should be said because she was clearly unhappy in the marriage, had been for years, probably. So it was just mum and me that Saturday afternoon.

She came round quite early, about twelve-thirty, and she had a couple of presents for me and a bottle of supermarket champagne, which was kind of her. I think it's best if I take a few moments to describe my mum because this story wouldn't have happened if she was a different sort of person.

Fiona Bishop, my mother, had just turned sixty-one. She and dad tried for years to have a child and they'd just about given up when I came along in her mid-thirties. From what I can gather my dad wasn't particularly interested in me as a baby or a small child so the bulk of the task of raising me was left to her and she did it to the best of her ability.

Mum's not a star mother or a fantastically accomplished woman; she's really just an ordinary suburban housewife who's grown into late middle-age with a husband who doesn't love her and probably gets all his emotional and physical fulfilment elsewhere. She hasn't got much in the way of academic qualifications and the only jobs she's ever had have been in supermarkets or as lowly office staff. But she'd never complained, she'd just got on with things and tried to smile and pretend that she was happy. Except that over the last couple of years it had finally penetrated my thick skull that she was very far from happy.

She's not amazingly pretty and with a model's figure either. If she'd got those things dad might not have strayed. Except that he probably would have done - he's that sort of bloke. But here I am telling you what she isn't instead of what she is.

She's quite tall - about five-eight - and I think I would describe her build as athletic, rather than slender. She's got quite broad shoulders, full breasts, wide hips and long, strong-looking legs. She used to have nondescript brown hair but it's gone a rather lovely steel grey and it's lush and thick and she wears it in a big, wavy mane over her shoulders.

Facially, she's a bit Marmite - some people find her attractive and others don't. I'd say her face is characterful: a bit long and horsey with a square chin, a wide, full-lipped mouth and a curved nose. She's got lovely dark-blue eyes which sparkle when she laughs, which isn't often, nowadays. She wears spectacles, most of the time, with thick, black frames, which make her look a bit schoolmarmish.

As I said, she's sixty-one so not surprisingly she's got some lines on her face and crinkles at the corners of her eyes. But actually she doesn't look bad for her age, especially considering her miserable life. I think she could look quite nice if she used a bit of make-up but she usually doesn't bother much. She doesn't bother much with her clothes either, although that day she was wearing quite a nice floral dress and a blue, barathea jacket with brass buttons.

Anyway, she arrived at my flat and we hugged and she kissed me on the cheek and wished me a happy birthday and I took her jacket and hung it up in the closet and stuck the champagne in the fridge and opened the presents she'd brought, which turned out to be a work shirt and a hardback copy of the latest Anthony Horowitz - I'm a big fan of his.

Then I made us a cup of tea and we sat in my lounge and caught up on news (I hadn't seen her or dad for a couple of weeks). After we'd finished the tea I decided that the champagne was cold enough so I opened it with a loud pop and poured us a glass and we sat sipping and talking and the level in our glasses went down and I kept topping them up.

I've got a very strong relationship with my mother, much more so than with my father. As I said, she did most of the childcare and she was the one who was always there for me at the school gates or cheering from the touchline or consoling me when my first girlfriend dumped me. I'd always found it very easy to talk to her, and to ask her the questions about herself that no one else asked, to take an interest in what was going on in her life, however little that was.

Of course the booze helped us to talk too. The bottle of champagne was soon empty and I opened a bottle of German Reisling and the level in that started to go down, although it was only two o'clock in the afternoon. The Reisling was about half-empty when I looked at mum and asked her if she was happy. I asked her this quite a lot and normally she said: 'Yes' and smiled and that salved my conscience and we carried on talking about something else. Today was different.

'Not particularly,' she said, flatly. She was sitting on my leather settee, looking down at her hands, which were clasped in her lap.

'Why, what's the matter?' I asked.

'I've just about got to the end of my tether,' she said quietly. 'And I don't think I can go on like this much longer.'

'Like what, Mum?' I asked, my voice rising. 'What is it?' I got up from my easy chair and went and sat next to her on the settee.

Mum sighed and looked at me.

'I think your father's having an affair, Martin. I think he's been having them for years. But even if he isn't, and I'm quite certain he is, he's not in the slightest bit interested in me and it makes me feel like dirt.'

She started shaking and tears rolled down her cheeks and I put my arm around her shoulder and drew her to me and hugged her tightly until her sobs subsided and she extracted a handkerchief from her sleeve and blew her nose.

'I'm sorry, Martin. Behaving like this on your birthday. I didn't mean to, but it's been building up for a long time, for years! I've never said anything but I've been so miserable and then I come round here and talk to you and you ask me about what I'm doing and for a few hours I actually feel that I have a life and some purpose.'

'I'm sorry, Mum,' I said, inadequately.

'Did you know, about your dad, I mean?'

'I guessed,' I admitted, miserably, thinking that she'd accuse me of keeping things from her. But she didn't. I should have known better.

'Did you know, Martin, it's been five years since your father kissed me? I know exactly when it was because it was the October that the conservatory roof blew off in that storm. And that was five years ago next month. Five bloody years and not even a kiss! I feel so bloody alone!

'I'm not that ugly am I?' she went on. 'I mean I know I'm not Grace Kelly but I'm not so unattractive that he wouldn't go near me for five years, am I?'

'You need to understand, Mum, that it's not you that's at fault, it's him,' I told her firmly. 'You're an attractive lady,' for sixty-one, I nearly added but fortunately didn't.

Mum gave me a watery smile. 'Thank you.'

'I'm serious.' And I was at that moment. I wanted to make some big statement that would cheer my mum up and let her know unequivocally whose side I was on if it came to a choice between her and dad. 'Dad picked a jewel when he married you and he's too selfish and stupid to see that. If I'd been married to you,' I continued, the momentum building, 'I'd have kissed you every day of your life. I'll kiss you now, if you want me to,' I finished.

I realised immediately what I'd said and I felt the blood rise to my cheeks. 'Sorry,' I muttered, 'that was a silly thing to say.'

My mother was silent for a little while and then she raised her head and looked at me with her dark blue eyes.

'Do you know, Martin, 'I think I would like you to kiss me, if the offer's still open.'

My days, or rather nights, of secret masturbation while I fantasised about my mother's body were long past and she wasn't really my type in looks or figure. But Fiona Bishop had one attribute that no other woman in the world had - she was my biological mother. And it was that fact that caused a fizzle of electricity in the air between us, made my breath shallow and my heart thud against my ribcage.

There was a pause of a few seconds while we looked at each other and it seemed to me as if my life was playing out in those few seconds, a ribbon of existence leading up to something big and dark and momentous. if we hadn't drunk the best part of a bottle of wine each I don't think that we would have gone any further, but we had.

Mum tilted her face to mine and closed her eyes and I noted that her lips were slightly parted, not puckered up for a peck on the cheek. I closed my eyes and lowered my face to hers and my lips touched hers and for a microsecond I wanted to pull away, wanted things to go back to how they'd always been. But the instant passed and our lips made full contact and my guts turned to water as I felt the softness of her mouth and I pressed into her a tiny bit and she didn't pull away.

That first kiss went on for about a minute, although when your brain's in orbit 20,000 miles above the Earth it's hard to be precise. She didn't put her hands behind my head and press herself to me; I didn't mash my lips against hers and I didn't try to penetrate her with my tongue. We just touched lightly, making the tiniest of movements, my arm still around mum as she sat with her hands in her lap.

But make no mistake. It was not a kiss that a mother and son should ever share.

Eventually we broke the kiss and mum rested her head on my shoulder.

'That was a nice birthday present,' I said quietly. I was still reeling mentally from the shock of kissing my mother on the lips, like a lover. And I was becoming aware that I was very aroused. The blood was thundering through my veins and arteries, my cock was a rigid and uncomfortable pole in my trousers and there was a bead of sweat on my forehead.

'Yes,' whispered my mother.

I poured the rest of the Reisling into our glasses and we drank it in a slightly uncomfortable silence.

Eventually mum drained her glass and stood up. 'I should go,' she said.

I fetched her jacket and helped her on with it.

'I should call you a taxi,' I told her. 'You've had a lot to drink.'

'The walk will do me good,' she replied, 'clear my head.' My childhood home was only about a twenty-minute walk from my flat.

I opened the front door and she went out into the lobby and turned to me.

'I hope you enjoy the rest of your birthday, Martin. Don't get too drunk tonight,' she added with a smile. 'And thank you for the kiss.'

And then she was gone, clattering down the stairs.

I went back in and closed the door and wandered into the lounge and sat thinking about what had happened. I had kissed my mother, that's what had happened. I'd felt sorry for her and wanted to cheer her up so I'd offered to kiss her, never for a moment thinking she'd take me up on my offer. Nor had she pushed me away when I kissed her and I was sure, thinking back, that she had been making little movements with her lips as well as me.

But it wasn't the act of kissing my mother that dominated my thinking. So what? We'd been drunk and she was lonely and unhappy and vulnerable and I was trying to cheer her up. No, it was my reaction to the kiss, my deep and fundamental sexual arousal at the intimate contact with my mother. I had never experienced a feeling like that before, not with the girls I'd dated and slept with.

I couldn't stop thinking about her. It was like being sixteen again and wanting to sneak a look at her breasts when she was in the shower or sniff the crotch of her knickers in the laundry basket. In other words I seemed to have reawakened an adolescent infatuation for my mother, but turbo-charged by the intervening years. The big difference was that we had actually made the first tentative step towards incest. I remembered that my mother had thanked me for the kiss.

The thoughts went round and round in my head and I imagined scenarios where we kissed again and I stroked her breasts and her legs. I imagined us in bed together, licking her nipples and her labia, sliding my erection into her pussy.

I went to my bedroom and stripped off and masturbated to a messy orgasm.

The next time I saw my mother was at my parents' house the following weekend. Dad was there so I couldn't have the conversation with mum that I'd been rehearsing, but after we'd eaten Sunday lunch my father went into the sitting room and slumped in front of the TV to watch the match and I helped mum clear up and load the dishwasher.

By the time we'd finished there were loud snores coming from the sitting room and I looked at mum and she grimaced.

'Do we need to have a conversation, Mum?' I asked quietly, although dad was fast asleep and the noise of the dishwasher would have preventing anyone outside the kitchen from hearing us.

'You mean about "the kiss"?' she smiled. Mum was wearing the floral dress again - she didn't have that many clothes - but she'd put a bit of makeup on and I thought she looked really nice, although my feelings were tainted by a desire for her that had been growing in me all week.

'I suppose we should,' she said, looking out of the kitchen window into the garden. 'Your dad's away on Wednesday,' she said suddenly, after some thought. 'Come round for dinner and we'll have a talk.'

Well you can imagine the anticipation with which I looked forward to Wednesday evening. I masturbated twice a night and once in the toilets at work. It was crazy; Natalie, the receptionist at our showroom, was a gorgeous little thing of about twenty-one and I'd been working up to asking her out for a while and she had shown every sign of being receptive. Now I couldn't care less. I just wanted my mother.

I got to my parents' house about six-thirty. It was early October and autumn was in the air and in the leaves falling from the trees and littering the paths and lawns.

Mum let me in and pecked me on the cheek and I felt a stab of arousal as I handed her the bottle of Pinot Noir I'd got from the off-licence on the way over. We went into the kitchen and I opened the bottle and poured a couple of glasses and sat down at the kitchen table while she served up the chicken tagine and microwaved a couple of naan breads to go with it.

We sat opposite each other at the scrubbed pine table and ate mostly in silence. As mum concentrated on her dinner I took the opportunity of sneaking a few glances at her. Because it was dawning on me that the lady across the table was a rather new addition to my life. Yes, she was still my mother, and always would be, but now she was an object of sexual desire, one who might actually be available to me to some degree. And that made her a subtly different person.

I had noticed when she answered the door that she was looking a bit smarter than usual, wearing a navy-blue pleated skirt and a white cotton blouse. Now I saw that she was wearing makeup, just like my birthday, except that her lips were now painted red and she was wearing eye shadow, something which I couldn't remember her wearing before. I wondered briefly if she had made herself up for me and the thought gave me another stab of arousal. Her hair looked good, too: freshly washed, it fell over her shoulders in a shining silver wave. She was still wearing those thick-framed spectacles, but she looked good, I thought. Good enough to kiss.

After we'd eaten we took our wine glasses into the sitting room and sat down together on the three-seater settee, the one that's angled so you can see the television and look out through the french windows into the garden. I sat close to my mother, not touching but sending a message, I hoped.

She took a sip of her wine and put her glass down.

'So, Martin, "the kiss".' She looked down at her hands which were clasped in her lap and then at me. 'I suppose we were both a bit tipsy on Saturday - I know I was; I'm really not used to drinking a bottle of wine.' I waited, looking at the carpet. 'And then we had that kiss.

'I need to tell you this, Martin,' she went on and my senses sharpened and tried to analyse and predict what she would say next. I anticipated a statement to the effect that it had been wrong and a silly mistake, never to be repeated and certainly not spoken about.

'I felt better walking home on Saturday afternoon than I've felt for a long time,' she continued, to my surprise and growing delight. 'Part of that was the wine but part of it was that kiss we had. For a few seconds I forgot you were my son and we kissed and I felt wanted, desired even. That probably sounds silly coming from a sixty-something old woman with grey hair, but it's how I felt.'

'You were desired,' I said, quietly.

'Are you just saying that to make me feel better?' she asked.

'No,' I replied, 'it's true. Look, I said I'd kiss you because I was half-drunk and I did want to make you feel better. Then you took me up on my offer and I was really uncertain about doing it, about actually kissing you. But once we started it felt... fantastic! Honestly, Mum it was the hottest kiss! I wanted it to go on and on. I've hardly thought about anything else since Saturday.'

'Well neither have I, as it happens. And every time I've thought about it I've felt good, felt a little warm glow. And then I've felt a bit stupid because you're my son and I'm more than twice your age and not really very attractive and why would you want to kiss me again? So I told myself that we'd have a talk and if you were embarrassed about it all and wanted to forget that it happened then that would be fine.' She paused and took a deep breath and said in a rush: 'And I told myself that if you did want to kiss me again then I would be very happy and to hell with societal conventions and to hell with my husband.' She stopped and looked at me with a sort of questioning smile, uncertainty in her eyes and in the set of her mouth.

'I want to kiss you again very much,' I told her and I put my arm around her and she leaned into me and raised her face to mine and our lips met for the second time.

But this time it was different. We turned slightly towards each other and her arms went around my neck and I pressed my mouth to hers and worked my lips against hers and my guts turned to water and there was a thundering in my ears as I slid my tongue into my mother's mouth for the first time and tasted her lipstick and her saliva and smelled her scent and felt her tongue against mine, the tip flicking over my lips.