My Other Mother Ch. 01

"Cozy." She commented.

"Uh huh," I replied, allowing myself to experience her body's clean scent.

" ... Steven, I'm sorry."

"For what?" I asked, expecting that she'd changed her mind and was about to send me back to the floor.

"Everything. Just look at us. Sharing this so-called bed in this rat hole. Being dirt poor and-"

"It's not your fault, Mum. Why are you apologizing?"

"Hm. Not my fault? Honey, I was hiswife. I should have seen it. Maybe I was just too distracted by..."

" ... He really did cheat on you, didn't he?"

"Yes. Different women."

"Aw, Mum, I'm sorry. What a bastard," I disgustedly determined.

"Watch your language. And now who's apologizing for him? But no, I should have seen it."

"I don't see how you could've," I judged, trying to keep my mind from the proximity of her body. "I didn't see it and I led my Business Prep class. Not even his victims saw it, and some of those guys were pretty sharp businessmen."

"I was his wife, like I told you." She said, heaving a deep breath, pressing her bare upper chest harder against mine to let it out in with a sigh. "It wouldn't matter if I couldn't tell a five from a twenty, I should have seen it."

"Woman's intuition?" I asked doubtfully as my cock horrifyingly twitched in my boxers.

"Something like that."

"Don't blame yourself, it's not your fault. You didn't do anything wrong."

"After being treated like I have by the authorities all this time..."

" ... Yeah. Yeah, I got that too. It's bullshit, though, put it out of your mind."

"Language," she said, a little more stern this time.

" ... What I just don't get is why he didn't at least take us with him. I mean, holy sh- Shriners," I corrected.

"Nice save. Well, honey... I'm sure Phyllis would have found that inappropriate. You know?"

" ... Ph-Phyllis!?"

"Yeah."

"Phyllis Traynor!?" I demanded, taken completely aback, even to the point of temporarily forgetting about my twitchy dick. "Our nutritionist!? Thesticklady!?"

"That sticklady is fifteen years younger than I am and in a lot better shape."

"She's a skinny little whore! Did you tell the cops?"

That word was okay with Mum. In fact, I'm sure she was the first person I'd ever heard use it. Later in life, after she gave me the sex talk and warned me up and down about them, it became a common term she'd use when referring to Staci, my ex girlfriend.

"I saw no need to help them, given the way they treated us."

" ... Yeah, I suppose. But to leave you for her..."

"Honey, when men get to a certain age..."

"What?" We go blind and crazy? Jeez, Mum, you look fifty billion times better than her, I can't believe I'm even in the samebedwith a woman who looks li- ... like... I didn't mean- Mum, I just meant that you're-!"

I could just make out her wide smile as she moved her face closer and kissed my cheek, interrupting my hasty explanations and making my penis twitch again as she said, "I know what you meant, and I appreciate it. Thank you, hon."

She snuggled a little closer, moving her hand from my side to the back of my head.

"I love you, baby. I raised you good."

" ... I love you, too."

"Mmm. My good boy. Thank god we at least have one another."

"Yeah," I agreed as I felt my penis suddenly get a bit bigger, making my heart rate speed up, my gut begin to cramp in typical nervous reaction.

"And you were right in what you said earlier, wewillbe alright. I know it, and thanks so much for-"

"Mum, I gotta turn," I interrupted, trying to sound casual as I moved suddenly away from her, my cock defying all propriety now in a rapid, unstoppable rise to attention.

"What? Why?" she asked as I tried to squirm around to my back in order to get my hardening prick away from her body.

"I- I got a cramp, I have to-"

"Steven, what- Whoa!"

When I twisted my upper body to follow my pelvis, I somehow dug myself down underneath her as she, having been bracing herself on me, tumbled right down on top of me. Before I knew it, her breasts were practically in my face, my almost full erection sandwiched between us as she looked down at me, long blonde hair hanging with an expression of confused irritation.

"Steven! What in-? ... Oh- Oh, my!"

"Oh my God!" I moaned, embarrassed and fearful of what she'd think as she quickly got off me, allowing both of us to return to our sides. "I'm sorry, I... it just..."

"Uhh... Steven, honey... "

"I- I just- Oh, no!"

Steven... I'm your mother," she said, me just barely able to make out her puzzled frown and furrowed brow in the available light. She cocked her head and tried to ask, "How could...?"

"I don't know, it just happened!" I tried to explain, flushed beet red in my humiliation. "It's not my fault!"

"You're saying it's mine?"

"No, I- Mum, I'm getting back on the floor, this is... oh, my god!"

I began to get up as she watched, still with that expression when her features smoothed out a bit. She put a hand on my shoulder and stopped me.

"Just stay," she quietly instructed.

"But I can't-"

"I should be the one to apologize. I know how eighteen year old guys are and I know howyouare. I'm sorry I made you feel uncomfortable."

"But I-"

"Steven, it's okay. And if Mummy says its okay, than it is. Right?"

" ... Yes."

"Yes, what?"

"Yes, Mum."

(oh myfuuuuck!)

"Steven?"

"Yes?"

"Do you trust me?"

"Yes, Mum."

"I know you do. I only wanted to hear you say it. Now, I wantyouto hear a few things, so just listen, alright?"

"Okay..." I fearfully agreed, still trying to keep my now fully hardened rod from contact with her body.

"Good boy. First of all, as I was saying before your, um... condition came up... I'd like to thank you for taking care of me up till now. I'm sorry I kind of flaked out on you for a while there... I had to- I was wrestling some tough personal decisions. I had to be what I had to be to get through, but wewillbe alright. I promise you, Son, everything will be just fine, but I need your trust and support. And obviously, our living arrangement is going to be a bit different from now on. We may have to get used to a... a certain necessary immodesty with each other until we're back on top. There'll be strains between us, but we'll deal with them; we'll love and trust one another and we'll stay together, adapt and overcome. I just need you to relax and trust me implicitly. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Mum."

With that, she pulled me closer, encouraging the comfortable arrangement we'd had before I embarrassed myself.

"Mmmm. I'm sorry I made you feel bad. I know it doesn't mean anything and that you can't help it, so you just go to sleep now and don't worry. Mummy's going to be... just fine."

I didn't go to sleep for a little while. I lay there listening to her breathe as she slept, feeling the swell of her breasts press against me each time her lungs filled as my rock hard member throbbed my heavy pulse against her smooth, satin covered belly.

Part 4

The next morning, over an old formica topped table with rusted chrome legs, we ate a breakfast of peanut butter sandwiches. I was almost afraid to look at her in the silk robe she'd temporarily removed from the window, not knowing what to think about what happened last night, but whenever she caught my glancing eye, she would only smile warmly, just like the Kathleen Golding I always knew and called Mum.

I understand that stressful situations, especially prolonged ones, can have an effect on people's behaviour, but I had a damned hard time attributing Mum's allowance of my sleeping with her like that to our radical change in lifestyle and the shock that led up to it. Maybe it was that she'd been drinking in addition, but that was something else. I'd never, ever in my life smelled booze off her, had never so much as seen her with a drink in her hand. Mum was always the proper lady. She never put up with any crap, not from me, Dad, or anyone and I've heard things from friends whose parents told them of her staunch, proper and difficult ways at PTA meetings, sometimes verbally attacking people as though she were standing behind a pulpit. She's just not the kind of woman who would allow her own son's hard cock pressed up against her all night, not under any circumstances. At least I didn't think so.

A bit later, while she was showering in the bathroom down the hall, I committed the ultimate crime, something I'd never done, didn't want to do, couldn't believe I'd have the nerve and disrespect to do it, but I had to.

I snooped through her purse.

I found a full, unopened pint ofSmirnoffvodka, another three quarter full pint ofBacardi'swhite rum. I closed her purse, making sure everything was exactly the way I'd left it before going about preparing some instant coffee, wondering how and when she got the booze and if I should say something to her about it. I decided not to, at least not right then. Besides, it was too hard to think about much of anything beyond the night I just spent with her.

After coffee, she got up and went to sit on the bed, her hair and makeup done and looking absolutely perfect as she gave me another one of those warm smiles. She wore a tailored, sensible summer dress of deep maroon with a floral pattern that accentuated her curves without making her look indecent, its hem just above her knees. She looked great in it and I wondered if I was seeing her differently because of the night before.

"Steven, come here."

I went and sat beside her, disturbingly having to make sure my eyes were on her face, not her chest. She took one of my hands in hers and began to speak.

"Son... things are going to be a little different from now on, like I told you last night. Your mum... You may notice that I act differently, but I want you to know that no matter what happens, I love you. Everything I do is for us and I'll never, ever hurt or abandon you. I'm so serious when I say you have to trust in me and do as I say, but there'll come a time when you'll have to help me. At that point, I'll be depending on you to take control, no matter how I'm acting, no matter what I'm doing or saying. You're the stable one here, never forget that, and I'll be counting on you when I can no longer count on myself to... save me. From myself."

"I'm not sure I understand," I said.

"You will. You're a smart young man and you'll know exactly what needs to be done and when. Just you make sure you do it, okay?"

"Okay."

"Promise me, hon."

"I promise I'll save you, Mum."

"Good boy. It's just us, you know, like I told you yesterday. Us against the world and you're the only person I trust now. I'm the only personyoucan trust now. Okay?"

"I totally trust you and you can totally trust me," I truthfully said.

"I know, hon. C'mere. Get a bit comfy with me for a while before you go shower. I'm going to tell you a little story so you might understand your Mum a bit better."

She moved further back on the bed so that her back was against the wall and crossed her stretched out legs in front of her while I settled beside her.

"What I'm about to tell you, I've told no other person, not even your father. I'm telling you because we have a connection, you and I. We're directly related and really, this is something you should know anyway. It has to do with where I come from."

"The orphanage?" I asked.

"No. I know that's what I always told you and everyone else, but it's not true, I didn't come from any orphanage at all."

Now I was interested. At this point with her, how could I not be?

"Once upon a time," she sighed, "there was a young man named Walton Burchell. A very intelligent, handsome, good man, Walton was quite the catch for the woman he eventually met, one Marie Long. Marie Long was also a pretty smart little cookie, but in different ways than Walton was. He was good with money, a natural businessman like yourself. Marie had a different kind of intelligence, what you might call 'people smart'. She was this five foot nothing, beautiful, blonde sex-doll who, unbeknownst to poor Walton, had spent time in the psych ward off and on. He was immediately drawn to her child like mentality, her girlish voice and appearance, no doubt turned on by it like a lot of men would be.

"They had a good relationship for a while; she kept him happy, he made her happy and much more settled along with the medications she was taking, which she told him were for a kidney disorder. Unfortunately, those medications were not for kidney disorders, they were for a mental disorder, but he didn't find that out until her condition worsened in time, after he'd married and fathered three girls by her. The oldest girl was named Ashleigh, the middle child Sheila, and the youngest, Kathleen. Me. You know where this happened?"

"Where?" I asked, entirely focused on her now.

"Right here. Saint John. I was born here and this was my hometown until we moved to Toronto when I was eight because of something my mother did. I don't know what it was, I never did find out and I expect I never will now, but the important part here is that crazy people never get better, only and always worse. By the time I was a teenager, she was much worse.

"Ashleigh moved out before she was old enough to work, just to get away from her. Sheila and I,... Hm. Sheila. We were only a little over a year apart and best friends growing up, inseparable. And we were there, day in and day out, witnessing Mum's crazies becoming worse and worse every year, not understanding then why Ashleigh left, or what was going on until we were old enough to figure things out for ourselves.

"The first hint was how she'd come to sometimes jump Dad's bones as soon as he got in the door, even right in front of us. He tried to push her off, reminding her that we were in the room and all, but she'd turn and scream at us, telling us to leave them alone so she could 'fuck him in peace'. If that wasn't a wakeup call, the escalating mental and physical abuse when he wasn't around was. I mean, she'd always done things to us ever since I could remember, but she became obsessed with him to the point of being jealous of us and things steadily went from bad to worse.

"Now... these things, these... mental disorders... They run in families, hon. That means that Sheila and- ... Well, Sheila turned out to be a whore. A total whore. That's why when I warn you about whores, you should listen because I've seen it up close and at its very worst. I know what whores are all about, I know what they do and I can spot one from a mile away, thanks to Sheila. Once she was old enough to discover alcohol and partying, that's what she became, and one thing you can't imagine is a person with a mental disorder on alcohol. And she did have a mental disorder. Any girl who slept around like she did would have to. She was attractive, too. Oh yes, she had no trouble at all finding men to fulfill her ever unsatisfied need to have them inside her.

"The scary thing was that I was no different, except that I was able to control myself and... whenIdrink... Well, it's different with me than it was for her. I'm not quite like her, but I, ummm..."

"Mum, you don't have to tell me anything you're uncomfortable talking about, you know."

"I know. But, like I say, it's important that you hear this so that you'll know how to take care of me when the time comes."

She heaved a heavy sigh, squeezing my hand a little, and went on.

"Sheila and Mum never got along. I mean, she hated us both because she was insanely jealous and afraid we'd take Dad away from her, but she especially hated Sheila and used to beat her around a lot, more than she did me, and Sheila came to hate her so much... Well, she was always a funny one when it came to revenge. Dad was quite depressed and long since at his wits end with Mum. It didn't take much for his loving, completely understanding daughter to seduce him. She did it to spite Mum."

"Sh- she...?"

"Yup. By this time, Sheila had no limitations between her legs whatsoever."

"What happened then?"

" ... Days later... Dad shot himself in the head with his father's service revolver."

"Holy..."

"That was all Mum needed. She'd been slipping further and further over the years and this was all her fragile mentality could handle. Whatever was left of her sanity flew out of her mind and she was committed to an asylum for good. For all I know, she's still there."

"Um... you never..."

"Visited? No. When she found out Dad killed himself... Well, I found him, you see. We'd come home from a doctor's appointment and I found him first. I told her, totally in shock and she almost killed me after she went to see. I was lucky to survive her that day. She just totally snapped and came at me with a paring knife. It was my neighbors who called the Police, once I was able to smash her with a lamp and run next door. God, she was outside their door going crazy, trying to get at me. She'd have killed me for sure."

Here, Mum drew the neckline of her dress aside and down, exposing the top of her right bra cup to point out two short, faded white scars just above it for my wide eyes.

"She almost did, too. Stabbed me twice before I could get away."

" ... Mum..."

It was all I could say. I hugged her in my loss for words and, after a minute, she finished her story in my arms.

"Sheila disappeared. I never saw her again after that day and I've always believed she found him before we got home and took off out of guilt, or fear of Mum, maybe both. Good thing for her too, becauseI'dhave killed her for what she did to Dad. I have no idea what ever happened to her since then and it was... You know, we were so close. We even had this little pact, an oath that we would name our first born daughters after one another. Hm."

"Geez, Mum, I don't know what to say. Holy... geez."

"It's alright. I got beyond it in time, but I needed you to know. See, as I said, I've learned that some people should stay away from the bottle and when the time is right, you'll have to act. You'll have to save me from myself, but until then..."

Tears ran down her cheeks as the shaky confidence she'd found the evening before faltered, the woman who got off the bus with me the day before threatening a return. But, as she looked straight ahead, what my mother was trying to tell me began to take form in my mind.

"Mum... maybe you shouldn't-"

"Go get your shower now. We have a busy day ahead, hon."

" ... But-"

"Just go take a shower. We'll talk a bit more when you get back."

When I did get back, her incredible story still in my mind, she was sitting on the bed where I left her, except the pint of rum was beside her and now a bit less than half full.

But that's not what really grabbed my attention.

Her palms were together in front of her face, forefingers touching her lips as though she were praying to the door before I came in. Her face and eyes were absolutely expressionless and the best way I can describe her is as a very advanced computer working out strategies. If I was shocked by her behaviour the night before, I was completely unhinged at that moment. I couldn't rip my gaze away from her eyes, those light brown eyes with their pinpoint pupils boring right through me, unusually bright. At the same time, they implied a darkness that wasn't visible, not really there to see, but seemingly absorbing all the light in the room and completely devoid of anything my mother normally held in her eyes. They were more like the eyes of a shark as it eats some hapless diver.

It's difficult to explain, but she was, in effect, another mother.

"Close the door. Come sit," she monotoned.

I did as asked, mostly out of that sudden and abstract fear of her. She separated her hands and put her arm around me as I leaned against the wall beside her, turning to me in the same instant that her face came alive with warm emotion, save for those awful, empty eyes.