Naked

Is she unhappy?

"No. He's a good companion, and I have my work and a nice home. And I have you, even if you are all grown up. Maybe I feel even closer to you now that you've become a man."

She smoothes her stomach with her hands as she talks to me, alternately rubbing, then lightly caressing, right around her navel. Then lower. All of this done inattentively. Her fingers trailing down to the top of her white panties, lazily letting two fingers slip just under the waistband. She presses her skin down a little, rubbing lightly, stroking herself a little, all the while she is talking. Suddenly, she realizes what she is doing. She stops. Pulls her fingers back out. We both are aware what she was about to do. I picture her doing this absent-mindedly on mornings alone in her bed at home. I'm curious. Does she masturbate as much as I do? She must.

And then she startles me.

"You're hard, Michael. Correct me if I'm wrong, but is that your basic morning wood?"

My erection is running down my left leg, pushing the cotton material outward, trying to get free. And a wet spot on my boxers where I have been leaking. An erection to end all erections, and she has been watching it getting harder by degrees the entire time.

"I'm not sure whether it's morning wood, or just looking at you."

"You're being sarcastic. I can tell," she says.

"No. I'm not."

"My breasts are starting to sag, my hair's going gray, my skin losing that glow one has when they're young. I'm not bad for 52. But I can't compare to those girls you bring home."

"You're just in denial," I tell her. "You know you've still got it. Look what you've done to me?"

She swings her feet to the floor and heads to the shower, pretending not to have heard what I just said.

* * *

I'm in the kitchen when she comes out of the shower. She stops in the doorway. Still in panties and has a fresh tee shirt that she has slipped on her arms. Before she begins lowering it down over her head, she hesitates.

"On or off? What do you think, Michael?"

"Off. Definitely off," I tell her. With absolutely no emotion, she tosses the tee shirt onto the bed behind her.

I fry sausage and eggs for breakfast, then we sit across from each other at the ridiculously small kitchen table. Her naked breasts tip and sway a little as she butters some toast. Though she is fair skinned, her breasts are even whiter, almost alabaster. Nipples still hard, pointed and staring at me. I can't keep my eyes off them. Can't help but think they are calling out to me. But that's just the teenager still lurking somewhere in me. Under the table I have a hardon in my shorts that thankfully is out of site.

She sees me staring. Seems not to mind. Looks down at herself. "They're stiff again, I see. What can I say? I'm not great, but I like my body."

She has a jar of chocolaty hazelnut cream on the table, a passion of hers. Instead of using a knife to spread some on her toast, she dips a finger into the jar, pulls out a dab of chocolate. She holds her finger up for me to see. Then spreads it around her nipples, ever so slowly, knowing that I'm frozen in amazement. Brown chocolate covering up her brown nipples and areola. First the left breast. Then another dab for the right. She arches her back to me, holds out each breast with her hands. Strikes a sultry runway model's look of boredom.

"You think Bon Appetit magazine would want me on its cover?"

That's the kind of humor I've grown up with. Her pose is also poking fun at me for my stash of girlie magazines she found years ago when I still lived at home.

With her long, slender index finger, she gathers chocolate from her nipple, holds it up to her mouth, sucks it slowly off her finger. While I watch.

She does the same with her other breast, but holds her chocolate-covered finger out to me, right in front of my mouth.

"Try some. You might like it." Her smile is slight, but noticeable. She is teasing me. Daring me.

I lick it off, then suck her finger until all is gone. This is my mother doing this. My own mother. What am I supposed to read into this?

* * *

We stay at our own beach this morning, lounging in the sun, riding waves on inflatable rafts, reading trashy novels, taking a long walk along the shoreline to a fishing pier where we buy lunch. Sitting inside in low lights, windows open, a nice breeze coming in. Cold beer in our hands.

What fun this is, she says.

"You probably don't know, Michael, but this trip for me is mostly just to remain connected to you. I know the day is coming when you're going to marry one of those girlfriends you bring home. I feel so close now, especially on this trip. I don't want that to end. And I know it may have to."

How could it possibly end, I tell her. "Don't you remember our pact?" I hold up my closed fist, extend my little finger out, and she breaks into a smile. She does the same, and we lock fingers. "Let's say it together," she tells me.

Let's swear

each with our pinky

We'll be the best of friends

Until we are old and wrinkly!

"That seems so long ago," she says. "I just loved those times." A momentary seriousness in her eyes, now a little watery. For the first time I can remember, she seems a little rattled.

For the long trek back, she cheers up, laughing, clasping my hand and holding it, both of us weaving in and out among families, children and lovers running back and forth on the dark wet sand at the edge of the surf. Warm water washes over our toes as we go. Sandpipers cross our paths, back and forth, making tiny footprints in the sand.

Finally back at our umbrella and beach chairs, my mother leans in and kisses me briefly on the lips. She grows solemn. Her eyes watery once again."No matter what happens," she says, "You will always be my true love. My one true love." She bends over to lay a beach towel atop the back of her chair. As she raises up, I come up behind. Reach my arm around her waist and hold her to me for a second, her back against my stomach and chest. Then kiss the side of her neck.

"What did I do to deserve this?" she asks, looking a little surprised at my sudden display of affection.

"It's just that I like being with you," I tell her. "And I especially like it when you tell me things about yourself that I didn't know."

And it's true. Though I'm afraid of where we might be headed, I long to peel back the layers and learn more of my mother's inner life.

I scoot my chair closer to hers so the arm rests are touching. We go back to reading our books. She looks up to give me a contented smile.

"You've always known more about me than anyone else does," she says.

* * *

Just in from the beach. Late afternoon. Sand in our swimsuits and hair, skin baked and reddish. Both of us done in by the sun. Walking into the bedroom, I see my mother has already stripped her suit down to her waist. And there, once again, are those breasts. I will never get used to seeing them. She rubs them, massages her nipples, flicks them with her thumbs after freeing them from the constraints of her swimsuit. They must itch. I love watching her touch herself. And she's allowing me to look. But I make an observation: as toned and fit as she is, her breasts look tender, delicate, vulnerable. I find myself wanting to protect her and her sexuality from the rest of the world. A part of me wants her for myself. And part of me is sickened at these thoughts of mine.

"I'm sorry I've been so emotional on you this afternoon, Michael," she says, taking a step toward me. "I'm not usually this way. It's just that I like being close to you. I can fake being comfortable with anyone. I'm good at that. I have to be at work and at the country club. But with you I really am contented. At rest with myself. When we're together, I have this sense of being restored. I feel some kind of cathartic energy."

She steps close now and puts her arms loosely around my neck, gives me a quick peck on the lips. For the first time, I feel those soft breasts and stiff nipples brushing lightly against me, her nipples teasing the hair on my chest. Before I can reach my arms around her, she backs away.

"But I don't want to get pathetically sentimental about this," she says."We're here to have fun."

Her gaze drops from me down to her breasts.

"So what do you think, Michael? Is it time to just go starkers?"

"You mean everything? stark naked?"

"Is that too much for you?"

She heads for the shower. I walk around the house, not sure what to do.

So, I'm thinking to myself, did we agree to this? We're going to be naked. But when is this supposed to start? We didn't set a time. Is it tonight, maybe at 6 pm? Or maybe tomorrow morning? I think back to this image of her smallish, naked breasts swinging back and forth as she stepped in to kiss me. I know that's another moment to be with me from now on.

Those thoughts end as she comes out. It is to start now. She is naked. I can't stop staring. She stands looking at me, or maybe just letting me look at her. And for the first time, I take advantage of it. Her stomach nearly flat, mostly from healthy eating. And the hair between her legs, chocolate brown like that on her head. Not much of it, very short, soft little curls, but close cropped, as if it had been trimmed. But I know better. At least I think I do. I'm not sure of anything about her now. But that pubic hair is so natural looking, it can't have been trimmed. And it hides nothing. The narrow slit, the opening to her vagina, is clearly visible. The outer lips soft and slightly puffy. All of it a quiet, dignified beauty.

I catch her look, eyebrows raised.

"Your turn Michael. Put your suit in the sink with mine. We can wash the sand out later."

And so, with a flushed face and obvious embarrassment, I pull mine down and toss it next to hers.

She stands - each of us in front of the other - observing me, staring openly. I see her eyes move down my chest to my abs. Then lower. She is looking at the precise moment that I feel blood beginning to rush into my penis. My dick begins getting hard. She watches it swell in thickness, begin rising, grow longer, start bouncing up and down.

After regarding me for a moment, she says, "You have no shortage of erections, do you?"

"I can't will it to go away," I say, trying to lighten the mood.

She laughs. "It looks good that way." She begins straightening up the place. I take my cue and proceed to clean the kitchen from the breakfast dishes. As if we do this all the time.

I must admit, after a short while I find I like being naked with my mother. Walking around the house, parading for each other, stealing secret glances. That's what we are doing. My erection goes down. She looks at it some more. Moments later, she bends over to pick up something off the floor in the kitchen. So nimble that she can bend over with her knees still locked, her legs straight. I am in the living room, looking at her from behind. At the top of her legs, I see her beautiful ass cheeks that jiggle a little as she walks. And before me is her dark little asshole. And those soft little labia, just barely protruding from below. She waits a few seconds before straightening back up. That's on purpose. It has to be. The vision of her begins making me hard again.

We carry on. My erection, weaving all about in the air, thrusting forward, right at her. I like that. My balls swaying slightly. Her watchful eye taking it all in. After all, I'm 25, my body at its peak of physical conditioning. I don't look half bad.

We're flirting with danger, here. And I know now that I might not be able to stop. But I don't want to think about that.

* * *

Evening, another storm. Dark clouds, steady rain. We're out on the deck, both naked still. We don't believe anyone can see us, but we're not sure. My mother drags one of the chairs around so we will be facing each other. We sit, talk, listen to the rain, watch the deserted beach. A kind of peacefulness settling over us.

She watches me. I watch her. Each taking in the other's body. I just can't stop looking. At both her beauty and the full nakedness of her.

"Isn't it odd, Michael, that two people like you and I can be so close, mother and son, best friends, for all these years. Yet until now we've never seen each other naked - at least not since you were a toddler. Isn't it peculiar. It's so nice to have this together, don't you think?"

"Especially when one has a mother like you," I say.

She casually lowers her eyes, back to my growing erection.

"You like sex, don't you, Michael," she says. "I mean all guys like sex. But you have the look of a man who really adores it. All aspects of it."

"You've found me out," I tell her.

"I like sex a lot too," she says. "The addictiveness of it. How it's passive and unhurried sometimes. Fast and feverish at other moments. So beautiful. But also naughty. I love the whole naughtiness about it."

"I take sex seriously," she says. "I think you do too."

"If that's the case," I tell her, "then can I ask you a personal question?"

"I think that's another one of those bridges we've crossed already," she says.

"If you like sex so much, then do you still do it with Dad? What you said earlier makes me think you don't. Or have you turned to other lovers?"

"No, I don't do it with him," she says. "As for other lovers - nope. Haven't tried any."

She sees my puzzled look.

"You want to know what I do? I read racy novels. I daydream. Everyone should daydream. And as for orgasms, no one knows how to give them to me better than I do myself."

"I wouldn't think that would be enough for you," I tell her.

She doesn't answer. Lets the awkwardness of the moment pass. Then surprises me yet again.

My mother raises her right leg to put her foot on the edge of her chair seat, parting her legs, looking down at herself. And affording me the perfect view of the opening to her vagina. I can even see a little pink. She is, once again, inviting me to look.

My desire escalates. If I were to just lightly touch the head of my cock, I think I would explode all over her. I can't calm down.

"Aren't penises and pussies just strange and wonderful," she says in a deep, hushed voice, looking at her own slit, then back at my dick. "So astonishing."

"I'm just astonished to hear you say the word pussy."

She laughs, but not long. I grow harder, and feel like I may lose control.

"Yet we don't like to talk about penises and pussies, do we?" she says. "Not in polite company.We think of it as smutty. Ours is such a curious, hypocritical culture."

"To think that the whole world throughout history has revolved around dicks and pussies," she says. "Without it there would be no civilization. No people. Just a planet overrun by cockroaches. Yet we don't talk about it."

I am so interested in what she is saying that only gradually do I notice what she is actually doing: slowly and gently sifting her fingers through her pubic hair. Then, as she's still talking to me, runs her middle finger around her pussy's opening, caressing her outer lips, pulling them back a little to open herself up. She slides a finger up and down her slit, then repeatedly touching her clit, rubbing her finger back and forth. Feeling herself, really without even thinking about it. Her opening is moist. Her fingers wet and slippery. I realize she not only masturbates, she's an expert.

The air around us is steeped in the smell of rain. And of sex.

In my chair, my cock is leaking like a sieve, waving back and forth, fast and jumpy. I have to as discreetly as possible just hold it with one hand to keep from ejaculating. I'm thinking how erotic and nasty she looks, my mother showing herself to me like this. Those slender legs open wide for both of us to see. Those puffy lips and all that liquid right at the very opening to her. And how silly I must look holding myself.

To her, I suppose this is a moment of warm intimacy between us. To me, she has become a magnet of raw sexual desire.

With little warning, I sense that deep warm feeling building in my loins, moving fast to my erection. I realize I'm going to come.

"Sorry Mom. I may be on the verge of losing it."

And then the battle is over. Sperm starts shooting out of my cock at rocket speed, hitting her in the stomach and chest. She freezes. I'm convulsing as more spews out, hitting her arm, then her thigh, and the arm of the chair.

"I'm sorry, Mother. I'm so sorry."

With the final drips falling off, she says, "Did I do that to you or have you just needed to do that all along?"

"Do I have to answer?"

"Up to you," she says.

I don't answer.

"You want me to put my clothes back on?" she asks.

"No. Do you want me to put mine on?" I ask.

Though my dick is now limp and moist, her gaze is still fixed on it.

"No," she says.

She walks inside, to the kitchen sink, cleans herself off with a towel.

"I've seen my share of men come before," she says, looking at me as I sit down on the living room sofa, somewhat defeated.

"That amazes me," I tell her. "I never knew."

"And maybe," she says, "that has something to do with why I like being naked. Especially naked with you. We're more honest with our clothes off."

"What do you mean - you've seen your share of men?"

On dates in college, she tells me, she would calm down hyper-sexed guys by giving them handjobs while sitting in cars. "Most of them I didn't want to sleep with, so I jacked them off just to keep them from mauling me all night - and to get rid of them. Back then, a lot of girls gave a lot of boys handjobs. Mostly to keep from getting pregnant."

"It's quite possible," I tell her, "that this may happen to me again in front of you."

She looks out the window ahead of her at the rain and growing darkness. She rinses a glass, puts it in the dish drainer. She doesn't look at me. But says ...

"I wouldn't be opposed to seeing that again."

* * *

Day Three. How to sleep after all that? I will tell you. A tall bottle of chilled champagne. We split it. No sipping. Practically chugging it. In truth, there is little memory of any of it. But it's morning, I wake up, sun shining in my eyes. I missed the dawn.

She remains asleep. I hear her soft, steady breathing. Time to replay the night. Why did that happen? It's one thing to share casual nudity. Others do that. But for my mother to spread her legs and let me see her so intimately. To finger herself in front of me. Was she just opening herself up to me, figuratively, letting me learn more of her true, private self? That part of her life no one else may see? Or was she tempting me? Surely not.

Neither of us has ever had thoughts like that. At least I don't think we have. I don't remember it ever crossing my mind. But I'm not sure of anything any more. Maybe neither of us really knows why last night happened.

I fall back asleep. Then wake again. I see she is awake now, on her side, quietly looking at me. She, wrapped in the top sheet, me still naked. She is looking intently in my eyes. I'm squinting through the sun's rays.

"Was I snoring?" I ask, finishing a yawn.

"No. But you were kind of stroking yourself. You have another erection. And it's quite large."

I look down. Sure enough. "I wasn't really doing that, was I?"

"Yes, and you looked like you were enjoying it too." She laughs a little, her voice deeper, hoarse, breathy from long sleep.

"After last night, I suppose I shouldn't bother with being embarrassed any more," I say.

She smiles. "Good." She moves her face closer to mine. Props her chin on my shoulder. Looks me in the eye.

"You want to know one of my newest secrets?" she asks.

"What?"

"I like watching you get hard."

She kisses my shoulder. Then sticks out her tongue and licks the same spot.

"So tell me, Michael. Do you wake up hard every morning?"