Pandemic Lockdown Intimacy

His brief is the exact opposite of her dainty panties. Even though economical of textile, it is rough, raw and male. A muscularity to the garment. And the tubular construction facilitates the soaking up of her inner minutiae of feminity. Grace inserts her finger into the cock sock, and then plunges it into herself. She closes her eyes. It ignites wild associations and imaginations. As the garment soaks, she leaks. Exactly what the resident psychiatrist in her head ordered, for her continuing therapy to the next level. Seven briefs in the drawer. A week of bliss. And then again, in sensual repetition. Grace closes the drawer as if to shut out her thoughts.

She wipes the inside of her thigh, soaking up the rivulets of feminine fluid. But, his minimal thong is too small to soak it all up. Her thigh is still wet. She is going to shower shortly anyway after her chores.

She leaves her fluids be. It feels wrong walking around naked with her fluids on her leg. She feels deviant. Pottering here in her son's room, she feels both motherly and unmotherly at the same time. It is a pleasantly confused good feeling.

Hereon, she will dispense with wiping up her fluids. They are what they are. A part of her constitution and bodily self-expression that she must not deny. But, only in so far that it does not dribble down to the floor.

***

On an inexplicable whim, a whim whose time has come, Grace puts on her fuck-me high heels one day when she is naked in front of the bedroom mirror. It elevates her to a whole new level of high. Physical, psychological and sensual.

Footwear is not worn just for the benefit of men. It is to tease and please both the woman wearer and observers.

Most of the pleasure of buying shoes involves a private fantasy that begins with the woman, and ends at her feet. And that is the case with Grace.

The stiletto becomes a part of Grace's naked repertoire. And on particularly productive days when her feminine arousal runs down to her feet, and then collects a little at her high heels, she experiences a curious queasy, sexy sensation that is repulsively pleasurable.

***

Grace loves walking naked in her, mostly private, garden. Her very own secret garden.

In Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel, 'The Secret Garden', the garden is a metaphor for self-discovery and wondrous rejuvenation. A thing that is neglected withers. But when it is worked on and cared for, it thrives.

Grace cannot think that she is an exhibitionist. But, she can understand that delicious thrill of being seen fleetingly naked to unsuspecting eyes.

It begins mundanely, if not perfunctorily, with gardening. Naked bliss or not, those earthly chores must be done. Watering, trimming, culling, weeding.

Once, when she felt the urge to ease herself, she decided to just do it, rather than beetle indoors. The garden area that Grace most wants to fertilise with her personal stock of urea is also the most vulnerable to neigbourly eyes. But, a pee is fleeting. And no one is the wiser. To the best of her knowledge anyway.

***

Grace has very naughty fantasies about enjoying a physical relationship with her son since she began visiting him at university and staying over in his various digs. He was so welcoming to her in a way that surprised her. And boosted her ego and sense of importance to him. He did not care what his friends thought about him having his mother over to stay. At the same time, Grace felt she did not need to be quite so hidden and private with him.

***

Quite early on, Grace's son saw her in underwear, she thought for the first time in his life. The underwear was less than exotic or attractive, but the excitement it generated was palpable.

In nervously mentioning that, her son confessed to having peeked at her a few times during his teens when she was changing, or had just showered. That news was life-changing for Grace, if that is not over-stating it. Grace felt an immediate rush of arousal and love, and a deep desire to undress for her son right there. However, the moment passed because Grace did not have anything like the courage she has now, or the confidence in her body.

Grace's confidence has since developed in the last two to three years and has led to an interest in nudism generally. She has discovered just how enjoyable nudity can be. She has also allowed herself to explore such imaginings and given herself permission to indulge in self pleasure in a way she would have considered wicked earlier in her marriage.

***

Part 2: Agency

Fast forward.

It is the first day in the COVID-19 pandemic second national lockdown.

Grace's son, Jasper is coming home today to be at the family home instead of at his apartment on his own. He spent the first lockdown in his apartment.

***

"Oh! I'm so sorry mum! I didn't know you were up."

Grace looks up from her kitchen chore. Honeyed sunlight illuminates her son's face.

"It's alright. It's just my morning routine. I totally forgot that you are staying with us."

Grace puts on her robe which is draped over the kitchen chair.

"I just couldn't sleep anymore this morning, even though it's not my custom uptime, so I've come for some juice. I'll pop back later."

"Stay. Chat with me. I miss you. Breakfast will be ready in a jiffy."

"Dad?"

"He has to be away for two days attending to a particular matter."

***

Grace moves this way and that in the kitchen preparing and serving breakfast. There is nothing for her son to do but ogle his mother. Surreptitious rationed glances at first, and then increasingly bold. His eyes are lasered on her bottom which he knows is pantyless.

Grace is well aware of this. She can hardly suppress her shudders.

When Grace bends to serve his breakfast, her son gets a generous view of the top of her breasts. Large swathes of her fulsome bosom.

After Grace is seated, her son offers to get the orange juice carton from the refrigerator. He hovers over Grace to pour the juice into her glass. He gets a glorious eyeful of her breasts again. Is his mum exaggerating her movements to jiggle her breasts? He sees them quiver and undulate.

***

After breakfast, mother and son chill at the sitting room. It overlooks the garden. Grace's secret garden. But for now, it is the sitting room that holds a spell of secrecy.

Grace is feeling increasingly comfortable and at ease with her son. She is still a little excited by her accidental exposure in the kitchen. Was it really accidental?

Grace cannot help but feel that this morning is the time that has come. The whole swirl of everything that is to come begins this morning. But, of what precisely? The devil, as usual, is in the ambiguities.

It is just both of them alone in the house. In this lockdown, there will not be any visitors or service people popping in. Grace asks her son if they should get comfortable, and enjoy the privacy of the home. Her son is not altogether clear what his mother is alluding to. Isn't this lockdown privacy enough?

Grace gets a little bold. She teases, "Just now, you had a sneak view of me. Tell me. How does your mummy dearest compare with the last time you saw her in your uni days?"

In a sad tone, "If you recall, I didn't get to 'see' you. You were in your underwear, mum. Sensible ones at that."

"Ah yes! In your teens then?"

Grace's son pauses, hesitantly gets up, faces his mother, and gazes down. He leaves a little silence.

"Oh my god! But, that was a good ten minutes ago!"

"Yesss, mother. I am... petrified. Petrified wood."

He sits down.

Surprisingly, Grace stands up as if going to the kitchen, pivots around her heels, faces her son. She parts her mid-thigh length robe revealing a bit of her upper thigh and no more. A glistening rivulet streak. A piquant scent of vinaigrette.

"I think we both enjoyed the visual experience."

"Oh mum!"

"You may've perceived it already from your earlier close encounter of the third kind. I've become a nudist. Not in the organised club and community sense. The home and garden variety. Baby steps back to basics."

"Yes. I thought so. I'm happy for you, mum. The couple of times I skinny dipped, it was so liberating and heavenly. What a feeling! I totally understand your motivation for the direction you've taken."

"Thank you for your understanding. While we're on the subject, there's a little more I'd like to share with you since we're in this mood."

Distant chirp of birds in the garden. Birdsong. Musical melody of wind chimes.

Sensing his mum's hesitation, "Go on, mum. I'm all bated breath and all ears."

"In the last couple of years, I've also allowed myself to explore a little in other sensual realms. Erotica. Even a little porn. Charge my imagination a little. I've given myself a latitude of permission to indulge in self pleasure in a way that I would have considered wicked in the past. Maybe this has to do with my menopausal changes? There! I said it!"

"Mum, I'm so happy for you. You deserve this. You owe this to yourself."

A pause. A minute of uneasy silence.

This turn of banter has made him sense his mother's sexuality, from where he is. It is like sensing the sea before one can see it.

"We're both grown-ups. I can let my mummy hair down a bit. While I still have it, lots of laughs!"

He chuckles. His mum indeed still has it. He perceives that she is subtly seeking validation. He reaches out his hand to her, to brush the cascade of her hair. A mental connection, sealed with a physical connection.

A little heavy silence.

Lightening up, "We can engage in a little adult cabal. Shall we demystify what we've inadvertently started just awhile ago?"

Son looks at mother disbelievingly, then inquiringly.



Grace teases. "I'm no spring chicken, thus old school. Gentleman first."



"Right here? Now?"



"Yes. Carpe diem! You take your shirt off. And then, I'll take what little I have off, in pace with you."



Her son unbuttons his shirt. He takes it off silently. He has hair on his chest and a few muscles, Grace notices. He looks at her.

Grace smiles softly. She feels her ears and cheeks burning. The whiff of sin, the fear of discovery, sharpens the pleasure.

She reciprocates awkwardly by sliding off the top of her robe from her shoulders, until it covers the tops of her breasts, her hands shaking. Like a strapless one-piece swimsuit.

"This is kind of weird isn't it," she looks at her son.

"I guess so, if you think about it that way."

They instinctively inch closer.

Jocularly, "Are we doing OK in social distancing, mum?"

Quipping, "We're family. I doubt the authorities will approve."

Cautious stilted laughter.

Although Grace initiated this, some of her old anxieties are beginning to creep back.

"OK. But, right now it feels a bit uncomfortable for me. My venerable body is far from appealing. I always feel self-conscious about how my body looks. I don't like being judged."

"I'm not judging you. Mum, you look gorgeous. So far... You're needlessly over-processing."

"What I'm going to wonder about is what you think. If you just look at my body without saying anything, I'm going to think the worst. You've to tell me what you think. What you really think, alright?"

"Sure, mum. Will you tell me what you think of me too?"

It never occurred to her that her son might also want her opinion on his body. Maybe her perceptive son is just trying to diffuse the tension of the moment? Grace nods.

Grace gives her son a light boudoir smile. She lowers her robe further until it covers, only just so, up to her eruption of nipple tips. She crosses her arms coyly under her makeshift bra to hold it up. But actually, it is more to heighten her cleavage.

"I like the bra you've fashioned. Or maybe, more like a bustier."

"Your turn."

Grace watches her son pull down his shorts, exposing his underwear. The same type of male thong that she has seen in his drawer. So, this is what it looks like in full accommodation. Grace twitches. Her son looks at her expectantly, the corner of his mouth betraying an emerging smile.

"So?" he prompts.

Grace endeavours to defuse the tension a little. She looks down at her son's bare legs. "Your legs are hairy in a really sexy way."

In an act of socially conditioned modesty, Grace turns her back to her son. She drops her robe to the floor. For an instant, she is bare arsed. She bends her torso over a little flexing her curves. She picks up and refashions her robe into a slender sarong-like skirt, wraps it around her bottom, then secures it.

Her bottom done, she raises both arms across her chest to cover her top. She pivots to face her son. She looks like a woman caught starkers, and then, doing what she can to protect her modesty. As with Mozart and Rembrandt, the highest art lies in concealing art.

Her son is staring at her nominal sarong. Grace looks down to make sure that everything is in order. Then, mother and son stand there looking at each other until they both laugh in unison.

"Mum, you have nice legs. Take this from a leg man."

Grace starts to feel weak in the knees. She sits on the rug. She looks up at her son, waiting for his next move.

He asks cheekily, "Are you ready for the big one?" and emits a half-laugh as he starts to push his underwear down his hips. His naked genitals are displayed before his mother at eye level.

"Oh my God!" She covers her mouth with both hands, suppressing any further outbursts. It is not that she is shocked by seeing a flaccid penis in itself, but, the sight of her son's privates has the effect of inducing embarrassment.

He is trying to decide whether to be cool, or to be raw, "Well?"

Looking up from his genitals, she quips cheekily, "It looks like a penis."

"Well, how does it compare?"

She looks back down to his drooping organs. After gazing thoughtfully, she teases, "OK, I guess."

Grace does not want to feed her son's ego. There is time enough for that. But secretly, she notes that even in its flaccid state, her son's manhood is rather long. Longer than her husband's. She wonders how big it gets when aroused.

"Your turn."

Feeling her son's stare, she drops her left arm. Her right arm barely conceals her breasts.

The moment of truth. The moment of reckoning. Again, her old anxieties taunt her. Looking up again, she asks, "Are you ready?"

"A rhetorical question."

She smiles sheepishly as she slowly drops her right arm. She looks down at herself. She is pleased. Her bosom is full of fruit. Fulsome yet pert. Pointed. They hang high on her chest.

She looks up at her son for his reaction. Judgement day is upon her.

His eyes rivet on her naked chest. He nods appreciatively when she looks up.

He gazes at his mother's face, then, wild-eyed back at her breasts, the beautiful form of which nature makes no more.

"Well?"

"Spartans have raped entire cities for bounties less than this."

Laughingly, "Be serious."

"A divine revelation. They're lovely. Alluring. If I had a hand in sculpting your breasts, they will look exactly like this."

Adding, "Your nipples are nice too. They're pink. They're lush."

"You've never seen pink nipples before?"

"No. They're sweet."

Grace starts to laugh again. She is aware of the slight jiggling triggered. She observes that her son is watching. The look on his face expresses bemusement. But his intense stare suggests a covert fascination. She sticks her chest out for emphasis. Loud and proud. She gently traces the contours of her breasts with the tips of her fingers. Her left, then her right. One way, then the other, as if illustrating her own form. Her nipples are very sensitive. Even soft caresses can trigger an orgasm. She avoids touching them for now. That can come later.

"What do you like about my chest?"

He replies open-endedly, angling for more, "I like their size and their form. Their substance, I can't tell."

Grace grins widely, "Really?"

"For sure. I like to feel real breasts. The kind that will fill my hands. Not impossibly perfect inflated plasticky orbs."

The seed of an idea is planted in Grace's mind when she hears this. She cannot say why, but she knows what she wants to do. She can feel herself blushing as she contemplates what she is about to say to her son. Fear flutters in her belly. What if he is repulsed? Yet, she does not think he will be. She can feel it. Somehow, she knows he will be alright with it. Her road with her son will lead to grace, however wayward the path.

Her mouth opens, as if of its own accord, the words forming on her lips without her willing them, "Do you want to feel them?"

Her son looks at her, bewildered, like she has spoken to him in olde Cornish.

She qualifies guiltily, "Just for a sec."

His eyes are wide. He sits down on the floor next to her, meeting her gaze, concerned. "Are you sure about this, mum?"

"Mmmm, just for a sec though." She pushes her chest out in longing anticipation.

Her son looks serious as he reaches out with both hands toward his mum. Her nipples activated electrically as soon as his palms make contact. Grace quivers. His fingers lightly brush the skin of her breasts.

Grace cautions, "Go easy on the nipples. They're highly charged. They will electrify, then shock me to whimpering pulp. I don't want that. At least, not just yet."

"That sensitive, huh?"

"Oooh! That tickles!" Grace chuckles with a shudder. Her son draws his hands back politely.

Grace, smiling, takes her son's hands in hers and presses them firmly against her sensitive mammaries.

"Like this," she instructs.

Closing her eyes, "That feels good. Do you like how they feel?"

"They're soft. Really soft. A pair of ornate genuine articles."

"Any more observations?"

Her son reads this as tacit approval to caress and fondle each breast more thoroughly, to ascertain their essence. He focuses on one breast, then the other, and then repeats his studious ministrations all over again.

He cups her breasts. He feels at the tips of his raw fingers the weight of her sensuality. All her private own.

"In my considered opinion, an alluring breast imparts a sense of heft, by feel and visual, of weight and mass. Mum, you tick all the boxes."

He forgets himself. He continues to fondle his mother's breasts. He kneads them now.

"That's enough," she reminds him, against her better judgement, opening her eyes and releasing his hands.

Her nipples now stand out excitedly. Her son looks elated. She looks down at his lap and becomes aware that his elation is emanating in more ways than one. "Can I touch you?" she asks longingly.

"OK"

Grace is secretly astonished and thrilled that her son so readily agrees. She does not expect him to go along so easily and wonders if he shares the same hidden excitement she is feeling.

Eagerly, she reaches down between her son's legs and cups his sac in her hand. His testicles feel delicate and vulnerable. They are large, weighing on her palm. She thinks about all the sperm and hormones that must be coursing in her grasp. It seems strange that the source of masculinity is so fragile. She squeezes gently.

"Does that feel OK?"

He flinches in response, so she releases him. She shifts her hand, wrapping her fingers around her son's rising sex organ. She looks up at him. He is looking down at her hand, his expression intensely focused. She squeezes his warm shaft between her thumb and forefinger. She can feel him swelling rapidly in her grasp.

"You're getting hard," she observes. He says nothing. She hears her son's breathing intensify as she slides her grasping hand slowly up his lengthening shaft to his mushroom head. Grace squeezes his phallic cap between her fingers and gently massages his flesh.

She looks up at his face. His mouth is open. His eyes wide. He meets her gaze, still looking intense.