‘I’ll find you the best I can.’
‘That’s you,’ I said.
‘What rubbish. Eat up. As soon as you’ve finished I have to go out. I don’t have time to talk rubbish.’
She left her clothes on the bed when she left, laid out top and bottom, like a person. My mother. I threw myself on them, touched them, sniffed them. I wrapped them around me and brought myself off again.
When she came back she tidied them all away, as if nothing had happened. I called her over.
‘Come here a minute, Mum.’
‘Why?’
‘I need to piss.’
She brought over the chamber pot and put it at my feet. I leaned on her while she helped me off the bed and undid my trousers.
I put my arms around her. We were face to face in broad daylight.
‘Why don’t you just go to sleep?’ she said and pushed me away.
I fell to the ground. I couldn’t get up — I’m a cripple — so she helped me. Mum had to hold on to me.
I held her again.
She lashed out at me, then slipped and fell. I slid to the ground next to her. She cried out, then crawled over and propped me up once more. We sat on the ground, breathing heavily, like two dogs after a fight. She didn’t dare look at me.
She smacked the floor.
‘Why do you want it to be like this!’
‘Mum, I love you!’
‘Rubbish.’
‘Mum, do you love me?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But that’s different. I’m sorry. It’s my fault you’re crippled. I can make it up to you. I’ll find you a good wife. A really good one. You believe your mum.’
‘So what’s a good wife?’
‘One who’s honest and beautiful.’ Her face lit up. ‘A wife who is one hundred percent good.’
‘But you’re the only one who can look after me, Mum.’
‘No!’ she said. ‘Anyway, you don’t treat me like your mother.’
‘If you’re not my mother, then what’s the problem?’
‘You’re treating me like a bad mother,’ she said. ‘So you can do anything.’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘Don’t you love me, Mum?’
‘No.’
‘Really?’
‘Don’t make me,’ Mum said. ‘I don’t want to go to hell … ’
She stared at me with blank, terrified eyes.
‘Hit me,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to live. Beat me to death.’
She grabbed my hand and hit herself with it. I tried to stop her, but she was so strong. She gripped me so tight I cried out with pain. She stopped and rubbed my hand to make it better. Then she burst into tears.
‘I’m not a good mum. Hit me! Hit me! Hit me!’
We both wept.
A bit later she said she could bring me off with her hand. She wasn’t ashamed, she was just embarrassed. I said no.
‘Do you think I wanted you to do that to me? Do you?’ she shouted, hurling a plate to the floor. She cut her finger on the shards and I took her hand. It was so thin. I told her she could bring me off with it.
Mum washed her hands and put antiseptic on her finger, then stopped. It wasn’t like undressing me for a bath. This was different.
She poked my cock with her finger. It lengthened.
It felt amazing. She just lifted up my prick, just like when I was a naughty boy and she would pat me on the cheek, more of a caress than a smack. Like a mother. She lifted it with her finger. The antiseptic looked like blood.
Just the two of us. Outside the murmur of traffic and the shouts of the market traders, as if from far away. I came. She pressed her finger to the end and gave my prick a shake, to make the come flow back. Then she wiped the tip, like she was mopping the last drop of sauce from the pan. We never wasted leftovers. What we had, we looked after.
When she was washing her hands I caught sight of her round arse. I wanted it. Her hand wasn’t good enough. Her fingers didn’t make a real hole.
‘Mum, next time use your mouth.’
She looked at me like I was a monster.
‘No! How could you imagine such a thing? You’re getting worse and worse.’
‘It’s just another hole, Mum.’
‘Don’t call me that,’ she yelped. ‘Look what you’ve made me into.’
‘Just once.’
‘Not even once.’
I started to moan. She tried to ignore me, but then she ran out of the room. I sat there, rocking backwards and forwards like I was going to explode.
‘Mum!’ I cried.
She said nothing. I wanked until I thought my cock would come off. I cried out in pain. She rushed back into the room.
‘What are you doing?’ she shouted. ‘The penis is the root of life. You’ll kill yourself.’
‘I have to.’ I was weeping.
‘If you want to die, kill me first. Kill me first. Kill me!’
She grabbed my hand again, hit me and then started to hit herself with my hand. I didn’t resist. I was full of hate. We hit together. I hit her until we were both exhausted.
‘OK,’ she said.
I looked down and saw I wasn’t hard any more.
‘If you can’t bear it, then just hit me,’ she said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I won’t hit you.’
But I wanted to. She brought out a leather whip. Where had that come from?
‘Use this,’ she said.
‘I won’t hit you,’ I said.
‘I’m telling you, do it!’ she yelled.
I took the whip.
‘I’m a bad mother,’ she said.
‘No, no, I won’t.’
‘Do it!’ she said. She grabbed my hand and thwacked the whip on her body. Cool air rushed across my face. She cried out.
‘Does it hurt?’ I asked.
‘No, it’s good,’ she said. The second blow came from me.
‘That hurts,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘You didn’t hit so hard,’ she explained. ‘That really hurts.’
I did it again.
‘Silly boy,’ she said. ‘Are you trying to make me suffer?’
I hit her hard. Mum gave a shrill cry.
‘You’re such a bad boy.’ She was trying to talk to me as if everything was normal. As long as she was calling me a good boy or a bad boy, we could do anything we wanted.
‘Mum, I want to stand up to hit you,’ I said.
She lay down and braced me upright against her raised arm, like I was really standing, like I was a normal person. I hit her again.
Soon the pain made her let go and I collapsed in a heap. She pushed me back up again and lay on the floor.
‘Mum, get up, give me something to aim at.’
She stood and put her arms around me. I couldn’t use the whip, because we were too close together, but if she moved away I couldn’t stand up.
‘Mum, let me ride on your back.’
She lay on her stomach, but I kept missing and dropped the whip. She crawled over to get it and gave it back to me.
‘What’s wrong with your hand?’ she asked.
‘Just a bit of broken skin, it’s nothing.’
She examined the whip handle.
‘Where was this made?’ she said. ‘So rough. Nothing is well made these days.’
She bandaged up my hand and made a sheath for the handle out of some old rags. You could hardly see the seam. The cotton was so soft on my hand. It made me want to cry.
‘Do you really want this, Mum?’
‘Yes, I really do,’ she said.
‘Does it feel good?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re just saying it.’
‘Silly child!’ Mum said. ‘If it’s good for you, then it’s good for me.’
‘I can make you feel good, Mum.’ I pulled at her arm. ‘I want to do it with you again.’
‘Get off me!’ she shouted, furious.
‘You don’t love me anymore.’
‘I do.’
‘It’s not true. You hate me. You’d be so much happier without me.’
‘And you hate me as well, you useless creature.’
‘Yes!’ I said.