“Insistently I told myself that it was a matter over which an affectionate mother need have no concern- that it was just the natural effect of the forces of nature bubbling up in the body of an adolescent, and that my boy-man required more assiduous care from his mother than ever before.”
“I thought that it would be better to keep him from dwelling too much on these changes in his body-by being or seeming to be-casual and even playful about them. Later, I thought, I could instruct him more fully in the significance of these same carnal manifestations-but not now-oh, not now… while he was still my little baby boy…”
“I was in error-as I have realized since-” She cleared her throat again-and suddenly started in quick astonishment. Francis Freeman saw that she had at last noticed the evident signs of his own carnal agitation.
In silence, but breathing hoarsely and with her lovely bosom rising and falling tumultuously. Rose Bolton suddenly clenched her hands upon her lap till the knuckles were white. Here was the undeniable evidence that she was prostituting herself to the desires of the male-that she was touching him with the fingers of her words-just as she had touched a younger male with the fingers of her hand-and in the same regions.
Snatching her eyes at last from the spectacle which he made no effort to conceal from her, she hurried on with her tale. Her words came stumblingly at times — and ever and again her lovely eyes, drawn by a force stronger than her own will, strayed down surreptitiously for a glance at his nether person-an action which not only delighted but emboldened Freeman.
“Go on…” he said, as she paused and hesitated- and she said, eyes still downcast:
“Yes! I blundered. I made the mistake of thinking that all possibility of any real indecencies or even strange impulses were obliterated by the fact that we were mother and youthful son. And we played games-largely of his own invention-after his bath. I was glad to see him so playful and merry, and I introduced my own variations into our innocent frolic.”
“We wrestled together-I was trying to get him into a good position for a playful spanking, and he laughing and twisting to avoid being placed in that dangerous posture. I was accustomed to be quite lightly clad for the daily baths which I gave him-to which we both looked forward with a secret zest which should have warned me…”
“If I observed that he seemed to be trying to rub his stiff little prick on my bare arm or leg as we struggled in our play, I would casually take it in my fingers and draw it aside-not rebuking him openly-but thinking that he would realize from my gesture that what he was doing was not quite nice.”
“Quite frequently I would be wearing only a short chemise beneath my loose kimona or dressing gown- and slippers on my bare feet. Lester's muscles developed so rapidly after his thirteenth birthday that he often managed to pin me down on the bath mat-when he would sometimes find that an expanse of naked thigh or thighs had emerged from under my wrap and was available for that friction of his rigid little staff which so delighted him…”
“These contacts-it becomes clearer to me now as I tell it to you-moved me more deeply than I then understood or, was willing to admit to myself.”
“Longer and longer grew the periods during which I would appear to ignore what he was doing-but always, sooner or later, I would extend a rather shaky hand to take his stiff little prick and offer it the rebuke of being removed from contact with my bare skin.”
“And I would endeavour to restore the innocence of the scene-and our mutual gaiety-for he grew silent and flushed as he rubbed his swollen, boyish prick on my denuded person, and I was in a somewhat similar state- by resuming our playful wrestling until I contrived to get him across my knees with his bare behind exposed to a merry paddling.”
“And he seemed to get as much pleasure out of this posture as I did, wriggling and pressing his body down against my thighs until I could feel the quick throb of his youthful weapon against my bare legs, while my own chastising hand rose and fell on his tautly quivering little bottom till he cried for mercy.”
“I could not bear to reproach him for these episodes. And I deliberately blinded myself to his increasing licentiousness-refusing to admit its existence, since with any reference to such things I would be unable to continue treating him as the child which in fact he no longer was-and thus would have to abandon our daily playtime of bathing and petting.”
“Very soon now he achieved a boldness which required more than my nervous laughter to disguise. And if my kimona did not open of itself when we struggled on the rug, he would himself furtively contrive to open it.”
“And under cover of our air of merriment, I would find all of my naked legs and thighs freed from their silken coverings. And while we rolled and wrestled together on the floor, Lester would seize the opportunity to press his loins, his immature genital bush and his now mature and excited member to my bare flesh wherever he chose-calves, thighs, even my bare feet-from which he had plucked the slippers.”
“But this luxurious friction against my unclad body in which my son persisted in indulging whenever the chance arose-I dismissed mentally as merely a sensuous but not a sensual pleasure in soft, intimate contacts-such as a Persian kitten might have enjoyed in play.”
“The day came, however, when the curtain was lifted in part from my obstinately blinded eyes, for when my late husband was dying he said to me:
“Rose, my dear, if I have to leave you, I expect and hope that Lester will prove a great consolation to you. You are a healthy and passionate girl, and our bed will seem very empty to you during the long nights when you are alone. And if we had a daughter I would advise taking her to bed with you-to give you that companionship which is necessary to one who for years has been unaccustomed to sleeping alone.”
“Yet this which I have in mind may well be better- and I advise that you should make a bedfellow of Lester. He looked at me deeply-and more meaningly than I then quite realized-in the eyes. I flushed deeply, though I had as yet no inkling of his true meaning. It was only later, when going through his diary-in which he had recorded bow he had several times watched-and with excited pleasure rather than the opposite-while I bathed Lester and handled him sexually, and the unseemly frolics that had ensued.”
“So I was surprised-but not particularly agitated or at all ashamed when he continued:
“Let me advise you, then, to take our son to your bed, in the event that I should not recover. You will thus he enabled to watch over his budding manhood-and even the snuggling together of your bodies and your hugs and warm kisses before going to sleep will be a source of pleasure and delight to both of you. I should not even deem it wrong if you lay naked thus, for these delicate little pleasures are as natural to mother and son as if there were no blood ties whatever, and it is only convention and prejudice which stamps them taboo.**
“The boy must learn about womankind — and from whom can he learn it more tenderly than from his mother — and I feel sure that upon reflection you will agree with me, though I must warn you to be extremely careful lest any careless indiscretions on the part of Lester or yourself disclose any hint of your intimacies to the outside world.”
“In spite of my amazement I tried to laugh-saying that I expected to keep my present bedfellow for many years to come. The fact that he set no bounds to what I might do with my sturdy young son-a sort of blanket absolution for incest-I dismissed mentally as due to his illness. And yet, Mr. Freeman, he had already set down in words what I was to read later.”