I glanced up toward my mother again, she glancing over her shoulder noticing my studying attention, deciding on a moment's settling calm.

"Still pretty, Tom -?" a girlish giggle, a sultry little change of her posture.

It's the amused mischief it always was between us, perhaps the same wondering fascination. My mother is thirty eight, sixteen years older than I am. I might at times see my mother as I always have, ordinary, average, she perhaps still very pretty with a very pretty figure. And yet I can indeed see a girl at any odd moment, can see an exquisite little sixteen year old beauty standing at the stove, my mother's eyes awash with amused delight for that which she sees in mine.

"Mother - you're absolutely - entrancing -" I answered

"Oh Tom - what a flatterer," though it's yet another teasing little dance for me, a glance over her shoulder just to be certain that I'm playing the game to it's liscivious conclusion. It's some finished, wondering fascination for me, I for an imagining moment deciding again that my mother wasn't even as old as several young ladies my own age in town to whom I had paid frequent calls over the past few years. And with that culminating, liscivious glance toward my mother, I could yet again understand why I spent half my time at such as a grange dance scowling toward men some of whom weren't a great deal older than myself spending half their time gawking in drooling, liscivious delight toward my mother.

"Tom -" and I flung my eyes again to my mother's, culminating, vain delight in her eyes as she decided on culminating, liscivious mischief. "Tom - honestly - stop staring at my ass."

Finishing my breakfast, chuckling in amused mirth deciding that my mother and I hadn't indeed ever had a great many secrets we couldn't speak to each other, I finally pushed myself from the table to her side, glanced through the window toward the tractor and the hay cart resting near the barn. I still, I suppose, see the Packard as I had seen it yesterday afternoon sitting brazenly beside the back porch, still feel a seething rage for the criminal trespass.

"Tom -" my mother sighed, a touch of her lips to my cheek as she pulled my arm about her waist.

I sighed, chuckled, my arm around my sixteen year old beauty's waist as I glanced again toward the tractor and the hay cart.

"I should get the south meadow done, I guess."

"Will you -?" she tried.

"I should -" and I stood at my mother's side not quite certain I could leave her alone in the house even for an hour or two, she and I finding ourselves in circumstances which we might have anticipated for at least the past several weeks now and yet the past few days still a dark, unrelenting horror we could never quite have imagined.

She glanced another moment through the kitchen window, edged her eyes back to mine.

"Tom - I'll be fine -" she whispered - and her eyes awash with little less than terror, that in her features which I can only call girlish frustration when she knew she couldn't even begin to conceal her terror from me.

I turned, never hesitated, crushed violent arms onto her waist.

"Tom -" she whispered, perhaps another half moment's struggle to escape me - she as quickly just giving up entirely, frantic pleading in her eyes. "Tom - hold me -"

I crushed her to my heart with desparate violence. I held my mother in my arms now, and yet I still held a girl in my arms, she yet again giving up entirely, hiding absolutely nothing from me - gasping in shuddering relief knowing I might hold her the entire morning.

I crushed her with frantic, finished violence to my heart - and she and I burying our eyes to each other's little less than sheepish pause in our features another timeless moment, perhaps even a sighing chuckle. Neither my mother nor I will deny that she and I, if any two people ever have been, have always been passionately, violently in love with each other. We can't as well, however, deny that we have any number of times over the past few years now seen those moments of sheepish pause in each other's eyes, she and I knowing that some innocuous little comment or gesture might be seen by others as inordinately arduous displays of affection. We stood in the kitchen locked in each other's arms another timeless eternity, had just moments before played liscivious little games we've played for years, she and I telling ourselves that it was the harmless, innocuous mischief it's always been - and yet I just never hesitated, my arms demanding violence about her as I led her from the kitchen into the front room. I settled onto the couch, cradled her body on my lap, crushed her another timeless eternity to my heart.

"Tom -" she whispered, "the hay - it really has to get done -"

"It can wait -" I decided - and it's almost some amused mirth, her eyes awash with frantic relief, her arms surrounding, pleading strength, she letting me wrap her again to my heart.

It's perhaps a few more moment's of brutal agony, that which it's been for the past two weeks now. It's another moment's searing rage for me - I edging determined eyes toward the rifle standing in a corner a few paces away.

"Tom - just hold me -" a gasp of abandoned pleading.

The rage is gone, the woman I cradled in my arms my entire life, my entire existence. She's mine to guard, to protect - and yet it's the reeling, searching confusion I had known it must be. I never for instant allow myself to forget that it's my mother whose body I'm cradling in my arms. And yet she was, in so many ways, my lover long before we'd found ourselves living in constant, frightened horror. I hadn't even as I admitted all manner of inescapable intimacies the least doubt that I was going to hold her in my arms the entire morning, perhaps the entire day - wouldn't hesitate this evening if I still saw the same anxious fright in her eyes. I'd wrap her again to my heart throughout the night, would fall into sleep myself only when I knew the woman I cradled in my arms had fallen into sleep - and I would just have to do so despite that which had over the past few days now seemed so inescapable. And still, it was that same timeless reeling confusion just moments after I'd settled with her onto the couch, perhaps even a sorrowing despair that it had happened so quickly.

And it all seemed the matter of one more timeless moment, I falling frantically into my mother's eyes for the sudden bite of her nails onto my arms - I as well knowing it had to be spoken aloud.

"Tom -" her voice a whisper of pleading fury, "have me - you can have me - you can have me any time you want me, Tom. You know you can -"

I wrapped her desperately to my heart, she and I just waiting, another moment. We're trembling with helpless violence - and know that circumstances no matter what they are just can't justify or excuse that which in some ways is consumating already, my mother and I entwined in each other's arms never for an instant doubting it a union of our hearts. And yet - it's that as well which we just can't deny or escape, my mother's voice yet again a whisper of quiet pleading.

"Tom - I'm ready - I'm ready too. I'm ready for you -"

We rested in each other's arms, she and I burying our eyes to each other's - yet she and I knowing it the want of our bodies become our entire existence, a finished, aching want of a ferocity neither of us had ever before known in any but each other's arms, my mother and I knowing it some helpless, almost painful want that our bodies be joined and one with each others in the ultimate touch of intimacy - and our answer to each other whether it's right or wrong simply that which it is, our answer to each other yes. It might again almost have been some bizare, reeling mirth between us, my mother and I prior to a few weeks ago supposing ourselves rational and sensible, she and sometimes seeing fleeting moment's of knowing mischief in each other's eyes though she and I as carefully guarding supremely personal intimacies as might any other mother and son. And I held my mother in my arms she quite aware that I paying visits to several young ladies in town over the past several years had already succumbed to life's primal urges - and my mother resting now in my arms knowing the thing that which I had never doubted it might be did I ever give in to it entirely, my mother resting in my arms knowing the want of my body for hers become a helpless, pounding ache of a ferocity I had never before known in any other woman's arms but hers. And it was as quickly just something incomparable more knowing her want for me all of the finished, helpless desparation my own want had become - and the thing in the end ludicrously bizare. The woman I held in my arms hadn't until just several years ago even known what aroused want was - hadn't ever felt the least physical want in any man's arms other than mine.

It had not that long ago, I suppose, been the ultimate in the bizare.

"Come on, Tom, tell me - I want to know -" my mother had whispered in giggling, intimate mischief several years ago when she'd discovered that I had succumbed to life's primal wants with a young woman in town.

"Mother -" I'd gasped, perhaps in startled amusement. "I can't tell you. Grandma would be furious with both of us. You know she would."

"Tom - come on - what grandma doesn't know won't hurt her. Come on - tell me - I wanna know -" and I'd finally abandoned myself to the mischief, defying the wishes of the woman who was "grandma" to both my mother and me - I telling my mother what a man and a woman did when engaging in an act of sexual intimacy - and never that day several years ago thinking it the least bizare that my mother was staring in girlish, wide eyed disbelief.

My mother and I to begin with, I suppose, have never been a great deal more than brother and sister, my mother at sixteen years of age standing in this same front room in trembling terror telling my grandfather and grandmother that she didn't even know his last name, he a carnival roustabout offering her another sip from his bottle. "I don't know - I don't remember -" my mother had cried in terror for angry fury in my grandmother's features. My first memories were of grandmother barking in anger - "Lisa - go to your room and stay there and then maybe you'll learn to behave." I at ten years of age might have chuckled in gloating glee whenever "Lisa" rather than myself was the recipient of my grandmother's anger, my grandmother "mother" to me and she a figure of stern, maternal authority to both "Lisa" and me. "I hate you, Tom," my mother with pouting anger in her features declared whenever I in the midst of sibling bickering had "told on her." I at twenty years of age just before my grandfather and grandmother had died had still seen lingering anger in their eyes toward my mother, I holding an older sister in my arms at their funerals.

Returning home to the farm, my mother pouted in sighing mirth over the next two years knowing that I and the farm hands were chuckling in amused mirth for her occasional, ludicrous comments and suggestions regarding the running of a farm, my mother now an obedient younger sister who I allowed to choose curtains. I, in another month or two, was sighing the usual amusement or annoyance toward a sister who was the most outrageous little flirt who had ever lived, she at such as a grange dance in town merciless with some obviously eager admirer. It was never, however, anything more than innocuous mischief to her, she at such as a grange dance satisfied when it was gawking delight in an admirer's eyes, she fleeing back to me at the first sign of arduous amorous intent on the part of an admirer, she pouting for scolding annoyance in my eyes as I informed her that I was going to abandon her to the wolves if she didn't behave.

"Mother -" stern, authoritative demand in my voice on more than a few occasions, "you'll stay home in your bedroom until I've said otherwise and then maybe you'll learn to behave -" though I might by then have allowed myself moments of wondering, introspective quiet for that which I'd finally realized was atypical to every bizare and ludicrous extreme. My mother was still "Lisa" at any odd moment, a naive little innocent with a girlish pout in her features declaring that I expressing disapproval of her latest suitor "never let her do anything." Very few twenty two year old sons, I'd realized in moments of quiet introspection, would send their own mothers to their rooms and expect to see pouting obedience in their features.

It had been another two years of innocuous mischief on my mother's part, amused annoyance for me whenever I had to rescue my own mother from some particularly arduous pursuit. "I'm sorry, I'll behave - I promise," she pouted. "Tell me you still love me, Tom."

I never hesitated - she and I knowing our love for each other sometimes seemed little less than a romantic passion. "You were too jealous of him, weren't you, Tom," radiant delight in the eyes of an outrageous little flirt whenever I glared envious disapproval toward one of her admirers.

We weren't in some ways at the time, I'll always believe, all that different than any other mother and son. Dancing with my mother after she had tired of her mischief, we might see little less than moments of sheepish pause in each other's features. We were even then, however, rational creatures who knew that we'd allowed ourselves moment's of outright liscivious imagining as we danced in each other's arms. I was holding my girlish, exquisite little beauty in my arms, her posture on the instant sultry writhing to every blatant and obvious extreme. "You were too jealous," my mother might then repeat, she and I lovers for another imagining moment though she and I seeing in the end little more than the usual amused mirth in each other's eyes. Even if the words "mother" and "son" could at times still seem little more than vaguely understood titles, my mother and I knew exactly what the words meant.

It might for me have been moments of wondering mirth for that which I'd supposed even at the time was bizare to every ludicrous extreme. My own mother was as naive a little innocent as any who had ever lived, had nothing more than a vague idea as to what the more persistent of her pursuers wanted.

"He was a roustabout with a traveling carnival," my grandmother had told me just before she had died. "He hung about the farm for a week - and got her drunk one night. She doesn't even remember it - still doesn't know what happened. Tom -" my grandmother had pled knowing she was dying, "she's absolutely the most ludicrously helpless, gullible, and naive creature who ever lived. Tom - take care of her after I'm gone."

I danced with my sweet, innocent little beauty in my arms, she a short time before my grandparents had died meeting my eyes with a mix of bashful reserve and pouting mischief in her own.

"Oh Tom - I do too know what they want - kind of."

I could chuckle even then in amused mirth, supposed she had overheard various manner of explicit comments I heard often enough myself at such as a grange dance. I might cringe in sheepish mirth for accusing mischief in my mother's eyes she knowing that I and the young lady who I had been seeing for the past few months were the subject of various manner of rumor.

"But mother - you'll always be my girlfriend," I might chuckle as quickly, genuine, appreciative delight in her eyes, perhaps a sultry little change of posture - she and I perhaps seeing another moment's sheepish pause in each other's eyes remembering that we were very deeply in love with each other.

"She is very pretty, Tom," my mother has commented any number of times over the past several years.

"Almost as pretty as you mother," I could answer without the least hesitation as I glanced amused mirth toward appreciative, knowing delight in her eyes, and I sometimes glancing another half moment toward a mother or an older sister who I'd always known was an exceptionally attractive woman, glancing perhaps another half moment's curious scrutiny toward a woman toward whom pursuers at such as a grange dance might gawk in drooling scrutiny. And I at twenty two years of age for that which had been a half moment's sultry change in my mother's posture had yet again gazed a timeless moment toward a woman who was suddenly and again as exquisite and alluring a little beauty as any woman I had ever seen - had edged awakening eyes to hers suddenly knowing it had yet again been imagining gone blatantly past every limit.

And it had indeed been nothing less, though it had as well as I met my mother's eyes been something incomparably more. There simply hadn't, at least for fleeting moments, been limits between us to begin with, I meeting my mother's eyes suddenly knowing that it had been blatant, intrigued fascination in my own, I seeing my own mother as alluring feminine beauty - and seeing that in her eyes which was just some culminating, giddy delight. It might even then have been yet another half moment between us - and had any number of times been timeless in ways I could never before have imagined, my mother and I falling into each other eyes knowing again that we were passionately, violently - romantically in love with each other - and she and I finally awakening together though that little more than another moment's sighing, sheepish amusement between us.

"Tom, now stop -" she as often as not deciding on blatant, liscivious amusement, yet again a sultry little dance, "you were staring at my ass, Tom. I know you were."

We both decided it nothing more than knowing mischief between us - until I sat with her on the couch in the front room crushing her to my heart with frantic desparation, our lives so horribly different over the past few weeks. I sat cradling her body on my lap, listened to the pounding of her heart next to my own. I hadn't the least doubt that my love for her was that which it always had been, my love for her emotional violence pounding into the honest depths of my heart. And I sat the warmth of her cheek next to my own my entire existence in ways I had never before known, the warmth of her body wrapped about my own immersing and enveloping in ways I could never before have thought possible. I sat cradling her body on my own giving myself up again to the ultimate. It's a falling abandon it just couldn't have been with any woman other than her, is yet again the supremely personal intimacy. Neither she nor I take the least refuge in pretense or denial - she and I mother and son - and it's just some new, finished abandon, she simply the woman who stirs in me wants of a ferocity incomparably more than I had ever before known. It's yet again something I can only call finished and consumating already, I and the woman I cradled in my arms burying our eyes to each other's yet knowing it's the most personal intimacy of our bodies become our entire existence - and she and I just waiting another moment, she and I knowing that we've finally given up entirely.

We demanded of ourselves, I suppose, one more moment's reasoning calm. I saw the same lucid, perceptive intelligence in her own eyes. And with that, we could rest in each other's arms seeing in each other's eyes everything from amused mirth to accepting resignation - could rest in each other's arms knowing again that no two people had ever been more violently, passionately in love with each other. It's the same words crashing into every corner of my mind. She's mine now, mine to guard and protect from a threatening menace - and it yet again seems every last intimacy spoken between us in a bizare and timeless instant.

It had, for the past several weeks now, been ongoing, unrelenting horror for my mother and me, the county boss noticing her at a grange dance - and his pursuit of her that which I can only call criminal by any standards imaginable.

"Tom -" my mother whispered as I crushed her to my heart with frantic violence, "Tom - I'm so sorry -"

I flung my eyes to hers.

"Stop it -" I demanded.

"Tom - I must have done something wrong -"

"You didn't do anything, mother. You danced with him at the grange - once -"

"Tom -" another moment's desparate pleading in her eyes.

"Mother - you didn't do anything wrong. He's an animal, one dance and he decides rules just don't apply to him. We'll - we'll get through this - you and me - together -"

It's that which it's been for the past several weeks now, she burying confused, frightened eyes to mine, finally believing that I think it absolutely ludicrous that fault lies anywhere but with a childish, perverse animal who can't take no for an answer.

We rested in each other's arms on the couch in the front room, she and I now alone on the farm, both of the hands having deserted us. The whole thing could, I suppose, happen nowhere but in Collier county, a boss who owned most of the county dispatching the sheriff and his deputy in pursuit of his latest victim. It's even yet pleading desparation in my mother's eyes. I had spent three days in the county jail after confronting the county boss, three days of despairing terror knowing that as ludicrously naive and helpless of creature who had ever lived was alone on the farm. I'd seen an edge of very genuine shame in the sheriff's features, he finally leaving doors unlocked, turning his back. I'd torn from town back to the farm, had finally climbed to the crest of the hill overlooking the house and the barns, had stood in a sudden, reeling terror like none I had ever before known. The Packard sat a few yards from the back porch. The final quater mile to the house had seemed a distance which was tormenting, impossible, a quarter mile separating me from my mother. Just let me get there in time, I'd cried in every panicked corner of my mind.

I'd flung myself on in frenzied desparation, the Packard sitting brazenly next to the house immersing me in a blinding, searing rage - a glimmer of hope when the county boss stepped from the house onto the back porch. He'd passed another moment glancing about the grounds of the farm, had then just slammed himself into his car and torn off down the road.

I'd flung myself toward my mother every passing instant a sickening, brutal horror - had finally found her hiding in the barn, trembling in terror, a scream wrenched from her throat even when she'd seen that it was me tearing through the barn in panicked desperation searching for her.

"Mother -?" I'd whispered as I crushed her to my heart.

"No -" she'd answered. "But he's come every day, Tom - once at night - I hid all night - down by the river - Tom, I'm so scared -"

I'll never remember it all, remember trembling in a blinding rage knowing I had to snatch the rifle from the wall.

"Tom - he's gone - don't leave me - hold me -"

I'd wrenched her again into my arms, carried her into the house, she and I passing the rest of the evening listening to the pounding of each other's hearts. I'd settled her onto her bed yesterday evening - had hesitated one trembling moment. I'd crushed her to my heart throughout the night - will never remember exactly when my kisses and caresses had become frantic, abandoned lovemaking. I was holding a woman in my arms who was trembling in terror, her arms around me with pleading desparation, her kisses frenzied desparation. "Hold me," she'd whispered again and again, I slamming her body onto my own, wrapping her to my heart, my life the crush of her lips to my cheek. I'd passed three days in despairing terror, and she and I finally in each other's arms, she finally mine to hold forever this time.

I'll never really know if I had ever entirely forgotten that it was my own mother I was holding in my arms last night. I was cradling the woman with whom I had always been violently, passionately in love in my arms, wrapping her body to my own with abandoned violence, the frantic crush of her lips to my cheek my entire existence - the thing my every hidden hope and want suddenly come true. She'd been my life for years, I perhaps wandering into town from time to time, I on a few occasions wondering if I might finally be falling in love with a girl my own age who over the past few months had intimated a very genuine affection for me. And wandering back to the farm, I might from time to time find myself chuckling in quiet, introspective musing - would decide it nothing more than a strange and unavoidable little fact that I sometimes saw my own mother exactly as everyone else did. I might chuckle again knowing that she standing at the stove noticing my attention might glance amused delight over her shoulder, a half moment's sultry little dance for me. "Still pretty -?" she'd ask. I'd agree without the least hesitation. "The prettiest girl in the county, mother -" though I'd sometimes found myself sitting again in quiet introspection knowing that I had at least for fleeting, unguarded moments flung myself blatantly past every limit. I had for fleeting moments and for some incomprehensible, timeless eternity gazed nothing less than liscivious fascination toward a woman who was indeed feminine beauty and allure to every incomparable, not quite explicable extreme. It might have been nothing less than outright, bawdy fascination, the word "ass" crashing into my mind, the woman standing at the stove girlish beauty and allure to every maddening extreme - and my mother sometimes aiming nothing less than a glance of accusing mischief over her shoulder, she with knowing delight in her eyes stating explicitly where she suspected mine had strayed.

And it had, any number of times over the years, been imagining which I can only call consumating. Sleeping with my mother in her bed whenever my great aunts were visiting, my mother still "Lisa" to me at the time, it might for moments have been sibling rivalry, I in my teens gloating toward an older sister who had been sent to her room.

"You did too, mother," I might declare, my mother and I quite aware that we were mother and son and yet neither she nor I at the time quite certain why my grandmother insisted that I start calling Lisa mother.

"I did not."

"You did too - mother - so there."

"I did not. Oh - you're such a liar, Tom."

"You did too, mother - grandma and me saw you, holding his hand right on Main Street and kissing you right on the lips. And guess what?"

"What?" my mother sighed.

"Guess where I saw him looking?"

"Where?" curious intrigue settling into Lisa's eyes.

"Right at your ass."

"Oh he was not," my mother protested. "Was he?" wicked, curious delight in her eyes. "Oh go to sleep, Tom," a touch of her lips to my cheek, a sighing chuckle in order to tell me that she still loved me - my Lisa laying beside me in the bed sultry, accusing mischief in her eyes. "Stop it -" a girlish giggle for brazen, devouring scrutiny in my own eyes.

"No -" brazen mischief in my voice.

"I hate you, Tom -" and it was culminating, entranced delight for the same not quite concealed from my Lisa's eyes, she resting in bed at my side wearing nothing more than a flimsy, clinging nightgown and she a few moments later opening intrigued eyes just to be certain that I was still gazing in devouring abandon.

I might lay awake for another hour, might for moments feel nothing less than a seething, jealous anger toward some young man who had dared hold my Lisa's hand, would finally just settle into a contented ecstasy knowing that I could sleep beside her the rest of the night. And I might as quickly have fallen into abandoned imagining which I'd known even at the time was inappropriate to every possible extreme, might even have attempted moments of retreat from it. I had, even at the time, known at least in awakening corners of my mind why my grandmother hadn't for the past few years now allowed my mother and me to take baths together. And a moment's retreat as I lay at my mother's side in her bed just left me fallen into imagining which had as often as not been that which was indeed consumating, I resting at my Lisa's side deciding again that she was mine and no one else's, devouring her with my eyes - quite as I always did whenever I stole through the bathroom's door.

"Tom -" she'd gasped in startled annoyance for the past several years now as she stepped from the bathtub, grasping frantically for a towel.

"Come on - once more -"

"No - go away -"

"Come on, Lisa -"

"Tom - what if grandma catches us -"

"She won't - come on -"

And it was my older sister who with wicked delight in her eyes let me draw the towel from her body, her dance for me writhing twists and turns of her body.

"There - now give it back -"

"No - one more -" I gawking in wide eyed fascination deciding she was, even if an older sister, still the most beautiful and alluring woman who had ever lived. I had at the time in town or behind the barn on a neighboring farm spent a few idle hours with girls my own age who knowing exactly what I wanted had allowed me teasing glimpses, had after another minute's coaxing on my part shed their clothing entirely before it was frightened retreat on both of our parts. And I stood again in wondering fascination, my Lisa simply incomparable, she exquisite, girlish beauty seeming some entrancing, absolutely perfect ideal.

"Tom - come on - give it back -"

"No - " I lowering my eyes, gaping another timeless moment in finished, devouring abandon - and Lisa even if she wasn't certain why I was doing so yet again realizing that I had been doing so for the past several years now.

"Tom - stop it -" the same girlish giggle as she snatched the towel from my hand. "Now go away," and I stole again as often as not back toward the door a minute or two later, stood in amused delight as she let the towel drop to the floor, my Lisa standing in writhing dance in front of a mirror, intrigued delight in her own features. It might have been another moment's wondering, reeling amusement for me, my Lisa lowering her eyes, she not quite certain why the most obvious difference between her body and mine had over the past several years become something other than the sibling bickering it might have been in the past. And I stood as often as not at the bathroom's door in a finished, falling abandon as my Lisa ran a curious hand to a touch of searching intimacy. She just hours before, as she had any number of times over the past few years, had wandered through my bedroom's door at an unexpected and supremely inadvertent moment. It might several years before have been accusing mischief in a bothersome older sister's eyes as she threatened to tell grandma that I was "doing it" again. It had, just a few hours ago, been little more than sheepish, girlish intrigue in my Lisa's eyes - and was shuddering, abandoned intrigue for me as I stood at the bathroom's door discovered again that Lisa was now "doing it."

And it was the same contented ecstasy as she drew nothing more than a flimsy nightgown over her body, settled into bed with me -

she my Lisa who might indeed flirt for some young man on the sidewalks in town though my Lisa finally flirting every bit as often with me. And her flirting in town, I'd suspected even at the time, was little more than moments of amused mischief for her.

"Come on, mother," I sitting at the truck's wheel might plead, I by then every bit as "grown up" as any of her boyfriends, "let's just go to the dance ourselves," I gazing seething envy toward my mother's current suitor, perhaps boredom toward a girl my own age.

"Oh - you're so jealous, Tom -"

"I am not. And besides, you know what grandma said -"

"She did not -"

"Yes she did. I'm not to let you out of my sight. You can't be trusted to behave, mother -"

"Oh - I hate you so much, Tom -"

It might have been another moment's bickering though that as often at not ending in the same contented little ecstasy as my Lisa pressed a sighing kiss to my cheek, let me wrap an owning arm about her waist, deciding she wasn't in the mood anyway for some bothersome young man who'd have "groping hands all over my ass."

"Tom - honestly - will you stop it -" my Lisa protested after I'd maneuvered her to a secluded corner of the grange dance square - and the thing yet again a pleasant little ecstasy for nothing more than sighing annoyance in her voice, ill concealed delight in my Lisa's eyes as she waited for another stolen caress. It would, I'd finally realized, have been angry rebuke in her features had it been anyone other than me stealing caresses of fondling, groping intimacy.

And I rested perhaps an evening later on my own bed as my Lisa wearing nothing more than a flimsy nightgown wandered through the bathroom's door.

"I hate you," she usually declared once or twice after she had settled into bed with me. Chuckling, passing a few more minutes devouring her in idle fascination, I pressed a caressing touch of my leg to hers just to be certain that she wasn't sleeping.

"Stop it -" sighing annoyance, a girlish giggle - she quite aware that I might spend another hour "seeing how far I could get."

"I hate you -" she sighed - and it's a pleasant little ecstasy for me seeing giddy delight in her eyes for my teasing caresses.

"How come you let him kiss you, anyway?"

"You're jealous, aren't you."

"I am not -" my voice envious, seething fury. "Anyway, how come -?"

"I didn't let him. I said he could hold my hand and then - he just did. Anyway, I couldn't care less. I was just teasing him. Now go to sleep."

I waited until she closed her eyes, leaned, touched my lips to hers.

"Stop it -" and it's a giddy little ecstasy for nothing more than giggling mischief in her voice - I flinging myself on into mischief which I hadn't even at the time quite dared admit was something a world more than mischief.

"He wanted more than a kiss, you know," my leg lain to hers in urging caress. "Know what else he wanted -?"

"Stop it -" and she edged eyes awash with curious intrigue to mine.

"Come on - I know how -"

"You do not -" she pouted, she quite aware that I did.

"Come on -" pleading in my voice.

"No -" and it's a dizzying little ecstasy as she let me touch my lips to hers in a timeless moment's teasing caress.

"Stop it. I mean it this time, Tom -" her giggle entrancing.

"No -" I demanded - and she my Lisa who I decided again was just another girl not really so much older than myself, I by then "grown up" anyway. I had just that afternoon wrestled her onto the ground without the least effort, had locked capturing hands about her wrists until she'd cried out in annoyed mirth, had "given up." She and I both stealing a glance just to be certain that grandma wasn't anywhere in sight, she'd pouted a "no" as I demanded "one kiss -" and she giggling in amused delight as I touched my lips to hers in a timeless moment's teasing caress.

"Come on," I plead again that evening as I slid a pleading hand to her waist, my caresses teasing, fondling intimacy. "I know something else we can do. It's more than just a kiss-"

"Tom - no - stop it -" her voice a plaintive, purring cry - her eyes awash with wild, reeling delight. It's yet again my every secret, cherished want come true knowing that my caressing touch is stirring in my Lisa a warmth she feels indeed only for my touch.

"Mother - you like it -"

"I do not. Don't you dare touch my ass -"

It's another moment's dizzying ecstasy for me, a touch of culminating, fondling intimacy, explosive gasps wrenched from her throat as she gazed wide eyed intrigue toward my caresses, finally decided it time for another moment's protest.

"I hate you, Tom -" and it's just some new, falling delight. She knows that I've flung myself again, as I have often enough already, past some abandoned line, knows that I want something more now, something which is the ultimate.

"Come on -" I pled.

"No -" wide, waiting eyes buried two mine. "What would we have to do -?"

"We have to both take our clothes off."

"Tom - no -" a giggling gasp. "Gramma would be furious -"

"She won't know, mother -" the thing that sudden and helpless fall from a cliff as I decided I just wasn't going to stop this time, just couldn't stop, a capturing arm about her waist, a hand slid onto her shoulder, to the straps of her nightgown. "Come on - lemme take your nightgown off -"

"Tom - no -" her eyes awash with frantic ambivalence as she let me play with the straps.

"Mother - come on - grandma doesn't have to know -" and it's my Lisa who let's me run pleading caresses up and down her arm, who flings her eyes to my hand lain again to her shoulder.

"Tom - no - we can't -" and it's nothing more than a half moment's struggle for an urging arm drawn about her waist, she wrapping a trembling hand to my arm as she let me draw her body to my own.

"Tom - let me go - we can't -"

"Why can't we -?" I whispered in frantic pleading. "Lisa - you're so beautiful. Why can't it be you and me -" the thing yet again my every long cherished hope come true. She's finally giving up entirely, I brushing the straps of her nightgown onto her arm, her breath gasping fury as she watched me do so - and she in another sudden moment finally remembering that an annoying little fact would usually allow her to escape me. "Tom - you called me Lisa. I am most certainly informing grandma that you called me Lisa instead of mother -"

I sighed, gave up for the night. I might even have chuckled in amused mirth for an expression of maternal vehemence similar to my grandmother's in my mother's features.

"Oh - I hate you so much -" she groaned, abandoning the affectation.

I waited until she'd turned her back to me, was drifting into sleep - and decided it was enough that she curled her body onto my own as soon as I'd drawn an arm about her waist. And it was enough, I'd decided even at the time, just knowing that she had given up again, would let me push the nightgown from her body any time I wanted to.

"Stop it -" the same girlish giggle for a caressing touch of my lips to her neck, stolen caresses just to be certain that her "stop it" was all but gasping, pleading assent - and I'd rested again at some strange, maddening edge, the thing a reeling, falling abandon as I decided I just couldn't stop - and my grandmother's stern though not unkind features suddenly coursing through my mind.

"Lisa - behave -" my grandmother sometimes barked toward an outrageous little flirt. "Tom - leave your mother alone -" my grandmother might sigh toward me, I, after all, "knowing better."

My mother and I the following morning might have seen a moment's sheepish reserve in each other's features, our demeanor toward each other for the next day or two and to my grandmother's curious, mirthful amusement that which my mother and I supposed any other mother and son might affect toward each other. It might be a few more sheepish glances toward each other - she and I knowing that we had "gone even further" this time, knowing that it had been her body cradled onto mine the entire night in an embrace of caressing, fondling intimacy. And a day or two was usually enough, my mother and I bickering in sibling rivalry, she and I perhaps in some not quite dared corner of our minds finally realizing that we were indeed mother and son, realizing why "our grandma" glanced chastising annoyance whenever I reverting to old habits was bickering with "Lisa."

And with all of that - I was violently, passionately - romantically in love with my Lisa. I met her eyes time and again over the next few years - and it was some immersion in warm, unrelenting bliss knowing that she was falling as deeply in love with me as I was with her.

It had, I'd decided perhaps at twenty years of age, just been the juvenile infatuation anyone might at one time feel for their own mother. Finally returning to the house with a girl from town on my arm, I could chuckle in amused mirth for intrigued fascination in that girl's eyes. "My God, Tom, your mother is absolutely the sweetest, most gorgeous little thing I've ever seen." I could chuckle again in amused mirth for a very genuine pout in my mother's features, the same radiant delight in her eyes when I assured her that she would always be my girlfriend and she the prettiest girl in the county - and my mother and I seeing again that edge of sheepish reserve in each other's eyes as we danced in each other's arms at the grange. I'd glared scowling scrutiny, I'd finally suspected, toward every man with whom my mother had danced. She with a girlish pout in her features declared that I never danced with her anymore now that I had a girlfriend. And my mother and I danced in each other's arms searching for new ways to assure each other that we were still "boyfriend and girlfriend," the terms we choose all manner of risqué, sometimes outright bawdy mischief - until we suddenly fell into timeless silence, she and I falling into each other's eyes knowing that it had never been mischief from the start - my mother and I knowing again that absolutely nothing had changed. We might even have dared remember moments of ultimate mischief, she and I remembering that I just several years ago had passed most of my time desperately trying to push the clothing from her body - and my mother and I deciding that another moment's outright bawdy mischief was as good a means as any to retreat from a moment's sheepish, knowing silence.

"Are you going to - do it -?" sibling accusation in my mother's eyes as she nodded toward the girl I'd invited to the dance, my grandmother for the past several years now warning me that if I "did it" I would take the consequences.

"Mother -" I sighed in amused mirth - and I buried my eye's to Lisa's another timeless moment hiding absolutely nothing from her. It's still as dizzying an abandon as any I had ever known - and something incomparably more, she and I admitting that our dancing with anyone but each other was little more than affectation - she and I burying our eyes to each other's knowing we were passionately, violently - romantically in love with each other. It was, finally, something I can only call consumating, I eminently aware that I dancing in my mother's arms was now guarding against a threatening warmth - and something pounding into every corner of my heart when I realized again that my sweet, innocent little beauty just didn't know how to guard against it herself. She hadn't any real idea what was happening to her own body, a moment's very genuine fright in her eyes

"Tom -?" mischievous intrigue settling back into Lisa's eyes.

"Mother -" I sighed.

"Come on - tell me -"

"You have to - take your clothes off -"

"I know that. You told me, remember? What - else -?"

"Grandma would be furious -"

"Let her be furious. Grandma doesn't have to know. Come on, Tom. I wanna know."

"Maybe - sometime -" I chuckled and sighed, realizing again why "our grandma" as soon as she had warned me to behave myself at the dance had turned toward my mother - "and you're not to leave Tom's sight, Lisa."

I'll never quite know why I had, a short time later, passed an evening sharing a bottle with a girl in town for whom I'd felt an amusing affection. I'd awoken the next morning and had felt little more than some bizare disappointment that it had happened. I had a short time after that rested in my bedroom after several day’s vehement, sometimes angry chastening from my grandmother, she having heard rumors regarding me and a girl in town, asking of me if I had even bothered to stop and consider what the consequences might have been - and both my grandmother and I falling into silence whenever my mother and a naive innocent walked into the room.

I'd rested in my bedroom in sullen despair for my grandmother's chastening - my mother as usual just idling through the door, flopping down on the bed at my side - Lisa that evening wearing accusing mischief in her features.

"I thought I was your girlfriend," she pouted.

"You are," I'd chuckled.

"Then - how come grandma says -"

"I didn't - I mean, even if I did - it didn't mean anything, mother. It just - happened -"

"Then you did, didn't you -" a envious pout in her features - and culminating, curious mischief a quick moment later. "Come on, tell me -"

"Mother -" I'd gasped in startled wonder, protesting that grandma would be furious.

"Come on, Tom, I wanna know -"

I'd rested at her side giving myself up to the mischief, had rested in a wild, falling abandon deciding I would tell her.

"Remember that day - a month ago - the last time you walked in here and I was - doing it -"

She nodded, a girlish giggle.

"And you've started doing it too, mother -

"I do not - maybe sometimes -"

"I caught you twice just last week, mother -" I chuckled in accusing mirth, flinging myself again into a wild, reeling abandon. "Anyway - there's - another way to do it, a way to do it together -"

"Together -?"

I'd rested at her side in a falling abandon not quite like any I had ever before known - had realized again that a night in town had been the matter of an unguarded, intoxicated moment which had meant nothing to me. I'd rested at my mother's side she and I over the past several years finally seeing genuine, sheepish reserve in each other's eyes - and yet she suddenly and again my Lisa, my Lisa who was as passionately, violently in love with me as I was with her - my Lisa who still, whenever we slept together, let me cradle her body to my own in an embrace which we knew was the warm, reeling bliss it had always been.

"Yes - together -" I'd whispered. "That's the way it's done -" a nod of my eyes toward her body and mine. "We just - do it together - with our bodies -"

It had been a flash of her eyes - and was something I'd never before known with anything close to the same aching, wanting ferocity.

"Oh -" the same quiet, girlish giggle though something incomparable more in her features. She’d stared another timeless moment in wide eyed disbelief - had stared finally in dawning comprehension. It was yet another flash of her eyes toward my body and her own - and it was yet again something I could never quite have imagined, a want which had become a desparate, painful ache of my body for hers.

"That's - that's what you do -" she'd whispered - and I'll never quite remember the next moment or two, she and I resting at each other's sides our hands trembling violence to each other's arms, our eyes buried to each other's in frantic, waiting intimacy.

"Do you - do you want to -?" I'd finally whispered.

It was yet again something I could never quite have imagined, a reeling, fallen abandon knowing already what her answer was.

"Yes -" a pleading whisper, the bite of her nails on my arms a dizzying ecstasy.

I'll never quite know why we waited another moment - finally saw awakening lucidity in each other's eyes.

"But - we shouldn't, should we, Tom -?" she'd whispered.

"No -" I'd answered, she and I demanding of ourselves another moment's awakening, lucid pause - she and I mother and son who for the odd moment or two had even deported ourselves as such over the past several years.

And yet it was another moment seeming my every hidden want and hope suddenly come true, she simply the one woman with whom I could fall passionately in love - and she yet again clawing frantic nails onto my arms, her voice a pleading whisper.

"Couldn't we, Tom - just once. Grandma doesn't have to know -"

It was dizzying, falling abandon like none I could ever have imagined, she and I crushing trembling hands onto each other's waists, she as I urged her body closer yet again flinging her eyes toward my body and her own, she flinging eyes awash with a wanting frenzy back to mine.

And it was yet another sudden and abrupt awakening. My grandmother, I'd realized again, already knew, she for the past several years now barking the same "Lisa, behave yourself" toward an "outrageous little flirt." I, edging sheepish eyes toward my grandmother's, had seen little more than a knowing warning and sighing sympathy for the past several years now in the glance my grandmother directed toward me, my grandmother quite aware that an outrageous little flirt was as often at not directing her wiles toward me..

"Mother - we shouldn't -" I tried - and it was even then my every secret and cherished little dream come true, my Lisa indeed my Lisa again, she sighing, pouting, giving up - and she resting at my side another hour, she and I deciding that brazen, knowing mischief was as good a way as any to retreat from that which we couldn't deny had been frantic, pleading assent.

"Tom - stop staring at my ass -"

I tried a mirthful chuckle, gazed toward a sultry little dance - met my mother's eyes another timeless moment. I'll never be quite certain why we had to rest another hour at each other's sides in that which in some ways had been consumating in every sense of the word, our hands wrapped about each other’s in frantic, caressing intimacy.

"We shouldn't, I guess," my Lisa had finally sighed - and we'd passed another week seeing frantic pleading in each other's eyes, our demeanors about each other struggling affectation until some word or gesture was ludicrous to every obvious and blatant extreme. It had been a week of bizare, culminating ambivalence, a strange little despair and a reeling, unending bliss knowing that my mother as soon as I asked it of her would frantically tear the clothing from her body. It was a week in which we found ways to speak every last intimacy to each other, she and I indeed mother and son perhaps for the first time in our lives - and she and I a mother and son who sometimes sighed in resigned mirth knowing that glances toward each other were as often as not imagining to every lascivious extreme. We idled into each other's rooms quite as we always had, told ourselves that our doing so wasn't in the least intentional, supposed all manner of teasing comments just risqué, knowing mischief between us - and the thing another half dozen times a reeling, dizzying abandon as we finally edged our eyes toward each other's knowing we weren't going to stop this time. We stood even then searching for some way to retreat from that which was an abandoned fall past a line we both now recognized.

"Tom -" my mother as often as not deciding that blatant, knowing mischief was yet again as good a means as any to effect a retreat, "Tom - I swear - sometimes I think you still want to take my clothes off -"

"Mother - you're imagining things -" and I left her in no doubt whatsoever, a glance which was frantic coaxing.

"Stop it -" she giggled quite as she always had, perhaps a half moment's sultry little dance.

"No -" a caressing hand to her shoulder - the thing yet again my every longing hope and want come true as she edged pleading eyes to mine. I can push the nightgown from her body the moment I want to, know that she's waiting for me to do so - know that it's yet again become intimacy between us which in so many ways is finished and consumating already.

We waited as we always did, the thing that timeless moment's helpless despair and a wild, reeling ecstasy - perhaps another moment's sighing, resigned amusement as my mother and I stood searching for some way to retreat from that which we finally admitted had been constant lovemaking over the course of another entire day.

"I'm going to take a bath, Tom. Don't you dare -"

I chuckled in amused mirth, rested on my bed gazing toward the bathroom's open door - decided blatant, knowing intimacy between us was, at least for the moment, enough. I edged my eyes again toward the bathroom's door - admitted again that it hadn't ever been juvenile infatuation or anything of the sort. I demanded of myself that pretense and denial be flung aside entirely. I hadn't called her Lisa for at least the past two years now. She was at times my mother even in moment's of idle bickering - and I rested on my bed edging my eyes again toward the bathroom's door, toward the woman with whom I was violently, painfully in love. It was enough, I decided again, just knowing that she had fallen as passionately in love with me - and she for the past week now as frantically trying to seduce me as I was her. She, quite as I did, vehemently denied to herself that she was doing anything of the sort - and it was yet again some bizare, reeling amusement for "an affair" between us which couldn't have been a great deal more obvious. I'd "happened" through doors a half dozen times over the past week now, doors she had "forgotten" to close, she frantically reaching for a towel, perhaps the half moment's outright wicked mischief in her eyes which I had seen so often in the past - and the thing for the past week yet again something I could never quite have imagined - she and I standing our eyes buried to each other's in frantic intimacy - she letting the towel just fall to the floor, burying her eyes to mine as I admitted that I had walked through that door with only one thought raging in every corner of my mind.

It had seemed a dazed, timeless eternity, some endless fall from a cliff - she falling forward, I raising my arms, crushing trembling hands to her waist - burying my eyes to hers yet her body my entire existence.

"Tom -" her voice a trembling whisper, she and I finally speaking it all aloud, "Tom - I think of you - think it's you even when I'm by myself. I've never thought it would be anyone but you. Tom - let's do it together - just once. I want to - so badly -"

I rested an evening later on my bed, gazed another timeless moment toward the bathroom's door, decided again that it was all just knowing, brazen mischief between us - decided as she finally wandered through the door that our sleeping with each for the past week when we hadn't even been told to do so by "our grandma" wasn't anything we hadn't done often enough in the past.

"Stop it -" I demanded in rapturous delight for a caressing touch of her leg to mine.

"I thought I was your girlfriend -" she deciding on pouting mischief tonight.

"Mother - you are - you'll always be my only real girlfriend -" our hands crushed onto each other's with frantic strength.

"Then how come -"

"Mother - we were both drunk - it just - happened. It didn't mean anything - to either of us -" and I buried my eyes to that which I can only call swooning delight in hers, she finally believing me.

"Mother -" I finally continued, the thing another moment's falling abandon as I decided to tell her what she desperately wanted to hear, "mother - you're the only woman I've ever - really loved -" the only woman for whom I've ever felt a constant, almost maddening want - and we waited, that same timeless moment's despairing ecstasy. It's our hands crushed to each other's with violent, caressing strength, she and I pretending and denying absolutely nothing, she and I mother and son knowing it already something between us which has gone past every possible limit. And a waiting moment was enough - she and I yet again flinging every possible limit aside, deciding on all manner of pretense and affectation.

"Stop it -" we chuckled in amused mirth for each other's teasing caresses - and she and I stopping only when we yet again saw a raw, wanting frenzy in each other's eyes, she and I knowing it blatant, unfeigned lovemaking between us, the thing yet again my every cherished want realized as she edged eyes awash with frantic pleading to mine.

We just waited, decided a crushing embrace of our hands as we rested at each other's side in bed wasn't anything "our grandma" would consider misbehaving.

And it was, perhaps a few minutes later, that which I can only call a culminating, falling oblivion as she finally edged eyes awash with genuinely frantic pleading over her shoulder toward mine. It might almost have been some confused, reeling mirth between us, my Lisa with a pouting glance telling me quite as she always had that I didn't love her anymore, that I never held her anymore - and she in that same half instant remembering that she's the only woman I've ever loved, remembering that I'm violently, frantically in love with her.

It's perhaps another moment's pretense, a brush of our legs to each other's, I as I always had drawing a urging arm around her waist. It's the warm, enrapturing bliss it always was as she curled her body onto mine. It's the knowing mischief it had been so often in the past, my Lisa and I knowing that our sleeping her body curled onto my own was "breaking the rules."

And it's all as quickly something incomparably more.

"Why can't we, Tom," she whispered. "Why can't it be you and me?"

We just waited. And I suppose we just went on with our lives, decided that we were reasonable and rational creatures - decided that our unfeigned pleading with each other an hour or two every evening for sexual intimacy might have been a display of affection toward each which was a bit more arduous than most other mothers and sons were wont to display toward each other.

We could, in the morning after another few weeks, finally see little more than the same sheepish, amused mirth in each other's eyes - might in corners of our minds admit that we were violently, passionately in love with each.

"You don't think I'm pretty any more, Tom," my mother and I standing at the stove in the kitchen, something of the old, pouting envy again in her features, she and I supposing we'd finally settled back into at least something close to reason.

"Mother - she asked me to the dance. How could I refuse? And besides, mother," a very genuine edge of seething envy in my voice, "that was only after you'd already said yes to -"

"But you said I could, Tom -"

"Well - I didn't mean it -"

"Oh - you're so jealous. And besides, you have to watch me anyway because I can't be trusted on my own, can't be let out of sight for a minute -" my mother and I both edging sheepish eyes toward "our grandma" sitting at the table.

"Behave -" she barked toward two bickering siblings, sighed, turned her attention back to her coffee and newspaper.

I stood in the kitchen gazing another moment's amused mirth toward Lisa standing at the stove in pouting annoyance for our grandma's invective. I still from time to time gazed wondering fascination toward my ludicrously naive little sister, would sigh very genuine annoyance at the next grange dance when I had to rescue her from some frenzied pursuer. I still wasn't certain that I could allow her to attend the dance "all by herself."

"Come on, Tom. Grandma will let me if you will. I'll behave - I promise -" Lisa genuinely intrigued for her latest pursuer, everything from pleading to disobedient, rebellious protest in her features. "I won't be a flirt. Grandma's just being mean. I'm not a flirt -" and the most outrageous little flirt who had ever lived turned her attention back to me. "Besides - you didn't ask me. You don't even think I'm pretty any more -"

"Mother -" I sighed for a teasing little dance, a touch of my lips to her cheek, "you're absolutely - gorgeous -"

It's the same radiant delight in her eyes.

"Then I can, Tom -?"

"I suppose," I sighed and chuckled - and actually felt sorry for the guy. She'd tease him mercilessly, sultry, maddening little dances for his flattering comments, he thinking he was making excellent progress only to find that it had been nothing more than idle, amusing mischief on her part, she as often as not glancing about for her next target at the same dance.

"Maybe you'll ask me to the next dance, Tom," a very genuine pout in her features, a half moment's teasing little dance as we stood with each other at the stove.

"Of course I will mother."

"Do you promise -"

"I promise, mother -" I sighed and chuckled, touched my lips again to her cheek.

"I want another kiss -"

I sighed, chuckled, the touch of my lips to her cheek a half moment's teasing intimacy, the touch of my hand to her waist a moment's stolen caress - another timeless moment's fall into abandoned, consumating imagining. It's something I'll never entirely understand, she just minutes ago ordinary, average, perhaps still very pretty with an exceptionally pretty, outright girlish figure. And it's all the matter of another sudden moment, she feminine beauty and allure which is maddening to impossible, inexplicable extremes. Her teasing dance for me isn't anything more than a sultry little change of her posture - and a half moment's imagining incomprehensibly timeless. She's entirely naked, her body finally mine to crush into my arms, she my exquisite little beauty to devour with my lips, with my hands - she yet again my lover in the ultimate touch of intimacy, the only imaginary lover I've ever had. She was still my only imaginary lover, I perhaps wondering after an intoxicated night in town if I might finally be able to turn my imagining to some other woman - and I just giving up entirely, some evenings bothering with no pretense or denial whatsoever. It was my own mother who I held in my arms, she my entrancing, maddening little beauty - our bodies entwined about each other's in frantic, abandoned lovemaking - she and I perhaps meeting each other's eyes a final moment knowing it was wrong, knowing justifications just weren't possible - and yet she and I just giving up together, she and I knowing it was nothing less than a painful ache desparate for relief - and she and I finally and again one in the ultimate act of intimacy.

I stood with her at the stove in the kitchen, a touch of my lips to her cheek, a caressing touch of my hand to her waist - and a half moment's embrace of our eyes yet again seeming my every cherished hope and want suddenly come true. It might almost have been the same half moment's bizare, reeling amusement. My sweet, innocent little beauty hadn't until several years ago had the least idea what sexual desire was - and she now as ravenous a creature as any who had ever lived. I'd stumbled through doors any number of times over the past several years at unexpected moments - and those yet again incomprehensibly timeless. I'd stood several times in dazed, helpless paralysis knowing that I was the only imaginary lover she had ever had - and my maddening little beauty for the past several months now gasping in an abandoned frenzy for a touch which I had known was my body one with hers in the ultimate touch of intimacy. We'd gasped together in startled awakening as we flung our eyes to each other's - and she and I a few minutes later denying absolutely nothing. "You do it just as much as I do, Tom," a sheepish pout in her features, something every bit as sheepish in my own knowing she had stumbled in on me just several days before - and that which we had thought a rational, reasonable balance between us over the past several months gone in another sudden instant. It's the same thought crashing into every corner of our minds. Why couldn't we "do it together," just once?

We stood at the stove in the kitchen - and a moment now enough between us, a touch of my lips to her cheek and a stolen caress, she and I in another half moment seeing raw, unfeigned want in each other's eyes, she and I knowing our bodies were entwined about each other's in the ultimate act of intimacy - and she and I in another bizare half instant awakening, a frantic glance toward the table - perhaps another half moment's relief and mischief in my mother's and my eyes for grandma's fixed steadily on her newspaper.

I might still from time to time have attempted pretense or denial, might have told myself that I was mistaking everything - and wandered into my grandmother's sickroom a short time later not quite certain why I was doing so.

"Can I get you anything, grandma?" I tried, my demeanor reverencing affection, perhaps a half moment's fright wondering again if my grandmother suspected that it had become something a great deal more than sibling affection between my mother and me.

"Tom -" and a half moment's glance, as usual, enough. "Tom - sit down - give me your hand -"

I'd done so - sat in confused fright.

"Tom - have you and your mother had sexual intercourse with each other?"

It was culminating fright. And yet I hadn't for a moment considered prevarication of any sort.

"No, grandma - but -"

"I know, dear. Tom - she's very deeply in love you."

I'd flung pleading eyes to hers - and hadn't quite dared believe that it was her hand still wrapped to mine in pleading warmth.

"Tom - it's as much mine, if anyone's fault. I've made mistakes, Tom, some very bad ones, knew they were mistakes as soon as I'd made them. Perhaps the worst was my barking right in front of you - 'Lisa - get your ass into your room at once -'"

I'll never know how could chuckle in settling, understanding amusement - wrap my hand to my grandmother's with pleading emotional violence.

"I raised you as siblings, Tom, told myself again and again that I was making one mistake after another - sending your mother to her room right in front of you -"

"Grandmother -" pleading in my voice, "when I was fifteen, sixteen - I walking in here, Lisa did this, Lisa did that. I hadn't any idea at the time why I suddenly had to call Lisa mother. I didn't even know why we weren't allowed to kiss each other on the lips any more. I do now. I know why you insisted, grandmother."

"Thank you, Tom," another moment’s searching quiet in her features. Tom - she's a virgin -"

I waited a moment in confused amaze.

"Oh don't worry, Tom. I'm quite aware that you have proven yourself a scoundrel who is anything but the product of a virgin birth."

I sighed, chuckled, raised sheepish eyes, my grandmother quite aware of rumors regarding me and several girls in town, my grandmother quite aware that I was familiar with and had already succumbed to life's primal urges.

"Tom -" my grandmother continued with an urging crush of her hand to my own, "Tom - I should have seen it coming years ago - knew in some ways that it was. 'Mother - Tom says it's all right - Tom will let me.' And more often than not that was indeed the winning point, my daughter as helpless and gullible a creature as any who ever lived, my grandson while certainly no saint a sensible and reasonable young man. 'All right, Lisa - you may go to the dance. But you're to stay close to Tom.'"

I chuckled again in gentle mirth - wrapped my hand to my grandmother's with violent strength.

"Tom, I - I was angry - for so long. I had such hopes for her - a banker, a doctor - and all of those hopes suddenly gone. It was - selfish cruelty on my part, I suppose. I just never let your mother be your mother, never let her grow up at all - and realized far to late how dreadful a mistake I'd made. And now -"

"Grandmother -" my voice a whisper of frantic pleading.

"Tom - that's all I really have to say to you - all that's left to say. God gives us reason, common sense - and you're possessed of both, Tom, in measure which has always pleased me and been a consoling joy for me. Tom, there's just one more thing. She - wants to, very badly -" though it was to my paralyzed confusion little more than sighing amusement in her voice. "Now that I look back on it all, I don't think there was ever a time when she wasn't in love with you. 'Oh mother, isn't he so beautiful, so wonderful - so kind and good to me - oh mother, he’s always going to take care of me' - and I just never stopped to think that I wouldn't in my life have said any such things about your worthless, no account great uncles."

Another gasp of explosive mirth - and I sat at my grandmother's bedside culminating emotion pounding into my heart for her hand crushed to my own in finished pleading.

"Tom - when I'm gone -"

"No grandmother -" I cried in pleading desparation.

"Tom - it won't be long now. We both know it. I'll be with Jesus and your grandpa again soon enough. When I'm gone - be her brother, her older brother, Tom. I was 'grandma' to her as soon as you were born. Don't - don't even try to be her son. And Tom - you couldn't possibly not have fallen in love with her. She's the sweetest, most helpless little innocent who ever lived. And Tom, as for - the rest? Just - just reason and common sense, Tom. The good Lord gave you an abundant measure of both."

My mother and I decided again that we were reasonable, rational people, passed another month flirting with each other, bickering in sibling annoyance - my mother sometimes pouting in outright disobedience.

"Come on, Tom - you're not my boss -" and my mother flinging apologetic eyes to my grandmother's, a sigh toward me. "I hate you -" she pouted, a girlish giggle for my consoling kiss to her cheek. I sometimes wondered in moments of quiet, musing amusement if I might indeed have been too strict with my mother - might even have wondered if there had indeed ever been I time when I hadn't expected to see docile, pouting submission in her features and demeanor when I had demanded obedience of her - and I storming one evening into my mother's room in very genuine anger.

"Mother -" I barked in an angry demand that particularly frenzied and culminating evening, "I said no - I don't want you seeing him -"

"Why not - you're not my boss -"

"He's not right for you, mother -"

"You see whoever you want -"

"I know him, mother. He only wants one thing -"

"It's just a dance - you never let me do anything, Tom -"

"I said no, mother - you're not going -" my hands to her shoulders in demanding restraint.

"Why not - why can't I -" she standing in obstinate disobedience, she and I glaring angry fury toward each other - and I'll never entirely understand how it had all been the matter of one more inexplicable, timeless instant, will never know why I hadn't with another timeless glance had the least doubt - her eyes awash with raw, burning want. I'd slammed her body into my arms, buried my mouth onto hers in frenzied, devouring want - the thing a blinding, dizzying ecstasy for her kisses all of the brutal, wanting violence my own were. She was mine, finally mine and no one else's. She's finally mine to devour with my lips and my hands, she my entrancing, maddening, little beauty finally mine to caress in wild, searching abandon. She's the only woman I've ever wanted, doubt yet again entirely ludicrous. I'd known other girl's kisses by then - and the only woman I've ever wanted finally in my arms, her kisses the sweet, raw ecstasy I had known they would be and a warm, blinding ecstasy I could never before have imagined. I'd known by then what it was like to hold other women in my arms, to abandon myself to caresses of blatant, searching intimacy - and it was suddenly the moment I'd longed for all of life. I held the only woman I had ever wanted in my arms, her body finally mine to search with my hands, her warm feminine beauty finally mine to devour without caution or restraint. There just wasn't again the least doubt, the woman I now held in my arms that which I could only call maddening. I'd known what the ultimate intimacy was by then - and knew again that my succumbing to it had been a moment's pointless abandon devoid of any real warmth or meaning, knew again that I'd longed for only one woman all my life - and the warmth of her body finally wrapped to my own in unfeigned, abandoned intimacy yet again something I could never quite have imagined, a warmth already seeming a wash of raw, consumating perfection.

And it was the matter of one more sudden and timeless instant - the same word crashing into every corner of my mind.

I flung my eyes to hers.

"Mother - " a gasping, pleading whisper, the thing reeling, dazed confusion - and perhaps even then the sweet, dizzying ecstasy I had known it would be.

"Tom -" a gasp wrenched from her own throat - and a clawing hand dug onto my own, my hand wrenched to her shoulder and to the straps of her nightgown.

It was timeless in ways I could never have imagined - and right or wrong it was yet again some dizzying, reeling ecstasy not like any I had ever before known. I stood my eyes buried to hers, a frantic arm about her waist - my hand wrapped onto the straps of a nightgown which I must rip from her body.

And we just waited - stood finally in awakening fright, realized again that we both now knew exactly what the terms mother and son meant. We searched frantically for some way to retreat from it all.

And we just, I suppose, did.

"Tom - I'm sorry," girlish apology in her features she having defied my express wishes.

"Mother -" I pled, "I know him. He - he only wants one thing. I don't mean to -"

"Tom - I know - I know. I won't do it again - I promise -" and we stood in searching quiet another moment, perhaps a gasp of amused mirth - she and I just playing on a quick moment later. "Tom - I'll be a good girl from now on. I'll behave myself. I promise I will."

It's perhaps another half moment's gasp of amused mirth for me - and even then it's our eyes buried to each other's in knowing, abandoned intimacy. It just isn't a game in the least. She's mine. I'll never give her up to anyone - and we rested in each other's arms another timeless eternity searching for retreat from something which in so many ways was consumating already.

"Mother -" I finally sighed, "come on - let me take you to the dance -" and we both, I suppose, behaved. We danced each other's arms she and I mother and son - and a moment of sheepish reserve, we supposed, just not ending this time - the moment, we suspected, never to end this time. We were a mother and son who just had to live with the fact that we were passionately, violently - painfully in love with each other.

-----

My mother and I rested together on a couch in the front room, rested in each other's arms our eyes buried to each other's in abandoned intimacy - our lives so horribly different than they had been two years ago.

"Tom -" she whispered, her voice frantic pleading, "Tom - hold me -"

I crushed her with culminating violence to my heart, she mine to guard, to protect as best I could - she in the end simply mine. It's a strange mix of despairing pain and reeling joy when I know she as well has given up entirely, needs me to hold her, will let me hold her as long as I want to, as long as I have to.

It had all started two weeks ago at a grange dance in town, my mother actually "behaving herself," neither she nor I at the time seeing anyone else and so my mother leaning obediently on my own arm - she and I playing our usual liscivious little games and knowing they weren't, in some ways, games in the least.

"Oh - you were too jealous -" my mother chuckled in amused mirth after dancing with someone other than me.

"Of course I was, mother," I pouted. "After all, the prettiest girl here has engaged herself to me for this dance."

"Oh - what a flatterer -" a touch of her lips to my cheek, a half moment's sultry change of posture on the part of the prettiest girl at the dance. "Can I dance with him if he asks me again, Tom."

"I'm not certain yet," I glaring very genuine annoyance toward the scoundrel who had dared ask my mother for several dances already.

"Oh - you're so jealous -" amused delight in her eyes for the obvious in my own, she deciding on blatant, unabashed mischief as we danced in each other's arms in a quiet corner of the dance square. "And after all, Tom, I'm a big girl now. I know what they're after, and they're not gonna get it."

It's just mischief, I told myself - just our way of coping with that which we suspected might never change. We're mother and son, have over the past several years come to appreciate the mature meaning of the terms. And we danced in each other's arms knowing our doing so was that which I can only call marital ecstasy, she and I both knowing that grange dances are simply some unspoken convention between us, she and I here in public playing all manner of liscivious little games, knowing glances of our eyes toward each other's.

"As a matter of fact," my mother sighed and chuckled, "you just found out again that you don't have to be jealous in the least -"

I sighed, chuckled - a glance between us consumating. She and I have stumbled into each other's bedrooms any number of times over the past several years at moments which can only be called supremely inopportune. It might at times have been the same amused mirth for me, my mother for most of her life having no idea what physical wants were - and she over the past several years become as ravenous as she, any number of times at supremely inopportune moments, has discovered that I am. It had just minutes before we had left the house for this dance, however, been a supremely and protracted inopportune moment. She and I wandering on a whim through each other's bedroom door, we've for the past several years now been quite aware of why those doors are sometimes closed - and she and sometimes forgetting to close the door. And my mother, who I had spent most of my teenage years trying to seduce, can't, I suppose, doubt that she, no matter how vague and ill defined I might now attempt to make the images, is still that which she's always been, she my imaginary lover. And I, I had yet again discovered in as obvious and blatant a manner as possible, was hers. I'd wandered in distraction through an open door to see if she was ready to leave for the dance, am still not quite certain why I hadn't noticed until I had wandered right to the edge of the bed - my mother whispering my name in an abandoned frenzy, her breath explosive gasps - she and I flinging our eyes to each other's at the same moment.

"Mother -" and I'd stood in helpless, dazed paralysis - realized some incomprehensible eternity later that I was standing at the edge of her bed at a moment which was obviously and powerfully climactic for her.

"Tom -" she'd gasped as well.

"Mother - I -" and I'll never know how long I just stood there in gaping paralysis watching that which was my mother's body engulfed in the throes of the ultimate pleasure.

"Tom -?" perhaps startled amaze in my mother's voice, perhaps, I couldn't quite dare believe, little less wild, wicked delight in her eyes. "Tom - stop staring at me - will you go away -"

I'd stood in the kitchen, decided it hadn't been so different than it had been a half dozen times over the past several years. She'd finally wandered downstairs herself, hadn't hesitated, her kiss to my cheek all of the affection it always was - perhaps a bit more obvious and teasing a caress. It was then little less than a girlish pout in her features.

"You do it just as much as I do."

Sighing, chuckling, I wrapped her hand into my own, she and I dancing in each other's arms at the grange - my mother informing me again that none of her admirers were "going to get it." She in another moment suggested that the dance square was too crowded, an urging touch of her hand to my arm as she maneuvered me toward a dark, secluded corner - sheepish awakening reserve and yet knowing mischief suddenly awash in her eyes as we stood beneath the same maple toward which I just a few years ago had so constantly maneuvered her.

"Remember, Tom, when we used to dance back here all the time -?"

I touched my lips to her cheek, danced with her in a secluded corner of the square - she with giddy, girlish delight in her features repeating some suggestive little comment proffered by the scoundrel with whom she had danced just moments ago, assuring me again that I hadn't any reason to feel envious.

"He hasn't a chance of getting me into bed -" and it's a half moment's outright wicked delight in her eyes, her step that same half moment's sultry little dance. I sighed, chuckled - she and I meeting each other's eyes that evening just two weeks ago hiding absolutely nothing from each other, flinging pretense and denial aside entirely. We're mother and son - will in the morning demand of ourselves all manner of affectation, perhaps a few glances of mirthful amusement toward each other when certain that the hands on our farm saw a mother and son deporting themselves as any other mother and son might. And we danced in each other's arms in a secluded corner of the dance square simply admitting that which we just couldn't hide from each other to begin with.

"He hasn't a chance of getting you into bed -?" I sighed, chuckled - and it was yet again that which I can only call consumating. We'll try again tomorrow, will search for some reasoning balance as we just get on with our lives - and my mother and I dancing in each other's arms beneath our maple at the edge of the dance square knowing ourselves, at least for the moment, each other's lovers. I'll never be entirely certain why we yet again had to speak the words aloud to each other - she and I meeting each other's eyes that sighing, consumating moment knowing it in some ways exactly that. I'm going to take her to bed with me tonight - just once - and she whether it's right or wrong wrapping caressing hands to my arms, she for the pleading crush of my arms around her burying eyes awash with frantic, pleading assent to mine.

It might, even then, have been little different that evening two weeks ago at the grange dance than it had been countless times in the past - until it had been something horribly different.

It was something which I suppose is peculiar to Collier county. An imperial guard in the persons of sheriff Hadley and his deputy processed toward the dance square preceding Nero in the person of boss Hadley. Collier county's emperor stood exuding august, demanding majesty as local prominents of various sort flung themselves to his feet in groveling reverence. It isn't quite, I suppose, as obvious as that. And still, my mother and I deported ourselves quite as a hundred other people at the dance did. We flung nervous glances in every direction, debated, I suppose, fleeing into the surrounding woods rather than risk that just our lowly, insignificant presence be perceived an affront to boss Hadley. Pronouncing his blessing on the prominents, Boss Hadley processed toward the masses, couples deigned his notice genuflecting, proffering curtsies, frantically hoping for a dismissing smile from the boss after a word or two.

My mother and I stood our hands crushed onto each other's in frantic embrace, my mother flinging frightened eyes to mine as boss Hadley, I suspected, edged leering, groping eyes about the dance square. I hadn't, at the time, any real idea if the more lurid of the rumors were true. And still - it seemed as boss Hadley's eyes settled on my own mother as frantic a moment of terror as I have ever known.

I crushed a violently urging hand onto my mother's, my voice a gasped whisper.

"Don't go with him if he asks you - don't let him take you anywhere - no matter what he says -"

I stood, as Nero approached my mother and me, still hoping that we might be spared - and my mother's demeanor as he approached everything I didn't want at the moment. She's curled herself frantically into my arms, appears a sweet, helpless innocent - and it's blatant, scrutinizing delight in boss Hadley's eyes.

It was polite, civil introductions - and it was yet again something which I suppose is peculiar to Collier county. The man who owned most of it requested the next dance of my mother by laying a possessing hand to her arm, aiming a leering smile toward me. Give her to me - Nero might just as well have demanded, sheriff Hadley and his deputy standing in smirking amusement on either side of me.

My mother and I threw our eyes together a final half moment as she was dragged from my arms. I stood at the edge of the dance square affecting a demeanor of calm propriety, not quite certain why. My mother's demeanor as she was dragged into the dance square was calm and collected poise I might not have anticipated, the fright in her features as evident as it was in the features of most helpless innocents chosen by boss Hadley to demonstrate his disdain for the lowly, insignificant populace. And still, she tried the occasional smile as he held her captive in his arms, appeared only slightly more on the verge of collapse than did any other frightened innocent.

The inevitable, however, came a few moments later, Boss Hadley demonstrating that Collier county's mothers, wives and daughters were his harem to be summoned at his pleasure - a blatant leer and a groping caress, my mother struggling against it with startled fright in her features.

I'd always wondered if I could endure this if my own mother was the night's victim. And my lunge in order to rescue my mother was of course thwarted by an arresting hand to my arm.

"Behave, son -" stern authority in the sheriff's voice, perhaps an edge of sighing sympathy.

I stood at the edge of the dance square in helpless silence, hoped that a few more groping caresses would be enough - and stood finally in a terrified rage, a leering grin on boss Hadley's face as he nodding toward his car, dragged my mother a step toward it.

I wrenched myself free of my captors, flung myself across the dance square, wrapped an arm about my mother's waist.

"It's - it's time we were going -" I tried, not quite certain why I still bothered with the pretense.

It's a startled glare on boss Hadley's face, outraged affront, he insisting that he be allowed to show this young lady an evening's hospitality - perhaps a cup of tea at his residence. I wrapped a protecting arm around my mother's waist, stood eye to eye with Nero.

"I'm taking her home -" demanding abandon in my voice. It's another few moments furious standoff, perhaps a fatalistic resolve. Life for my mother and me as we'd known it in Collier county is over now anyway, the farm gone, the bank and merchants in town to forget, sheriff Hadley will warn them, that we ever existed. I hoped, however, that even boss Hadley wouldn't dare anything like obvious violence in public. I suspected there might even be a handful of others in a crowd now edging bulging eyes toward the standoff who might fling themselves into open revolt if boss Hadley abandoned the pretense of civility altogether.

A leering grin finally broke across his face, his hand withdrawn from my mother's arm, a final scrutinizing glance toward the crowds even as he and his procession retreated toward their cars.

It was for a few more minutes, I suppose, little less the comical, most other people at the dance glancing shuddering sympathy toward my mother and me, a few offering a word of consolation of a sort which might have been appropriate at a wake.

It had then been another week of ongoing terror, the sheriff's deputy knocking at our door extending my mother another invitation to tea on behalf of boss Hadley. Both of our farm hands standing at my side on the porch had held out another several days before they'd finally given up and fled. I can't blame them, suspect that boss Hadley's inducements of various sort had been sufficiently convincing or threatening.

"Tom - what did I do wrong-?" my mother with confused fright in her eyes had asked.

I'd stared a moment in confusion - and had slammed my sweet, helpless innocent to my heart with frantic violence, had passed another several days pleading with her to believe that none of this was her fault.

The sheriff himself had appeared at the door one afternoon.

"You'll loose everything, son. Is it worth it?" little more than a shrugging sigh, perhaps even that same edge of sympathy.

I'd just closed the door, taken my mother back into my arms, she and I living in an ongoing, unrelenting nightmare. I'd given up entirely a day later, I suppose, when power to our farm had been cut, had stormed in a fury into the courthouse, the sheriff intercepting me before I'd made it to boss Hadley's door.

"Cool off, son" sheriff Hadley had groaned in annoyance, tossing me into the cell. "You behave and I'll see 'bout the boss lettin' you out in the morning."

Even the sheriff, I suspect, hadn't supposed boss Hadley quite so arrogant and disdainful of any law other than his own.

"It's been three days, sheriff," I'd shouted in frantic pleading. "You're the law and you know this is way outside the law."

He'd set a tray onto the bunk in my cell.

"Sheriff -" I'd pled in desparation, "she's my mother - and you know what he wants. She's my mother - out there on the farm by herself -"

It was culminating, brutal despair, nothing more than an edge of that which might have been guilt in the sheriff's features as he slammed the cell door shut, walked away. I'll never know how long I had stared in tormenting agony toward that door - and had finally realized in one blinding moment that it wasn't locked.

I sat with her on the couch in the front room - the thing still that which it had been just the day before when I'd found her hiding in the barn. I just can't let her go, need to feel the beat of her heart next to my own. We'd both, just minutes ago in the kitchen, searched for a settling calm. I'd wondered if I could leave her alone for an hour or two, spend at least part of the morning in the hayfields.

"It really does need to get done, Tom -" she tried yet again.

"Maybe -" I answered - and it's the same words crashing into every corner of my mind. She's mine, mine to guard and protect - the thing a reeling joy for her arms drawn about my neck with frantic, pleading strength.

Clawing my way from town back to the farm yesterday, I'd crushed her to my heart with wild, unrestrained violence, had lived another few hours the pleading strength of her arms around me all that made sense, the frantic touch of her lips to my cheek a blinding joy. I'll never remember it all, the thing some black, unrelenting torture suddenly over, she and I whispering a word or two every few minutes just to hear each other's voices, she and I not quite daring to believe that we wouldn't at any moment be torn from each other's arms all over again.

We'd finally, yesterday evening, seen a half moment's struggling lucidity in each other's eyes as I'd led her to the edge of her bed.

"Tom -" she'd whispered, her eyes in another instant awash with pleading abandon, "Tom - don't leave me - sleep with me -"

I sat with her on a couch in the front room, cradled her in my arms - and it might almost have been some amused, reeling fright. It was that in her eyes which I had seen last night - a raw, blatant want. I'd crushed her last night into an embrace of frantic intimacy, had crushed violent kisses to her cheeks - had finally struggled for a half moments lucid pause knowing that my caresses had become unfeigned, abandoned lovemaking. I'd never allowed myself pretense or denial, I pulling my own mother into bed with me last night, holding her to my heart - yet admitting in a sudden moment that it was my every longing hope and dream come true, my maddening little beauty finally mine to guard and protect, to hold the entire night. And yet it was all something a world more than I might ever have anticipated, I finally demanding of myself a moment's pause knowing that it was her body I had crushed onto my own, the thing an awakening despair knowing I had flung my hands up and down her body in wild, searching caress. It had been a reeling, falling abandon seeming incomprehensible, something seeming even more than it should have been - until I'd struggled for that half moment's lucid pause, opened my eyes - and my sweet, maddening little beauty mauling me, her caresses all of the wild, clawing frenzy my own had been. I'd never doubted that her feelings for me had become all of the passionate violence which my feelings for her were, had never doubted that her imagining was sometimes the romantic passion my own was. And yet I'd never quite dared believe that my sweet little innocent might gaze the raw, burning desire toward me which I sometimes found myself gazing toward her - and the thing just last night something I could never quite have imagined, a helpless oblivion of blinding sensation for clawing hands ripping the shirt from my body, her teeth sunk onto my shoulder - the thing culminating, dizzying oblivion as she gasped for breath, flung her eyes another timeless, waiting instant toward a body hers to maul and devour.

I cradled her in my arms on the couch in the front room.

"Mother -" I finally gasped quite as I had last night.

It's her nails dug onto my arms another timeless eternity or two - she and I resting on a couch in the front room knowing we're going fling ourselves into violent, desparate lovemaking. It's yet again everything I had known it would be, a dizzying ecstasy for my sweet little beauty clawing brutal nails onto my arms, the thing a searing warmth not quite like any I had ever before known. We hesitated another half moment, would allow ourselves no pretense or denial whatsoever - and it's just a finished, knowing abandon between us. She's mine, no one else's, her body mine to slam to my own, the clawing, surrounding strength of her arms a falling ecstasy like none I could ever have imagined.

We hesitated another moment and another timeless eternity, rested entwined in each other's arms knowing we just weren't going to stop this time.

"Tom -?" she finally whispered.

I waited, not quite certain what to expect - and she on the couch in the front room deciding on the argument she'd attempted last night, deciding she's found the ideal solution.

"Tom - we're all alone now - just you and me -"

I waited - the thing a bizare mix of amused mirth and culminating, knowing abandon between us.

"Tom -" my mother pled, "let's get married -"

I waited another timeless and dizzying moment, was finally able to settle into something close to our usual sighing mirth. "Mother - I don't think they'll let us -"

"Why not, Tom -?" a girlish pout in her features.

I held her to my heart, she and I both just searching for some way to survive another moment or two. It's another moment in which we gave ourselves up to every last intimacy - is yet again something I'd never quite dared believe possible. I hadn't ever, I suppose, been able deny that I saw my own mother as the alluring femimine ideal - and she to my raw, ecstatic delight gazing raw, wanton lust toward a body, she about to rip every last shred of clothing from my body.

And we buried our eyes to each other's in sighing, amused mirth, my mother laying her head to my chest, letting me cradle her to my heart.

"What will we do now, Tom -?" she whispered.

"Just - just go on," I'd shrugged. "I'll finish the south meadow, I guess -"

It was yet again some bizare mix of lonely fright and reeling, amused ecstasy.

"I don't see why we can't," she pouted. "We're all alone now - just you and me -"

I chuckled again in settling amusement - held my lover in my arms. We rested together on the couch in the front room - rested our hands wrapped onto each other's arms with pleading strength.

"Tom - I wanna get married -"

It's yet again something I can only call consumating between us.

"We can't, mother -" I sighed, chuckled.

"Why not -?" she pouted, a moment's amusement in her features - a moment's very genuine and frantic pleading in eyes edged toward mine. I cradled her in my arms another minute - decided finding reasons to tell my mother that I couldn't marry her was as good a means as any to survive the next few days.

"We just - can't get married, mother -" I finally sighed, chuckled - and held the woman with whom I was violently in love in my arms another timeless moment. "I'm gonna get the south meadow done, mother. I'll be back by lunchtime - we can talk then."