I was living in my parents house one winter because I was in between locked ward confinements, and, though not enough of an outlaw to have an actual price on my head, I was enough of a one to make living outside the family milieu difficult at best. I was in my 20’s and had a neuroses now widely known but unrecognized back then by the quacks. I also suffered from a small number of other disorders but nothing really physically disabling, in fact, for a neurotic young man of aesthetic temperament and criminal tendencies my physical health has always been robust.
In the circumstances it was the safest and cheapest place to live. It was a disorderly house. That is to say I was not the only habitant with antisocial tendencies. I was once in the recieving cell down at the local police station awaiting transport to the nuthouse and overheard 3 coppers telling a new chum about us lot. Someone’d left the passthrough slot (belts, shoelaces, wallets & whatnot) open and they were chatting in the next cantora over, bragging to him about the fact they’d once had a situation in which there’d been outstanding arrest warrants against all – of us, individually, mother & father included, and had’nt done a thing about it other than occasionally watch us go about our daily business of dealing drugs, drunk driving, driving sans this and that bit of paperwork, fracas and assault, fraud et alia. This seeming immunity from active interference on the part of authority was more accidental than deliberate and was the result of the facts that we engaged mainly in what were then called ‘victimless’ crimes, that Dad had both friends and a relative on the force and that our collective misbehaviour was almost entirely individual rather than corporate in nature. Two or three of us might be up to this or that but there was no overall coordination or direction and we did not prey upon the neighbors. And who wants to stick their hand in a hornets nest? Try and serve a warrant or warrants on a bunch of drunk high-on urban miscreants? No fun entirely.
This sort of an upbringing begs the question of which came first, insanity or the Egg, but that is not an issue here. We lived ‘way up north. So far so in fact that I was in the habit of casually crossing the border into the next country (Scotland? Canada? New Guinea?) further north just for a vacation or a day out or a quick change of scene. So winters could get very cold and vicious indeed. I spent many a winter’s night drinking beer out of the bottle while standing in ankle deep snow in the lee of a boathouse just so’s not to be at home. Not enough money to go to the local, drink outside instead. Popular notions to the contrary, living in a disorderly house is not jovial, carefree or relaxing. You have all the stresses you encounter in a normal family, with too much drink and drugs added into the bargain. It’d drive anyone nuts.
It was a real cold winter. I was sitting in the front room reading late one night. Dad was drunk, mother less so and my brothers were out. The back room at the other end of the house was where the TV and all the usual action was. I stayed out of there because of me being a relict of one of mother’s previous liasons I was not my fathers favorite child. And that is putting it mildy. We ignored and avoided one another. He was 6 foot tall, fairly overweight and of an uncertain disposition, you never knew what might set him off. And though for the most part he was content with yelling and verbal abuse he was capable of swift and violent action. In fact he once came within a hairsbreadth of killing me outright with a flung —— but I was already sprinting away from him at an angle when he threw it. Feeling the wind of a heavy object thrown in anger part your hair is a marvelous incentive to spend your evenings elsewhere, like drinking cheap beer out of the bottle in the snow outside the boathouse, or.. New Guinea! Anywhere but home. A word of advice! Never race directly away from an armed opponent, you may be gaining distance but from their perspective you are a stationary target, merely receding!
But home is where the hearth is, even if your anatomy wants to be elsewhere. And especially so in the wintertime when you are stony broke. So I’m sitting on the front room couch late one night reading a book and mother comes into the room. And she was acting very sly and regarding me in a singularly different manner to her usual indifference. I can’t remember what she was wearing but being late at night and at home it was’nt very much. She sat down next to me and started making small talk.
A word must be said about my mother, and her relations with me. She was a strikingly beautiful woman who much resembled the actress Vivian Leigh, she was quite aware of the fact, I heard her mention it directly on more than one occasion. Her awareness of it did not make it any less true. She was (both of them were, in fact) a hopeless alcoholic. She kept her slim but very curvaceous figure by eating next to nothing and non stop tobacco usage. I believe she regarded me as a nuisance, mainly, and a convenience at best. The former in that I was a constant burr under her saddle in her then present (marriage) situation, the latter in that I was someone she could drink with whenever she wished, a captive audience as it were, and cadge or smoke pot with as needed. Mother and I drank many a bottle in that house, and smoked yards of reefer.
My brothers thought me her favourite but that was in no way true, they mistook, I think, her casual indifference and lack of real animosity towards me for affection. Which she may have possessed in some degree but not in any appreciable manner. In fact she favoured —- and —– out of all of us. I was an embarrassment, a remnant of a former love affair. Primarily we were simply drinking buddies. I loved her as well as I was able, but she did not encourage emotional intimacy.
Which was one of the reasons that that night was so strange. Because she did not call me out into the kitchen and say ‘here, make me a drink.. or ask me had I got any pot. I seldom saw her without a drink in hand if she were not working. And this night she had’nt. No drink, no smoke, and she’s sitting next to me making small talk, and by next to me I do not mean further along on the couch I mean right next to me, thighs touching, and we were not a family that got cozy with one another. We were a family that punched each other up once in a while, we were violent, not huggies. She put her hand on my knee, the small talk drifted to a halt, and I knew what she was doing, or up to, but was unable to deter her or put off the event. She put her head against my chest, was listening to my heartbeat. My heartbeat was going like a mad thing, it was going at a rate I’d normally associate with violent action, or a trip to the Quacks. Because this was not my idea of a swell good time, this was possible catastrophe, looming up on the horizon in the person of my Mother, with lechery in mind.
Presently she lifted her head and looked me full in the face, then got up and went back into the rear of the house, to bed, without a word. Her look said as plain as could be, ‘This one ain’t ripe yet’ If I pluck it it may fall. Summat like that. And it was true. I felt on the verge of a my-old-cardigan-infraction to say the least. Right at deaths door. And vastly relieved when she took herself off. If I’d had any money on me at all I’d’ve been out the door in an instant, and stayed away as long as I were able. And it is not like I was a virgin or something. I’d been masturbating since the age of 11 and having actual sex, though not as often as I’d like, since the age of 17 but this was far and away above the call of duty, and, definitely, One Step Beyond!
A week went by and on another night I was sitting in the frontroom trying to read. No money in my pocket, Dad drunk and passed out in the back room with the TV on, a howling blizzard outside and minus 8 or 10 below depending on whether it was centigrade or fahrenheit, and my brothers elsewhere…
And here comes mother again, and this time I noticed what she wore. She had her hair down, long brown hair past her shoulders in the fashion of the times, no makeup to speak of but lipstick, and she was wearing a black nylon empire waisted negligee with ribbon straps. It was just this side of see-through. And her manner was exactly as before. She sat down beside me on the couch and made some small talk, looking closely into my eyes, put her hand on my knee and leaned real close. Well, thinks I, I am damned if I do and (I’ll be mortally fucked if found with her in this circumstance anyway!) damned if I don’t so I may as well enjoy the ride. Her tits were sticking out like no tomorrow, nipples plainly visible under the black nylon so I took one between my thumb and forefinger and rubbed it up, and she moaned a little, turned her head up, leaned closer into my face, stuck her tongue halfway down my throat and we were off!
And to me this was not making love. To me this was earning my keep in an entirely new and novel way. Because there was no doubt in my mind that I only had two choices; cooperate to the best of my ability or flub it, and life would not be happy after. Mother was not a kind and cheery person, Mother was an extremely active vindictive bitch if you got on her bad side. If I could not come up to scratch I had no doubt I’d soon be out on my ear in bumsville looking for a grated steam vent to spend the rest of the winter squatting over. It was a thing Dad often promised me (and delivered on eventually, too) that I’d have a hard time making a living whilst living in a doorway.
I pushed a strap down and fumbled out a tit, it was lovely, warm and smooth and with a nipple like the tip of my finger. I fondled the other with my other hand. Her hand flew to my belt and started undoing my pants. Soon my cock was out and she was running her hand up and down it. For my part I’d pulled her skirts up past her knees and plunged a finger into her cunt. She was totally juicy. I leaned over and sucked a nipple into my mouth, tweaked it gently between tongue and teeth. She tugged and gestured at me, Get Up! I stood up and she pushed my pants down my legs and off, leaned over and turned out the light.
We were in darkness and grappling about on the floor, rolling around having demented monkey sex. It crossed my mind we might have a tough time explaining all the wet spots on the carpet in the a.m. She sucked my cock as I played with her nipples. We rolled over and into a 69 and I plunged my tongue deep into her cunt. She sucked and I sucked and I think she came 3 or 4 times. For my part she kept me just this side of falling over the edge, changing grips, positions, digits and whatnot as she sensed me get too close to cumming. We fucked in at least 3 to 4 different positions in this way between bouts of stroking and sucking and kissing.
I have to say she was not a coy or cautious lover. There were no protestations or this-is-all-your-fault or fumbling about for condoms. But then she had no need for them in their primary application as she’d had a medical hysterectomy for overuse after her 7th or 8th pregnancy. Between different places, lovers & miscarriages I believe it was 7 or 8 at least but I could be wrong. I always thought it a giggle that my half brothers thought they were Lords of Creation for being who they were, a small elite, when to my uncertain knowledge I reckoned there were at least 8 to 12 of us, offspring of them two, by themselves and other lovers.
We went at it hammer & tongs for at least an hour. The only way we did not do it in that hour was anal, which I’ve never had a taste for, and apparently her niether because I’ve no doubt if she had she’d’ve towed me round and popped my plum up her bunghole toute-de-suite. And she never said a word in this entire time.
At the last when she decided she’d had enough she let me cum, by this time we were in the missionary position or she was astride me, I can’t remember which other than it was’nt an exotic position. And she said the strangest thing. If she had said ‘I love You’ than that would have been That. I’d’ve been her virtual sex slave for the rest of my life, yea or nay. I would not have been able to help myself. Maybe it was a kindness, mercy, that prompted her to say as she did, for if she’d said I love you it would eventually have pitted me against Dad and that would have been no good for anybody. I dunno though, I don’t think my Mother was that smart, though she could be as devious as 3 sicilians over a game of dominoes. I think she was just speaking her mind, and amusing herself, because what she did say made my blood run absolutely cold.
“You know if your Dad or your brothers walked in right now they’d kill us” Yeah Ma (I thought but did not say) I did know that. And it’s been in the back of my mind, this vision of blood and flailing boots, all night long. On that happy note, and my cumming, she took herself off. I attempted to sleep but did not make much good of it. I was now an officially certified motherfucker, and I reckoned if Dad ever got wind of it things would not go well for me.
About dawn I started to get all uptight and frightened, because I did not think the coming imposture would work. Pretend you ain’t been up all night fucking Mother silly. Look him straight in the eye, lie like a chinese rug, right! I lined up all the potted plants we had in that end of the house into two rows. We had a considerable number, some of which were 4 and 5 feet high. After an hour or two my parents finally got up. And as they came out into the frontroom, I took my place in front of the two lines of potted plants, snapped to attention, saluted, and rapped out “The Prisoners Are All Present And Accounted For Sir!”
Which got their attention all right but also diverted any and all further questions completely into left field. After about two minutes of nonsensical give and take Ma was on the phone to the quacks and I was soon back in the nuthouse. Which was fine by me, I felt safer there.
And I have no doubt in retrospect that he was in on it. A conclusion I came to over the course of many years of thinking about it. Go fuck —- tonight, it’s time to break him in on it (what? Institutionalized villainy? Family Fraud!) Too many of the cousins look alike, too many of us have simultaneous birthdays. — kids in two families and we only gotta have two birthday parties a year because all the birthdays fall in two one week clusters? Whats that about eh!
A year or two later I’m back on a locked ward getting my head plumbed for about the 12 or 13th time and there’s a new intern. I thought of these psychiatric interludes as vacations primarily, and did not really give much thought to the therapeutic end of things, afterall, it was not my job, I was, and was being ~ Patient. And we’re sitting around a table in the dayroom and he say’s to me, what about you? What are you in here for? And I thought about it. Because the main thing they still had’nt come up with an answer for, an agreed on diagnosis, and some of the minor stuff I was’nt telling (why make things worse? To be young, paranoid and of a violent background was not a prescription for early release!) and I thought what the hey, I can tell ‘im this. And I replied “My mother raped me” which was true enough as far as I’m concerned, then and now, and anybody says you can’t get it up when you’re terrified has never been compelled to put it to the test by threat or violence.
And he thought about that a moment or two and then asked me with a bit of a leer “Was she any good?” Which broke the ice entirely, I damn near laughed out loud “I’ll Say! Best I ever had!” and there was some truth in that because, with incest, as Woody Allen said of masturbation “at least you’re doing it with someone you (presumably) love”. It is an extraordinarily intense experience because you know the other person so intimately before you ever exchange anything so intimate as a kiss. But personally, if I’d’ve had a choice in the matter, I’d’ve passed. Like going over Niagara Falls in a bucket, another too intense entirely experience I can completely do without. From that point in time, that discussion in the dayroom I started to get better. I dunno why, it just sort of put it all into perspective, to girls it happens all the time, I was just the odd unlucky male victim.
And I cannot see any good in it. All these tales of dewy eyed parental and sibling happy lust strike me as so much eyewash and bullshit. Wishful thinking. Never been there. My parents have been gone 10 and 15 yr’s now, respectively, they both died much earlier than they had to, but they’d been on one long uninterrupted binge since 1970 anyway so it did’nt come as any sort of surprise really, except, perhaps, to them. I do not miss them. I seldom think of them. I do not regard their memory with wry affection. When I do think about them at all I just get angry, it pisses me off, I want to dig them up and kick them to death all over again, if it were possible. They fucked me up, bigtime, and the one off sexual adventure just put a cap on it.