Ryan suddenly stopped and I stopped with him. “Come here,” he said, and pulled me against him. He kissed my cheek, then embraced me in a gentle but firm hug. I hugged him too and we stood there together for a while, just holding each other.
The long awaited romantic moment.
I could feel something against my belly, although I couldn’t tell if it was hard or not.
Eventually, Ryan relaxed his embrace and drew back to look down at me. He had a strange look in his eyes, like he wanted to tell me something but wasn’t sure how. I think I may have had the same look in my own eyes, because his mouth curled into a small smile, then he leaned down and kissed me on the lips. It was the best kiss in my entire life.
I realized as Ryan’s warm lips pressed against mine that I’d been harboring an unrequited desire for my son, but now, as the kiss with Ryan deepened, I just felt a complete submission to his passion.
Ryan was a man, and he knew how to talk to a woman, how to hold her, and how to kiss her. The fact that he was my son suddenly seemed totally irrelevant. Eventually, our kiss ended, our lips parting slowly and both of us drawing back enough to look deeply into each other’s eyes. I felt a weakness in my knees, not to mention a growing warmth between my legs. I wanted to kiss him again, to let him put his tongue in my mouth, to let him touch me the way those boys at school wanted to do to me. Do things for him that I wouldn’t do for them.
I tried to communicate these feelings to him with my eyes, with my loving smile, and with the way I rested my hands on his waist, as if they were just pausing there before they moved further down to find his hardness.
Ryan touched my hair, then my cheek.”I love you, Mom,” he said softly.
“I love you too,” I replied. It seemed to me that we both wanted to say more, but what could we say? We were mother and son. We’d reached the outer boundaries of our relationship, maybe even stepped over the line a little bit. It was impossible to go any further. I felt this huge sadness come over me and I had to look away.
Ryan let me go and we both took a step back, as if even being near each other was wrong. Ryan turned his back to me, muttered something into the breeze, he then turned around again. His eyes seemed resolute and he was no longer smiling.
I opened my mouth to apologize, but before I could say anything he said, “You know why I never told them you were my mother?”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I couldn’t, mom. I missed you so much…I needed you to be more than my mother…”
“I’m so sorry, Ryan,” I said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
We held each other there in the sun until our tears subsided. Eventually, Ryan spoke again. His voice was calmer, stronger, determined. “I’m sorry I lied mom,” he told me.
“It’s okay, my love,” I said, not feeling wrong in the least for using those words.
“I just hate having to keep everything I think and feel locked up inside. Not being able to tell people…even when they ask. I don’t want to live like that. Because it’s not just about them believing you are my girl…”