No. That was bullshit, and he knew it. His mother knew very well that he had outgrown his wet dreams soon after he moved from puberty into adolescence and discovered the world of masturbation.
Charley was grateful that his mother hadn’t added sexual tease to her arsenal of weapons of mental torture. She had not shown up at breakfast half undressed, thank God. She had not shown up in the soiled nightgown which must have clung stickily to the rounded flesh of her bottom. She had changed her gown. She had on a loose and almost tawdry bathrobe, which made her look so sexually indifferent and unappealing that Charley suspected she may have chosen to wear it for that very reason.
The day passed without incident, which Charley found rather nerve-wracking. The two of them spent the day sorting through Ralph’s possessions, discarding or recycling those that had no lasting value for them. Charley was almost desperately eager to talk with his mother about the indelicate matter of his nocturnal assault on her, but she seemed determined not to allow him that kind of satisfaction. Several times Charley was sure that Paula was about to raise the subject in some way, but she never did.
Evening came, and some meaningless television viewing came with it. Bedtime approached, and with it came a sort of emotional crisis for Charley. Of course any possibility of a repeat of the previous night’s fiasco was unthinkable. But he certainly didn’t want to get into a debate with his mother about what might happen at bedtime. Paula had a way of turning any such discussion into a sort of verbal sparring match which he had no chance of winning. They both knew this.
“I think I’ll head off to bed, Mom,” he said, passing by his mother’s chair and kissing her forehead gently and chastely on the way. “Sleep well.”
Paula didn’t reply until her son was nearly out of the room. “Aren’t you going to help me get to sleep the way you did last night, dear?” she asked, in a way that left a number of possible interpretations of her meaning.
Charley froze and considered his options. Fast.
“Call me if you need me,” he answered, trying to sound as enigmatic as she had. For a brief moment he felt a rush of pride at how brilliantly he’d dodged that particular bullet.
“I asked for your help, dear,” she said evenly. “I wouldn’t have asked for it if I didn’t need it.”
Oh fuck. Charley wasn’t even in her league in these kinds of wordgames.
“Let me know when you’re ready for bed, Mom,” he said. “I’ll come and keep you company until you can get to sleep.”
“Thank you. That would be nice, dear,” she said. “I think it helped us both sleep better last night.”
Oh, fuck. He’d just have to find a way to keep from getting turned on by his own mother’s body in the bed beside him. Thinking about baseball, the old standby to be used when a cold shower wasn’t an option, never seemed to work for him. He always seemed to get sidetracked by the hidden meanings in phrases like foul balls, two-ball counts, going deep, working from the mound, and, of course, the importance of scoring as often as possible.