“Ronny! How Dare you. I’m your mother.”
“I’m just sayin’, Mom, the guys think you’re a babe. You should be happy about that. All that exercise you do pays off. Stan thinks you have a great ass.”
He reached behind me and gave each cheek a painful pinch. I yelped and he laughed. That laugh, so much like his dad’s, kept me from really getting angry.
“Stop it! It might be one thing for hormone-fueled boys to ogle an older woman, but my own son should respect some boundaries.”
“Mom. Our job in the next twenty four hours is to break down boundaries. All the boundaries until we’re ready to make a baby together.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself. To treat and talk to your mother like this. Ashamed. Embarrassed. What would your father think?”
“He thinks you’re pregnant. That’s what he thinks. And, right or wrong, he’s thinking that’s keeping him safe because it’s a miracle that’s gonna bring him home to us. Of course … I can tell him the truth.”
“Don’t you dare!” I said. The truth. I would have to eventually tell Greg the truth and hope he would make it home safely. Him and his damned sixth sense.
“We can make it true though. Mom, it would be so easy and nobody’s ever the wiser. Just you and me would know. You’d be pregnant and Dad would be his old self for all the time he’s … he’s wherever he is. Unless you really don’t WANT to have a baby again.” He looked into my eyes. “Is that it?”
“Of course I want a baby. You saw how happy I was.”
“Then, it’s settled. Unless you don’t think I can get you pregnant. With the way I cum, that should be no problem. I shoot real far and I shoot a lot.”
I thought of all Ronny’s sperm in that medicine cup. That amount would surely have a great chance of finding my egg. “There are just two things wrong. One is THAT sperm would be my own son’s, not my husband’s. The second is that no matter how far it ‘shoots’—it can’t reach where it would have to go, because that will never happen. That’s an intimate act between two people who love each other.”
“We love each other, Mom.” He said it with such sincerity and innocence I wanted to take him into my arms and hold him like I had done all his life. But, his actions today made me stay distant.
“We have a different love. A man and a woman develop an intimacy. They love each other’s personalities, but grow an attraction for their bodies until they’re comfortable being naked in front of each other. Then they can join to make a baby. Don’t you see it’s a process that takes place gradually?”
I thought maybe this would turn out to be a good thing. Maybe it was a chance to teach Ronny about the kind of mature relationship he would surely build with a partner in the future. I hoped he would take this lesson to heart.
“So you’re saying we should see each other naked first. OK.” With that he whipped his shirt off, revealing a musculature that mimicked his dad’s. “Here’s my chest, Mom. See it? Lookit me!”
I couldn’t help but look. His hairless chest was tanned from days at the beach and doing chores outside all summer. He had long, lean muscles that were defined without looking narcissistically absurd. The lines in his abs disappeared into his sweatpants, showing they continued their athletic sculp downwards.