I turned restlessly in my bed. Sleep not coming to find me. It had been this way for more weeks than I could remember. What had dawned some time ago as an idle thought, had flowered into something else. Something all pervasive. It occupied my every waking moment. I was in love, intensely and irrevocably in love with the only woman in my life.
I don’t know when the change had occurred. There was no incident in my past that had ignited the spark. No gesture on her part, intentional or otherwise, that had stoked that ember. Nor had it been a conscious choice to see her that way. On the contrary, my mother and I had shared a normal relationship. She was a caring, tender person. We had always been very close and touch had always been her unspoken way of communicating that bond.
Somewhere along the way my mind had transformed these gentle, nurturing touches into intimate caresses; tender hugs into a lover’s embrace. The gentle touch of her finger tips would light a fire under my skin that would send current coursing through my body and it would be all that I could do to subdue the shudders that would certainly follow. Sometimes I had not been successful in that objective and I wondered whether she was starting to see the effect that she was having on me.
Once again, I resigned myself to sleeplessness and rolled out of bed. I walked to the living room and turned the TV on quietly to while away a few more hours before light arrived to continue the interminable parade of days. I settled on a 1940’s black and white movie that I did not know and sat there watching it, without following the plot. My mind was elsewhere.
From behind me I heard a door open then close and my mother appeared in a diaphanous silk nightie. Not anything overly provocative; my mother wasn’t like that. Instead the knee length, deep blue shimmering ensemble which lacked the lace or trimming that would mark it for any purpose other than sleep, was worn for comfort. Mum said that she liked nice things and she preferred to sleep in silk or satin.
Of course the sight of the soft material clinging to her every curve did nothing to help my condition. She was an exquisitely beautiful woman. Her long chestnut hair had lost some of the luster of youth, but that and the odd crow’s peak beginning to show at the corners of her eyes were the only signs that betrayed her 39 years.
The intermittent bursts of light from the TV momentarily illuminated her in the dark room bringing into relief her lithe, athletic figure. The silk cascaded of her slender hips, tracing the long path down her toned legs. The fabric drew the eye to her soft and full breasts. I directed my gaze down to the couch to avoid betraying my thoughts.
“Is something on your mind” she asked softly, “you have been coming to the living room after midnight each night for the past month and I am starting to get worried”.
“I just can’t seem to sleep” I replied.
“Can I sit with you?” she asked noting that I had not looked back up at her.
“Sure, but everything’s fine. You should try to get some rest,” I offered a little robotically.