Love Letter

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A teen's confession to his mother is brought up years later.
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PanzerFeck
PanzerFeck
1,534 Followers

Note:

All characters are above the age of 18, fictional, and adult where adult content is concerned. Sorry for my long absence. I died, you see, but I'm okay now. However my absences are likely to be more frequent/longer for the foreseeable future. I hope this fills the gap until the next offering finds its way.

*****

The Letter...

Dear Mom;

I love you. I've always loved you, and I always will. You mean the world to me and I can't imagine life without you. This is hard for me to write, and as I do I struggle to think of anything other than what I'm thinking about you - and about me and you together - and what I feel for you, anxiety eats away at me as time crawls by so painfully slowly!

I love you as my mother, but that is only partly the reason my heart pounds brutally against my chest, as if to punish me for feeling the way I do. I love you as a woman, too, the way it seems that no man ever seemed to want to. Or maybe that should be; I wish I could love you like a woman wants to be loved. I dream about loving you, even though I know I shouldn't.

There was no other way to tell you. For years I've thought about you in this way, felt for you this way, and knew that I shouldn't. I hid it, I naturalised it, and hoped that it would go away. I never stopped loving you, just being me and letting us be the way we've always been. But it was a struggle. So I'm telling you now, because it's too much to bear alone.

I daydream about you and me in bed, making love. I think about us having sex a lot. It's a ridiculous thrill to imagine. I don't know where it all came from. I don't know if it's normal. Maybe you feel or think the same things sometimes. If you don't, then please never mention this. Act as though it never happened or I swear I'll die.

I'm just telling you because I feel I have to, and because I need to not go crazy over feelings that might be utterly stupid. But remember that I love you, mom. And please try not to murder me once you've read this. I might die from that too!

Love always;

Anthony

1

'Oh my heart,' Maddie muttered in the silence of their kitchen, the letter trembling in her hand, but she could not tear her eyes away; not for a minute. She remained glued to the spot, though her feet seemed unsure of the solid tile flooring beneath them. Still, despite her sudden faintness, for the impossibility of her shock, Maddie couldn't make this about her. She couldn't not love the boy, or care for his feelings.

'Bless him, what is he going through?' she asked the silence. It didn't answer, as expected, and so she counted on herself, to try to empathise with him. How could he want her like this - Maddie who had long ago gradually set aside the woman to become the mother, the lonely single mother whose life no man wanted part of?

How her own heart pounded from that day, and from the moment her eyes flitted over some of those words, and as her imagination fuelled by those words conjured up such images, until the time sleep finally took her much later that night. She had to steady herself, all of her 5'8" against the counter-top where the boiling hot kettle steamed from its spout, and wait to catch her breath.

And the seed that had grown and flowered inside her then 17 year old son, was now planted within her too, because for how screwed up his mind must have been - how twisted his heart and how helter-skelter that damned anxiety of his, and his pure, unspoilt virgin heart - there was no denying his love, his passion, his raw need (like hers once), and his eloquent way with words. But it could never happen. These things could never be more than a boy's dream.

Yes, she understood that boys dreamed of these things. Boys, according to some, even grew to seek and to marry their mothers in some ways. A boy's mother was the first adult woman in his life, the first sexual creature. But that's where Maddie became confused, because Anthony had become in time the end of her sexuality. What did he really see in her that she couldn't see in herself?

It was a battle the night he came home, expecting who knew what, summoning the courage to act as both his mother and his absent father. Something told Maddie deep down that she was going to end up being his personal doctor too, because this was going nowhere near any family therapist. She'd find another way.

Good lord, imagine dragging your own pubescent son to a doctor to talk about the wrongs of wanting to fuck his mother. Imagine the burning shame of a therapist trudging through your family secrets every week, talking about it non-stop. The thought was ten times more terrifying than the matter itself, so no, that wasn't going to happen.

But thank the heavens, he had taken it extremely well, because Anthony was his mother's son, and because even the part of him that was still Bill Calloway - magically disappearing insurance salesman extraordinaire - had achieved the impossible and grew to respect and be loyal to his mother.

In appearance he was more like Bill too, with his sandy brown hair and hazel eyes, as opposed to her paler skin and intense dark chocolate contrasts. Only their hands appeared much the same as she reassuringly held his in hers, ever faithful and unconditional.

'Anthony, I do understand,' she remembered saying all those years ago, despite her confusion. 'I do understand. Girls go through something similar with their fathers sometimes, but there's a reason it isn't talked about.'

'I know, mom,' he said blankly, but not out of ignorance. Shame was not alone in him. He was exhausted with worry for what he had done, for what he was experiencing. She understood that much as clear as the day.

'I am so flattered that you love me and that you can tell me, and you're perfectly healthy in every way, I'm certain of that. But you'll make the right woman lucky when it's time. It's just that she can't be me...'

'I know.'

'I'm your mother, sweetheart,' she gently reasoned with a kind smile. 'Can I give you a hug?' Maddie asked then, before the silence between them chilled to a freeze.

And only for the briefest of moments did Anthony's eyes meet hers. He couldn't look at her, not right away. Still, his body language spoke good enough of his feelings, as he leaned hopelessly into his mother and dared to give as good as he got; squeezing her so hard.

Little did she imagine just how intensely Anthony felt that moment, and the boy was dying inside like neither of them could have believed. 'I'll give you this much, you do know how to write a beautiful love letter,' she whispered in his ear and was surprised to hear him laugh. It felt hot against the flesh of her shoulder, even through her blouse. And Anthony died a little more.

We'll be okay, she thought. We'll get through this. This wasn't the end of it, not so soon. You didn't just switch these things off, but they'd been through worse.

And that was Maddie and Anthony Stevens eight years ago.

2

Now Maddie was forty six and Anthony twenty five. Things had smoothed over quite well, to the point where it was as normal and healthy a part of their life as anything else. When extraordinary becomes the norm, like Maddie bringing her one surviving son up alone, playing both mother and father and holding down the fort in the shadow of abandonment, extraordinary tests did not intimidate. They were signs of an extraordinary family, and that was the Stevens family through and through!

Now Anthony was a literary editor and ghost writer, popular amongst the west coast celebs despite his relative youth, and making more than just a living for himself. Any Z-lister and Twitter personality pitching an "autobiography", his name was making the rounds. He had struck lucky, making a few good contacts through his fiancée Debbie's father, who was himself a long established literary agent. Sometimes it was all about whom you knew.

Sadly though, an unforeseen and unfortunate event, Debbie and Anthony weren't to be. They drifted apart almost as quickly as it came together. Maddie loved Debbie. She was so happy for the two of them, because of how happy they both seemed. In the end it was amicable and they parted ways for each others' sake, for their remaining youth. Still, Anthony was devastated.

'What are you going to do about living arrangements?' Maddie asked during the all-important phone call. She hated to press him, but he needed to know his options and she needed to know that he was in the right mind.

'Well we sold the apartment and split everything necessary. I've been staying in a rented apartment downtown, just getting on with it,' Anthony said, leaving no fat on his words.

'I hope it's not expensive,' Maddie hinted.

'I'm not sweating the rent. It's very basic.'

Maddie had a thought she wanted to put across to him. Absently she ran a fingernail gently across her bottom lip as she listened and waited for her turn. 'Why don't you come stay with me; keep the old lady some company? Surely you could do with not being miserable on your own right now.'

"You're not old", he might have said at one point. It wasn't that saying it never got old. Hitting a brick wall was got old. Her refusal to be anything but the old lady that she wasn't; that's what had gotten old.

'I don't know,' Anthony reacted without hesitation, but also notably without any real conviction. 'I've kind of appreciated being alone lately Maybe it's what I need.'

Maddie believed otherwise. 'Really?'

'Well, yeah, I've just wanted to be alone the past couple of months actually...'

Depression, Maddie thought instantly - suffering the inevitable from start to end, and taking it on himself like he always has. 'Come sleep over for the weekend at least. I'm lonely too and thinking about us.'

Thinking about us? Did she really say that? Anthony ran it by himself once again. What did she mean by "us"?

'Really?' he asked.

'Yeah,' Maddie murmured, like it was no big deal. But that was the appeal. It needed to be no big deal right now. You couldn't force any kind of positivity that wasn't really there, just do your best and then hope for the best. 'Grab some clothes, get in the car, bring your work with you if you really must - but just come spend some time with your mom!'

Anthony stalled. 'I don't know about my workload right now.'

'What have I just told you?' his mother pressed. 'Please, baby, I miss having you around. Surely you'd rather be here than there.'

3

A thousand memories and worries must have ran through Anthony's mind from the beginning of his drive to Kerns, Portland, but for the life of him he couldn't think why - didn't want to think why!

Music passed most of the six hour drive, if not the discomfort of his ass becoming fussily undecided whether to pain him half the way or to fall asleep altogether. So once every hour he'd pull over and stretch, maybe even grab a coffee. Anthony was drinking a lot of coffee lately, but not to stay awake. It seemed the only thing that motivated him, in large doses.

It was three quarters of the way back home, back to whence he came, that the mixed thoughts and feelings began to swirl into place and to make sense to him. Why should he be nervous about going home to his mother?

Whether it was frowned upon or not, for a man down in the dumps to seek some comfort from family, didn't bother him. Maybe he was seeking something else, or even purposely to avoid something else, hence his slight apprehension.

There was that awkward little history, the dark times he went through, and now there was the disintegration of his love life which left him realising that he felt guilty for ever having left. Now that he floated about in life, with only a good job - a great job in fact - to anchor him down, Anthony knew only that he had no idea where he was headed, but that he didn't dare admit that he was both guilty and happy to be headed back to the safety of those old four walls.

He and his mother were frank with each other. They were as honest as any ordinary people could be with a little power of expression in one hand and a little trust in the other. Maybe he dreaded the honesty to come, but then maybe his undoing - if that was coming to him - would just leave him to rebuild from the ground up. Maybe that was for the best...

Or maybe his anxiety just wouldn't shut up and let him coast into the next verse of this chapter of his life with only as many fucks as he had pots to piss in. Yeah, I'm afraid, he admitted to himself as he arrived in Kerns and more memories came flooding back.

'For one weekend only, Mr Bigshot is back to cry away his woes and accept defeat,' Anthony mumbled to himself as he pulled up at his mother's house. 'Step right up and observe his misery!'

4

'You got a smile for your mom?' Maddie asked nonchalantly as she left their embrace at the porch door. Anthony offered his best under the circumstances, a wan curl of the corners of his eyes and his lips, with which the fairness of his skin appeared almost sickly.

Of course, he was tired after his long drive. Maddie smoothed his shirt where her body had crumpled against his with one quick hand and returned the smile with the effort it was worth. She didn't want to fake it. You couldn't fake anything in the presence of depression on any level, and she had learned that the hard way. Empathy was easier when you knew from experience.

'Go shower and take a load off. You come see me when you've had a little rest,' she ordered and sent him upstairs. 'We'll order dinner this evening. I'm too beat myself to make the effort tonight.'

'It's good to see you, mom,' Anthony tried with a little gratitude. And he couldn't help notice that though she was still the same woman she had always been, that specifically she was still so young and healthy and in fantastic shape. 'I am happy to be here, even if I don't look it right now.'

'You don't need to look happy, Anthony,' she assured him. 'Just be here.' With that she left him to his own devices. Anthony headed up the stairs and into his old room and began to unpack.

He didn't know what to do or what to say. Little did he know that his mom downstairs was thinking the same thing. What was with the awkwardness? Had either of them missed something?

An hour later, the clock struck five. Showered and fresh, Anthony had taken his mother's advice and taken a little nap, which was nothing more than an excuse to lie on his bed and contemplate what the weekend held in store. It felt surprisingly good to be back in that faithful old bed, so much that any hopes of conjuring any useful thought soon disappeared.

Blissful dark soon captured his mind and whisked him off to where ruminating voices turned to daydreams, and where daydreams spoke solely for themselves. Even then, there seemed no time for them to grow committed to their own obscure cause.

'So when are you going to eat me out?' a voice asked from somewhere outside of the void. That startled Anthony, who suddenly awoke blurry eyed to find his cock was hard, straining against the bath towel around his waist and threatening to unravel him.

'Huh?'

There was a knock on the bedroom door then. That was definitely real. Before he could respond, Maddie popped her head around the swinging door and asked, 'any thought as to what you want to eat out?'

'Err...'

'Oh I'm sorry, did I wake you?' Her eyes flitted down his body ever so quickly. There was no denying what caught her attention. Her plain expression, still captivating to him, didn't change in the slightest. But almost deliberately she didn't look away for one very long second. All Anthony seemed able to do was to lie there and to shrug in his dazed state.

'Yeah I guess I snuck off for a few minutes.'

Still Maddie let her gaze rest on her son's finely toned body for a moment before excusing herself with a smile. It must be nice to have a body like his around, she imagined as though she never did. Debbie must have been lost for ways to occupy herself these days. Without even thinking of what she was doing or how she might have appeared, Maddie turned and left.

What the hell am I playing at? That was the pop question. He's been here not much more than an hour and already you're acting like... like...

Maddie wrung the fingers of one hand with the other, took a deep breath, and headed into her own room where she began rooting around in her underwear drawer for no reason at all - if not only to occupy herself until those thoughts went away.

'Mom, are you okay?' Anthony's voice suddenly alerted her from the rear. He was only a few steps behind her, still clad only in that long towel.

'I'm okay. I'm sorry, Anthony,' she offered, now blushing at having been taken by surprise. 'It's just been so long since anybody else has been here. I'm surprised at myself. I seem to have forgotten how to be around people.'

'Jesus,' Anthony remarked. But he was genuinely concerned. 'What happened?'

'Nothing happened!'

'Are you sure?'

'Maybe I could say it another way,' Maddie supposed. Right now she might as well have been stark naked before her own son, because she had also forgotten how to feel around him too. She had forgotten also how to express her own feelings so openly. 'Literally, the problem is that a whole bunch of nothing has happened for a long time. I feel strange about myself sometimes. I feel stranger around people the longer I go without seeing them outside of work.'

'That's horrible,' was his initial response, as deadpan as it came across.

'It is what it is!'

'No it isn't,' Anthony insisted. 'It's shitty. How long have you felt this way?'

'I haven't been carving notches,' she reacted proudly. 'I don't know. A few months?' It seemed longer, but why talk semantics about what she didn't really want to talk about? Maddie didn't want this to be about her, not now that her son needed her.

'Is there anything I can do?' Anthony asked, searching her eyes with his. Her mouth moved. Nothing came out. And that was when he reached out to her and wrapped his arms around her, her cheek coming to rest against his bare chest. 'Well shit, mom, we're gonna have to live it up this weekend!'

'Can we get drunk tonight?' Maddie asked, and was surprised at those words, but especially the childish tone attached to them. 'I just need you!'

5

Yes they could get drunk, and yes there was a valiant effort on Anthony's part. Currently he had the liver of a foie gras goose, if he wasn't headed in that direction, and the booze didn't have the effect he'd needed it to after anaesthetising himself almost nightly against the pains of separation.

By 10pm it was sadly nearly all over. Maddie, now out of shape when it came to drinking anything, let alone wine, was in dangerous territory and trying to sober up before bedtime. Wine did funny things to her. If anything it acted like a truth serum, and made her want to talk about the things she often thought and felt, but kept to herself.

Maddie figured that she just needed to entertain, be it a person or a thought. And then sometimes she just yearned to be entertained, because everyone deserved a pipe-dream at the least.

The time for much needed laughter was past. Good old alcohol, the social anaesthetic to every struggling schmuck from the gutter to the stars, had worked its magic, and they had talked of old memories of childhood, school, of Aunt Shonda's facial herpes, and Kanye's not-so-secret secret appreciation for having his salad tossed.

Somehow those two things crossed paths, and maybe because, god damn it, kissing Kim must have been like falling for an ebola monkey at a strip bar.

'Being around all these famous people doesn't seem to have affected you,' Maddie noted when the subject later moved to why he and Debbie drifted. 'What is that like?'

'They're not real,' Anthony said, happy to take a detour from the morbid talk. 'It's just fake personalities and publicity. They cater to what they think people love them for, which they also think is nothing but spending stupid amounts of money.'

PanzerFeck
PanzerFeck
1,534 Followers