Edited by Isaac Newton

A german composer named Bruckner
Remarked to a lady while fuckener :
"Less lento, my dear,
With your cute little rear;
I like a hot presto when muckener!"

When Tony stares at me with those familiar hungry eyes I do not discourage it. I know which side my bread is buttered on. That was my mother's favourite statement when we had our frequent arguments.

The driver opens the door to our car, and Tony and I walk arm in arm to the large crowd at the top if the hill - the chosen site for my husband Jason's grave. It is a somber scene and tears come easily to my eyes.

I look exquisite in my long black dress with the lace veil hiding most of my features.

It is the end of another chapter in my life. The man who had been my husband had been a good provider. Our relationship was agreed upon in the opening weeks, and for the next twenty years both of us enjoyed playing our parts. Our agreement held to the end.

Of course I didn't love him. I learned that lesson years before I met Jason.

Everyone in attendance wants to come up and tell me how much Jason meant to them, tell me how sorry they are, how great a man he was. I shake their hands but say little.

I play the part of the grieving widow to perfection, the final scene of my play with Jason. He would have been proud.

The car drives us back to our home on the outskirts of the city. Just as we are entering the gate to our lane, my son Tony leans over, places his hand on my upper thigh and says in a reassuring way, "Don't worry, mom. I will take care of you now."

How much did Jason tell him?

The hand lingers until the driver opens the door for us. I do not discourage his touch.

In my room I sit at my dressing table inspecting the woman reflected in the mirror. She is a beautiful woman, even though middle age has come upon her against my wishes. But beauty can be both a curse and a treasure, as I have seen again and again. When my mother's drunken boyfriend slipped into my bed in the middle of the night to rape the beautiful, twelve-year-old version of me, it was a curse. When Jason first set eyes upon me and could not believe that I smiled in return (he knew he was already showing the pattern baldness and pot belly that he would grow into), that was a treasure.

I know Tony has been confused about our relationship for many years. I could feel his eyes upon me most days, feel it like a physical touch. I ignored him, of course - not because he was my son, but because I had agreed with Jason that he would be the only man in my life. I never regretted it.

As Tony graduated from high school and went to university, I started to receive intimate gifts from him. Sometimes it was chocolate, but more often it was lingerie or a book of erotic poetry. These all went into a chest in the basement.

The reflection shows that my earlier tears have made a mess of my makeup and I concentrate on making myself presentable. That was part of my side of the agreement as Jason explained it to me: to always make myself presentable, attractive but always dressed appropriately for every situation. I never failed to look like perfection, turning heads at every public function.

It came as no surprise when Jason's lawyer explained that it would all go to his only son Tony. Jason was always a businessman after all. I was disappointed, of course, hoping that his death would change the path of my life. Evidently, it was not to be.

A knock brings me back to the present and I casually say, "Come in." I know who it is of course.

"Mother? How are you doing?" Tony ensures the door is closed behind him before stepping up behind me, looking at my reflection in the mirror.

"My makeup is a mess." I continue to work on my face, feeling that touch-like gaze once again. His hunger is so obvious.

His hands gently and casually rest upon my shoulders. "You look beautiful, mother. As always."

"Thank you, Tony. But I am getting old - it is more work every day." I try to make light of my age, but I truly feel old. How can Tony look at me, his own mother, his own middle-aged mother, this way?

A hand gently slides up my neck and brushes my long, thick hair out of the way, exposing my tender flesh. I set my compact down on the table and look up at my son, wondering, 'How much did your father tell you, Tony?'

"Do you remember how I used to watch you comb your hair, mother?"

"I do, yes." Even as a child he liked to look at me; then, with the onset of puberty, his gazes took on a new meaning.

"I thought you the most beautiful woman alive. I still do."

I smile gently. "Thank you, honey." Was my beauty a curse or a treasure right at this moment? Time will tell.

That same hand slips back to my shoulder and gently eases my dress away from my neck, exposing the black strap of my bra and more of my pale flesh.

"I miss those days."

"Which ones, Tony?"

He looks back up from my shoulder into my eyes, "You did not seem to mind sitting with me in only your underwear then. I miss that."

I force a gentle smile. "Perhaps it was a mistake to stop." My role comes so naturally to me after all these years.

A pleased smile appears on his lips and his gaze returns back to my neck and shoulder. "Perhaps it was, mother."

His other hand moves down from my shoulder, grasps the tiny zipper, and gently tugs it down the length of my back. I sit still and watch soberly as my son seduces me.

Both hands move up to my shoulders, going beneath the top of my dress and then easing it over my shoulder so that it falls down to my navel. I am wearing a black lace bra and nothing else from the waist up.

"As good as your memory, Tony?"

His eyes are wide with desire. Men are so easy to read. "Better, mom, much better." His hands are trembling now as they encircle my body, going straight for my small-sized breasts.

The touch is not as disagreeable as perhaps it should be. To others, this mixture of incest and seduction of the widow on the eve of the funeral would be unseemly, I am sure. But permitting a man's touch is an act of necessity in this life. If given wisely, then comfort and security are returned. Once, I gave my self to a man for love, but he disappointed me and hurt me even worse than that drunk that ripped my virginity from my prepubescent body. That has never happened again.

"Your nipples are getting hard, mother." They must be pressing through my thin lace bra into the palm of his hand. Yes, my body often responds to the most lecherous of touches. It, too, cannot be trusted.

"Why do you think that is, Tony?" I am forcing a seductive smile, but I feel like crying. Perhaps I still feel some love for my son after all. I thought it had dried up with those puddles of sperm he used to leave in my panties in his middle-teen years, proving to me that he was just like the rest.

He grins knowingly. "I think you are enjoying this."

I nod in agreement, my eyes flashing seductively. There is that obvious hunger again. The child has no chance here.

My son's hands fumble with the middle clasp of my bra, nearly tearing the expensive material in his haste. "I always dreamed of this moment, mother."

Which? The moment that he would seduce me before even his own father was cold? "I knew you would come to me eventually, Tony." Not completely true. I had hoped my son would somehow be different from every other man in my life, all of whom I saw as hard lessons learned.

Now my small breasts are exposed, the bra slipping down my arms to fall between us. Two sets of fingers and thumbs roll my puffy, hardening nipples roughly. "Are they sensitive, mother?"

"Oh yes!" They are. If my beauty is a curse, then so too are my body's reactions to intimacy. I often hated that fact more than any other.

"I've wanted you for so long, mother. I have wanted you all for myself."

Gently I spin on my chair, turning to face my grown child. His hand is forced to disengage from my excited, hard nipples. He stares at me in surprise, suddenly looking more like a nervous child caught doing something naughty than the man seducing his middle-aged mother. With a gentle push from me, he steps back two steps before I rise smoothly up to a standing position. And then, as if on command, the half-worn dress slips down my rounded hips to land about my high-heeled feet.

Tony's jaw drops in appreciation.

I am wearing only things which he had given me a year before, things stored in that basement chest for use on this day, which I knew would be coming. I stood in seamed, black, thigh-high stockings, black lace garters, a black lace thong panty and my black heels. Nothing else. As you can see, I know how this game is played.

Tony's smile could not get broader.

"I don't know what your father told you, Tony, but there are a couple of rules." I step out of the discarded dress and bra lying about my feet, step right up to my son until my hard nipples are touching his chest.

He just stares at me, so I continue. "I only give myself to a man who can care for me in the style I have become accustomed to."

Tony nodded dumbly. Oh, my innocent, stupid son!

"For this I will always be a trustful and reliable companion." His father never loved me, he just loved how he looked with me, or loved how he felt inside me. Jason had been the classic nerd, but felt like a man when he was with me.