knock and Mother came in.
“When I was in town today, dear, I got some clothes for you. They’re in my room, would you like to see them?”
“Oh-gee-yes, Mother, I sure would,” I cried.
I followed her through the connecting door between our rooms and entered her bedroom for the first time; it was the silken cave I had been so hungrily peeking into last night. She took me to the huge bed and showed me three new suits which lay on the satin spread. I was very excited. My first real clothes. The silk. The whiteness. The sudden intimacy of her bedroom.
I tried on each coat and paraded in front of Mother.
“Why, Lars, they make you so handsome!” She exclaimed. “They do seem to fit well. Here, come and see for yourself!”
She led me to the dressing table.
I looked at myself in the mirror, admiring the fine gray flannel. Then turned and found that Mother was sitting on the bed watching me.
“Do you like them, Lars?” she asked looking closely at me. Her eyes had a strange look in them which I could not define.
“Mother, these clothes are the most wonderful thing anyone has ever given me,” I said straightforwardly. “I just…”
“Come here, dear, and sit with me,” she said softly indicating the place beside her on the edge of the bed. Mother was wearing her hair in a long roll on the back of her neck tonight, and the bed lamp behind it seemed to send needles of fire through it. She wore a brown cardigan buttoned in the back, and a full brown skirt. Giddy from the first new clothes I had ever had, I went over and sat down.
She looked at me a while without saying anything. Then suddenly she smiled, her eyes becoming, at the same time, misty in a way that released things in me. It is so difficult to explain how she just looked at me, and it released things. My stomach tightened and I found it hard to breathe. The mistiness grew in her eyes when she noticed, causing more shyness and confusion in me. And on and on…
“Tell me, Lars,” she asked slowly, “why you stare at me so much? Is it because you never saw a woman before?”
I was tongue-tied and lost, but I tried.
“Yes, of course, Mother. Y-you-you are so strange and- well-so beautiful! I don’t think there can be anything so… beautiful-the first thing I ever saw… and nothing ever again…” I had been cold white in my face, and now as I stumbled and dared to be frank, the color rushed in hot.
Mother drew my head toward her and kissed my forehead. I trembled from head to foot. I tried hard, but could not stop shaking. She stroked my head softly, but my trembling only increased. And beside me, I could feel a slight agitation beginning in her, which excited me more.
“I have to dress now, dear, to go to the opera with your father,” she said softly. “If you would feel better staying a while you can sit here while I get ready and then go out.” She seemed to understand me so well-to feel and know that I felt like a small child being left in the dark.
“Yes, thank you, Mother,” I said. “I would like to stay a few minutes. I guess I’m pretty strange now and then. I…”
“Not strange at all, Lars,” she told me. “You just need to know that you are loved, and with me, you soon will.” She got up, went to her chest of drawers, took out a black brassiere, black silk panties with a lace fringe, and a black half slip, marvelous silken things that caused trumpets in me. Their delicacy and embarrassing intimacy! She carried them to a seat behind the screen. Coming out again, she walked over to the large wardrobe, and took out a beautiful deep violet dress which she carried to her dressing table beside the screen, adjusting casually, as she passed, the mirror. She came over to me.
“Lars, darling, would you unbutton my cardigan? It’s awfully difficult for me to reach!” She turned around. Despite myself I looked at the fine legs, the grace and smoothness in her body. Then I took in what she had asked. I was beginning to tremble again as I stood up.
She raised her head slightly, and waited for me to undo the buttons. I reached to the top one, but I could not loose it because my hands were shaking so. As though divining my confusion, Mother said:
“Dear, please undo the buttons for me. I have a blouse on under it, you know!”
“Yes, Mother…” I somehow got out, undoing quickly the first button, and then more slowly the next, and the next… The white skin of her neck, and then of her back was exposed. As I opened a third button and more skin was bared, I was filled with a mounting tension and doubt. It was so white, and smooth and inviting and naked. I opened a fourth button, and still only the white skin, beginning to be dusted with almost invisible blond hairs. So much of it now. I wanted to put my face against it, and I had to struggle with myself. My hands shook and I was trembling again as I opened the fifth button, but now the shaking was also from anticipation. The cardigan was open to a point well below her shoulders, and beginning to slide off them at the sides as she moved her arms slightly, but there was still no blouse nor anything… only the flesh. The splendid soft, silken, secret, incredibly naked flesh. The tension in me and between us kept rising. I was afraid to open another button, there was so much of her body nude. And yet I was so avid for more that it paralyzed me. I could only stare.
“Come, dear, or I’ll be late!” Mother gently chided me. I opened the next button. More sweet skin. Naked. I closed my eyes as I tried to open the next.
“Mother… I…” and my hands were against the skin and I was fumbling. I was almost helpless from shame and embarrassment because my thing was getting hard again. Then I felt the top of something. I opened my eyes, and there was the blouse! A thin, backless and sleeveless summer blouse!
Mother didn’t say anything, although she made a little motion that was like a contented cat. To my further deep shame, I imagined she moved back a little toward me. I kept unbuttoning now with my shaking hands till all the buttons were loosed.
Mother turned toward me, raising her hands to the shoulders so the sweater would stay on.
“Thank you, dear,” she said, smiling at my confusion. “Now you just sit here on the bed, and I will be dressed in a minute.”
She kissed me lightly on the forehead, pressed my arm with her hand, which let the sweater start to slide! She lingered one wild moment, and just before it fell, turned and went behind the screen. I sat staring dumbly after her.
The light on the dressing table threw her silhouette sharply on the silk screen. I could see her sitting doing something with her stockings. Then I realized she was taking them off, for I could see the movement of each leg lifting, then the clear, pure outline of the leg perfectly, and her pulling the stocking slowly off. I was fascinated by this, even silhouetted, process of seeing the unknown. Then the stockings were tossed across the top of the screen. Just the sight of the silk tops which had been a few seconds ago in that private hidden world, maddened me.
“Oh, Lars, dear, would you get me those very sheer stockings that are lying on top of the bureau in the corner?”
I picked up the nylons, so sheer as to be almost invisible, shivering at their touch and the idea of what they were- about to witness, and carried them to her. As I reached the screen, I hesitated in embarrassment, not knowing her state of undress, nor what I should do.
Mother said: “Oh, thank you, dear,” and stepped out. I froze with shock at the motion. But she was still clothed as before, except that her legs and feet were bare. The naked feet were a new world for me. Why should my heart topple over just seeing her naked feet in the soft white rug? She smiled at me, took the stockings from my stunned hands, and went back behind the screen. I sat down heavily on the bed. Then suddenly discovered that the mirror showed clearly what was behind the screen.
I could not resist, although I realized that I should; looking I could see perfectly.
Above the screen I could just see Mother’s head, and below it, her ankles, but the mirror of the dressing table, turned as it was, showed me everything! Everything in between! The trumpets started in me again.
Mother, of course, was unaware of all this. In the mirror I saw her seated pulling on the stockings; pulling them and smoothing them carefully over her calves and knees. The motion sent little shivers through me. Then she pulled her skirt up a bit, and began to adjust the nylons on her thighs. I strained forward to see, but because of the angle at which she was sitting, I could see little but the folds of the skirt and the stroking. That and the almost caressing motion of her hands.
