Winter vacation passed swiftly. Henry spend most of his time with Emma and Mary Margaret for their multi-day Christmas celebration. Out of pity, I think, Mary Margaret invited me to join them so I would not be left all alone, especially with Henry opting to stay with his other mother for the holidays.
The day after Christmas, Henry cornered me during a gathering at Granny's Diner. He pulled me outside. It was biting cold and snowing outside so he spoke quickly. He first apologized for spending so much more time with Emma than with me. I automatically responded that of course I did not mind. I understood his desire to be with Emma as well, even if selfishly I had hoped he would choose to stay with me instead. Henry rationalized his decision by explaining that in recent months more of his attention had been focused on me. I knew instinctively that he was referring to our game, so I did not argue the point. He said he wished he could spend more time with me and he hoped I was not to lonely. At that point, I gestured to the large gathering inside. I was many things, but lonely was not one of them thanks to Mary Margaret's successful attempts at involving me in all the holiday festivities.
By New Years, I was becoming tired of the crowds. New Years day, I awoke sometime in the early morning, surprised by how late I managed to sleep in, even if I had stayed awake till midnight the previous day at yet one another of Mary Margaret's parties. I honestly wondered if the woman spent all her free time planning social gatherings. When midnight had come the previous night, it seemed as if everyone else around me was happily paired off into kissing couples. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Henry kissing a girl who I recognized as another student and Storybrooke High. Their kiss was chaste and brief, both conscious that they were surrounded by others. Inside, I felt a twinge. It should have been a motherly reaction. I'd heard from Henry that he had already had his first kiss, but for the first time witnessing him kiss was an entirely different story. Buried deep down inside me, the inner green monster was raging, and I was equal parts thrilled and horrified that I wished I was the one he was kissing. My gaze then fell upon Emma kissing Gillian, and I knew without a doubt she take Henry away if she knew even an inkling of my current thoughts.
On New Years day, Henry decided to show up. He explained that since the holidays were over, he felt it only fair to spend the remaining week of his break with me, having spent the previous two with Emma. Needless to say, I was thrilled. No more going pitying Mary Margaret to invite me to her parties. I was no longer alone.
I was reclined on the sofa in my study reading when Henry came in and sat next to me. Placing the bookmark gently between the aged pages of my book, I set it down on the coffee table and turned so my full attention was focused on him.
From the way he was worrying a hole in his lower lip, I knew he had something to say to me that he found exceedingly difficult to express. I smiled at him encouragingly, letting him know without words that I was open to whatever he had to say. "I know I have no right to feel like this," Henry began saying, "And that you'll probably think I need counseling for this."
I braced myself. An introduction like that could lead to nothing good.
"Last night when I kissed Amy." So that was the girl's name. I knew it was something common, "All I could think of was kissing you."
I raised my eyebrow. The funny part was that was all I could think of too. Him kissing me, not me kissing myself, I mean. Henry fiddled with his hands. I guessed from his nervous behavior they were sweaty as well. I should have responded, but uncertain what to say, I let him continue. "I only kissed her because she was close and had black hair like you, and in the darkness I could almost forget that she wasn't you."
"Almost?" Of all the things I should have asked, the one I wanted to know the most was the difference he saw between us, to reassure me that I was not interchangeable.
"The kiss was fine, but there was nothing there. No connection. I didn't care about her and she didn't care about me."
Unspoken, he was telling me that if it could have been me, it would have. Had circumstances been different, had any kind of relationship between us not been wrong in the light of our family and friends and our own better judgement, then he would have kissed me that night. As it was, no one could know of the line we had began to toe and stretch.
"I wish it had been me too," I admitted honestly, and I saw Henry's shoulders sag in relief. Despite everything that had already passed between us, he still doubted exactly how I felt about him. Hell, even I was beginning to question my own feelings towards him. I still loved him dearly as my son and I would do everything in my power to protect him, but the years of guiding and teaching him were rapidly coming to a close. In a few short months, he would be leaving for college and living on his own for the first time, and I was struggling to reconcile the man he was becoming with the boy he had been. One of the few things I knew as our relationship evolved was that I would not be disgusted or opposed to kissing him. I even wanted him to kiss me.
Henry's eyes were alight with a familiar mirth I had not seen in a few weeks and I was overjoyed by his reaction. My brain screamed at me that what I was about to do was wrong, but my heart was singing a different tune. It was chanting for me to just lean in and do it. So I did.
I tilted my head slightly so my lips connected with Henry's. With the barest of touches, I started our next games. The rules had changed. Touching was no longer forbidden. Henry was shocked for a moment, and I was about to pull away and apologize when a fire lit in his countenance. He began responding to the kiss, and I allowed myself to be pulled in more deeply. Without my knowledge, my body shifted so it was closer to his. Our thighs were pressed together and my hands held his shoulders.
A knock on the front door caused the two of us to jump away startled. Fifteen love Regina.
I answered the door while Henry stayed behind to compose himself. He was terrible at telling lies if he did not have enough time to prepare. When I answered the door I was greeted by Emma holding up a toothbrush. "Henry left this behind. I wanted to make sure he had it."
I was about to grab the toothbrush, thank her for coming and close the door when I had a change of heart and decided to invite her in. Henry soon emerged from my study, looking for all the world as if nothing had ever happened, and I was relieved at his discretion. Emma never noticed anything was wrong, not as I boiled hot water on the stove or as we sat sipping tea and talking. As everything was want to do, Henry became the topic of our discussion. We began reminiscing over years past, and I almost stopped resenting Emma's unwanted presence. Almost, but not quite.
It was late afternoon when the other woman finally left, leaving Henry with his toothbrush and scolding him for not brushing that morning. How could he have without a toothbrush? Henry rolled his eyes, and Emma crossed her arms in response but decided it was not an issue worth fighting over. Selfishly, I was grateful she did not make a big deal out of it or I would have had to endure her continued presence longer.
The week progressed as if Henry and I had never kissed. Now experts, our behavior remained unchanged despite the unconventional liberties we occasionally took with each other. I think part of the game we relished the most was the sweet anticipation of waiting for the other to strike. Henry announced he was going to Emma's on Friday. I expected him to make his move before he left, but it never came. I was disappointed, but I convinced myself I had no right to be. Henry had no obligation to me and I had no right to expect anything from him other than to be a good son.
Henry called me twice during his first week of school. Normally, he was so busy with homework he did not have spare time during the week to call and talk. By Wednesday, however, school was back in full force. The teachers were starting to stress about how their students were going to perform on the end-of-year tests, and that stress manifested itself in terms of homework. I did not hear from Henry again until Friday when he came home to my house.
I briefly listened to Henry talk about his first week back, but I could see he was clearly exhausted. I left him alone to nap.
The weekend passed rather uneventfully, though Henry did receive an email notifying him that he had been selected for an interview with one of the colleges he applied to. He would have to drive and meet a recruiter at a larger town about an hour away, though the interview was not scheduled until the following week.
Henry called Emma to ask if she could give him a ride since he would be staying with her that week. He did not want to have to drive an hour when he would be stressed at the prospect of the interview and overwhelmed by the extra and unanticipated time commitment. Emma regretfully declined, citing she had a work even she had to be at, so I volunteered instead. Deep down, I think Henry was glad it was me, if for no other reason than the moral support I was just more inclined to give. Emma loved Henry to be sure, but she came into his life later than I had. She would do anything for him, but by the time she met him he was independent enough he did not need to rely upon her for everything, so she simply could not understand why no, he did not want to simply take her car for the day and go on his own.
Throughout the following week, Henry appeared so exhausted that I considered casting a sleeping spell over him temporarily so that he could get some rest. I offered, and he politely declined, having had only bad experiences with those spells previously. I pointed out to him that the one I could cast would be different, giving him seven hours of deep, uninterrupted sleep from which he would automatically wake up. I knew better than to press the point when he rejected my offer a second time.
Thursday evening I was preparing myself for bed. I had on a silky pajama top and shorts, a change in attire considering previous...um...incidents. I had washed away my makeup and was just sitting down to brush my hair when Henry came into my room. I thought he had already gone to bed. He looked positively exhausted.
He approached me and gently coaxed the brush out of my hair. He stared at my reflection in the mirror for a moment before dropping his gaze towards my hair. Starting at the tips, he lightly ran the brush through my hair. His strokes were soft and gentle so as not to hurt my sensitive scalp, slowly but surely working out the knots. As the brush reached my scalp, I was incredibly relaxed. The feeling of someone else brushing my hair was so relaxing and so foreign that I was completely overwhelmed by the pleasurable sensations. I wished Henry would never stop. He kept running the brush through my hair longer than necessary. Both of us were reluctant to stop. When a drag of the brush against my head drew a moan from me, Henry took it as his que to stop before we broke the unspoken rules of the game. Fifteen all.
Tuesday afternoon, I picked Henry up from Emma's. He was dressed in a suit, and I could not help but admire him in it. I tried to tell myself that I thought men who dressed nicely were generally more attractive, and that my rush of physical desire stemmed from the suit rather than the man inside, though I knew deep down it was just as much about Henry as it was about how good he looked dressed up.
On the drive to the interview, Henry squirmed nervously in his seat, unable to talk or concentrate on anything other than he prerehearsed answers the interviewer could possibly ask. I let him finish his last minute preparations. He seemed to know what he was doing, and I was not going to mess with strategies that had led him to success in the pass.
When we got out of the car, I noticed his tie was crooked. I fixed it for him, allowing my fingers to linger as I was unwilling to pull away too soon. Convinced there was nothing else I could do, I allowed my fingers to trail down his torso, softly caressing. He looked at me uncomfortably and pulled away, though his steely eyes told me that it was the approaching interview calling him away and not my attentions pushing him off. Thirty-fifteen Regina.
I waited in the car and listened to the radio. I did not know what was playing, but it kept my mind occupied. Half an hour later, Henry returned. He looked slightly shell shocked, and when I asked him what happened, he said he did not really remember. As I tried to probe further, he eventually relented and said he had been so stressed out during the interview he could not remember what he said. He briefly outlined some of the questions and how he think he responded, and that overall he thought it had went well.
I was about to merge onto the freeway heading back towards Storybrooke when it occurred to me that Henry might want to celebrate his interview, and we were currently in a town where no one knew us. We could, for maybe the only time ever, drop our boundaries outside the sanctuary of my house.
At my suggestion, Henry quickly agreed that he would like to celebrate. He pulled out his phone to text Emma with our plans and then he checked Yelp for restaurant reviews. I allowed him to select the place that appealed most to him, so he choose Italian and directed me to the restaurant.
When I pulled into a parking space outside of the restaurant, Henry bolted out of the car and ran to my side. I barely had time to cut the ignition before he opened the door for me. When I stepped out of the car onto the icy asphalt, Henry closed the door behind me and offered me his arm. I was about to turn it down when I realized I was wearing rather high heels and attempting to walk on ice, so rather than risk falling and injuring myself, I gratefully accepted his arm. If our behavior revealed a datelike atmosphere, it was purely coincidental.
The restaurant, decidedly, was not. Henry had chosen a more upscale place by the looks of it. All the patrons inside were dressed nicely as well, though the wait was only fifteen minutes. When our name was called, Henry and I followed the waiter to the table. It was in the back of the restaurant and a bit more secluded. I was grateful I was still wearing my work clothes or I would have been dressed to informally. Henry pulled out my chair for me, and instead of sitting across the table from me as friends and sons do, he pulled out the chair adjacent to mine. As he sat down at the table, the sides of our knees touched. At first, I'd tried to tell myself it was all coincidental, but I no longer could. Henry's chivalrous behavior, his choice of restaurant, sitting beside instead of across, all led to one conclusion. I could no longer deny the dinner for what it was. A date. Thirty all.
I waited the entire time for the staff and patrons to throw dirty looks at us, the disgusting mother and son couple, but no one did. Henry looked older and more grown up in his suite, and my magic helped keep my physical complexion from aging as visibly. I might have looked ten years older than him, but no more than that. There was an age difference, but to outsiders who did not know us, it was large but I did not appear so much older as to be his mother. It was a relief to feel less abnormal for a change.
When the waiter came to take our order, Henry ordered first for himself and then, before I even had a chance to say anything, for me as well. I was slightly upset that he ordered without consulting me. I was not some helpless damsel in distress; I was quite the opposite really. But he ordered exactly what I would have, so I decided not to press the issue then and there. On the ride home, however, I would make it clear to him that he was not to order for me again. If he formed a habit of doing so then it might accidentally slip out while we were around others, and I was not willing to risk that.
Dinner was decadent. When the waiter came with the desert menu, I told Henry I was too full to consider desert, so he ordered a chocolate cake for himself and asked for an extra fork just in case. Soon a three-layer chocolate mousse cake was delivered, and I almost wished I had decided on desert as well it looked so good. On principal, however, I declined Henry's proffered second fork. I could not very well decline desert and then change my mind and eat his. Besides, it was his celebration.
Henry ate the cake slowly, carefully scraping each crumb left on the plate and licking the mousse in between the layers sensuously. I never though eating cake could be made to look that sensual, but Henry managed. Sometime when he was about halfway through Henry noticed how entranced I was by the cake as I attentively watched his fork travel between the plate and his mouth and back again.
Instead of bringing the next bite of cake to his mouth, he moved the fork to mine. I opened my lips and our eyes connected while the fork loaded with cake traveled closer to my waiting cavern. Had Henry been paying slightly more attention to the fork and less to my eyes, he would have adjusted his trajectory slightly. As it was, instead of descending neatly into my mouth the prongs of the fork poked my lips instead.
Had it not been for that, Henry would have pulled ahead in our little game. In reality, though, Henry apologized and I giggled at the awkwardness of the whole situation. Feeding someone always did seem more romantic in movies than in actuality. As Henry started to pull the fork away, I was saddened at the though of not trying the heavenly looking desert. I stopped his momentum with my hand and pulled the fork closer to me again. My hand was overtop his guiding it into my mouth. A cacophony of mixed sweet and bitter flavors interrupted in my mouth. The cake tasted even better than it looked.
Henry pulled the fork out of my mouth and finished the rest of his cake. I almost moaned at the loss, but I kept my tongue firmly in check. As Henry finished the last bite, a bit of mousse clung to his lip. He brushed it off with a finger and was about to wipe the chocolate onto his napkin when I stilled his hand. I do not know what possessed me as I drew his hand by the wrist closer to me. I licked the dollop of sugar off quickly, swirling my tongue gently around the tip of his finger. Henry inhaled sharply. Forty-thirty Regina. Match point.
I glanced around the restaurant, but no one seemed even slightly perturbed. My actions must have gone unnoticed. I paid and then we left.
Our car ride home passed quickly as we talked, though it was around ten when I dropped Henry off at Emma's apartment. I stayed in the car and did not walk him to the door, not wanting to risk breaking the rules of our little game. Touching was okay, but sex was too far. The middle ground was highly blurred.
Friday once more saw Henry at my house. The following week, he had a second interview, that time over Skype. I nearly laughed as he trudged into the spotless kitchen Monday afternoon to set up his laptop for the interview. He was wearing a light blue collared shirt and tie up top with pajama pants on bottom. I nearly laughed at the ridiculous sight and told him to go finish changing. Henry pointed out that his pajama pants were more comfortable, and he really only needed the shirt and tie because the interviewer would see nothing below his neck and shoulders, so I let his odd attire go.
The rest of the week, Henry gave no indication that he was planning anything for our game. In truth, he was busy working on homework and scholarship applications. I tried to help where I could, though for the most part I was amazed by how much time and dedication he put towards his schoolwork.
I waited up late for him Thursday night, both in the living room and then in my bedroom. He never came, so I fell into a fitful sleep. I felt guilty too. Had I pushed him past his comfort zone?
I woke up early with Henry the next morning. I readied myself for work while he prepared for school. I went into the living room and saw him sitting on the couch eating a bowl of cereal. He was still wearing his pajamas, and through the thin cotton I could see evidence of his arousal. It grew as I sauntered into the room, and I was relieved I had not gone too far.
I was suddenly overcome by the though of having to wait a whole extra week before anything could pass between us again, and I was desperate to win the game. It was his turn, but I needed the win. I was ashamed by my own weakness. I was a strong, independent woman. I did not need a man, let alone a man who happened to be my son, to keep me happy. My body told me otherwise.
Removing the bowl of cereal from his hands and setting it down on the coffee table, I moved closer to Henry. I was so close, and almost without knowing it I was sitting straddling his lap. Henry looked shocked, though the lust in his eyes encouraged me further. I ground my hips over his erection. I could feel the line in our game bending and stretching, nearly to the breaking point, but through our layers of clothes, I desperately craved his morning erection to rub harder against my sensitive heat.
Henry pushed his hips up to meet mine while his hands clenched the sofa cushion, undoubtedly to keep them from touching and undressing me, both of which would undoubtedly break the fragile line.
Once I noticed this, I froze and pulled away. Henry moved to take a shower and finish what I had - ah - started. Round two Regina. Players tied one-one.
