He lay there, still, with heart pounding, no longer shaking and waiting to sense any sound or movement from his mother. He listened hard to her breathing to hear if there was the slightest change in rhythm, or depth of intake of breath. But nothing.

He lay there, without moving, until dawn. In an awareness of having done something terrible but not knowing if his mother had any knowledge of what had happened and would he, or she, say anything about it. For the hour after his ejaculation he kept his hand that had been around his penis to his nose and inhaled the smell of the place he had lived and entered the world through.

He felt a shame, the greatest feeling of shame he had ever felt: a guilt about his father crawled over him like ants, always waiting for more pain, from more bites. His father wouldn’t have any ability or place to go to find an understanding of this act, as he remained in what for once could be honestly referred to as blissful ignorance. How could Ever eradicate this from his brain or deal with the relationship he now had with his unknowing father?

It had all changed, his life, his relationship with his mother and father, in the space of a single minute. A single minute that would make the years, however many he lived, never be the same again. How could he make it up to his father, to get his forgiveness, apologise, for an act he assumed he would never know had been committed? All the words, forgiveness, apology, were feeble in comparison to what he had done. He had committed an act that would haunt him: and it did every day of his life.

That morning, the morning after the night, and throughout the day, nothing was said. He said nothing, his mother behaved in her usual grumpy way; the result of the previous night’s alcohol consumption.

The problem was cemented in time for Ever, because it was a year later that his parents split up and ultimately divorced. His father moved permanently to Los Angeles; Ever was left with his mother during school time; during the holidays, he would divide the time and fly to see his father.

*

He never slept in his mother’s bed again.

But the guilt that lay inside him was so profound, his agony was increased by the fact that it could never be discussed or addressed; it existed at a level that was really beyond the acceptable bounds of conversation. But he blamed himself, he always believed that in this incestuous Oedipal act, the desire came from him and was the cause of the break-up of his parents’ marriage.

He has never, to this day, had any idea what his mother’s awareness, if any, was of the situation; it has never been referred to.

Ever is trapped in his own deviant and perverted world of blame.

Ever and his mother rarely communicate: but he puts it down to the alcohol.