The he’s-away-at-school-it’s-a-treat argument came up, in a defence from his mother, and his father was forced to acquiesce. Ever got his way, on this particular night, which is written in indelible ink. During the course of the night, he remembers his mother’s nightdress riding up, and for the first time he wanted to see her body, naked; he lifted the sheets but could see nothing in the darkness, and sense only the smell of Chanel No 5, his mother, he supposed in her sleep, seemed to push her bottom in his direction, he, to his horror, realised he had an erection and immediately turned his back on her and lay there, starting to gently masturbate; but he aroused himself more, and in the weakness of single sexual focus he turned back towards his mother, with his erect penis he pushed tentatively and slowly towards her, his heart made his whole body pound and he realised he was shaking, there was no resistance from his mother, he pushed his penis further to what he could only describe as her bottom; there was a definite feel of wetness on the end of his penis but he knew nothing about what he was doing, or the consequences of what he was doing, he pushed a little more and there still was no resistance, he felt he had entered something that was containing him; and it was, his first image and an obvious one; that it was dark.

A dark place with a comfort like nothing he had ever sensed from anything in his life.

That is all he could think, he continued to go further inside this darkness and his mother didn’t move.

He pulled out a little, just once, and pushed back inside; then in a panic that he was going to orgasm, he pulled out and rubbed his penis and, for the first time, with his ejaculation, a substantial amount of semen shot out; he felt covered in his own guilty product.

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.