I married the seventh son of the seventh son of an Irishman. Generations of tradition and shadowed superstition locked into his body. People touch him wherever we go, groping for a lock of his hair or begging for the placing of his hands upon them. The seventh son of the seventh son has magical powers. He can heal with a touch and bring luck and wealth to those who really need it.

My husband, Padraig, is an American. His nasal tones, his blue jeans and sloppy joes, and his devotion to the Denver Broncos, they are all purely Uncle Sam. But his Claddagh ring, his love of the drink and his fear of everything Catholic and holy, they are pure Celt. And his mother. The shapeshifter, torturer of small boys and exploiter of Erin's Isle, ah, she is as blackly Irish as the dark encompassing bogs that lie over the land. Grainne. Such an unlikely name. Gaelic for 'Grace' but a more graceless person it is hard to imagine.

When I first met Padraig I was charmed by his solid, bulky body, his shy smile and the way that a floppy lock of hair always seemed to fall into his eyes. The faintest hint of a brogue, inherited from his parents who were born in the land they claimed as their own, seemed charming. Even his drinking; his habit of brooding into a pint of porter seemed mysterious, a far cry from the raucous shouts and gropes of the American men I normally hung around with.

I met him in one of the tacky Irish theme bars that sprang up around the city. I was there with a girlfriend. Aileen and I drank half pints of Irish lager, smoked ostentatiously and crossed our legs so that our skirts rode high upon our thighs. We were there to get laid, not fall in love, and the noise and the leprechauns and the black and white signs proclaiming it to be thirty-five miles to Galway fitted the bill. Padraig was seated in a corner booth, chain smoking and drinking the dark porter, that left white rings of foam on the inside of his glass with each draught, like a high water gauge.

I nudged Aileen. "That one there." With a jerk of my head I indicated him. "He's mine."

Aileen snuck a glance in the direction I indicated. "Ooh, nice," she giggled. "But he doesn't look like he's on the prowl."

"Not yet," I whispered, although there was little chance of being overheard in the noisy bar. "But I bet he leaves with me in under an hour."

At that moment he looked up. Our gazes locked momentarily, and then he stared back down into his pint in disinterest.

Aileen noticed this and smiled at me. "You're on. Loser buys dinner and drinks next time we go out."

I nodded in agreement. The amount that we drank when we were together meant it wasn't a cheap bet, but I was confident about winning.

I slipped off my stool, adjusted the scooped neckline of my sweater, and with a final wink at Aileen, strolled over to my chosen darkling.

"Hi." I didn't wait for an invitation, just slid into the booth opposite him.

"If you've come to cheer me up, you may as well leave now." His tones were as flat as the Kansas plains. He didn't look up.

"No," I said. "I've come to talk to you."

"Talk, eh?" He did look up, but briefly. "The mouthing of fools." He smiled to take the sting out of his words.

I saw a slight crook-corner smile, a hidden dimple that winked in bronzed skin and silky hair, flopping down earnestly over one eye. "We don't have to talk," I said. "I might not say anything you want to hear. We can go and fuck instead." I knew I had caught him unawares; maybe it was the profanity, maybe my directness, but I could tell he was intrigued.

He really looked at me then. He opened his mouth as if to deny me, but suddenly stood, pulling me up with him. "It will have to be your place."

I figured that meant he was married, but that wasn't my concern. We exchanged first names, with a careless disregard for truth on my part, and left arm-in-arm, ten minutes after I made my bet with Aileen. She gaped after me, open-mouthed.

***

I took him to my studio apartment. I led him in through the door and straight to my bed. There was no pretence between us, so I didn't see the need to mouth the polite offerings of coffee or a glass of wine. I peeled off my sweater and he palmed my breasts, rolling my pebbled nipples through the thin lace of my bra. I saw his face; his eyes were wide open and slightly bemused, as if he had never done this before. My hands pulled at the buttons of his shirt and I placed my hands flat on the mat of hair on his chest as soon as it was exposed. I flicked a flat male nipple with a fingertip, cataloging his gasp of response, then I bent forward and flickered at it with my tongue. My hand delved down to cup his stiffening sex, outlined underneath the jeans he wore.

He let me take the lead, pushing himself into my hand, as his mouth blindly groped for mine I evaded those seeking wet lips with the ease of much practice and dropped to my knees in front of him. Instead my lips moved over his smooth belly, dipping into his navel. My hands reached for the snap of his jeans.

I have slept with more than a few men in my time. Over the last year alone, Aileen and I have been going out to find a man and get laid, with no more thought or feeling than to impale ourselves mindlessly on the stiff, thrusting shaft and let the release build. Twenty of them? Thirty? I don't know and I don't care. I never kiss these men. A soft kiss offers far more intimacy than the instinctive melding of the sexes. Kissing mingles souls and minds. I don't do that, for in the unguarded mind-meld love is born, and love has no place with what I do with these men.

And men are so easily led, so blindly driven. When they want to kiss me, to give an aura of respectability to our encounter, I drop to my knees and reach for their cock. It works every time. They forget all about meshing lips. Instead they thrust their swollen sex into my mouth, entwine their hands in my hair and gasp and groan.

Padraig surprised me. He dropped to his knees too, and cupped my face in both of his hands. His thumb feathered my cheek with a surprisingly tenderness.

"Kiss me," he whispered. "Don't just fuck me, make love to me."

I would have laughed in the face of his seriousness, but his eyes searched mine with an intent I couldn't fathom. I dropped my face into the corner of neck and shoulder instead, suckling and lapping to evade an answer. My hands unsnapped his jeans and reached inside. I rimmed the damp head of his cock, scratching around and over the cotton of his briefs, before pushing jeans and underwear down off his hips.

His hands reached behind me to unsnap my bra, then he dragged crawling fingers up my thigh, under the short skirt. His fingertips brushed the moist crotch of my panties. I was wet and ready for him. I parted my legs, encouraging those exploratory fingers to delve inside, and suckled harder on his neck. My fingers danced patterns up and down his shaft.

He pushed me back on the bed, raising my skirt. I lifted my hips and he pulled off the sodden panties then with shaking fingers removed my skirt. His penis jutted out in front of him, as he knelt before me. I traced the oozing moisture from its slit and brought the droplets to my mouth.

He straddled me and lowered his face to my breast, laving and sucking on the nipple as he teased its partner with his fingers. I felt the familiar spiral towards completion drag deep in my belly and I held his head in place on my breast.

"A kiss," he breathed over my breast. "A kiss to make you mine." His mouth moved up, nestling briefly in the curve of neck and shoulder, mumbling its way over my jaw, inexorably seeking my lips.

"No," I murmured, turning my head away. I did not want this. Did not want this final barrier to be breached in the close air of my stuffy apartment. Did not want this man to carve his way into my soul.

"Yes." His lips moved over my cheek and his fingertips dragged points of fire down over my belly, down to the juncture between my legs. He touched me with one fingertip, skated it lightly over me, just stirring the moist curls of hair, and then dragged it back, feathering it over my clit.

He slipped one thick finger into me, moving it surely into my channel, slick, wet and hot. I gasped and tightened around him in the precursor of orgasm. My mouth fell open as I gulped for air; it moved like molasses into my lungs, slow swirling in the heavy atmosphere of the room.

He seized the moment. He kissed me and made the connection I was so afraid of. I fell in love.

His lips teased mine; his tongue dipping in to taste, then stabbing in frantic movements, mimicking the movements our lower bodies would make shortly. His fingers rubbed and insinuated themselves inside my sex, his thumb rubbing lazily to and fro over my clit.

I came for the first time under his stroking fingers, the second time by his mouth and the third as he shifted over on top and pushed, trembling, into me. He didn't last long, a few strokes, then he came in a sunburst of gushing warmth, deep inside me. I let him lay over me, skin to sweaty skin and ran my hands idly over his back. His mouth moved incoherently against my neck before he raised himself up to kiss me. Deep, probing kisses, full mouthed and luscious. Exploring the depths of body and soul.

"I love you," he said.

***

We did the normal things that two people in love do. We learned each other's secrets much as we learned our bodies. We made love constantly. We spent each night together, entwined on the scratchy sheets in my apartment. He asked me to marry him a week later. There was no question that I wouldn't accept.

"I'd like to meet your family," I said idly, tracing patterns in his chest hair with my fingertips.

He went still, the frozen horror of an animal. His heart rate lurched erratically underneath my hand.

"Why?" he said. "They're not very memorable."

"You're the seventh son," I replied. "I'd like to meet the other six. And Grainne, your mother. After all, you still live with her." A fact that I found perplexing in an otherwise independent thirty-one year old man.

"My other brothers don't live in Denver," he said. "You'll meet them at the wedding."

"Grainne then. Do you think she would like to come to dinner?"

"No." His answer was too quick. "She doesn't leave the house much."

"Then I'll come and visit her," I pressed ahead, ignoring his flinch of withdrawal. "After all, I'm sure she would like to meet the woman her son is marrying." Something in his shifting eyes alerted me. "Padraig, she does know we're getting married doesn't she? She does know about me?"

He wouldn't meet my eyes. "Not exactly."

I sat up. My hair fell down over my breasts and Padraig reached to smooth it, wrapping the length of it around his fingers. I knocked his hand away; I was too upset to consider more lovemaking. "Well, either she does know or she doesn't know." I strove to keep my voice level; I didn't want to play the hysterical little woman. "Which is it?"

"She doesn't know." His voice was low. "Please, Charmaine... You don't understand. I need some time to break it to her. My mother is a very... controlling woman."

"Too right I don't understand." In spite of my best efforts, my voice shook slightly. "How much time do you need? A day, a week, a few years? You didn't have to marry me to fuck me, you know. If this is a game, then I want out right now."

"You know I love you, Charmaine," he said. "But you are going to have to trust me on this." He turned away from me and wrapped himself in the sheet.

My hand hovered over his shoulder. Our first fight and it was obvious that he treated his disagreements like he treated his drinking. Sullen, withdrawn and alone. I fought my instinctive urge to crawl over, rest my head on his broad shoulders, whisper apologies, and let my hand creep down to his groin and use sex to build a bridge back to him. But although I desperately wanted it to be right, I knew I couldn't let this argument slide away and pretend that it didn't matter. If we were going the whole hog; a life together, marriage for God's sake, then I would start as I intended to continue. I rolled over away from him, hugging my side of the bed and closed my eyes, feigning sleep.

***

Padraig didn't mention his mother again. The next morning he was quiet, withdrawn, and answered my deliberately normal conversation in monosyllables. In the sleepless portion of the night, I had decided that I would give him a week. After that I would take matters into my own hands.

He never mentioned it for the next seven days.

On the eighth day, I looked up Grainne Hennessey in the white pages. I drove to her house unannounced and parked around the corner. The house was a modern square brick house, with little architectural character or appeal. I had expected her to live in a decaying Victorian monstrosity, ostentatious and ugly. I rang the bell before I could change my mind.

I was about to leave when she came to the door. It swung open, and I saw a small stout woman, leaning heavily on a cane. Her squat figure was dressed in a tweed dress, at odds with the warm summer day. Her jowls hung down but her eyes were keen and alert.

"Yes?" she said.

"Mrs. Hennessey, I'm Charmaine Woods. Your son, Padraig, may have mentioned me?"

"No." The word was curiously abrupt, and her face shuttered. "He hasn't."

The knot in my stomach twisted at her words.

"I'm marrying your son." She was silent. " May I come in?"

She looked at me without expression and her jowls quivered slightly. "You may."

I followed her down a short passageway to a modern kitchen. Inside the sunlit room was Padraig, sitting on a stool eating a bowl of cereal.

"Charmaine!" He gaped at me and a strange look crossed his face. "What are you doing here."

"I came to meet you mother," I said.

"She says you're marrying her." Grainne had waddled up behind me on soundless feet. "Is that right, son?"

"Yes," I said.

"No," said Padraig at the same time.

Grainne ignored me and turned to him. "You know the rules," she said. "When's the wedding?" Her head wobbled slightly, a Parkinsonian tremor.

"No, mother, please... Don't make me. I love her." I watched Padraig; his hand trembled as it held his spoon. I wondered exactly what question he was answering; what esoteric bargain the two of them had sealed at some distant point past.

Grainne turned and really studied me for the first time. Her eyes raked my face before moving down over my body. Her gaze lingered on my breasts, assessed my hips, and scanned down my legs. She stepped close, into my space. I could smell the unwashed old-woman smell, and see the seamed creases of her face. She ran a taunting finger down over my breasts to the juncture of my legs. She gripped me hard. She meant to hurt.

"I will look forward to your wedding night," she said. "Tell her."

Padraig's spoon clattered to the counter. "Charmaine, we're going." He brushed past his mother, standing like a toad in the middle of the room, and grabbed my hand pulling me towards the door.

I saw her smirk as we left, out into the hot August night. Outside the door, he dropped my hand.

"Well," I demanded. "What was all that about?" The short fuse of anger was insidiously being replaced by a creeping sense of unease. Grainne had been coldly malevolent; the entire scene had the surreal quality of a rehearsed play, a false reality.

"I need a drink." Padraig was striding fast down the street. I trotted to keep up with him. He led me into a small local saloon, dimly lit and populated by silent drinkers, propped against the wooden bar. Two old men were playing a desultory game of shuffleboard. He hoisted himself into one of the high bar stools and ordered a pint for himself and a white wine for me.

"Sláinte," he said ironically.

I waited. I knew that when his courage was sufficiently bolstered by the drink, that I would finally learn about his mother.

The barman was polishing glasses at the far end of the bar. Padraig turned to me and took my hand.

"Please hear me out," he said. "This story is unusual. Please don't condemn my mother or me until you've heard the end of it."

I nodded and waited for him to continue.

"In Ireland," he began, "the seventh son of a seventh son has magical powers. Touching him brings luck. He is reputed to be able to heal, to ease pain and to bring good fortune. And, at least for me, it's true. I have cured cancer, leukemia and eased the suffering of the dying. I have made a barren womb fertile and the hairs from my head are used in several good luck charms. My mother has benefited over the years; people have given her money and gifts in exchange for my services. I never minded, she never asked for anything, it was freely given and I liked to feel that I was helping people.

"My father left before I was born. He just walked out one day and never came back. My brothers say that she drove him away with her domination and that it was easier to go then to stay and fight. My brothers left too, for the same reason. So my mother held on tighter to me. I was her life; her moment of reflected glory.

"As I grew to adulthood, I didn't see the need for things to change. I was used to my mother controlling me. She took my wages, ordered my social life and my friends. When I was seventeen, she procured the daughter of a friend to initiate me into sex. The girl, Deirdre, came to the house, and my mother watched. She sat in the chair at the end of the bed and watched my clumsy groping, and eager thrusts. I think that Deirdre was too scared of my mother to think about refusing, but when you are seventeen, sex is another universe, and if my mother could arrange this for me, then who was I to resist?

"She continued to dominate my life. Sometimes she would bring girls home for me, sometimes I would pick up women myself and bring them back with me. She would always watch. She never said anything; she just sat in her chair and observed. I never had a girlfriend for long. Even the thrill seekers who enjoyed the novelty would never hang around." He took a long draught of his stout.

I was silent, caught up in the dark and secret tale of shame.

"She told me," Padraig continued, "that one day I would fall in love. And that I wouldn't want my future bride to be a part of this. I didn't see anything really wrong with it, so I laughed and said that if that was what she wanted, then it was a little enough price to pay for all she had done for me. She said I would feel differently when it was love. And that I would see her differently..." he hesitated, but continued, " that I would be disgusted. Still I denied it, but we made a promise. In return for an hour alone with my bride on our wedding night, and then a final chance to watch me making love, she would leave me alone."

I opened my mouth to say 'that's preposterous', but he held up a hand, silencing me.

"That's why I wasn't going to tell her. I don't want that for you. I thought we could just go off and get married."

I found my voice. "And what then? When she finds out. Or were you planning on living at home for ever?"

"I hadn't thought that far ahead," he said. His head drooped down into his pint, the picture of a defeated man.

"Why not simply tell her that it's unacceptable. That I won't do it. It's the most twisted thing I've heard in a long time." My anger grew again in the face of his passivity.

"She's my mother," he mumbled. "I want to please her."

'Oh Oedipus, you mother fucker,' I thought bitterly. Maybe not literally, but I could see Grainne's fingers of control shifting into my world. Are men ever fully free of their mothers?

"What about pleasing me? Am I anywhere in this equation?" My voice was harsh. I waved away the barman, who descended on us, seeing our empty glasses.

Padraig summoned him back and ordered another round. "Yes, of course you are," he said in a low voice. "But you gave away our intentions when you came to visit her. You should have trusted me."

"Running away never solved anything." I slid off the stool, leaving the untouched glass of wine on the bar. "I'm going home. But tell me one thing. What will you do if I refuse to play along?"

He looked even more wretched if that was possible. "I don't know," he said. "But you might have forced my hand. I might have to cancel the wedding. She is my mother and I owe her a lot."

"Not your wife's body you don't," I shot at him. Turning on my heel, I left the bar, out into the enveloping anominity of the night. I walked for a while, going in no particular direction, until I found myself back at my car with no recollection of how I had got there. I drove home. My course of action was still hazy, but I had determined I would fight, and if it went my way, then I could turn this situation to my advantage.

***

I didn't see Padraig for three days. He stayed away, no doubt Grainne's fingers clutching his coat tails and her words in his ear had him convinced that he had seen the last of me. When I was certain in my head what I wanted to do, I called him and asked him to meet me in the Irish pub where we had first met.

He was already nursing a pint of porter when I sat down in front of him. "It's your turn to listen to me without interruption, " I said.

He nodded. His eyes searched my face, looking perhaps, for some clue of what I was about to say.

I took a deep breath. "I love you," I started, "and if the only way to be with you is to face your mother, then I will. However, I have some conditions of my own."

I told him my conditions. He accepted without question, and I knew that if I could control the mother like the son, then I had won.

***

We were married a week later. His brothers attended, drawn together by the web of family for the event. My family flew in from St Louis and Aileen was my maid of honor. A few friends drifted by, bemused by our conformity. And of course Grainne was there, looking more toad-like than ever in an emerald green suit. Her pudding basin haircut, straight and severe, and her square glasses made her look warlike; her unsteady gait and the wobble of her head as she talked revealed her aging vulnerability. I fully intended to exploit it later.

I had picked one of the modern hotels downtown for our wedding night. Padraig and I had the honeymoon suite; Grainne had the room next door. She knocked on the door around eight o'clock. I nodded to Padraig; he kissed me and left, slipping past her in the doorway without a word. I curled up on the couch, my hair loose and disarranged around my face, wearing a thin robe belted tightly around my body. I hoped she could tell I wore nothing underneath. I looked like a woman who had just been thoroughly loved. I had. I had made Padraig tongue me to orgasm twice before I let him inside me. It was like the first time all over again, he slid into me, meshed his lips with mine and managed two strokes before he shuddered into his own climax. I could still feel the stickiness of his spoonge on my thighs.

Grainne entered the room without a word, leaned her cane against the couch and took off her jacket. She studied me.

"You broke your promise," she said. "He has already fucked you tonight."

"Yes," I agreed pleasantly, "he has. Want to see?" Without waiting for her answer, I stood and slipped off the robe. I crossed over to her. "Kneel down," I invited. "See his seed on my thighs, on my pussy."

She glared at me. "You follow my orders." She picked the cane up again, and rested heavily on it.

"I don't think so." I advanced on her. I wiped a finger through my bush, swirling them briefly inside me, so that they were coated with his spend. "Here." I thrust my fingers at her face. "See him. Smell him." I ran my fingers over her pursed lips. "Taste him."

I wiped my fingers back and forth over her lips, then brought my face close to hers. "Taste him, Grainne. You know you want to. The seed of your husband's seed. The seventh seed of the seventh seed."

Her tongue flickered out, briefly touched her lower lip and her hand snapped out and cracked me on the cheek. "Bitch," she said. "What are you trying to do?"

I turned away. "I'm giving you back your son," I said. "Your perfect one. The chosen one, the special one. The one whose touch heals the sick, brings hope and luck to those whose touch him, and who fills your purse and puts food on your table. The one who you can't relinquish but you've already lost. The one who you've lost to me." I lay down on the bed, and opened my legs, letting her see my wetness, his seed matted in my bush. "Come here," I said again, "come here and taste him. You know you want to."

Unwillingly, but unable to resist the lure I offered, she approached me slowly. Her gait was stilted, but she was drawn forward on hidden strings of need. She stopped a short distance from the bed.

"Sex is easily come by," she said harshly. "He will tire of your body and when he does, the love will go, his need for you will evaporate and he'll turn back to the drink. And back to me."

"You think so? I disagree. I hold the key to his happiness here, in my body and yes, in my whole being too. He loves me, the person, not just an available body." I studied her, seeing the flicker of doubt in her eyes, and the insecurity that drove her to these lengths. In that instant, I regretted what I must do. There is no pleasure in breaking the weak, but if Padraig and I were to have a chance of love and life together, then I had to humiliate this woman so totally that she would never challenge me again.

"Kneel on the bed," I said.

Her hesitation was palpable and the air was thick with jealousy. She raised the cane menacingly.

"Do it." My voice was a whiplash of command. I heard the pop of her arthritic knee joints as she obeyed me. "Do what you know you want to."

I closed my eyes and waited, then I felt the touch of fingers, surprisingly gentle. I thought she would want to hurt me. She touched me lightly, then retreated.

"You must love him," she said. "Why do you allow this?"

I didn't answer her. "Stand up," I said. "Take your blouse off." She gaped at me in incomprehension, a mirror of her son's expression.

"Do it." My voice held an authority I never thought I possessed.

She averted her eyes from me, and stood, slipping the buttons of the green blouse. It dropped from her hand, and she stood in the armor of her corset, the crepey loose flesh spilling out the top in rolls.

"And your corset," I said harshly.

I thought she would resist, but she unsnapped the garment, loosening it, freeing the breasts that had nurtured seven sons to the warm air.

I circled her slowly, proud in my nudity and the confidence of my own body, looking her up and down. She stood stoically, staring straight ahead. I would have thought that she didn't care if it wasn't for the banner of shame staining her cheeks.

Finally, I completed my slow, deliberate appraisal and stood in front of her. She met my eyes. "Uncomfortable, isn't it," I said conversationally, " having someone stare at you, cataloging your faults, eyeing spare tires and cellulite."

She nodded slowly.

"I love him," I said, "and he loves me. But I have to break your hold over him if our relationship is to work." I stepped up close to her. Her breath puffed on my face, short, nervous pants. "I can love you too, Grainne... Mother. If you let me."

I encircled her in my arms, bringing her graying head down so that it rested on my shoulder. Our breasts touched, skin to skin. Young firm flesh, to flesh that had done so much but learned so little. My hands stroked her hair, her shoulders, her back. She shuddered under my touch, relaxing infinitesimally, I knew that I had won. The thought didn't give me the joy I had expected at having broken her, just a sweet sense of relief.

I pulled away. Padraig's seed had left a stain on her skirt. I leaned in once more and gently kissed her cheek.

"What happens now?" she asked.

I handed her her clothes. "That's up to you. I'll keep my side of the bargain if you wish. You can stay and watch us making love. But you don't have to. And if you don't, then I was thinking maybe we could have a meal together, at Padraig's and my apartment in a day or so."

She clutched the shirt over her breasts and studied me. I caught the flicker of insecurity in her face, but she nodded. "I would like that. Thank you... Charmaine."

It was the first time she had ever called me by my name. She dressed herself silently and left.

Padraig rushed in as soon as she had left. He looked haggard. I embraced him.

"She's gone," I said. "It will be all right. Come, my darkling, let me love you."