That's not how that works. Whether or not she <i>showed</i> sexual interest in him as a child as a teenager - something we still don't know, by the way - she was grooming him as an intimate partner. The only thing you have to do is watch where he sits at the table.
He becomes more and more isolated from the rest of his family - and Gabriella is the one that's isolating him! Sure, the rest of his family is garbage, but Gabriella is not actually much better. She's just not physically violent. I can guarantee you that if a single member of that family EVER showed interest in Lestat or was ever even remotely kind to him, Gabriella would have shut it down with a quickness. This only works if he's alienated from everyone else, so that she is the only person he has.
So, a quick explanation of how abuse works: you are isolated. You are made to feel that it's just you and your abuser against the rest of the world. Your abuser is the only person who understands you, who you can turn to. And then there is no one else because you've isolated yourself and you participated in that, so now it just looks weird if you reach out. And because abusers come across as very charming or kind or the kind of the person who "wouldn't do that", you seem crazy. All of that is feature, not a bug. You're supposed to feel crazy, to come across as crazy. Your abuser makes sure to let everyone know that you are crazy, hysterical, you exaggerate things. You're the problem, not them. It's very deliberate and very much designed to keep you stuck in the cycle with them because now, if you try to get away, people doubt you. (I wasn't sexually abused by my parents, but they were abusive and abusers of all stripes operate the same way, so I'm not just talking out of my ass here unlike half of this fucking hell fandom.)
The doubt is particularly relevant to Lestat because even now, as is obvious by this ask, people have a really hard time believing male victims - and they have an even harder time believing them when the abuser is a woman, especially if she's his mother. Now imagine trying to get people to believe you in the 18th century. This is the culture Lestat will have grown up in. He doesn't know any other way.
Gabriella created this inappropriate bond with him and he thinks it's normal - it must be normal - because this doesn't happen to boys, mother's don't do that. It doesn't matter when it turned sexual! Lestat's normal meter is broken. He thinks the way Gabriella treats him is okay. Whenever it progresses to sexual abuse, he knows that's not okay, but it's not so different from how Gabriella how always treated him. She's his mother; she loves him, she's his only ally. He needs her. So he submits to it because it's not so bad if this is how he gets to keep her love, gets to keep her - the only person who "cares" about him.
The boundaries are blurred! Everything she does is masked as an expression of love, including sending him to the monastery, including supporting him after him after he runs off with the actors.
They weren't outcasts sticking together; he was a boy who wanted someone to love him and Gabriella preyed on that. She twisted the way Lestat perceives love, what he needs to do to be loved.
And with that, I think it's especially germane here to point out that Lestat says she meant to kill him with the wolf challenge and he frames it as a mercy killing. She won't be there anymore and he's been at home too long, so marriage prospects, especially as the youngest son of an impoverished aristocrat during the French Revolution, are probably pretty bleak. I would also posit that she's the reason he's unmarried. If he was married, he would be out of her control and possibly away from her physically. Gabriella: family annihilator. 'I can't let you live without me.' It wasn't a mercy.
"From what we’ve seen in the series, it seems she only developed a sexual interest in him after the wolf."
Watch that scene again. That's not the first time. He's not shocked. This isn't new to him. It doesn't matter when it started, but it started before that.
Now, at some point he does understand what she's doing to him isn't right (and probably has on a subconscious level for much longer), but it is still very much normalized for him. This is how my mother shows her love. It's us against everyone else. We want the same shameful things. We're so alike.
I don't understand how anyone walks away from that scene thinking it's the first time Gabriella has ever touched her son like that. (And for more support, I would say, look at the maid. She looks uncomfortable and sick about it, but she doesn't look surprised, either.)
For everyone arguing that it's confusing for show viewers, let me remind you all that this is not Gabi and Lestat's dynamic in the books. We're all show viewers here and plenty of people are picking up what the writers are putting down, so what the fuck is your (general, plural) excuse? Wait, I know. Everything is Lestat's fault forever and ever amen. And for anyone who actually thinks they don't believe that, take a long, hard look at your biases. You have a problem believing men can be victims of sexual abuse or rape and/or you have a problem believing that women can be abusers.
And one last thing: if Lestat believed that his relationship with Gabriella was normal and consensual, he wouldn't have spent an entire episode trying to convince the listener that it was. He would've just said, 'it's different for vampires' and left it at that. So, jot that down.
