Spying

God, baby! Please . . . I’ve got to have you! Now!

“Yes, Joe -- ” Melinda whispered into the silence of her room. “Yes -- come and fuck me!”

She toppled suddenly, crazily to the side, keeping her left hand buried in her moist thatch, groping clumsily in the drawer of her bedside table. There it was. Oh yes, there was Joe’s big, hard dick! Every big nasty inch of it!

She pictured his immense look of relief, his gratified expression when she finally wrapped her pussy-wet fingers around its length, and guided it to her hot snatch. Yes, he would fuck her hard now. He wanted her so much. She moaned aloud, heard the quavering pleasure in her voice, slid the big cock deeper into her. Deeper. Deeper.

Oh God! Oh fuck, Melinda!

Yeah, that’s right baby -- fuck Melinda!

“Fuck me baby!’ she hissed urgently, working the big dick in and out of herself. “Fuck me . . . oh yes . . .”

In and out, in and out she plunged it. She immediately twisted the knob to its highest setting -- the high-pitched whine of the little motor came and went, drowned within the well of her cunt. The throbbing intensity filled her, set her on fire. She imagined it was Joe’s cock, tingling, on the edge, ready to explode inside her.

On some mental level, she knew she was doing all this to herself. Her body didn’t seem to know, or care. It responded with all the enthusiasm with which it would meet a real lover: heaving breasts, pounding heart, trembling limbs. Dripping pussy.

It took less than two minutes. She was so hot, had been so hot for so long. Had been dying all day for this fantastic moment of release. Her pleasure filled her body, her fantasies flooded through her head. Joe thrusting ever onward, his face tightening, grimacing, his cock tightening and throbbing and pounding until --

“Ohhh!” she moaned. “Ohhh God!”

With her free hand Melinda grappled for the pillow, stuffed it into her mouth -- and moaned and grunted -- and came, long and hard and sweet. Her orgasm rocked her entire frame like crashing waves against a tiny vessel, until she was trembling, and shivering, and sighing . . .

And then she heard it. Noises through the wall.

The first: a muffled groan. So like a man’s stifled grunts of pleasure that it might have been the phantom Joe, crying out as he splashed the insides of her pussy.

The second: a tremendous series of thumps and crashes -- a huge WHUMP followed rapidly by lesser clattering sounds.

With the vibrator still buzzing merrily away inside her, and her thighs still quivering from her cum, Melinda sat up in the bed and peered through the room’s blue mist at the wall.

“Mark?” she cried out. “Mark? Are you all right, honey?”

Then, suddenly -- a glimmer. A sparkling pinprick of light, winking at her like a diamond from the middle of the wall.

“Um . . . Yeah, I’m okay, Mom,” came a muffled and shaky voice through the wall. “I just . . . fell off the bed. Sorry.”

Melinda kept her eyes fixed on the wink of light, dropped her foot to the floor, and turned on her bedside lamp.

VI.

FILE “PJ”

Fri, 18th. 3:02.

Oh my God! Mom was incredible tonight! I don’t even know how to describe it. Maybe I should just say, I’ve cum three times in the last two hours:) She opened the blinds way up so I could see everything, she got completely naked, she used the dildo and I COULD SEE EVERYTHING!! It was Un-fucking-believable.

She also moaned a whole bunch, she called out to someone named “Joe,” I think, and at the end, she practically howled into her pillow! And I heard everything crystal clear. Oh my God, what a night.

First time I shot off was in the closet, all over everything! Couldn’t help it, I was so fucking hot. Wouldn’t have been bad except I managed to knock my bowling ball off the shelf, and all kinds of other crap came tumbling down. Mom actually called out to me -- told her I fell off the bed.

I must be crazy to still be up -- I’ve got another fucking test tomorrow -- but I just can’t get any of it out of my head. Wanted to record it all, everything she did, and everything I saw, while it’s still clear in my head . . .

VII.

Friday morning, the eighteenth of April.

In all of her crazy, mixed-up, topsy-turvy life, there were two things that Melinda Dehner depended on. Two things which remained relatively stable. One was her work and the other . . . the other was her son, Mark.

Her marriage, all twenty-one years of it, had become a complete and utter shambles. Raising Lara was turning out to be a chore -- every year seemed to make her harder to handle, especially since David’s abrupt departure. Her health? Well, she had managed to quit smoking a year before -- but it all could all turn out to bite her in the ass at any time. She didn’t eat right, didn’t exercise. She thought she might be given to cancer -- or to hypochondria, at any rate. Life was a hard, wicked challenge and God seemed to be missing.

But her job at Dr. Malone’s office seemed a sure thing. She enjoyed her work, even if most of it was glorified stenography, and had formed a good circle of friends there. And her younger son, Mark, was as easy to raise as his siblings were difficult. He was studious, well-behaved, mild in temperament, steady in affection. Unlike either Lara or Dennis, Mark didn’t seem to possess a wild streak -- had no desire for trouble, kept pretty much to straight and narrow. While Dennis (from what she could tell) seemed to live to party and flunk courses at the university, and Lara liked nothing better than to cavort with a host of undesirables and punk boyfriends, Mark had never given her any cause for alarm. True, he needed help in some subjects at school -- but who didn’t? True also, that he didn’t seem to relate to girls well, and was never bringing home any young ladies to meet her, nice or otherwise. But was that so bad? He was only eighteen, after all. No, Mark had been a total angel -- a bringer of peace and order to her puzzling existence.

Until now.

What exactly was she to make of this? A peephole, artfully hidden in her own bedroom wall.

So very well hidden that, even though she had kept her eyes glued to that pinpoint of light in the darkness, it had taken her a good five minutes to locate its source. He’d installed it (when? she wondered) right at a join in the wallpaper, kept it lurking in the shadows. He’d even, she noted, painted the brass casing with black model paint, to reduce the glare.

It was ingenious. It was cunning. It was devilishly sneaky. But what, after all, had been his purpose? What in God’s name was he doing??

It seemed all too clear. He was spying on her. Spying, on his own mother.

For several minutes after she had found the peephole, she had been covered with chills, a heavy weight forming in the pit of her stomach. When she at last slept that night, it was fitful sleep -- disturbed by vivid dreams of men watching her. What was most disturbing of all in her dreams was the mixed sensations of pleasure and loathing they left behind.

And now. Morning had come. Another day, but so unlike those that had come before it. She knew she was on the verge of something -- some great significant step in her life. And it looked to lead to nothing but more misery for her.

What --What could she do? How should she treat this? What would she say to him -- should she say anything?

Yes, she thought, hugging her robe around her in the chilly morning air. It had to be addressed. But not until she had more proof. She needed to know exactly what he was doing. Though there seemed to be nothing other than a sexual explanation, she needed to find out more. She would give him the benefit of the doubt until she saw what lay on the other side of the peephole.

***

“Mark! Mark -- wake up, baby, you’ll be late for school!”

Clattering on the other side of the door, a sleepy voice.

“Hmmf . . . Okay . . . Be right down.”

She stepped back from the door, her heart pounding. Maybe he would leave the door unlocked, while he went to the bathroom? Oh, but she mustn’t be around, she had to dart back into her room --

“Oh Mom, I’m not coming straight home after school -- Terry’s gonna take me to the --”

“Terry? Again?” she spat back to her daughter, who just had to pick this moment to appear from her bedroom. And she was dressed, as usual, like complete trash. “And do I get to meet him anytime soon? Where’s he taking you to?”

“All right, all right -- one at a time!” returned her daughter, scowling. “Jesus, I didn’t expect the third degree!”

“Don’t you blaspheme in my house, young lady!” she snapped, sounding in her head like one of the nuns who had haunted her own teen years. “Now answer me -- when am I going to meet this one?”

“I don’t know when! Honestly, you’d think this was the fucking Brady Bunch -- why have we got to do this ‘meet the mother’ bullshit anyway?”

Melinda started to unleash a second assault on her daughter, but her heart was no longer in it. While they had been talking, a mussed and sleepy-eyed Mark had silently glided between them to take his morning pee in the bathroom.

She had a little time left, after he had left and before she had to start for work. But as she had feared, Mark’s room was locked. She knew he could open it easily. She’d seem him pick the lock with a toothpick before, but wasn’t sure how he did it. She tried both a toothpick and a bobby pin in the little hole in the knob; both were unsuccessful. By then she was late for work.

By nightfall Melinda had a plan. The house was quiet, Lara having kept her word by not coming home at all -- right now she doing God knew what to “Terry.” Melinda pushed such thoughts from her mind and called, from the bottom of the stairs:

“Mark? Hey, Mark honey!”

A few seconds, she heard the dreaded door unlock and open, and then he was standing at the top of the stairs.

“Yeah, Mom.”

“I don’t feel like cooking, baby. Are you up for a pizza?”

His eyes lit up. “Hell, yeah! I mean -- yes, absolutely.”

She worked hard to feign nonchalance, yawning and stepping away from the staircase.

“Well, you better order it then. I don’t know what you want on it.”

Would he do it? Would he fall for it? If so, a pizza was a small price to pay . . .

“Okay,” he said, and he came tripping down the stairs, just as she’d hoped.

“There’s some coupons in the coffee table,” she added. “Make sure to look for the best deal -- and no peppers!”

“Okay!” he called, already in the living room.

She was up the stairs, silently, in an instant. Mark’s door was slightly ajar, dark except for the light of the computer screen. Melinda put her face into the room for a second only -- it was stuffy, and redolent of . . . was that cum she smelled? It might be -- hard to tell what you were smelling in a teenager’s room.

Quickly, before he had any chance to doubt the safety of his sanctum, she took the gum she’d been chewing from her mouth and pressed it into the indenture on the door jamb. Then, stepping inside the room (that was definitely cum!), she closed and locked Mark’s door . . . then pulled it open again with a jolt.

Perfect. He could lock it, but she would still be able to open it.

And if he found it, he’d probably think it Lara did it, just to annoy him.

No, that wasn’t good enough. She pulled out the wad of gum and headed back downstairs. She’d have to find some occasion to install her little trap tomorrow.

VIII.

Saturday the Nineteenth.

She’d decided on her course of action at six in the morning. Lara had gone to work by nine-thirty. Mark was still in bed. Melinda hovered outside his door, uncertain, but determined.

Last night had been the first night in weeks that she hadn’t played with herself. Under the circumstances it just wasn’t possible. She’d also slept fitfully -- more dreams, this time about Mark in particular. Now she was tired and tense. This had to work.

“Mark?” she called softly, knocking at his door. “Wake up, hon -- I made breakfast.”

“Mmm? I’m not really hungry, Mom . . .”

“Well, get up anyway, please? I’ve got something I need you to do for me.”

“’Kay.”

Quick as a flash, Melinda ducked into her own room. She stood stock still as Mark stumbled down the hall to the bathroom, not locking his door. In one swift movement the gum was out of her mouth and in the door jamb, and she was heading downstairs again.

“Okay -- interior design?” said Mark sleepily, over a half-empty plate of eggs and bacon.

“Not just interior design. Anything they have on painting and stenciling. Oh -- and on moulding. I’m thinking about redoing the trim in my bathroom as well.”

“Painting, stenciling -- I need to write this down.” He vanished for a moment to the kitchen, returned with a notepad.

“What do you think of sort of a deep purple color in the living room, baby?” asked Melinda innocuously. “Not like a grape, more of an eggplant?”

“Mmm-hmm, fine. Did you want books or videos, Mom?”

“Oh, better make it both. Some of those How-To videos are pretty good. And if you can find anything on stenciling Celtic sorts of designs in particular, that would be good . . .”

It was the sort of talk that would put him to sleep, she knew. Mark was always good enough to listen to her prattle on about her plans for redecorating, but she knew it bored him shitless. He dutifully recorded her instructions on the pad, but he heaved a heavy sigh while doing it. She decided to notice it.

“Well, if you don’t want to go, I’ll do it,” she said, a little bit petulant.

“Oh no, Mom, I can do it.”

“I’m also thinking of doing my room soon. You know, strip off that old paper, repaint --”

That had been her trump card. Mark’s face suddenly assumed an agonized expression.

“No, you don’t need to do that!” he said, a bit too emphatically. “I like the design in there!”

“Yeah?”

“Yes, it’s perfect.”

“Hmm, okay. Well, anyway . . . finish your breakfast and get down there for me. I think they open at ten-thirty.”

She felt a little bit guilty, using the boy’s own sweetness against him. How many boys would get up on a Saturday morning to rush down to the library for their moms? Still, it had to be done. And as she watched him backing the car down the driveway and cruising out of sight along the shady lane, she knew she was doing the right thing.

Ten twenty-seven. She’d sent him on enough wild goosechases to keep him away at least an hour. Melinda leaned heavily on the door to his room, and breathed a sigh of relief when it jounced open.

She realized for the first time that she wasn’t sure what she was looking for, and was more than a little afraid of what she might find. Then a strange calmness settled over her and she went to work. No peepholes along his wall. She even looked under the comic posters. But surely that hole in her room corresponded with . . . the closet.

The elusive scent of mancum she had noted before became pungent in here. At the least her dear boy was jerking off prodigiously, and the closet appeared to be his favorite place. Melinda switched on her flashlight and panned it about.

Lots of mess, of course. Comic books, old shoes. A bowling ball on the floor -- was that what she had heard the other night?

There. Was that it? Yes, surely.

At standing height for Mark, a bit too high for herself. She stood on some fallen books to peer through.

Her room. Specifically, her bed. From the end table to the bathroom door. The view was crystal clear -- she could almost make out the writing on a novel on the table. Of course, he wouldn’t be able to see so much at night -- not unless she left the light on or . . . opened the blinds on a moonlit night.

A wave of cold chills covered her body.

That settled it. He’d been watching her. He’d seen it all.

Her mind a blur of thoughts and feelings, Melinda looked around for other evidence.

What was this -- poking out of the pocket of an old school bag? It was . . . yes. Mark’s old baby monitor. But it was fitted with a pair of tiny earphones. But that could only mean . . .

Melinda fitted the little nodules into her ears, switched on the power, and found herself listening to the morning news. She felt an instant’s relief, until she realized that she’d left her television on in her room.

Yes, there it was, flickering away through the peephole.

So he’d been listening to her as well.

God damn, he was so crafty. So clever and so sneaky. Definitely his father’s child in that respect.

She switched off the little box, so reminiscent of a different time and feeling, and returned it to its hiding place. Now she knelt to the floor, a ball of confusion: despairing over her discoveries, and thrilled with them just the same. Half-hoping to find more.

Here, on the wall. And here, on the carpet. Was that cum?

She leaned close to the streaky spot on the wall, directly under the peephole. It smelled rather like cum.

Well, of course it was cum. He wasn’t squirting syrup all over his closet walls.

Still, she stuck out her tongue and touched it to the wall experimentally. She could taste nothing, but it had to be cum. The realization just kept coming, crowding her head. Her little boy had stood there, looked through that hole at his naked, masturbating mother, listening to her sighs and cries, and had jerked off against the wall. It was incredible, unthinkable.

Her brain buzzing, Melinda left the closet, putting everything back into its sordid place. Was there more? Did she really want to know?

She decided she did. Ten fifty-nine. She still had some time.

It took her the better part of twenty minutes to find a pair of her own well-worn panties, between the boy’s mattress and box springs. Against all odds, the discovery took her by surprise.

So that’s where her black panties had disappeared to for so long.

Eleven twenty-five.

She had time if she hurried. She had her spare recorder with her, downstairs in her purse. She always carried one, for dictation. And some blank tapes were in her dresser drawer . . .

She was amazingly calm, now that the initial shock had passed. What she knew now was that she needed -- well, wanted -- more evidence, and the idea of how to obtain it had sprung on her like a blazing light.

One of the little microtapes was good for an hour, she thought. She’d have to time things just right. And she’d have to figure out a quicker way through that damned lock!

It would make a click when it shut off too, damn it! She’d have to chance that.

Four minutes before Mark returned with his mother’s library borrowings, she had concealed the miniature tape recorder in the pocket of a coat in his closet, clipping the tiny microphone just inside the lapel. Two minutes before he entered the house, she had removed the gum and locked his door.

Twelve nineteen.

Watching from her darkened room, she watched her son pick his door lock with a toothpick. It looked surprisingly easy.

Eight thirty.

It was only now that the full implications of her action hit her. In order to have something to record, she would have to provide her son with something to watch.

She swallowed hard. If that’s what it took, so be it. No harm could be done now. And she had to know exactly what he was doing.

Ten fifty-seven.

“Ohhhh . . . I think I’m gonna pack it in soon, baby,” Melinda said, with a fake yawn and stretch. “Any idea when your sister will be home?”

Mark smirked in front of the television, though she noticed his sudden alertness when she’d announced that she was retiring.

“Out with Terry, there’s no telling,” he said.

“You’re probably right. Well, leave the light on for her. ‘Night.”

“’Night, Mom.”

Upstairs, she tried her luck with the toothpick. Itwas easy, once you’d seen it demonstrated. As quickly and quietly as she could, she pressed record on the tape player, relocked the door, and disappeared into her room.