It was nearly twelve-thirty. He could safely surf for porn only by staying up late, and by remaining very quiet so his mom didn’t know he was staying up late. The noise of the television from her room — on Mark’s left — had died away about an hour before; the noise of late-night phone chatter from Lara’s room — on Mark’s right — had ceased perhaps twenty minutes ago. Now all was uncommonly still in the house. Not a creature stirring except Mark and his dick. He was excessively silent, therefore, when the new picture loaded, and he found that the perpetually grinning blonde, impatient for him, had instead stuck two fingers into her perfect pussy. All he did was lick his lips and groan inwardly.
That was when he heard the noise.
It was low and quick, and emanated from the left wall of his room. His mother’s side then. Mark stared at the wall and listened, his hand frozen on his dick. Was she awake?
Seconds later he heard it again: a low, deep, buzz that sounded kind of like . . . kind of like a moan.
Surely not, he thought. As quickly as he dared, he arose from his seat and moved toward the wall. There, again. Definitely this time. A low moan.
But what kind of moan?
Mark was fifteen when his parents separated, sixteen when they divorced, his dad having taken up with a much younger, twitch-ass secretary named (of all things) Ms. Parfait. He remembered the truly awful times following their break up, when his mother locked herself in her room, and he sat outside her door and listened to her crying within. He only brought himself to knock on one occasion, and the knock went unanswered. It was okay — he knew he could not have comforted her anyway. The sounds he had heard now reminded him of those black days.
But Mark knew that the sounds now emerging from his mother’s bedroom were not sounds of sadness, but of arousal. Experience told him in no uncertain terms: these were sounds of sex.
Well, perhaps not first-hand experience. He was not utterly without a sexual history. He’d felt up his girlfriends, and had been felt back. In eleventh grade Jackie Trailer had actually jerked him off. At her house, in her living room. With her policeman dad in the next room. But nothing he had ever done, with any girl, qualified him to recognize genuine feminine sexual arousal. Still, he had heard enough porn queens make the fake sounds to recognize the real sounds when he heard them. The fact that it was the real sound — real sexual arousal — excited him. The fact that the sound came from his mother . . . well, that excited him too, though his excitement also worried and disturbed him not a little.
None of these emotions could alter the mind-rocking fact that his mother — his mother, in the next room, seemed to be getting off. And, unless she had smuggled in some man he didn’t know by some means he knew nothing about, he was pretty sure she was getting off alone.
The thought fascinated him. How ironic was this? Here he was, secretly masturbating, trying desperately not to be overheard by his mother in the next room, who was, in fact, in the next room, masturbating! He then realized, suddenly, that he had never let go of his cock during this entire investigation, and that his cock was still hard. Then came the real shocker: he was aroused, and his mother was aroused, at the same time, and in nearly the same place!
Mark’s hand jumped away from his penis as though it were some unholy thing. He looked about him, almost in a panic, wondering what he should do. There was his lovely blonde, still smiling and fingering herself on his desk. There was his alarm clock: twelve thirty-seven now. There was his bed. He really should, he thought, turn off the blonde, set the alarm, and get to bed, pronto. But . . .
Something to listen with, something to listen with . . . There! An empty juice glass, on his nightstand. Crouched by the wall, the mouth of the glass to the wall, his ear to the bottom. Yes. Yes, sort of. He could hear something, but couldn’t be sure . . . Into the closet, that was the answer. The back of his closet might be a thinner wall, might bring his ear closer to the action. (Action? he thought — You pig!) He speedily moved away old shoes and fallen clothing from the closet floor and flattened himself against the back wall. If Lara were to see him now, it would confirm her lifelong impression that he was a freak.
Listening, listening . . . There! Another moan, and what sounded like words, rapid words. There! Another, this time a quavering moan, as though she were trembling. Mark’s dick, which had begun to lose some of its attitude, now stiffened up again at the sound. You . . . Pig! he thought. He couldn’t believe himself. He would leave it alone, wouldn’t touch the damn thing. There! There! A long one — oh my gosh — a loud one . . . How did Lara not hear that one? How did the rest of the neighborhood not hear it? It seemed deafening in the stillness. Now, subsiding, subsiding . . . and silence.
Silence, that is, except for the pounding in his temples. Mark’s heart was hammering, his mouth was dry. His cock — against all codes of human decency — was still rigid and throbbing. He couldn’t explain it, didn’t want to think about it, was thoroughly ashamed of himself. But for the better part of twenty minutes he remained, crouched uncomfortably against the wall at the back of his closet, his ear glued to a jelly jar, listening for more. Eventually he heard a new sound: soft, repetitive buzzes that told him she was asleep. His little audio porn show (you pig!) was over.
Tiptoe-ing gingerly around his room, Mark turned off his computer and his light, took off his shirt and climbed into bed. Once there he had a long and spirited argument with himself.
Wow. Mom was masturbating. My mom.
No shit, Dick Tracy.
Yeah, but . . . it’s just, weird.
What’s weird? Everybody masturbates. You masturbate, she masturbates.
Often?
Like you don’t masturbate often? Christ, you could hold the record.
Well, yeah, but I’m eighteen and I’m not getting any.
So? She’s forty-one and she’s not getting any either. And, unlike you, she used to get some on a regular basis.
Well, but . . . So why does it bother me?
It doesn’t bother you, jerk-off — it excites you.
It does not.
Hello? Is your dick hard?
Yeah but —
Is your dick hard? Right now?
But I was hard anyway. I was looking at porn.
Uh huh. Over an hour ago, you mean. And you’re not thinking about porno right now, pal.
Well, I’m not going to do it. I’ll just go to sleep.
Self-control? You? Don’t make me laugh.
True to his word, Mark turned on his side and tried to go to sleep. A good hour or so later he gave up, rolled onto his back and grabbed his insistently erect penis. While he stroked, he made himself picture the lovely, smiling, fingering blonde girl. But his head was full of his mother’s low, trembling moan minutes later, when he shot his hot sperm all over his belly.
The next night he found himself waiting for the sound. And he was not disappointed. Halfway through an excellent photo set of two “Young Amateur Lesbians,” the soft but insistent sounds came buzzing through the wall again. Mark lost no time on this occasion, but instantly shut down his computer and returned to the inside of his closet, straining to hear. As the indistinct muttering and moaning fell upon his ear, he was somewhat surprised, and a little ashamed, to note that his cock grew hard again. He had tucked it away inside his underpants, but after a few minutes of indecision he pulled it out again, and rubbed it softly as he listened. He told himself that it didn’t matter that it was his mother’s pleasure he was reacting to. It could have been a total stranger, or his sister, or even his grandmother in the next room, and he still would be excited. The fact was that these were sex sounds, from a female, and his cock simply didn’t care which female they were coming from.
That didn’t account for the mental pictures he entertained, which he could not drive from his head — of his mother’s naked body on the bed, of his mother’s face rapt in pleasure, of what her fingers were doing to herself. But his shame and confusion were certainly not enough to make him stop stroking.
As before, his mother’s session lasted about twenty minutes. As before, he crawled into bed with a hard on, and jerked himself off before going to sleep. As he slipped away, he found himself wondering what had caused his mother’s sudden urges, or, if they weren’t so sudden, why he had never heard her doing this before.