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. It was 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.