Authors note
This story is about Brits and written by a Brit. It's written in the first person and I've tried to make it authentic. I fully realise that some of the slang may be foreign to American ears and, in particular, we Brits use 'mum' and 'mummy' where Americans use 'mom' and 'mommy'. I'm not saying either is intrinsically right or wrong, just that my characters are Brits who use the former. Another example is where Claire talks about suspenders – in the UK these hold up stockings, not trousers (or pants!).
Finally Jamie, Wayne and Adam are, of course, all eighteen.
It's the same old story, your stomach's giving you gyp and you know you have antacid somewhere but, right at the moment, it's not in any of the places it should be. I'd searched high and low and was, as a last resort, stood on tiptoes on a chair checking out the clutter on top of the bathroom cabinet. I'm a bit on the petite side so it was quite a reach for me. As I rummaged through some shaving stuff Jamie had been given for Christmas, I found that one of the boxes was surprisingly heavy. I turned it around to take a closer look and there, tucked away inside, I found, well, it certainly wasn't antacid; it was one of those webcam things you attach to computers. Until I had moved the box the wires that ran out of the back had been well concealed and I could now see that they disappeared through a neat hole in the plasterboard wall presumably to my son's room next door. Before I moved it the webcam had been positioned so that, with the open, 'wet room' design of our bathroom, it had an unrestricted view of the shower area in the corner. It wasn't hard to work out how it had got there, who it was aimed at and, more importantly, whose computer it was attached to. Now I really did feel sick and I would need more than antacids to sort this one out. I got down off the chair and, still in a state of shock, sat down on the edge of the bath.
At this point I'd better give you some of the background. My name is Claire Morris and Jamie is my only child. I'm a single mum and have been since Jamie's dad walked out leaving me to bring up our eight year old son. Jamie was devastated both by the divorce and by his father's subsequent rapid disappearance and became very quiet and withdrawn. Now, ten years later, he's doing fine but he's still very shy around girls and happiest in front of his computer. Of course I'm well aware that, like all eighteen year old boys, he's using it to download porn but, well, that's normal and I'd be worried if he wasn't. What I hadn't known until then was that he wasn't just downloading the stuff; he was making his own with me in the shower as the star performer.
At first my anger was winning out in the turmoil of emotions roiling within me. I looked up at the webcam and it seemed to stare back at me. I enjoy my showers, they're my way of relaxing, my private time. Hah! Private time! All the while this damn thing had been watching me and I had been unwittingly performing in some sort of sex show. But what was I going to do about it? My first thought was to climb back on the chair, grab the webcam, smash it into tiny pieces and present the broken remains to Jamie before grounding him for life, well, as much as I could ground an eighteen year old. What on earth was he thinking of, what on earth had made him do it? Indeed, the more I fumed over it the more it came down to the question, what on earth had made him do it? I mean, what sort of boy gets off on watching his mother in the shower? It would be understandable, albeit illegal and immoral, had he had rigged up something similar to spy on the cute little blonde who lived three doors down but why me, after all, I'm old enough to be his mum. Dammit, I am his mum.
The more I thought on this the more I calmed down and started to work out the reasons why it had come down to this. His shyness around girls meant that I was, effectively, his only female company and, with all the testosterone that plagues the teenage male of the species, he'd focussed on what was available. I might not be much but I was all he had. How sad was that? My initial anger was turning to pity; he might be eighteen but inside he was still the shy and insecure little boy I had comforted through the aftermath of the divorce. That brought out the maternal side of me and the more I thought about it the more I wanted to help him, not punish him; the more I wanted just to cuddle him and tell him that everything was going to be OK just as I had done so all those years ago. Poor thing, reduced to spying on his mother to get his jollies. And then, well, if spying on me was helping him then where's the real harm? It wasn't normal, it certainly wasn't normal, but, after all, no one was really getting hurt. My dignity may have taken a knock or two but I never had that much to start with. I mean, if he had gone after the blonde from three doors down he could have ended up in so much trouble it would ruin his life. At least I wasn't going to call the police.
The one thing I wasn't quite prepared to admit, well, not at that point, was that part of me didn't mind at all that he was spying on me. I was, of course, really worried about where these videos were ending up; was he sharing them with his computer nerd friends or, worse still, were they appearing on the web somewhere? However, once you get past that, and the fact that he's my son, it's kind of flattering that he finds me sexy. Indeed, even the 'sharing with friends' bit wasn't that bad. I smiled to myself as I imagined him and those nerdy kids that come round to play on his X-box all gathered round his PC having a good old wank whilst watching me having a shower. It should have been creepy but they're good kids really and, actually, it was rather exciting. I've always had an exhibitionist streak in me; one of my favourite fantasies is about being some sort of femme fatale stripper and whilst I knew the reality tends to be rather sordid and I'd never be a stripper for real, well, this kind of played into that fantasy.
But, however much it might make me tingle 'down there', I couldn't ignore the fact that he had been spying on me. There were all sorts of trust issues here as well as the big question of exactly who else had been watching. Was it just him or had he shared videos with his friends or, nightmare time, put them on the web. It was time we had a good hard chat about it all; whatever I felt, anger or pity, prude or exhibitionist, I couldn't just allow this to continue. In my mind I imagined the scene, the anger, the shouting, the tears, the slamming doors, the long silences. Our relationship was certainly going to change; what I must not do was destroy it all together.
And that's when I made the plan. I stared up at the unblinking glass eye and it just came to me. OK, so the simple answer would have been just to confront Jamie, to wait until he came home and just have it out with him but something inside me said that, if he could play silly buggers then, so could I. The first thing to do was to carefully replace the webcam back the way it was so that he wouldn't know I'd spotted it. The second was to hide away some props of my own for the next time I had a shower. I chose to hide them in the washing basket; heaven knows it's the last place he would look and it had the added benefit of being out of the line of site of the camera. Then I waited for a suitable opportunity.
As it turned out I didn't have that long to wait. At five thirty that very evening he came home with Adam and Wayne, his two closest friends, trailing behind him. If any of his friends were his cohorts in spying then it was these two.
"Hi boys," I said brightly.
"Hi, Mrs Morris," the boys replied. Jamie just grunted as they all trooped off into his room. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach but this was the perfect opportunity to put my plan into action and I'd be crazy not to take advantage. The first step was to announce my intentions of showering so, five minutes later, I took them in some Cokes and a plate of biscuits.
"I'm just going to take a shower so please you could avoid using the loo until I've finished," I said. A chorus of "OK, Mrs Morris," and "OK, mum," was the response and off I went to the bathroom.
It was odd knowing, or at least guessing, that I was being watched. I had to tread a fine line; I wanted to put on a show but I didn't want to make it too obvious that I was on to them. Above all, despite the temptation, I must not look at the camera. By now the butterflies in my stomach were doing a rather energetic rumba but I was determined to go through with it. Trying to act as naturally as I could I got undressed and turned on the shower. While I waited for the water to warm up I got out my razor and put it in the soap dish where I would be able to reach it. I retrieved the props from the washing basket and, keeping everything out of range of the camera, put them on the seat of the toilet ready for action. With everything ready I got under the shower.
At first I kept my back turned to the camera. The butterflies were settling down but I still had a little shyness to overcome and, anyway, I wanted a slow build up. I lathered my hair using a little more shampoo than normal so as to get plenty of suds which I let run down my body. As I massaged the rich lather into my hair I could feel the way that every time I raised my arms I was lifting my breasts and, still facing the wrong way, I struck a couple of poses; I could almost imagine the frustration in the other room because I had my back to the camera. This, in itself, was getting to me and I took the soapy palms of my hands and lifted up my breasts, feeling my nipples harden as my palms slid over them and, all the while, tilting my head back and letting the shower rinse away the suds from my head. Whilst I could only guess what it was doing for the boys it was doing wonders for me.
