Mrs Dubois And The Babysitter

It was late on a Saturday morning and the curses and banging noises she heard coming from the living room were clue enough for Karen Dubois that her husband Adam had risen at long last.

Glancing at the clock on the wall, she heaved a long suffering sigh.

It was hardly surprising that he should have slept in so late considering how long they'd stayed at that Christmas party the night before, or that he should be feeling more than a little under the weather this morning what with how much he'd had to drink. Getting him a glass of tap water and a bottle of the strongest painkillers they kept in the house, she headed for the next room to see what was left of her spouse.

As she walked into the room, she was expecting to find him sprawled in a limp heap in his favorite chair with all of the lamps switched off and the blinds drawn against the glare of morning sunlight reflecting off the blanket of snow outside. Adam would be moaning and groaning over the hangover he simply had to be suffering through, she was certain, and would be vehemently swearing off booze for probably the hundredth time. Karen was stopped in her tracks though when she found a surprising scene.

The blinds were drawn all right and the only lights lit were the ones blinking merrily on the Christmas tree, but her husband was not in his overstuffed recliner. Instead, he was up on unsteady legs and hunched over their entertainment center, fiddling with the digital video recorder connected to their television.

"Adam?"

She had certainly not been shouting or anything, but he still cringed, recoiling from the sound of her voice. "Softly, honey," he pleaded in a whimper.

She obliged him by lowering her voice. "I've got some medicine for you. What are you doing over there?"

He didn't answer for a moment, bracing himself against the entertainment center as a wave of dizziness struck him, vigorously suppressing the accompanying nausea. "Well, you know how I've been worried about that girl Lacey . . ."

She groaned, the volume of her voice involuntarily rising in her frustration.

"Damn it, Adam! How many times do we have to talk about this? She's a good girl from a good family. If she was anything less, do you really believe I would trust her with our daughter's safety?"

He staggered away from the entertainment center, clutching the remote control in his hand. "I know how fond you are of her, Karen, and I do agree that she seems to be taking good care of Daisy when she comes over to babysit, but why not be absolutely sure?" Falling into his recliner with a grunt, he had to work desperately to keep anything from coming up.

A tiny, secret smile appeared on the wife's face, suggesting that fond might not be the right word for how she felt about that babysitter, but Adam was far too ill right now to notice it.

Once he was reassured that the contents of his belly were going to stay where they were, Karen's husband thought to ask, "Where is Daisy, by the way?"

"Over at the Patterson's playing with her friend Becca." She walked over to stand by his chair, glaring at him even as she set the pills and the water down next to him.

It was a mercy for both Adam and their daughter that the girl was gone, she knew. Her husband would never have survived having a rambunctious preteen running around the house right now, and Daisy certainly did not need to have to see her daddy when he was in this kind of state.

Taking a deep breath to calm herself and lowering her voice again, Karen told him, "Look, I know you just can't make yourself believe that Lacey is as good and decent a girl as she seems for some stupid reason, or that she must be abusing or neglecting our child or maybe stealing stuff from us. Considering that nothing has ever gone missing though, and considering that we've never found so much as a scratch or bruise on Daisy, why can't you just accept that you're being stupid and paranoid?"

"You may be right, Karen," he replied, reaching for the pills and glass of water, "but why not be absolutely sure?" Adam took his medicine with only a sip of water, but it was still almost enough to make him heave up all over himself.

"I already am sure," she informed him coolly, "but I can't imagine what it will take to convince you."

"That's just it, honey. I've finally figured out a way to find out what exactly happens in this house when we're not home." His hand was shaking just a bit as he pointed across the room.

She looked over at the bookshelves with a lost expression, wondering what on earth he could be talking about. There was something different about what she was seeing, but it took her a few moments to figure out what it was. "Where did that clock come from?"

"I ordered it online. It's one of those nanny cam things and has a tiny little camera hidden in it! All I had to do was connect it to our DVR and it should have recorded everything that happened in this room last night."

Adam was very carefully considering the remote control he was gripping in one hand, trying to figure out which button was which, so he didn't notice how his wife went very pale at this revelation.

"What!?"

Her husband reacted instantly to that exclamation, whimpering miserably and waving an urgent hand to get her to turn the volume of her voice back down.

"Softly please, honey. Softly."

Karen's knees had suddenly grown very weak and she needed to quickly brace herself against the wall to keep herself from staggering. "How could you do something like that?" she demanded.

"Oh, I know I should have told you about it," he admitted after his moment of distress subsided, "but I guess I was just too afraid to. Your so very fond of this girl that I figured you'd try to talk me out of it or maybe even try to forbid me from getting the nanny cam. I could almost imagine you even taking her aside and warning her that the camera was there!"

Karen's mouth was moving, but nothing comprehensible was coming out. She could only watch with great alarm as her husband switched on the TV, quickly dialing the volume way down, and then turned on the DVR.

"No!" she pleaded desperately. "We can't watch this!"

He gave her a quizzical look. "Why not?"

"Because . . . because . . ." Karen's mind was racing as she tried to come up with some plausible reason why they shouldn't watch this recording. "Because it's spying! We don't have any right to invade Lacey's privacy like this!"

"She's in our house, getting paid to look after our daughter, honey," Adam reminded her. "It's not like she can sue us or anything. I don't think she can, anyway . . ." Using the remote, he opened up the recorder's menu to find what the camera had captured.

His wife was becoming increasingly frantic, knowing as she did exactly what that secret camera must have seen happen in this room the previous night. "But I am absolutely sure that Lacey didn't do anything wrong last night!" she insisted anxiously. "There's no reason at all for us to watch this!"

He moved the cursor on the screen until it highlighted what he wanted to watch. "Calm down, honey. I know it's all seems a bit voyeuristic, but just remember that it's in a good cause. We're simply making sure that our daughter is being cared for properly."

Karen was getting a sinking feeling, knowing that there was nothing that she could do or say that would keep her husband from watching this. 'Yes, but . . ."

Even in his sorry state, Adam managed to chuckle a little at what seemed like a huge overreaction from his wife. Hitting the play button, he told her, "If you're right about this girl, I'm sure I'll sleep a whole lot better at night after I've seen this."

His wife was trembling now though, actually wincing as the recording started to play on the TV screen.

Adam had obviously switched his little spy camera on right after Lacey arrived on their doorstep as the very first thing to appear on the screen was him walking across the living room to let the eighteen year old girl in out of the frosty night. The only thing to see here however was his wife and daughter greeting the girl in the friendliest manner possible while he eyed her cautiously, so he went ahead and hit the fast forward button.

Given that he and his wife had stayed out for about three hours the previous night, Adam was not about to try to sit there and watch this in real time, especially not in the condition he was in, so he would make good use of that fast forward button that morning, switching back to normal speed every so often.

As they progressed through the evening, all that ever materialized on the television screen seemed perfectly innocent. They were able to watch as Lacey played with Daisy, read her stories, and generally cared for her like she was her own child. Never once did she abuse, neglect, or molest her tiny charge. When the hour they had specified as their daughter's bedtime eventually arrived, they were able to watch as the babysitter put the child to bed just as she promised she would. Since Lacey could not possibly have known that she was being spied on, Adam had to grudgingly admit that she was taking very good care of his little girl.

While the husband clearly liked what he was seeing, it was odd that the wife seemed to be getting more and more alarmed by the moment.

Now came the second part of the night, when Lacey merely had to hold down the fort until Mr. and Mrs. Dubois came home. With nobody there to see what she was doing, now was the time when Adam thought she might be tempted to get into things she shouldn't and maybe even swipe some stuff, but it simply didn't happen. What their babysitter mostly did was watch a little TV and do a little reading. The handful of times she actually did disappear from the screen, it was very obvious that Lacey had just paid a visit to the bathroom, gone into the kitchen for something to drink, or peeked into Daisy's room to make sure she was all right. Yet again, Adam could not deny the evidence and was forced to admit that the teenager was doing nothing wrong.

Since everything they were seeing seemed to exonerate Lacey and prove that she well deserved the high opinion Karen held of her, one might have imagined that the housewife would have started to relax now, to calm back down.

If anything though, the opposite was true. Karen seemed to be growing more anxious and agitated by the moment! Given that Adam was so completely focused on battling the misery of his hangover and keeping an eye on what was happening on the screen, it was probably understandable that he should not have been aware of what was happening right beside him, but oddly enough his wife looked like she was right on the verge of a panic attack.

"Please turn it off now, honey," she pleaded in a hoarse voice, wondering if she could get away with snatching that remote control away if he refused. "This is about when we came home last night. It's obvious that she didn't do anything. Can you just turn this off now?"

"Yeah, I guess so," he agreed, raising the remote to his face and studying it so carefully that his eyes crossed as he looked for the stop button. "It looks like I was completely wrong about that girl, doesn't it?" He even managed a chuckle. "Once again, you're right and I'm wrong."

As he took his time about figuring out which button to push, the nausea seeming to rise dangerously whenever he tried to concentrate, the video naturally continued to play. Seeing her front door swing open on the screen to admit herself and her husband had Karen all set to snatch that remote right out of Adam's hand and switch it off herself, but she hesitated when he seemed to find that elusive button at last.

"Oh, there it is!"

The Adam on the television meanwhile was giggling over nothing and singing "The Little Drummer Boy" in a drunken slur as he was almost dragged into the house by his clearly annoyed wife. Lacey came over to help immediately, assisting Karen in dragging the plastered man across the room and then propelling him onto the couch.

"Thank you, dear," the Karen on the screen told her babysitter. "Would you mind keeping an eye on him for a minute or two? I'm going to put him to bed and I just want to make sure he doesn't get into any trouble while I get everything ready for him."

"Sure," Lacey answered with a smile. "We'll just wait right here, won't we Mr. Dubois?"

Adam was still singing tunelessly and almost missed what had been said, but finally responded with, "Hmm? Oh, sure. Okay." As Karen walked out of the room, rubbing her sore and aching muscles after having had to practically carry her husband back home, Adam almost started singing again, this time about Frosty the Snowman.

Lacey shushed him quickly. "Daisy's asleep, Mr. Dubois."

He gave her an owlish look. "Huh?"

"Your daughter, sir. She's sound asleep right now, so we have to stay very quiet or we might wake her up."

"Oh, okay."

Adam did stop singing then, but kept his eyes firmly on the teenager who was sitting next to him on the couch, studying her intently. Glancing around the room exaggeratedly to make sure his wife was not around, he leaned in close to her and spoke in what he mistakenly imagined was a whisper. "Hey, you know what . . . eh . . ."

Though she recoiled a bit from the stench of alcohol on his breath, the girl still managed to provide the name he'd forgotten with a patient smile. "Lacey."

"Yeah, that's right! Lacey! Anyway, you know what?"

"What?"

He gave her a leer, making a big show of looking her up and down. "You really are a hot little piece of ass. How about you give me a nice blow job while my wife isn't looking? I'll make it worth your while."

The real Adam was stunned and horrified to realize that he'd made a pass at the babysitter while drunk, acutely aware that his wife was standing beside him right now and that she would certainly be furious to hear him proposition a teenaged girl. He was now desperate to push that stop button, but in his panic he kept hitting the wrong button.

In the meantime, the Adam on the television screen was reaching back to clumsily grab for his wallet, looking to throw a wad of cash at her if she would suck his dick, but Lacey caught his arm and stopped him before he could even find his back pocket.

"I am not going to give you a blow job," she informed him, keeping a smile on her face and her tone even and friendly in the hopes of keeping this from turning into an ugly confrontation, "and just because you're drunk out of your mind right now, I'm not going to kick you in the nuts for saying that. Fair enough?"

Her boss seemed utterly unfazed at this warning, the big smile on his face not faltering for a moment. "Was that a no?"

"That was a no," she affirmed, rising from the couch and taking a step away from him.

"You're loss, babe," he told her with a smirk, not making any effort to rise and follow her. "Hey, how about showing me your tits, then? I've always liked them, you know."

Whatever Lacey might have said or done in response to this suggestion was lost since that was when Karen walked back into the room. Seeing his wife, Adam put his finger to his lips and shushed the teenager quickly before falling over across the couch cushions, laughing loudly and foolishly.

Still trying to figure out how to switch off this recording, the real Adam was by now reduced to just punching buttons blindly on the remote control. He still wasn't managing to do anything to prevent his wife from seeing him make an ass of himself though, so they had to watch as thr Karen on the TV dragged her husband back up to his feet and led him out of the room and off to bed.

Lacey lingered in the living room, no doubt waiting to get paid for that evenings work, but when Karen reappeared on the screen, her real counterpart could stand it no longer. Snatching the remote control away from her fumbling spouse at last, the housewife stabbed the off button so hard that it was a wonder that she didn't drive her finger right through the little gadget.

As the screen went dark at long last, a tense and uncomfortable silence fell over the living room.

Naturally enough, Adam was absolutely convinced that his wife was ready to kill him right now and couldn't even bring himself to look up at her.

In truth though, Karen was not really focused on punishing her husband for his drunken antics. If he had only been able to face her, he might have noticed that she was even more relieved than he was that the tape had at last been stopped. She was struggling to control her pounding heart and get her breathing to slow down before she hyperventilated, her whole body still shaking as she gripped the remote tightly.

"Um . . . I'm really, really sorry about that, honey," Adam muttered at length, struggling to find the words.

Karen glanced at him in surprise. "Huh?"

"I hope you know that it was just the booze talking, sweetheart. I would never really . . . well . . . you know . . ."

It took his wife a few moments to pull herself out of her own concerns and realize what he was apologizing for. As she suddenly realized that he would never want to see this video again since it showed him hitting on their babysitter, she was finally able to relax, almost slipping down to her knees as all of the tension abruptly left her body. She was so happy in fact that it proved quite hard for her to put the appropriate disapproving scowl on her face, much less give her voice an irritated edge.

"We can talk about this later," she told him, fighting to keep the corners of her mouth from curling up. "Right now, why don't you go back to bed and rest until you've gotten rid of that hangover. The last thing I want to do right now is have to clean your puke off my carpet."

"Yes, ma'am," he nodded, pushing himself back out of his recliner weakly and made his way back towards the bedroom. Even as he disappeared from sight, she could hear him muttering to himself, "I am never drinking again . . ."

Karen waited until she could see and hear him no more, waited a moment or two longer just to be sure, then almost danced with joy across her living room.

She had narrowly dodged a bullet this morning and knew it.

Thank God her husband had been drunk enough and stupid enough to make those indecent advances towards their babysitter, she reflected. Thank God he had been so very anxious to stop the recording at that point and wouldn't ask her any questions about why she had been even more desperate to put an end to it. Thank God he was so wrapped up in his own guilt and misery that he had really not even noticed how she was responding to all of this.

Had that recording gone on for even a moment longer . . .

Making absolutely sure that every last trace of the recording they had been watching was erased from the DVR forever, she pitched the remote control away and threw herself into her husband's recliner with a huge and ecstatic sigh.

Closing her eyes, she thought back to what happened the night before, remembering what it was she had been trying so hard to keep from her husband.

* * *

Having unceremoniously dumped her husband into his bed, Karen paused only long enough to give him an irritable frown before turning her back on him. Moving down the hall, Karen next peeked in to make sure her daughter was all right, most of her irritation melting away as she considered the sleeping child. Only then did Karen then make her way back to the living room where the babysitter was still waiting for her.

"Thanks for everything, Lacey," she told the girl, giving her the money she was owed and a little more as a thank you for helping her with her husband. "I really appreciate everything you've done for me tonight."

Lacey put the cash away, but did not seem to be in any hurry to leave. "You know," she announced casually, "your husband was hitting on me just now."