During my formative years and into my mid-teens, I was convinced that I knew everything about my mother that there was to know. I knew her likes and dislikes, what she liked to eat and what she liked to wear. I knew her friends and workmates, what she liked to watch on tv and all about our relatives. I knew what she found funny and what she found distasteful, in short, I could answer any question about my mother that anyone cared to ask and be confident of answering correctly. I even knew her bra size, which was a "34b", it was on the label of a bra which was on top of a pile of clean clothes that I carried upstairs for her one time. Her other measurements, I would have to make a reasonable guess at I suppose, but I bet I wouldn't be far off.
I could describe her to anyone, all I had to do was close my eyes and instantly an image of her would pop into my head, she was ordinary. Now I don't mean that nastily, what I mean is that she is no different from the millions of other mothers in this country. From pictures in the photo albums, I would consider that she was reasonably pretty when she was young, nothing spectacular mind you, just a young woman with a prettyish face. Her figure back then didn't look too bad and from what I could see then and now, she has good legs. From her photos, she has had different hairstyles over the years, long, short and several different lengths in between. Some suited her and some didn't, nowadays her mousey coloured hair is slightly permed and is currently shoulder length and at least her glasses suit the shape of her face. Over the years she has worn some monstrosities which I would never have been seen dead in, even as a joke.
But despite everything that I thought I knew; my mother it later appeared, had a secret. It was a secret kept so close to her chest that I'm sure no one ever had an inkling. Well perhaps my father did, maybe it was the reason for their divorce four years earlier. If it was, I was never privy to it. I think more or less that I was the reason they stayed together, the older I got, the less they found they had in common and eventually when I was at an age where I saw more of my friends than I did of my family, they decided to amicably go their separate ways. I still saw my father regularly and had great respect for him, but friends and especially girlfriends were more important now than family was.
Now I know what you are all thinking, 'Ah, we know what comes next.' Well, I'm glad you do, because, at that point, I didn't have a clue that anything at all would come next, she was my mother, end of story. My life carried on as it had done before their separation, most evenings after school and with my homework done, I would head into town and meet up with my mates. When I left school and got a job as an apprentice joiner, it made no difference to me, at least there was no homework anymore. I would still toddle off into town most evenings, meeting friends and my new girlfriend, Danielle, whom I had only just recently acquired.
As my nineteenth birthday and Christmas approached, I was at a loss for once that Saturday evening. Outdoors, the weather was cold, wet and my girlfriend was full of the flu. I thought of going around to one of my mates, but because of the dismal conditions, I had retreated to my bedroom, bored with watching the rubbish that was on tv. Browsing through several porn sites, I suddenly needed to piss and left my laptop on the bed as I made my way to the bathroom. It was only as I returned that I remembered it and got the shock of my life. My mother was in my bedroom putting socks and undies into drawers and fortunately for me, her back was to my laptop which was currently displaying a woman, gagged and bound while she was getting shafted.
Mum turned around, just as I slammed the lid down, looking at me enquiringly as to what my haste was. 'Bored,' I told her as I quickly picked up my headphones and connected them to my music player, certain that my face must be flushed and crimson.
As she left my room, I breathed a sigh of relief, thanking whichever gods were watching over me, that she hadn't noticed what was on the screen. She must not have caught a glimpse because she had made no mention of it. I'm sure she would have done and so from then onwards, I always made sure the lid was closed whenever I left it unaccompanied.
Danielle had recovered, the weather had turned frosty and crisp and I had gone back to my frequent trips into town each evening. With Christmas over and both me and mum back at work, our life continued unabated throughout January. It was one evening in February that I once again found myself at a bit of a loss. There was nothing much on tv, Danielle was away, and it was too cold to walk down to my mates. What I was watching on the tv was at least halfway interesting, when Mum came in after finishing up in the kitchen and grabbed the remote. She proceeded to do that annoying thing of going through every one of the channels, trying to find something to watch despite the fact I had already told her there was nothing worth watching.
We sat for a while longer, up until the point that I intended to go up to my bedroom when she suddenly came out with a strange request. 'Can you bring your laptop downstairs? I want to look up something.'
Now, as far as I was concerned, my mother was computer illiterate, she worked in a large retail outlet and while I knew that she perhaps had to use one from time to time, at home she could never get the hang of my machine on the few occasions she had asked to borrow it. Dutifully, I brought it down and switched it on for her as she asked how she should search the internet.
'What is it you are looking for mum?' I asked as I showed her how to bring up the browser and type in an enquiry. Her answer had me rocking back on my heels and going crimson as I stuttered and spluttered at her reply.
'I'm looking for the website that was on your computer before Christmas. Remember the night I came to your bedroom. You know, the one where the woman was tied up and having sex.'
If you had given me a shovel, I would happily have dug the hole myself. I was tongue-tied and embarrassed, how would I respond to a comment like that from a stranger, let alone my own mother. Nervously, and shaking like a leaf, I sat next to her and took the laptop back as I typed in a web address and pressed enter. Passing it back to her, I was intent on making my escape when she started to ask questions. 'What do I click on. How do I make it play?'
I explained what she had to click on as the first clip started playing, the sound loud in the now quiet room. I turned the volume down and tried to escape again but was stopped as she said, 'Don't go yet. I need you to show me how to play more.' And so, I sat, feeling ill at ease with the laptop balanced on our knees as I watched porn clips with my mother. She sat silently at first, watching the action play out on the screen. By the third clip she was commenting, observations on the actors and actresses, comments about what was taking place as embarrassingly, I watched women of different ages, bound, flogged, abused and fucked.
We spent just over two hours that evening watching all kinds of fetish and kinky porn, my mother laughing, joking and sounding excited while I just sat in a subdued daze, unable to do and say anything. I couldn't reply to some of her remarks, there was no way I could bring myself to use words like those in my mother's presence. And there was no way I could move, despite my abject discomfort, what I was watching on the screen was having the desired effect and I had a raging boner in my pants. When at last she'd had her fill, she wished me goodnight and headed upstairs to her bedroom.
I must have sat there for another thirty minutes, unable to believe what had just taken place. If I had told any of my friends, there was no way they would ever have believed me. I wouldn't have believed me. When at last I locked the doors and turned out the lights, heading for my room, I knew I had to do something to get rid of the throbbing urgency down below. With my door locked, I got naked, lying on my bed as I began teasing my raging flesh and tossed myself off.
My ears didn't pick up on the sound while I was distracted, it was only afterwards as I threw the discarded tissue full of my semen into the bin that I was convinced I could hear something.
You know what it's like when you are certain you can hear a motor running or humming somewhere in the background but cannot pinpoint exactly where it is coming from. It was so soft and quiet that I wondered if I was imagining it. I would turn my head one way and it would disappear, turn it another and the sound was back. I walked around my bedroom, listening to pieces of equipment, try to work out if they were the source of the noise. I opened my bedroom door, sticking my head out onto the landing but still couldn't place the sound. Back in my room I even opened the window, a blast of icy cold air making my curtains flutter but still, the noise evaded me and then it suddenly stopped.
Nothing was said the next morning, or the next day or even over the next few weeks. It was as though the occurrence had never happened. It was March before it was repeated once again with similar consequences to the previous occasion and again with me searching around my bedroom for that damned irritating bloody sound.
By the third occasion after Easter, at least I was past sitting there like some kind of shop dummy, now feeling able to make comments even though I still found it embarrassing to use certain words. Whilst we had progressed to other types of porn clips, having watched women being sodomised, both male and female solo masturbation, lesbian and double penetration, my mother always returned to what I would call, the kinky sex.
Now here's the thing and where you have all so far guessed wrong, nothing ever happened. There was no sudden throwing off of clothes or rampant sex in front of the fire, we would sit together, watch pornography and then retire alone.