I drink. Not a lot, and not that often. But since my husband left me, over six years ago, I occasionally drink more than I should.
For me, "more than I should" isn't a lot, because drink affects me differently than it affects most people. I don't get loud, I don't get morbid, I don't become incoherent. I just disappear from view. That is, I pass out. A few wines and I can be dead to the world for hours.
I'll give you an example. When I was 18, some friends offered to drive me home from a party. I was already past my usual limit and barely made it into the back seat before I faded into la-la land. Somewhere along the way, the driver -- who was probably also above his limit -- took a corner too fast and rolled the car. Everyone but me scrambled out by themselves. My friends dragged me out and tried to wake me, but without success. They thought I'd been badly injured. When the ambulance came, they asked the medic if I was dead. Yes, he told them: dead drunk.
They told me all this the next morning. I had no recollection of any of it. I just woke up in my bed with a slight headache.
Well, that still happens. I have a few wines -- only now and then -- and fall asleep. No harm done. It all happens in the safety of my own home, and I always wake up in my own bed without any unwanted company. Sometimes I'll fall asleep on the sofa, but over the last year or so my son Jack, who is a little over 19, has been helping me to bed when that happens. Again, I only know because he tells me in the morning.
Since my divorce, he's been the rock of my life, the one person I can rely on. And he knows he can rely on me. We're very close, and I'm very proud of him. He's tall, handsome and kind -- nothing like his father I tell people, but that's probably me being bitchy. He's doing well in college but though he's smart enough to be a doctor or lawyer, he's got his heart set on being a photographer. He's been working part time with a local fashion photographer since he was 16, learning the skills at nights and weekends while studying by day.
Which is where our little 'problem' started.
I work from home. Before I was married, I worked in advertising -- I wrote ads. When Jack was still a baby, I started doing freelance writing from home. Nothing too major; mainly just brochures and that kind of stuff. After my divorce, the brochure writing became a full time job and I've been able to make a good living out of it. But one day recently I had a computer problem. I do almost all my work via email, and when my email system froze, I was in danger of missing a deadline. Fortunately Jack has a computer in his room, so I put my work on a memory stick and plugged it into Jack's computer. His email was still working, and the work got sent.
Then I got curious. I saw a file on his desktop marked 'photos', so I thought I'd take a look at his recent work. There was some lovely photos on it. Old people in a park. Children playing sport. Some wonderful shots of a sunrise over a nearby lake. After looking at a few of these, I noticed an un-named file inside the photo file. I clicked on it but it was password protected. Odd, I thought. So (wrong thing to do, I know) I tried a few random passwords. After four or five attempts, I tried Jack's father's name -- Maxwell -- and voila, I was in.
That's when the surprises started. First there were some nice pictures of Sophie, Jack's girlfriend. Then some that were, um, let's say, more artistic. As in nude. They were, I admit, very stylish nude shots, mostly, but some were a little too graphic for my taste. I was seeing rather more of my potential daughter in law than I'd ever expected to see. At least I knew why she never had a problem with her bikini line. Yes, totally bald down there, she was.
I was beginning to feel a little guilty when I found another un-named file, again password protected. The temptation was too much; I tried my luck again. This time it was much harder. I was about to give up when I tried a long shot. If my ex husband's name was one password, what about my middle name, Sarah? Suddenly I was in. And was very quickly regretting it.
The first photo was -- of me! Quite a nice shot, but not one I remember him taking. Then I noticed that my eyes were shut. He'd taken a photo of me asleep. I clicked on another photo. Me again, lying asleep on my bed. I started to feel a little queasy. I raced ahead and clicked on one of the later photos. And almost fell off the chair. My heart started pounding. It was me again. Nude. And not just nude. My legs were apart and my pussy was clearly the main focus of the shot.
I started shaking. I almost vomited. But I forced myself to go on. One by one I opened every photo in the file -- over 100 of them -- and the shocks kept coming. There were wide shots of my naked body taken from all kinds of angles. In some I was on my back, in others I was on my stomach, in yet others on my side. Sometimes my knees were lifted, sometimes my legs were spread wide apart. The worst of them were the close up shots. Close ups of my breasts, close ups of my pussy -- some inside my pussy, with my lips held open -- and even some of my asshole. They were all very well taken shots. They were high quality -- but they were high quality porn.
It was clear that on at least one of the occasions when I had drank too much and passed out, Jack had taken the opportunity to explore my body photographically. But why? He had a beautiful young girlfriend who, it was obvious, was more than happy to pose for him? Why bother with his 42 year old mother? Yes, I'm still in good shape, and the photos made me look much younger than I am -- but it didn't make sense. At least, not to me.
If it was me taking photos of him, that I could understand. As I said, he's young and handsome and many's the time I've looked at him and thought, wow, if only you weren't my own son. But what could he see in me?
What was I going to do? I had no idea. I didn't want to harm my relationship with him. He was far too important to me. And if I confronted him, it would have a terrible affect on him.
I started to rationalise the situation. Artists don't just paint beautiful women. In fact, they often prefer older, heavier women. The lines and wrinkles, and even the layers of fat, give them more scope for catching the light and adding character to their work. That's what Jack was doing. I was just a model. Just as Sophie had been a convenient and co-operative object for him to practice his art, I was a convenient and unconscious object for the same purpose.
But still, what was I going to say to him? Nothing? Should I just let it pass? But if I did, mightn't he be tempted to do it again? I didn't want that. No way.
And then I had an idea. What if pretended to be drunk one night, just to see what happened? And if he tried to do it again, I would start to wake up. I wouldn't catch him -- that would ruin everything -- instead I'd just make him think that I might catch him. Make him think that I was likely to wake up at anytime. If I went through the charade two or three times, he'd come to believe that alcohol no longer affected me the way it used to, and then wouldn't risk doing it again.
That was my plan. And I put it into affect that very night. I got an empty wine bottle and filled it with a light coloured apple juice. Early in the evening, soon after dinner, I had a bath and changed into my pyjamas and gown. Then I got out my 'wine' and joined Jack in front of the TV. I started sipping in the casual way I always do -- I like to make the bottle last the evening. We were watching a movie together, and around 10.30 the bottle was empty and I pretended to doze off.
He started talking to me.
"Mom? Are you asleep? Wake up mom, the movie's reaching the best part."
I said nothing. Instead, I let myself slip down on the sofa, lying down flat across the cushions. Jack laughed.
"You know mom, you really shouldn't drink. Well, bed time for you."
He picked me up in his strong arms and gently carried me to my bedroom, laying my head on the pillow. Then he left and went back to watch the end of the movie.
I sighed in relief. It had been a one off. No photos tonight. I snuggled up a little and after about ten minutes began to doze off for real. And then I heard the door open again.
"Mom...are you asleep? Mom?"
I kept my eyes shut tight. A moment later, I felt hands on my dressing gown. Jack was slowly pulled it off me. Maybe he was just going to tuck me in? But then I felt his hands undoing the buttons on my pyjama top. My breasts fell out.
"Oh mom, you've got such beautiful tits."
I was fighting to control my breathing. Trying to stay calm. In my original plan, I was going to start to 'wake up' around now, to scare him off, but for some reason I didn't. I wanted to see what he would do next. I didn't have to wait long. My pyjama top was soon off and his hands were rubbing across my breasts. This didn't seem very artistic to me. What was he doing?
He moaned. Moaned! That wasn't what I expected.
Now his hands were around the top of my pyjama pants. He slowly began to pull them down. I didn't resist; I just went along with the charade. I was suddenly totally naked. Any moment now I would have to wake up, before things got out of hand.
But wait. If I 'woke up' now, naked, wouldn't it be natural for me to be suspicious? Wouldn't any normal person ask questions: "Jack, how did I come to be nude in my bed when I woke up?" What could he say? No, no, no. That wouldn't do. That would put him in a terrible position. Our relationship would be broken forever. I would lose my son. That couldn't happen.
But there I was, nude, and it was my son who had undressed me.