I sat on my son's bed for a long time. The computer faded into sleep mode, and the images mercifully disappeared. I felt ashamed, and angry, and betrayed.
How was I supposed to confront him about this? Should I even bring it up? I heard the front door slam shut, and suddenly, I was aware of where I was, and how angry he would be to find me in his room. His room, and especially his computer, had been "off-limits" for almost 2 years now. He wouldn't even let me clean in here. He was sure to be enraged at the mere sight of me in his "man-cave."
I fumbled with his computer, trying to turn it off, as he roamed the house, calling, "Mom? You home? I'm starving."
I couldn't find his shutdown command quick enough; I pressed down on the power button, and the screen turned black. Just in time. A second later, my son's door flew open.
"Mom? What are you... Mom! How many times... Get out of my room," he yelled, and threw a book against the wall.
He certainly had a temper, but I could only smirk as he marched down the hall, yelling, "I'm going to count to three, and you better be out of there..."
I sat there, half-wondering if I should talk about the images I'd just seen, half-wondering what he would do when he got to three.
"One, two, this is your last chance..."
Then, for the first time in his life, I heard my son curse.
"Three! Get out of my fucking room."
The smirk faded from my face. I couldn't believe my son had cursed in front of me. And, not just the word, but the tone, were infuriating. There was something in his tone that denoted disrespect: something that had been growing for many months, and was now erupting. I had noticed, increasingly, distance and aloofness in my son. It was his way of saying, "I'm a man, now." And, it occurred to me in a flash, in all our little fights, and especially this fight, he was simply trying to say, "Mom, I'm not your baby anymore. I'm grown man."
Just now, he wanted to make it very clear that he was man enough to defend his privacy, and use whatever word he wanted. I heard something break in the kitchen, and another string of expletives.
He stormed out of the kitchen, down the hall, toward his room, "If I have to tell you one more fucking time..."
But no matter how old he was, I couldn't abide him speaking to me like this.
A rage, and sense of injustice swept over me. I had never laid a hand on my son, but if he had been near me, I would have slapped him.
How dare he! How dare he disrespect me! I'm sad to admit it, but what I did next, I did because I wanted to remind my son that I was in charge. I'm ashamed to admit it, but what I did next, I did to embarrass him, and make him feel like a little boy again.
"Son," I yelled, fuming, just as he turned the corner toward his room, "Get your ass in, here! Now."
He opened the door a little, sticking his head inside, still yelling, "Get out..."
"Come, and sit here. Calm down! Your mother needs to talk to you. I need to talk to you about something very serious."
He noted the sternness in my voice, and the seriousness of my tone. I stroked a spot on the bed with my right hand, and he sat down, begrudgingly. His desk and computer sat just right of the bed. I swung round, and before he even knew what I was doing, I typed his password into the log-in screen, and his desktop lit up.
He jumped up, and growled, "Mom. What are you doing? My room? My computer. Have you been ..."
Before he could utter another word, I clicked on the folder, "U.S. History."
"That's private! Stop!"
"I know what you did," I said, and his face went white.
He tried to crawl over me, and turn the computer off, but I pushed it toward the wall, out of his reach, and clicked on "JO."
"Want to explain this?" I said as I opened up a picture from the folder.
It was a photo of me, sunbathing, topless, in the backyard. I was laying on my side, in lawn chair, my head resting on a towel, my breasts shining from a mix of sweat and lotion.
I browsed the pictures one by one, leaning close to the screen, trying my best to maximize his shame.
"Oh, and this is interesting..." I said each time I clicked on a new pic.
He pleaded, "It was . . . it was ... a mistake. I'm sorry. I'll delete every one, and never do it again, I promise."
My son walked toward the door, his head hung in shame.
"I'm sorry," he muttered repeatedly.
As I looked at the pictures now, with him in the room, I slowly started seeing them differently than I had when I discovered them an hour earlier. I gradually saw myself through my his eyes, the eyes of a lusty, awkward, probably super horny, virile young man. Sure, I was his mom, but these were, after all, tits. He knew not to come in the backyard in the summer without first warning me, and I always thought he'd just be grossed out if he saw his 51 year old mother's not-so-perfect double d's. Instead, all those days, he'd been thinking of me as an object of lust. Taking, literally, 100's, of pictures. It must have been quite a trial for him to know a topless woman was sunbathing every Saturday only 10 yards behind his home. And, then, I realized what "JO" stood for. I was slightly flattered to think I had been the source dozens of orgasms for a good looking young man.
I forgot where I was for a moment, and did not realize, my right hand was sliding, sliding down to my stomach, between my legs. I couldn't believe it; I was growing wet. My son looked down at my hand, stunned, confused; his face turned red; his eyes dropped to the floor. I got control of myself, and swung my hand back up toward the screen. I pointed at an image of me leaning forward, my breasts suspended over a glass of tea, and chided him, "Son, this is so inappropriate. So, so wrong. How could you? Your privacy? How could you violate my privacy like this. How could you take these pictures? I'm your mother! Has anyone else seen them?"
"No," he groaned.
