ChatSpin Confessional

All characters are 18+. This story involves a charged situation with a mother and daughter, but there is no explicit incest/taboo content. Some gray area stuff, but nothing too salacious. Still, I put the disclaimer up here in case you'd rather not. It's been a while since I've published and this is a little different from my usual fare - please let me know what you think!

I clutched my backpack to my chest and looked out the bus window the whole ride home. The other girls were talking about their weekend plans: lacrosse games, trips to the mall. Netflix. Homework. I wasn't thinking about any of that. I was only thinking that I would have the house to myself for three whole hours before Mom got back from work.

That meant three whole hours for ChatSpin.

My palms were itching just thinking about it. Three hours of showing my body off to guys on camera, teasing them, encouraging them. They'd have no idea who I was, what I was like in "real life." They'd just see what I wanted them to see. Think what I wanted them to think. They'd get off on my hot, young body, showing me their dicks and cumming for me. Begging me to let them come for me.

I'll never forget the first time it happened. The first time a man said "I'd like to come for you, if that would be okay." It was so fucking hot. I hadn't even been naked, then. Just wearing a pink t-shirt and pink lip gloss. That's all it took to set him off. The sight of my pretty lips, the swell of my 18-year-old breasts beneath a simple t-shirt.

It was incredible to hold this power over them. And I couldn't get enough.

I practically skipped down my street from the bus stop, my long brown braids trailing behind me as my Mary Janes clomped along the sidewalk. Mrs. Loffenhauer waved as I sped past, and I waved back, holding my backpack strap tightly with my other hand and smiling at my elderly neighbor.

"Careful you don't trip!" She shouted.

Closing the door behind me, I ran up the stairs and threw my bag onto my bed. I had to move fast if I was going to make the most of the afternoon, and that started with a little wardrobe change.

Black Mary Janes: off.

Red pleated skirt: down around my ankles.

Navy blue Sacred Heart polo: off and into the hamper.

Boring white bra and panties: off and thrown across the room.

Golden cross necklace: off and laid delicately on my desk.

And now, finally, for the fun bit.

Flirty push-up Victoria's Secret bra with the little pink and green flowers that I bought with my 18th birthday money: comfortably securing and emphasizing my B-cup tits.

Matching print hip-hugger panties: snugly on and ready for show time.

Pink zip-up Juicy Couture hoodie: on, and unzipped to the point where you could see a whole lot of cleavage and just a little bit of bra.

Laptop: charged and ready.

Tucking one leg beneath my butt, I sat down on my rolling swivel chair and pulled myself toward the desk. I took a deep breath, willing my heart rate to slow down just a little bit as I opened my browser and navigated to ChatSpin. A window popped up, asking for permission to access my computer's camera and microphone.

I clicked "allow" for camera, no for mic.

I didn't want my voice being recorded. Not that my voice was so distinctive, but still. You could never be too careful.

My face and chest popped up on screen, and I did a quick spot check. Skin looked good, dewy and clear, still scented with the moisturizer I'd used that morning (not that my chat partners would be able to tell). Lips looked a little dry, so I smeared them with some lip balm. Hair looked good, my dark brown locks still tied in two neat braids that I dangled in front of my shoulders. I looked good.

No. I looked hot.

Satisfied, I lowered the screen so that only my mouth and upper body were visible. I moved around a little bit, making sure I had a decent little range of motion available before I could slip up and accidentally be identified. Putting my tits on camera was one thing. My face was another.

Then there was nothing more to do but to click the big, green SPIN button, and wait for my first partner.

The spin button spun around in a little pinwheel, and a moment later, a young man popped up on the screen, lying down on a sofa in a dimly lit room, the light of a television illuminating his face sporadically (one of our SAT words from earlier this year). I waved my fingers. He did the same, sitting up on his elbows a little bit and leaning his face closer to the screen, as if to confirm that my bra really was peeking out.

That's right, I thought.

You've hooked a live one.

"Hi," he said.

He looked to be in his 20s. Whether early, mid or late, I couldn't say. The lighting was too low, the picture too grainy. He had brown hair, an olive complexion and a wispy mustache. He would be handsome if it weren't for the stupid facial hair. It looked like he was trying to be suave, but it was so wispy that he just looked like a teen who couldn't grow a proper mustache. Or an old-timey villain. Either way, not a good look.

"Hi," I typed back.

"You have a microphone?" He asked, his eyes looking at the center of his screen.

Right where my tits were.

"No," I typed, moving my shoulders slightly, letting more of my hoodie open up to his eager eyes. I could see more of the bra appearing on the screen, the hint of white growing into a full corner of my right cup, enough to see the (pushed-up) shape of my breast and the cute pattern I'd chosen. His view was still grainy, but he seemed to approve.

"You look fuckin' hot," he said. "How old are you?"

His words brushed my skin and set the goosebumps in motion.

"18," I typed.

"I was 18 once," he said, smirking. "26 now."

"That's hot," I typed.

I didn't really care how old my chat partners were, as long as they were 18.

As long as they were good looking enough to make me want to show off for them.

As long as they told me how turned on I made them.

"You a virgin?" he asked.

I was getting a little impatient, now. This was usually about the time when they would tell me how hard they were, how horny I was making them, and would it be alright if they showed me.

This one just wanted to chat.

I wasn't on ChatSpin to chat.

Who did that? Honestly.

"Yes," I lied.

What? It's what he wanted to hear.

"Nice," he said, nodding and licking his lips. He sat back on the couch, leering, waiting for me to say something, do something.

I clicked NEXT.

It had been about three weeks since I'd discovered ChatSpin, and about two weeks, 23 hours and 30 minutes since I'd discovered the thrill of showing off my body to my chat partners. It had become my daily routine to log on and play, whenever I could get some free time and some privacy. While you still had some people who just seemed to log on to chat with random strangers, nearly everyone was there to get off. Certainly everyone I spent any serious amount of time with.

I loved seeing the hunger in their eyes, the desperation and glee on their faces.

Their hands on their big, hard cocks.

The loads of cum they shot for me.

What I didn't have a lot of patience for was boring dudes who wasted a lot of time with meaningless chit chat. Especially not with dumb mustaches like that.

Or other girls. Respect to the other chicks out there looking to get off and get others off too, but vagina's not my thing.

The computer pinged and a new match appeared. This next guy was an older gent, maybe 30s or 40s. Again, hard to tell, especially since his face was sort of obscured and the view was a little pixelated. But he was sitting in a desk chair with his shirt off. He looked to be in decent shape, with some tone in his tanned, hairy chest, and a trimmed salt-and-pepper beard framing his handsome face.

"Cute bra," he said. His voice was deep and rich, all rumbly like rolling thunder.

I smiled.

"Oops," I typed. "Didn't realize you could see."

He laughed.

"Of course not," he said, leaning back in the chair, stretching his pecs. "A nice girl like you would never."

Now this was more like it, I thought. A guy with some banter. Some game. I toyed with one of my braids and bit my lip before returning my hands to the keyboard.

"My mom would be so mad if she thought I was doing anything like that."

"Your mom?" He asked, running a hand up and down his chest. "What about your dad?"

"Dad's not around," I said, playing with the zipper on my hoodie, twisting it back and forth in my hand.

My partner stood up, and soon his tight briefs were in his camera's viewfinder. He squeezed his bulge between his strong hands, forming a sort of diamond with his thumbs and forefingers, emphasizing the outline of his swelling package. It looked impressive. Thick. Meaty. I clocked a wedding ring on his left hand and licked my lips, gently tugging my zipper lower.

"That's too bad," he said, squeezing himself and turning to the side, letting me appreciate the entire package. "Girl needs a daddy around. Don't you think?"

"Yes, daddy," I typed, biting my lip and staring at his nice, strong hands.

"Oh, I like that," he said, lowering his waistband an inch or so. The hair on his lean stomach continued down below, as his muscles tapered to a vee pointing down to his cock. "Wish I could hear those words coming from that pretty little mouth of yours."

"Sorry," I typed. "No mike. But I have something better."

I unzipped my hoodie, spreading it open with my fingers tracing slow, curving lines across the front of my cotton bra. The push-up effect looked really nice on the reveal. My boobs seemed like they were at least two sizes bigger.

"Mmm, that is better," he said, scooching his briefs down another inch. Low enough to start revealing his dick, the thick base of it separated from the rest of his skin, pushing his briefs outward as it swelled to full size.

I bit my lip again and stood, leaning forward and scooping my breasts toward the camera, covering the cups with my hands and moving my tits together and apart in circular motions. I couldn't see him from this position, but I could hear him. And it sounded like he approved of the view.

I straightened my spine and stepped back, far enough so he could get a sense for my 5'8" frame, centering my cute little panties and flat stomach on the screen, hooking my thumbs in the waistband, just like he was doing. I matched him, mirrored him, pulling them down a couple of inches, letting the top of the dark triangle of my trimmed pubic hair slowly reveal itself as I pulled.

"You're a very naughty girl," he said, pulling his own shorts down even further, letting even more of his thick cock escape. "Anyone ever tell you that?"

I nodded, and then realizing he couldn't see my face, gave two thumbs up. It felt silly. But if it spoiled the moment, he didn't let on that it did. Instead, he kept sliding his briefs down until his erection popped up and over the waistband.

I was no good at judging dick sizes. I know from the erotic stories I'd read that anything above 7 inches was considered big. This guy's dick looked big. Thick, circumcised, and standing somewhere between a 45- and 90-degree angle. I leaned forward and typed.

"You have a really nice dick, daddy."

He ran his fingers up and down its length, teasing himself underneath, making it twitch for me. God, it was so hot. To think he had gone from semi-hard bulge to proud erection just by looking at little old me in my underwear. I slipped a hand into my panties and felt how wet I'd gotten.

"Wanna show me what you're doing down there?" He asked, curling his fingers around his cock and beginning to stroke himself.

I slid my panties down, letting them fall to the floor once they'd cleared my hips, and admired the views. He stood with his cock to the side, letting me watch as he tugged himself off, and I ran a finger up and down my wet slit, shuddering from the electric thrill that passed through me each time I touched my sensitive clit.

"It's too bad you're not here," he said. "I'd like to see if I'd fit in that tight little pussy of yours."

It felt so naughty hearing an older man talk to me like that. With his own face obscured, it was easy to pretend he could be anybody. A teacher. A coach. A friend's dad. I paid more attention to my clit as I watched the split screen video of the two of us masturbating. I stepped forward, my right-hand swirling around my clit, my left hand pecking out a quick little message.

"Will u cum 4 me daddy"

"I'd love to," he said, sitting back down on the chair and tilting his camera down while he continued pumping his cock.

I joined him, sitting on my chair, pulling the laptop forward and tilting the screen down so he could get a better view of my slit as I played with myself. I spread my legs for him, delighting in the sight of my puffy, pink pussy blossoming amid the sopping mess of my pubic hair.

"Oh, fuck," he said, pumping harder, speeding up.

I spread my lips for him, stroking my clit with my thumb, rocking my hips back and forth on the squeaky chair.

"Oh, fuck, I'm gonna come," he said, louder now. "Fuck. FUCK. FUCK! FUCK!!"

"Melanie Anne Scofeld!"

I slammed the laptop shut and leaned forward, squeezing my legs shut, feeling the blood freeze in my veins. Before I could turn around, Mom was already by my side, reaching for the laptop.

Dinner that night was awkward, to say the least. At least I'd stopped crying, by then. Leave it to me to forget that Mom had a dentist appointment that afternoon and left work early.

She had opened the laptop and, while the last chat had been disconnected, the damage was done. She had seen what she had seen. She understood that I had been stripping and masturbating on camera with a random partner. I wished I had been able to put a password on my computer, but that was one of the rules in our house. No passwords, no locked doors.

At least not for me.

"I need my laptop back," I said. "I have to finish my English essay."

Mom cut another piece of chicken, letting the fork and knife make a little more noise on the plate than I thought was really necessary. She chewed slowly. Deliberately. Letting me wait. Her shoulder-length brown hair barely moving as her jaws masticated (SAT!) her meal.

Helen Scofeld, nee Gallagher, was a prim and proper woman, as befitting her station as an upper middle class 45-year-old woman in the tony New York suburb of Oyster Bay. She was still pretty (does that sound bitchy to say?) but had never remarried, hardly even dated again. A few guys here and there over the years, never for very long. She remained faithful to dad, even nearly ten years later, whether by choice or not.

She took her role as a mom seriously, too, making sure I did well in school, that I would get shuttled around to all of my extra-curriculars, that I was on top of college admissions (Hoyas '29!). She had probably never expected to walk in on her daughter masturbating in front of a strange man on camera, in her defense. It's not that she was ignorant. I didn't think so, at least. She knew the world we lived in, what "those girls" got up to on social media. But she probably never figured I might have been one of "those girls," deep down.

She was probably still thinking over what, exactly, she was going to do about it.

"You can write your essay at the kitchen table," she said, eyes on her plate. "Under my supervision. I will decide when you can have your computer back."

"Mom..."

Her fork and knife clattered to the plate.

"Don't mom me, missy," she said, finally looking up and pointing a shaking fist at me. "For once, I'm grateful your father's not around to see this."

"See what?!"

"See his daughter... whoring herself out on the internet!"

That stung. Dad had died so long ago that invoking him hardly carried the kind of weight that mom thought it did. It was bad enough for her call me a whore. She didn't need to invoke dad for that.

"I'm not whoring myself out!" I shouted, feeling my eyes start to sting all over again. "You're making a big deal out of nothing!"

"Nothing?!" Mom's fists hit the table.

It was nothing! Wasn't it? I mean, I'm 18 years old, I thought. I got that maybe miss prim and proper didn't like what she saw, but it wasn't wrong.

"Yeah!" I said, sounding less sure of myself than I needed to.

"You were..." Mom gulped, looking like she'd just swallowed a raw egg. "I don't even want to say it. It's disgusting. And... and... *sigh*..."

She started cutting up her food again, her head shaking.

"We're going to Church tomorrow. You're going to Confession. And then you're grounded."

"Confession?!"

We were Catholic. I went to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, a Catholic School. We went to Mass almost every Sunday.

But we weren't that Catholic.

"That's right," mom confirmed. "Maybe that will help you understand the gravity of what you did."

Mom wasn't really much of a disciplinarian. In fairness, it had never really been necessary. I was a good kid. A straight-A student who never really got into any trouble. I had never even been grounded before.

I wasn't taking it well.

"I'm 18!" I shouted. "I'm an adult! I didn't do anything wrong!"

"You're in my house," mom said, her voice steady, once again paying attention only to her plate. "And as long as you're in my house, you'll obey my rules."

"And what rule did I break?"

"Don't. I'm in no mood."

We enjoyed the remainder of our chicken and vegetables in silence. Mom even insisted that she clean up, and that I head straight back to my computerless room.

The next day, before dragging me off to Confession, I half expected mom to pick my clothes for me. She'd been treating me like a kid already, why not go full throttle? But she was still hardly speaking to me. Even when it was time to leave, she just appeared in my doorway like some kind of prison guard, eying me coolly and nodding toward the front door. It was the sort of ridiculous display the two of us might have laughed at in happier times.

We pulled into the St. Dominic's parking lot shortly before noon. Given Saturday Mass had ended hours ago, there weren't too many other cars in the lot. Not a lot of other parishioners with something to confess, I guessed. Or at least without Helen Scofeld to force them to go do it. I stepped out of the car, and mom followed suit.

"You're coming in?" I asked.

"I want to make sure you go into the booth," she said.

It was humiliating, but I trudged along behind her as she marched up the Church steps. I smoothed my khaki skirt as I followed, fighting off the invasive thought of that handsome, salt-and-pepper stranger pulling my panties down and pulling me on top of him, skirt still on.

Beyond the big wooden doors, the Church opened up into an enormous, white room with soaring ceilings and dozens of rows of light wooden pews. Mom's heels clicked on the tile floor as she circled around to the left side, walking towards the confessional booth. She lowered the kneelers in one of the pews just beside the booth, and got on her knees.

"I'll be here until you're done," she said, closing her eyes and clasping her hands together and sniffing the air deeply. "Going to pray for your soul."

She was laying it on a little thick, I thought. I looked between her and the booth. There wasn't much distance there. If I spoke too loudly, she'd hear me.

Maybe she was counting on it.

"Can't you move away?" I asked. "Like, give me some privacy."

"You're lucky I'm not going in there with you," she said, kneeling, eyes closed.

I waited a few minutes, before the door opened and an elderly woman I sort of recognized walked out. She smiled at me, I smiled back, wondering if her sins were as juicy as mine. Maybe Father Ben would tell me. I fixed my hair, smoothed my skirt once more, and headed in, kneeling before the crisscross wooden screen that separated me from the parish's young priest.

I saw his silhouette through the screen, his face in profile. He was about 40 years old, I knew, since the parish had celebrated his birthday around the time of my own. He had thick black hair, sad, brown eyes and might have been handsome if he'd been allowed to get a decent haircut and dress like a normal person. The priest frock might do it for some girls, but not for me. Nuns, maybe.

"What seems to be troubling you, my child?" He asked, looking off into the distance. I clasped my hands and lowered my head.

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned," I recited. "It has been three weeks since my last confession."

"Three weeks?" He said, his voice jocular (yay for SAT words). "You can't have gotten up to that much trouble in just a few weeks."

I gulped. Father Ben was a nice guy. Avuncular. There's another SAT word for you. Knowing mom, she'd have her ear to the door by now, and I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to play this. As much as I loved showing myself off on camera, this was different. Despite the screen, too personal. And way too embarrassing. Because despite the pretense of secrecy, if I told him the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, he'd turn his head, see me, probably curse me to hell for all I knew.

"I... I have been... impure?" I suggested.

"Okay..." he said, trailing off. I could picture him cocking his head, trying to wrestle with just what a teenage-sounding girl might mean by impurity. "Um... what do you mean, exactly?"

No getting around it. It was gonna have to get uncomfortable.

"I... touched myself," I said. "Down there."

"Ah," he said. "Well... you know... Catholic teaching says that we're not supposed to, you know... do that. That it's a form of sex, and sex should be exclusive to marriage. It's just... a level of intimacy that, you know... really requires the sacrament of marriage in order to be done right... You know... it can be hard for young people, I know... your bodies are changing, you're not yet married... it's a time of confusion..."

He was nervous, stammering. Unprepared. It was cute. I wondered, then, if Father Ben masturbated. Now. Ever. Did he stick to Church teaching about the sinfulness of touching yourself, of sexual activity out of marriage? Priests can't marry in the Catholic Church, of course. That meant no sex, ever.

No masturbation. Ever.

Not without offending God, at least.

"It is confusing," I said, throwing him a line. "And my body... has changed a lot..."

I bit my lip and looked away. That wasn't a helpful line to follow. This wasn't one of my chat partners: this was a Catholic priest. This was my priest. The guy who held up the little cracker and told me it was the "body of Christ." I was supposed to be confessing my sins to him, seeking absolution from God, not roleplaying the sexy ingenue. Some things just couldn't be helped, maybe.

"Well, the good news is that... masturbation," he said, "that's the, um... that's what it's called. It's a venial sin. Do you know the difference between venial and mortal sins?"

I did. We learned all about it at Sacred Heart. A venial sin is sort of a minor infraction, the misdemeanors of God's penal code. Telling little white lies, gossiping, acting jealously. The types of things High School girls do all the time.

"Yes, Father."

"And, uh, venial sins, you know... they don't always even require Confession. The truth is that none of us is perfect. Right? We commit these venial sins more often than we'd like, sometimes every day. But realistically it's way too often to require confessing each time. You'd spend your whole day in penitence, and then how would anyone ever get anything done? (He paused for laughter). God sees us. God knows us. And as long as we're trying to do good, as long as we're trying not to sin..."

I hadn't been trying not to sin, though. Had I? And I hadn't even told him the whole story, yet. I was beginning to lose my nerve. Every part of me wanted to nod along to Father Ben's stumbling speech of absolution, but the odds were still good that mom was listening. And besides, if he didn't walk out of the booth looking white as a ghost, she'd know I'd left out some key details.

It's probably as good a place as any to confirm that I wasn't really sold on the whole God thing. I mean, I think I believed in something up there. Something beyond our normal experience. But I was pretty sure the Catholic Church wasn't it. It didn't really bother me to sin, per se. I didn't believe in that whole deal. But it bothered me to be grounded, though. It even bothered me a little to let Father Ben down.

That's the thing about Catholic Guilt. It gets the non-believers, too.

"That's not all, Father."

He stopped.

"Oh?"

I took a deep breath. Here goes nothing, I thought, hoping against hope that he couldn't see the details of my face through the screen, accepting the inevitability that he would end up knowing exactly who was sitting here in this booth with him.

"I... touched myself on a webcam site," I continued. "Like a video chat. With... a partner... watching me... and me watching him..."

The air was silent and still. Stuffy, even. I noticed for the first time that the booth felt warm. My skin felt warm. I shifted on the kneeler, waiting for Father Ben to respond. It felt like an eternity before he spoke again.

"That..." he began, "is more serious..."

No kidding, I thought. And I was sure they didn't cover this specific scenario in seminary. They didn't dedicate any chapters of the guide to teenage cybersex, as far as I knew.

He seemed to be deep in thought, or at least deep in speechlessness. Maybe there had been a guide and he was frantically searching his memory for the instructions. My cheeks ran hot and I held my jaw open inside my closed mouth, fighting the onset of tears. This was so embarrassing. I could have killed my mom for forcing me to do this. I could have kicked myself for not just making up a story about playing a prank at school or something, daring mom to call me out on it in front of Father Ben. I could have gotten away with it, I realized. I had done this to myself.

"How... many times would you say you've done this?"

I exhaled.

"A few?"

"A few," he repeated. "Okay. Um. So that's, um, a much graver sin than just... touching yourself. Do you see why?"

"Yes, Father."

I realized then that I had left out one little, salacious detail. My chat partner was an older man.

And I'd called him "daddy."

The memory of our chat came crashing into the scene. His twitching cock. My hand on my privates. The puddle between my legs. His deep, resonant voice. The power he had over me. The power I would have given him.

I shifted my knees again, bringing my thighs together and squeezing, rolling my hips around and feeling the friction develop where my legs met.

"So, um... this does require Confession," Father Ben said, chuckling awkwardly. He sighed. "But confession only works if you want to change. If you want to obey God's commandments. Otherwise, you know... you're just spinning your wheels..."

That's exactly what I wanted to do, I thought.

Spin my wheels.

Spin them and spin them and spin them, all while letting hot, horny guys watch me do it.

I wondered whether Father Ben had identified me yet. If he was picturing me stripping out of my school uniform, touching myself for older men, encouraging them to stroke for me. To shoot their seed for me. Would it be a relief to him, if I opened his door and joined him in there? If I sat on his lap and slowly unbuttoned my shirt?

I was incorrigible. Despite the feelings of shame, the embarrassment, the ongoing lecture on God's grace I was only half paying attention to, I couldn't wait to get back on camera. I couldn't wait to watch some strange man shoot his cum all over the place while watching my tight, naked body perform for him on screen. Why had God given me this body, these urges, this hunger, if he didn't want me to use it? To share it?

How could something that felt so natural and freeing be wrong?

"... and pray ten Rosaries before going to sleep tonight. Now let's say a Hail Mary together, and then you can, uh, be off."

"With my blessing," he continued.

In the car a few minutes later, I decided to roll the dice again.

"Okay, I confessed," I said, my head leaning against the window. "It was humiliating. I'll never do it again. I'll say my prayers every night. Can I have my laptop back, now?"

Mom looked left and right at the stop sign, even though she knew damn well there weren't any other cars there, before driving on.

"I haven't decided."

I groaned.

"You're really going to supervise all of my homework?" I asked. "There's three months of school left."

"I might just come down to Georgetown with you," she said. "I don't know if I can trust you on your own. I'll pack a sleeping bag and live under your bed."

"Mo-om!"

I knew she was kidding, but it was still annoying. I was 18. A senior. Practically a grown-up. I hated that she could still wield this power over me. I had gotten a few scholarships to help with tuition, but mom would still be paying a lot of money out of pocket to go to her and dad's Alma Mater.

I hated it, but what could I do? She had me by the short hairs. I was going to have to ride it out.

But I wasn't going to ride it out quietly.

"I can't have you running around... showing yourself like that," she said, pulling into the driveway. "What will the neighbors say?"

"Maybe they'd like it," I said, shrugging. "I'm a good-looking girl. I got it from my mom, you know."

I was sitting at the kitchen table an hour later, pecking out an essay on King Lear under mom's watchful eye. I had changed out of my church clothes, swapping the khaki skirt and white blouse for a pair of leggings and a loose, comfortable tank top. I was prepared for mom to notice I wasn't wearing a bra - I had an argument about "comfort in my own home" ready to go - but if she did, she kept it to herself. She probably wouldn't suspect that I'd had ChatSpin open in the background the whole time, with the sound off, letting whoever I matched with stare at my chest, at the indents in the fabric my nipples made.

It was frustrating not being able to see them, whoever they were. Were they enjoying the show? Were they frustrated by my lack of engagement?

The little white camera light remained illuminated above my screen, so I knew I was still broadcasting as I typed, but I dared not tab over to the browser with mom in the room. She might be able to read it on my face, if I saw something I liked. She might be able to see the reflection in my eyes. I could just picture it. The bright image of a man's hard cock repeated back to her in her daughter's hazel eyes.

"How's it coming?" Mom asked.

I looked up. She spun a spoon in a tea cup across the table, the steam rising up from within. I leaned forward, chin on my hands, elbows on the table, nudging my boobs together just a little bit for my mystery partners.

"Good," I said. "Should be able to finish it tonight."

Mom nodded and got up, walking over to the counter where the mail was stacked and grabbing her book, one of those beach reads from the Oprah list. She sat back down, spread the pages open with one hand, and sipped her mug with the other. This was an opportunity, I realized. With her eyes thus occupied, I could check the browser. I waited a moment or two, making sure she was engrossed, and I hit the tab button.

If I'd worried my broadcast was boring, the guy jacking off on the left side of the screen disabused me of the notion (I made a mental note to include "disabuse" in my King Lear essay). He had covered his cock in lube and it glistened in the bright overhead light. I took a deep breath, pushing my chest out, and started to type.

"Sorry," I began. "Mom's in the room. Can't talk. Can't hear, either."

He leaned forward and typed with his left (unlubed?) hand.

"Fuck that's hot."

He leaned back again, jerking his cock with long, swift strokes, gliding over his shiny cock head with his whole fist before slamming it back down again. I could see his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. I leaned forward again and grabbed the bottom of my tank top, twisting it in a fist and pulling the cloth down, revealing more and more skin with each turn. Not enough to show the girls in total, but enough to get him thinking. Enough to make him wonder just how far this naughty girl on screen would go with her mother sitting right there.

I looked up as mom turned the page. Keeping my eyes on her, I dared to part my lips and open my mouth, letting the tip of my tongue rest on my lower lip. Just enough to give him a target. I could see him breathing harder in my peripheral vision, fighting the urge to look down and enjoy my reward while I glued my eyes to mom. The frantic scene on the screen seemed to resolve itself. I closed my mouth and looked down, enjoying the sight of this man squeezing the last drops of cum from his dick, his chest and stomach a mess of sweat and semen.

I clicked NEXT and tabbed back to the essay, but not before clocking my hard nipples pressing against the front of my top.

For all the influence he had on English literature, Mr. Shakespeare was not doing a very good job of capturing my attention. I didn't want to risk leaving the browser tab up on the screen and getting so caught up that I forgot mom was sitting five feet away, but the little white camera light was a constant reminder that something much more interesting was happening than my paper on the symbolism of King Lear's daughters. The bad ones symbolize bad things and the good one symbolizes good things. Can I get back to camming, now?

I flexed my chest now and then as I typed away, filling the page with low quality work. Drivel, really. With my college acceptance already in hand, the grade I'd get on this paper hardly mattered. I could phone it in. I wasn't too proud to coast in my final few months of school. But if mom asked to see it, as she inevitably would, would she know something was up? Would she know I'd been distracted while writing?

And then it hit me. The reason I was so distracted, fundamentally.

I needed to get off.

I could have smacked myself in the head, it was so obvious. My Friday afternoon jill session had been cut short, and I'd been too sad slash mortified last night to revisit. I'd been thinking about camming all day - even in the confessional booth, for Christ's sake - and was even now, with my own mother in the room, waving my tits around for anons to gawk at.

I was horny.

Well, there was one tried and true way to address that.

"I'm going to the bathroom," I announced.

Mom looked up, her eyebrows a puzzled couple of caterpillars crawling across her forehead.

"You don't need my permission," she said.

"I know," I said, feeling weird and awkward and like she could read my mind. "I'm just saying. Since. You know."

"Know what?"

I exited the browser window and closed the laptop before I could say anything else I'd end up regretting, and bounded up the stairs.

My room had its own en-suite bathroom, and I locked the door behind me before lifting the toilet seat. I peeled my leggings and panties down together and sat down, feeling the sticky mess that had been brewing inside them all afternoon. With my eyes closed, I tried to conjure the spirit of yesterday's man. I pictured his toned, hairy torso, his strong arms, his towering penis. I pictured him holding me down on the bed, telling me I was a good girl and gently sliding his thick meat into my hot, quivering pussy.

The conjuration ritual was working on my imagination, but I didn't have anything handy to insert besides my fingers - my shampoo bottles were all the wrong shape, and my hairbrushes were all out in my bedroom by my makeup mirror. I could go get one, I thought, but if mom were around... I tried to ignore the aching need in my vagina and focus on my clit, teasing my entrance with my left hand while I pawed at my swollen little button with my right.

The feeling was delicious. The itch and its relief all at once, back and forth between the two extremes like a ping-pong match, like a chorus of voices singing in round. I coaxed that finger inside my hole, swirling it around the walls and coating it in my juices. My hips twitched and my butt clenched every so often, when a new sensation rose over the top to announce itself before falling back into harmony with the rest of the chorus.

I pictured my chat partner again. The man I'd called "daddy." He had such nice hands, I thought. Such nice hands and a great, big cock. Such nice hands all over me and a deep voice vibrating my body and a big dick in my hands and mouth and hands arms dick dick big fucking throbbing daddy cock spurting hot cum inside my tight snatch...

I clamped my legs shut around my right hand and covered my mouth with my left, trying hard not to kick at the floor while my body spasmed. My pussy felt so wet, slick between my legs. My breath labored, air forcing itself through my nose as I tried to regain composure while quietly squirming on the toilet seat.

Fuck me, I thought, but that was exactly what I needed. My heart was pounding in my chest, and I felt the relaxation course through me as the orgasm subsided. My arms and legs tingled and I let out a deep breath, before grabbing at the toilet paper and cleaning myself up.

So maybe it's a grave sin to masturbate when you know it's wrong and you do it anyway. Great. Wonderful. See you in Hell. Because if you can't cum like that in Heaven, I don't wanna go.

I flushed the toilet, washed my hands, and alighted down the stairs a new woman. Refreshed. Rejuvenated. Ready to write.

Mom was staring at me as I entered the kitchen again. I tried to walk normally. I tried to remember how I normally walked.

"What?" I asked.

Mom rolled her eyes and returned to her beach read.

I edited my King Lear essay some more, refocusing away from the symbolism of the daughters and critiquing the absence of a mother, instead. I googled for similar arguments (technically not plagiarizing, but a little bit of a gray area) and found some really good research website that was like a more scholarly Wikipedia. I read all sorts of essays there on the lack of a mother in King Lear. Graduate level stuff. Compelling. Well-argued. Maybe that explained why Regan and Goneril had gone off the deep end, I thought, putting the idea into my own words as I typed up page after new page. It wasn't because Lear was weak - it was because they didn't have a mother around to set a good example. A mother, of course, being a much more suitable role model for a young lady than any father could hope to be.

I wanted to see mom put that in her pipe and smoke it.

She'd have to give me my laptop back at that point, certain that the lesson had been learned, that I'd seen the error of my ways, and that I had reformed and resolved to be mom's perfect little Catholic girl.

She didn't take the bait.

"What is this?" She asked, reading it on Sunday afternoon, after we had eaten post-Mass turkey sandwiches for lunch. After I'd studiously avoided Father Ben's gaze during Communion, and felt out of the corners of my eye that he had been doing the same.

"You don't agree with my thesis?" I asked.

Mom made a face.

"Is it even a thesis?" She said, looking at me over the laptop. "You point out the lack of a mother figure - fair - but then... that's it. You need to highlight specific examples in the text where the absence of a mother can be felt, where it might have made a difference, where... I don't know, where Lear's masculinity was specifically to blame."

"But they never even mention a mother," I said. "It's like she's just not there."

Mom gave me a look.

"You can do better," she said, passing the laptop back to me. "But it's your life. Do whatever you want."

Whatever?

I was sure she didn't mean that. And when I tried to leave with the computer, she confirmed it, stealing it back from me and guarding it like a dragon guarded its hoard of magic gold.

I handed my paper in as it was, with minimal additional edits, and resigned myself to getting whatever grade I got. In these final months of senior year, it just didn't seem to matter. We were biding time. We were out of here in the fall, off to the bigger and better things that college promised.

The freedom that college promised.

Lacking access to my usual exhibitionist channel, I had had to improvise. The obvious move was to share naughty selfies posted on Reddit burner accounts, first taken in my own bathroom, and then at school that week. The rush was intense, lifting my skirt up and flashing my panties in the 2nd floor bathroom, an ear pointed intently at the door to make sure nobody would interrupt me. I even added a location stamp - Our Lady of the Sacred Heart HS - so that viewers would know I was the real deal. A gen-u-wine Catholic schoolgirl.

Tee hee.

But as much as I liked seeing those little red Reddit alerts pop up on the screen, before I deleted the account and started the process all over again with a new one, it just didn't compare to the live camming experience. And posting thirst traps all day at school just ended up getting me all worked up with no relief available.

I still got home from school before mom got home from work, but do you know what that psycho did? She took my laptop to work with her. Wouldn't even trust me with it locked up somewhere in the house. It was absurd.

As the week went on, I got more daring with the phone. Pictures of me sitting on the toilet with my panties around my ankles, my pussy spread between my fingers. My tits out by the school bathroom sink, out there in the open for anyone to walk in and see, the stalls and my uniform making it obvious just what kind of building I was in. One commenter requested a picture of me on the bathroom floor, legs up, spreading my asshole. I got a LOT of upvotes for that one. Comments, too, talking about how badly they wanted to see more of my hairy, schoolgirl twat and the like. Direct messages asking for my snapchat, my phone number. My OnlyFans. My PayPal. You name it.

But it just wasn't the same. It wasn't the live, in-the-moment feedback that I wanted. The connection to another person. Seeing and being seen all at once. Knowing that my partner was looking at me and only me while he masturbated, as he came. You just couldn't get that level of intimacy on Reddit.

Trying to cope without ChatSpin forced me to look inward, figure out the source of this recent exhibitionist streak. I'd never been a big party girl, or anything. I hadn't had too many boyfriends, thanks to my all-girls schooling and the lack of decent guys in my town. I'd hooked up once or twice at parties. And I'd lost my virginity to a friend of a friend one drunken night. But until I discovered ChatSpin, and the thrill of anonymously flashing men, there was nothing in my history to account for it.

And now I couldn't get enough.

It probably had something to do with the repressed environment. That was the obvious conclusion, anyway. The Catholic school, the nuns, the Confessions, the guilt. Taking my clothes off was easy rebellion. It was a pat answer, but, well, there you had it, probably. I was a cliché. So be it.

Thinking back to replacements, I guessed I could find some guy somehow and facetime him, but it would be hard to do that anonymously. He'd have my phone number. He'd be able to find me.

And I wouldn't be able to just click next and find another guy ready to play with me.

It was no use.

I needed ChatSpin.

I needed the live connection, the anonymity, the purpose-built interface.

And until they came out with a mobile app, well. I was stuck.

At least until I went to Georgetown in the fall. Or mom got over it.

And she wasn't getting over it.

Thursday evening, a few of my friends went to the Oyster Bay Varsity Lacrosse game. Ordinarily, I wouldn't care about something like that, but it was a chance to watch cute boys, maybe give them a glimpse of what was under my skirt while they passed their little balls around. But she still insisted I was grounded. Hadn't even been a week, she said. Get real, she said.

On the bus ride home Friday, when the other girls were talking about their weekend plans, the shows they'd been streaming, I was a million miles away. A week ago, I'd screwed everything up by not being more careful, not paying more attention to mom's movements. And now I was grounded, and without my computer. Without my main release valve.

But I did have one small, tiny glimmer of hope.

A history paper due Monday.

An excuse to get my hands on my computer again. If only for a little while.

I wore another tank top that evening, again without a bra. Mom had taken up her post across the kitchen table, with yet another beach read cracked open for this weekend. We settled into the evening, mom turning pages, and me just tap-tap-tappin' away on the keyboard, a paper on the Industrial Revolution materializing on the page beneath the comforting glow of the white camera light.

Things progressed mostly as they had a week before. I pouted. I moved my arms strategically, playing with angles and shadows to emphasize my boobs. I licked my lips. All for the benefit of my unseen chat partners in the browser hiding behind my word document. I hoped it was good enough for them, that they enjoyed the show even if I were less interactive than I wanted to be.

Less naked than I wanted to be.

I looked down at my chest. A hint of cleavage in the neckline, soft curves if I angled my body just right, particularly if I held the shirt to my stomach and pulled a little. And mom seemed none the wiser, totally engrossed in her book while I subtly showed off my body to persons unknown.

Focusing on the paper again - even if I didn't care, mom was 100% going to ask to read this one, too - I ran into a wall. I needed concrete examples of downsides to the Industrial Revolution. I consulted my textbook, sneakily leaning over the laptop to view it, letting whomever was lucky enough to be on the other side of the camera see directly down my shirt. But in terms of the textbook, I couldn't really find what I'd needed.

I thought back to that scholarly research website I'd referenced for my King Lear essay, but couldn't remember what it was called. I started typing letters into the browser, hoping the autocomplete feature would help, but no such luck. I googled around again but only found paid websites and AI summaries. Then it occurred to me: I could check my browser history. See what I'd been looking at last weekend. It's not like I'd been busy with it since then, it ought to be one of the most recent results. So I loaded up the browser history tab.

What I saw shocked me.

Somebody, it seemed, had been busy.

Every day this past week, around 12pm like clockwork, somebody had been logging on to ChatSpin.

And I was staring bug-eyed right at that somebody across the kitchen table.

I covered my mouth just as soon as I realized it, and looked back down at the screen, willing my eyes to return to their normal shape. I shook my head, and tried to talk myself through this.

So she had been looking at the site. So what? That didn't mean she had been doing what I was doing. She might have just been curious. She might have been trying to convince herself that it was a normal chat site, and not some depraved den of iniquities where people just masturbated on camera for each other. After a week, she'd have been disabused (there's that word again) of that notion.

But then why did she keep going back?

I looked across the table. Like I said before, mom was still pretty. She kept in decent shape - maybe 5 or 10 pounds over ideal, but she's a mom for God's sake, give her a break - and still did her hair and makeup nicely before work every day. She dressed well, age appropriate but still attractive. Slim, dark jeans, a soft cashmere burgundy sweater with a shallow v-neck. Our figures were similar: 5'8, slim builds with modest curves that looked a little fuller on account of our thinner waists.

Mom had the goods. Why not show them off?

But the idea was still too crazy to accept. Mom was your garden variety suburban Catholic. Socially liberal, to hear her tell it, but very conservative in her own life. She never swore, almost never drank, and wasn't the type of lady to go around flaunting herself for men, despite her marital status. She was available, but unavailable. It's just who she was.

She had been focused on me. Work and her daughter and Church and not a whole lot of room for anything else.

Could she have been experimenting with ChatSpin as a form of release?

Like I had been doing?

I had to get to the bottom of this. But short of catching her in the act - impossible, if she was doing it at work, while I was in school - how could I find out?

And then it hit me.

I googled screen recorders, the very same type of software that had always made me so paranoid during my own cam sessions. I wasn't naive. I knew people recorded screens, that my own videos were probably out there on the internet somewhere. It's why I took such pains to hide my whole face, why I refused to use the microphone to avoid potential voice identification. That shit lasts on the internet forever. I didn't want it following me around my whole life, my future boyfriends knowing that I'd gotten naked on camera and masturbated with strange men.

It only took me a few minutes to locate and download something that seemed suitable. The way it worked, as far as I could tell by quickly flipping through the readme. txt file, was that whenever the camera was on, it would record and save a file to a specified directory. It was important that it be automatic - I couldn't exactly expect mom to start the recording herself, could I?

I installed the program and tested it out, pointing it to a new, password-protected folder. Passwords were a no-no in our house, but I had hidden the folder well enough, I thought, that it was unlikely to even come up. A few minutes of typing my essay, white camera light glowing, and then I checked for the file. Sure enough, a temporary file was being recorded to the folder. I turned the camera off and watched as that temporary file resolved into a. mov file, ready for viewing.

And then I viewed it.

My partners at the time were two boys about my age, vaping and cursing me out in the chatbox. Take off your top. Show us your tits. That sort of thing. I had been so busy typing my essay at the time that I hadn't even thought to give my unseen partner(s) a show, but seeing how these two were behaving, I was glad. They didn't deserve it. Besides, the important thing about this video wasn't that it needed to be hot. It just needed to exist.

I deleted it and turned the camera back on, watching yet another temporary file spring to life in the folder.

So that was that, I thought.

It worked.

It passively captured any use of the camera and recorded it for my later viewing pleasure.

If mom was doing anything unladylike on camera. If she were whoring herself out... well, I would know.

I'd like to see her confess that, I thought.

I went back to work on my essay, cognizant of the recording and my partners once more. I did my level best to tease them while I worked, knowing that one day, I might even watch and see how I did.

That next Monday draaaagged.

As soon as our own lunch break started and I shuffled toward the cafeteria with my friends, I knew that it was about the time mom would be logging on to ChatSpin. Or at least she'd done so every day last week. Maybe it had been a fluke, and it wouldn't happen anymore going forward. Maybe she had just been bored and curious. Maybe her boss had been out last week and so she had more flexibility. Well, there was nothing to do but wait and see.

If she logged on, I would know.

And if she had the camera on, I would get to see the whooole thing. The whole enchilada. The whole kit and kaboodle.

And then I'd be able to get my revenge.

The waiting was torture. As I played with my salad, I couldn't get the thought out of my head that at that same moment, mom might be unbuttoning her shirt on camera. She might be showing some dude her 45-year-old tits while I shoveled lettuce into my mouth and listened to my friends talk about their streaming shows.

Would mom have dressed up for the occasion, like I'd been doing? Worn something special? Would she have worn nice lingerie? I'd seen her bras in the laundry over the years. She mostly wore your basic beige old lady undies, but she had some nicer pieces. Some satin. Some silk. Some lace. Would she have bought something new? Would she have cared to give her partners a show?

Or would she have been a hater? One of those ladies who feigned disgust whenever the inevitable dicks showed up on screen? I'd seen the videos. I knew how lots of girls reacted. Was mom like that?

My friends' conversation seemed a million miles away. I could barely participate, laughing a second late, nodding a beat after everyone else did. My mind was elsewhere. My pussy was drenched just thinking about my mom watching men masturbate, maybe with a disgusted look on her face, shaking her head and sneering when they shot their loads for her.

I excused myself and dumped my tray into the trash, trotting off to the bathroom to deal with myself before my next class, sharing a quick video of the experience on another new Reddit account.

When mom's car pulled into the driveway that evening, I nearly bounded out the front door to meet her. I'd invented an English assignment I needed to work on, just so I could get my hands on the laptop. I watched as she walked up the steps, holding her tote back that I knew contained my laptop. I wanted to jump out and j'accuse her right then and there.

But I needed the evidence first.

I needed the smoking gun.

I needed that laptop.

"Hi, mom!"

"Hey, Mel," she said, kicking her heels off and placing her tote by the front door before rubbing her feet a bit. I could see the corner of my MacBook peeking out of the bag. Mom wore a smart charcoal skirt suit, a blue silk blouse and a chunky pearl necklace. Not exactly the kind of thing I'd wear to get the boys going, but maybe we had different approaches. Maybe guys liked the office secretary vibe, especially on an older woman.

I tried to see her through a man's eyes. Like I'd said, mom was good looking. Pretty face. In shape. But was she sexy? Certainly not in that outfit. I tried to picture her in something slinkier, one of her dresses, maybe, or a nice bra and panty set, but I couldn't quite get there. She was just mom, even in my mind's eye.

Certainly I couldn't see her talking dirty to strangers on a chat site, like I'd been doing. Did she even have the vocabulary? I had no trouble picturing her as disgusted by the things she'd see on ChatSpin, though. I'd basically seen it myself that first night.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

I'd been making a face, I realized, and I stopped.

"Sorry!" I said, chippering up. "Was just thinking of this English assignment I need to do tonight. Do you think I could get my laptop, maybe?"

Mom picked up the tote bag and looked inside.

"After dinner," she said, stepping towards the kitchen. "I'm starving."

I was so eager to get through the meal that I followed after her, offering to help. Help became leadership, thanks to my impatience and initiative. I got out the pots and pans, measured out the pasta, set the water to boil. Mom eventually just handed me the apron and sat at the table, reading her book while I rustled up a simple dinner of penne arrabiatta (the sauce was in a jar, I'm not that good) with a mixed garden salad. I even shaved some parmesan over the pasta, like we were at a real Italian restaurant.

"I'd offer you fresh black pepper," I said, sitting down to eat, "but we don't have one of those big grinder things."

Mom chewed and looked at me skeptically.

"Thanks for making dinner," she said, trailing off like there was a "but" coming.

"You're welcome!" I said, cheesing over the plate and not letting her skepticism grind me down. "Least I could do. How was work? Long day?"

"Oh, they're all long," she said. "How was school?"

We traded notes on our days, with mom complaining about how her boss, a commercial real estate investor, was increasingly having her schedule his wife's day, too. Her hair appointments, yoga classes, tennis lessons. Mom was officially the "chief of staff" to this guy, but in reality it seemed like she was basically just his executive assistant. I think she resented it, even though she never complained. She had been a consultant earlier in life, and then quit when I was born to raise me while dad was still making a lot of money.

And then he died.

Mom had given up a lot to raise me, and I could see how over it she was. Work, that was. Not raising me. At least I didn't think she was over raising me, but as we sat there, commiserating like a couple of girlfriends over pasta, I thought that maybe I'd been being a little bit of a brat lately. But then I thought of how she had taken my computer away and had probably been doing the exact thing she was punishing me for, and I got over it. I was grateful for her sacrifices, really. But I was a grown-up, now. And she was treating me like a child. I had to stand up for myself.

Once the dishes were finished, I reminded mom of my computer needs and assumed my spot at the kitchen table, gently rapping my fingers on the imaginary keyboard before me. Mom's arms were crossed, and she looked at me thoughtfully.

"So a new season of my show released on Netflix," she said, nodding towards the living room, acting like I was supposed to remember what show she'd been into. "Now, I don't want you to think you're off the hook yet. Not completely. But maybe I can let you have your computer back."

I was like a deer in the headlights. Was she really just letting everything go back to normal? Just like that?

"But I'm trusting you, here," she said, pointing a finger at me.

"Don't let me down," she continued. "Or Father Ben's going to hear about it."

Upstairs, I closed my door as quietly as I could, and listened for the sound of steps for a moment before tiptoeing across the carpet to my desk. I didn't know why I was acting so weird. Mom knew I was up here. She gave me permission.

Maybe it's because I was about to betray her trust in more ways than one.

I booted up the computer and navigated to the hidden video folder. Sure enough, there it was. A massive. mov file created earlier that afternoon. I plugged in some wired headphones and put one into my left ear, keeping the right ear open. I wasn't going to get caught slipping again.

Not when it was going to be mom herself on the screen.

My palms felt sweaty and my heart was beating real fast. It was finally sinking in that I was about to cross a real boundary. Making the recording was one thing. I could still delete it, ignore it forever. Watching it could potentially change everything. I mean, if it contained what I thought it contained. What I feared it contained.

And what was that, exactly? Well, mom doing what I had been doing, I guess. Showing herself online. Showing her body. Her breasts. Her... I couldn't even bring myself to think it.

Was I sure I wanted to see this?

Maybe I could help her, I thought. Yeah. That was it. If she was doing stuff like that... maybe she needed some help coming out of her shell? Some daughterly guidance? I would technically be a more experienced hand at this point, right?

With that flimsy argument grasping on for dear, desperate life in my imagination, I slowly exhaled, and double clicked the file.

The video began with mom in her office, set opposite a screen with the ChatSpin logo spinning around, looking for a partner. I watched as she adjusted her posture and facial expression, looking intently at her side of the screen, softening her face. Trying to look pretty, I thought. Her jacket was hung on her door several feet behind her, and her blouse was no more or less buttoned than it was when she'd left for the day or gotten back home. Soon, the wheel stopped and an image popped up on the left side of the screen: a naked man stroking his semi-hard cock, reaching out for the keyboard to type a message, his flabby stomach folding as he leaned. Mom scowled, but she watched for a beat as the chatbox indicated her partner was typing a message. It felt surreal to see my mom watching this. Had she really been doing this all week? And still coming back for more?!

The chatbox pinged.

"PARTNER: Sexy," it said.

Mom clicked NEXT and the colorful wheel spun again. Mom's scowl remained. Another partner appeared, a younger guy, 20s, a wolfish young face with a fresh haircut, crisp white tee and a varsity jacket.

"Hey," he said, stretching and expanding his chest.

"Hello," mom responded, her scowl softening.

He flashed a cheesy smile, leaving his lips split and his teeth set apart, tongue exploring the lower corners of one cheek. I knew the type. The handsome athlete, God's gift to women. He was cute, I can't lie, but he knew it, too. And that made it unbearable.

"Can I ask you a question?" he asked, his voice dripping with cocky smarm.

"Go right ahead, young man," mom said.

He liked that, laughing quietly.

"So, I've always had kind of a thing for older women," he said. "But I don't know how to get an older woman interested in me. Any tips?"

Mom leaned back and crossed her arms. I thought I could just make out the shape of her padded bra, and my blood froze. This was it, I thought. She was really going to do it.

"Hmmm," she began, although I could tell by her tone she was just playing with the guy. "Are you a good listener?"

"Fantastic listener."

I felt like I was going to be sick, but I couldn't look away. I had to see it. I had to see if mom was really going to strip for this guy, this guy who couldn't have been much older than me, who was probably already stroking himself off, getting hard for her.

Getting hard for my mom.

"Then listen to this," she said, leaning forward. "Older women aren't interested in cocky little boys."

She clicked NEXT.

I realized I was at the edge of my seat, and shuffled back.

I didn't get it. Sure, that guy was obviously a prick, but he was gorgeous. And he was clearly into mom! What was she looking for if not that? She had him right where she wanted him. He would have done anything. Said anything. Given her anything she wanted. But she insulted him and then just bounced?

What was she after, here?

And then I saw.

Then I knew.

Her next partner was an older guy, about 50s or even 60s, maybe. Not attractive, it had to be said. A little overweight, man boobs visible through his pale blue polo, a pudgy face with big pores. He wore an unfortunate pair of glasses and tilted his head back like he was about to sneeze, but looked squarely at the screen once, I assumed, he saw mom.

"Well hello there, young lady," he said, smiling affably, an unseen light shining on one side of his face.

Mom smiled back, her teeth bright white against her dark red lipstick.

"Hello yourself, young man," she responded.

"Oh, I haven't been a young man for many young men's lifetimes, I'm afraid. But it's very nice of you to say that! You know, I just got this webcam the other day. My son got it for me. I hurt my leg, so I need to work remotely for a little while, and he got me this webcam so I can be on video calls and the like. But, you know, it's just me here for the most part and I figured, what the heck? I'll try these video chat sites I've been reading about. And I have to say... there's a lot of penises out there!"

Mom laughed. A genuine, hearty laugh.

"You know," he continued. "My son tells me how hard it is to get a date out there, and now I think I understand. It's hell out there for women."

"Always has been," mom said.

"I see that, now."

"So your son got you the camera?" Mom asked. "That was thoughtful. How old is he?"

"He's... 26, now," he said, appearing to do some mental math. "And yeah, he's a good egg. Mostly his late mother's doing. I tried to help along the way, you know, but she deserves the credit. You have kids?"

"A daughter," mom said.

I felt frozen. Even potentially seeing mom stripping on camera, on a secretly recorded video, didn't feel like as much of a transgression as this now did.

"Sons are a lot easier than daughters, I'm told," he said.

"I believe it," mom replied. "She's 18. So, you know. You're ahead of me; you've been through it. Knows everything. Can't wait to get out of the house. Won't listen to her mom."

The man nodded thoughtfully, appraisingly.

"Sound like someone you once knew?"

Mom laughed.

"You know, it's a different world, now. She has tools and technology I never did at her age. She's just... aware of things in a way that I wasn't. Not at 18. And I've tried, I really have, to be mindful of that when raising her. I've tried to give her the tools and the independence and the confidence to survive in a world that comes for women. That makes women think they have nothing more to offer than their looks, their bodies. And she's a pretty girl..."

"Naturally," he said.

"And I don't want her to think that's all she has to offer the world. I've tried to raise her with the right values, made sacrifices to put her in good schools. And I just... you know, she's going off to college in the fall, and I worry I just... haven't done enough."

Tears began to threaten my eyelids. My stomach was in knots.

"It's never enough," he said. "It'll never be enough. You try and try to raise them right, teach them not to make all the same mistakes you did. But you can never get it right. They've got to figure it all out for themselves. All you can do sometimes is let go and let God. That's what my Denise always said."

So he was all alone, too. And that's when it clicked for me. What she'd been looking for when she'd been logging on to ChatSpin this past week. What she'd been doing.

Chatting.

"How long has it been?" Mom asked.

"Two years," he said. "Breast cancer. Every day, I miss her again like it's the first day all over again."

Mom nodded, her face sympathetic.

"Ten years here," she said. "My husband."

"Well now you're ahead of me," he said. "Any advice for a rookie widower?"

Mom shrugged.

"Let go and let God?"

A minute after deleting the video and the recording software, I jumped on the couch and hugged my mom like it was the last time I was gonna be able to do it. She asked what had brought this about, squirming away from me like a solitary cat, but I just hugged her tighter.

She didn't need to know what I knew.

What I'd seen.

What I'd heard.

She probably assumed I'd figure it all out eventually, in the fullness of time.

When I had a daughter of my own.

I can't pretend I never went back on ChatSpin, never teased men again, never made them stroke their cocks and spray their loads while I watched. I did. God help me, but I did.

Like I told you, I was incorrigible.

I just kept my clothes on when I did it. Like a good Catholic girl. Like a girl who had more to offer the world than just her body.

Turned out, most men didn't really care. They still came for me. They still did whatever I wanted. It didn't take nearly the amount of effort that I'd once put into it.

But mom had sacrificed her own happiness to be there for me, to put me through an expensive parochial school, to save up for Georgetown. She had done everything for me. Tried hard to raise me right. Tried hard to raise a good, Catholic girl.

And I owed it to her to at least pretend.

The clock had been promising to strike 3 p. m. for what felt like an hour. The last class of the day before the weekend always took forever, and this had been no exception. Professor Lightyear's Psych 101 had been like that, so far.

And with my roommate only occupied in a class of her own until 4 p. m., every second counted.

When the prof finally dismissed us (it was still a change, getting used to no bells ringing to signal the end of class), I packed my books and laptop in my leather messenger bag and booked it toward 35th Street. I was still getting used to this place. The streets. The buildings. The trees. The leaves hadn't started changing colors yet this far south, the way I knew they already would be back on Long Island. Something to look forward to, I thought, as I rounded Reservoir Road and sighted my dorm building.

Kelly was out, as expected, and I took the opportunity to do a quick spot check before logging on. Skin looked good, dewy and clear. Lips looked a little dry, so I smeared them with some cherry ChapStick. Hair looked good, my dark brown locks brushed straight back and held in place with a black velvet headband. Clean denim shirt, gold cross just visible beneath the collar. I looked good.

No. I looked great.

I flipped the laptop open and assumed the position, tossing my hair off my shoulders as I waited for my partner to show up. The circle spun for just a second long enough to feel painful, but soon a face appeared opposite mine on the screen.

I smiled. Waved.

"Hi mom."