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“But I’m nearly nineteen.” And he must have said it as many times.
Marcia O’Doole considered rising from her perch on the edge of Tyler’s low bed frame. It was hardly a position of authority. He was seated higher on a swivel chair in front of his laptop. She told herself that confronting him at the scene of the crime was the best approach, but it felt as if she was kowtowing to him, and she acknowledged that that was what she usually did. Not on this occasion, though. “What else would I have found if I’d looked in some of your other files?”
“I can’t believe you went snooping.” He’d alternated between the two statements for the last five minutes and hadn’t shifted his pout from the screen.
Marcia looked at his downy fair stubble and the acne peppering the lower half of his face. His ears glowed like they always did when he was embarrassed, jutting crimson from underneath the blue camouflage bandana that covered the remainder of his yellow curls. Her hair had been the same shade at his age, but at forty-seven, she’d long given up on calling her silver hair platinum blonde. “I understand you’re at an age when you like looking at that sort of thing...” She regretted it before the words had formed on her lips.
“Mom.” Tyler said in exasperation, and visibly squirmed.
“These aren’t just naked ladies, though.” She tried to jettison her awkwardness by recalling the material she’d discovered. “Why would you want to see women doing those sorts of things?” Her mortification started to surface. She had to remember that, despite his height, he was still just an impressionable kid. She was sure his online gamer buddy, Howie Judd, was responsible. His parents had never exerted any control over the movies he watched or the violent virtual games he played, so she was sure his files had to be brimming with the sort of clips she’d found in her son’s. She hoped that was the case. Peer pressure and morbid curiosity, it had to be.
“It’s an invasion of privacy,” he countered petulantly.
She wondered exactly who he was quoting. “How can it be an invasion of privacy when the computer belongs to me?” She’d had that one prepared, although she knew it wasn’t her best tack. But it was one of only two she had. The second was just coming and she already hated herself for playing it. “And if you’re going to spend your allowance on paying lawyers to sue me for that, perhaps I should suspend that as well.”
He folded his arms across his chest. “Can’t believe you went snooping” was all he could muster.
This was Ted’s job. But Tyler’s father had fled and probably had worse on his computer. Although she did wonder if there was anything more degrading than the acts she’d glimpsed in her son’s secret archive. “I’m going to put a parental lock on it.”
“I’m nearly nineteen,” he enunciated as if she were deaf.
“But your brother isn’t. I hope you haven’t exposed him to any of this.”
He didn’t answer, which meant he had.
She sighed. Marcia knew she was shutting the barn door after the horse had bolted but hated to think of those images being downloaded into their home. “I’m so disappointed in you.” He was just a teenager. It was the equivalent of kids pulling the legs off spiders, an unwholesome compulsion that had to be curbed. “Don’t you think the girls in those photos have moms and dads?”
He turned and looked at her as if it were a stupid question. “They have more than I have, then,” he deflected.
Marcia ignored the retort. “How d’you think they’d feel if they saw their sons or daughters doing those things?”
“But they’re porn stars. They’re paid thousands of dollars.”
“Thousands of dollars? Come on. A lot of them regret doing those things when they’re older. If you were doing them...”
He smirked slyly then, and Marcia didn’t like it.
“If you did those things because you needed the money and then regretted it, how would you feel if thousands of people were still looking at you degrading yourself years later?”
“But I won’t ever do those ‘things,”’ he said with a contempt she liked even less.
“I certainly hope not, but I don’t want you to forget that those are real people who probably aren’t as fortunate as you.”
“People upload it all the time... besides, porn stars have cool cribs and swimming pools.”
He was right. This wasn’t a good argument. Porn had become aspirational. Why would a teenager think that it was anything but cool? It was glamorous, hinged on the one thing that possessed every kid’s thoughts and offered cash for no talent. What was not to like? But that’s because they bought the glossy packaging and not its squalid flipside. “Don’t ever download anything that could get you into trouble...”
“Of course I won’t. I’m not stupid.” He just sounded exasperated now.
What did she expect – contrition? “Look, I really don’t want to stop you from looking at sexy girls – or boys, if that’s what you like.”
“Mom.” He squeezed his eyelids shut as if he could hide from the humiliation there. “I’m not thirteen.”
“Just get rid of the extreme stuff. I’ll trust you to do this for me.”
“And what do you class as extreme, Mom?” He was mocking her now. Probably for the benefit of his fifteen year-old brother, Kevin, they both knew was listening at the door. “Bukkake?”
“Facials are for health spas, Tyler.”
He opened his eyes, obviously shocked that she knew what he was talking about. “So download as many bikini girls as you can this afternoon, because they’ll have to sustain you until you’re...”
“Twenty-one?” There was his trump card. Nobody knew if he would ever make it there.
Marcia couldn’t let him use it against her. Not in this argument. She had to be a parent, not a bereaved parent in waiting. “As of this evening, I’m locking you down.”
She got up from the bed and walked to the door. She could hear Kevin’s footsteps along the landing before she reached the handle.
“I’m nearly nineteen...” Tyler said, but without as much ebullience.
Marcia walked out of his room without another word, locked herself in the bathroom and silently squeezed a tear. Her sons weren’t the only ones who had furtive moments behind closed doors.
