Cami Delmore had never looked more beautiful. Chocolate
brown hair, strawberry red lips, icy blue eyes, and a body deserving of the
many bikinis she wore in these modeling photos. Owen Finley sat in front of his
computer clicking through these photos while having a wide-awake wet dream.
Something about this felt so wrong, yet it was so right. This was the perfect
way to wake up in the morning. Every day, pictures of Cami making his life so
wonderful. And then…
“Owen!” shouted a feminine voice from the bedroom doorway.
The teenager turned around and covered himself up with his hands while his
stepmother stared him down with a look of shock and seriousness. “Breakfast is
on the table. It’s oatmeal and honey. Come on down before it gets cold,” said
Cami before shutting the bedroom door.
“Come on down? Is she kidding me?” panicked Owen as his
arousal went flat. He scrambled as fast as he could to find clothing for the
day. Black jeans? Check. A Green Day T-shirt? Check. Sneakers? Check. He never
dressed himself so quickly in his lifetime. Was there time to eat the honey
oatmeal? “Fuck the oatmeal, I’m out of here!” he said to himself.
He grabbed his backpack and bolted toward the door, but
stopped midway knowing Cami’s judging eyes would be zeroed in on him throughout
the morning. His hand trembled on the doorknob at the thought of being
scrutinized by her. He’d probably never get an erection again, nor would he
want one. Maybe his balls would be cut off with an olive fork. Maybe his dick
would be broken with a meat tenderizer. Maybe his face would be slashed open
with a butcher knife.
“Oh god, oh god, oh god…” Owen murmured while trying to
think of a better escape route. Of course! The window! He snapped his fingers
at the idea and made a beeline for the fresh air outside. He didn’t care if it
was a tall drop to the outside; he jumped anyways. A sore ankle was better than
being castrated by his own stepmother and it was the former he got. He hobbled
and limped towards the bus stop looking like hell.
The whole school day was nothing but a numbed out blur. Math
homework? What math homework? Gym class? Who needs that? US
By the time the school bus dropped him back off at his
house, Owen took his sweet time getting to the front door. The front door? He
couldn’t go there. Cami was probably waiting for him with a pair of surgical
scissors. These thoughts brought a weakness to his stomach and jitteriness to
his legs. Where was the goddamn ladder when he needed it? He snapped his
fingers once again as he remembered it was in the tool shed.
He heaved the clumsy metal object towards his bedroom window
and became winded after the anaerobic exercise for the day. Owen’s heavy
breathing was for more reasons than that. He tried so hard to calm his stomach
down and shake the feeling back in his rolled ankle. By the time he actually
started climbing, the ankle pain flared up like a burning building, almost to
where he fell off several times. He hurried as fast as he could up the metal
device and successfully made it through the window.
Owen’s energy was completely sapped from his body and all he
wanted to do was lie in bed and sleep it off. If he never woke up again, it
would mean never having to talk to Cami. Mission
“We need to talk,” was the quote the snapped him awake. Sure
enough, Cami was standing right there in his doorway with her arms folded and
her face emboldened. Now Owen really started to sweat. His eyebrows shot up to
the ceiling while his eyeballs moistened and trembled. This was it. He was a
dead man. He crawled backwards toward the window only to have Cami yell, “Hey!”
at him several times and drag him back inside by his ankles.
“Let me go, damn it! Let me the fuck go!” shouted Owen, but
nobody could hear him and he wasn’t going anywhere with Cami pinning his legs
together on the bed. He tried screaming some more. “I’m sorry! I’m fucking
sorry! Now please let me go!” It was no use. Cami held her hand over Owen’s
mouth and the only other screams that came were capital M’s. He could thrash
around all he wanted, but there was no escape from what he perceived to be a
trip to the gallows. Owen couldn’t help but let a few soggy tears out.
And then Cami’s demeanor changed when she removed her hand
from Owen’s mouth and instead petted his puffy black hair. She whispered, “It’s
okay” to him over and over again until the stepson stopped shaking. His tears
wouldn’t stop coming, but he was at least calm enough to sit on the bed and
have a real conversation with the new family member he masturbated to this
morning. He couldn’t even look her in the eyes. He kept his head down and
allowed his tears to stain his jeans.
“Owen? Look at me,” she said, finally getting his
semi-relaxed attention. “I’m not mad at you.”
“You’re not?”
“Not at all. I was more worried about you than I was angry.
You left this morning without eating your breakfast. Come here,” she said while
hugging her crying stepson around the shoulders. “You don’t need to be afraid
to talk to me. I may not have given birth to you myself, but I’m still your
mother. Nothing will ever change that, do you understand?”
Owen wiped the tears away with his wrist and sobbed, “Yeah,
I guess so.”
“Look, I know you don’t take kindly to being embarrassed and
that’s okay. You’re a sensitive guy and I respect that. But we need to talk
about what happened this morning. I saw what you did and I saw who you were
doing it to. Can we please just talk about this and not avoid each other
anymore?”
Snorting snot up his nose, Owen said, “Fine. Let’s talk.”
Cami hugged her stepson some more and rocked him back and
forth while she talked. “There’s nothing wrong with masturbating, Owen. It’s
perfectly normal. Everybody does it whether they like to admit it or not. I bet
there’re some preachers in our neighborhood who do it too even though they
don’t say anything. I’m sorry I walked in on you like that. I’ll knock next
time, okay?”
She kissed him on top of his head and rocked him some more.
“But here’s the part I want you to understand. You and I can never be together
that way. You know that, right? It would tear our family apart. Your dad would
divorce me and he’d never forgive either of us. On top of that, you’re only
fourteen years old, Owen. You’re way too young to have sex, let alone with
someone my age. I’ll still be your mother and you’ll still be my son. Nothing
more, nothing less.”
Owen’s cheeks burned a bright red as he whispered, “I’m
sorry, Cami. I really am. I feel stupid right now…”
“Hey,” said Cami while pointing her stepsons chin up with
her delicate fingers. “You’re not stupid. I don’t ever want to hear you say
that again. You’re a teenager. This is what teenagers do. You’re just figuring
out the world around you. And that’s okay. Besides, it’s not my place to tell
you what you can and can’t fantasize about.” She pointed at his head and said,
“What goes in on here is nobody else’s business but your own. Your mind is the
last sanctuary you have.”
Owen’s jaw stopped convulsing and he could actually get
words out this time. “I don’t know, Cami. I’m taking this sex ed class, right?
And I don’t even want to ask anything in front of everybody because they’re a
bunch of giggly assholes. Besides, the teacher won’t stop talking about
abstinence and STD’s and shit. Yeah, like that’s going to do a lot of good. I’m
already fucked up as it is!” Owen’s last sentence was punctuated by him kicking
his own backpack and Cami holding him even tighter to calm him down.
“Sounds to me like you’re not getting a real education out
of that class. I want you to listen to me, Owen. Forget everything that teacher
taught you. There’s more to sex than just getting green stuff on your penis.
There’s more to romance than waiting until you’re married. That’s all bullshit
and it doesn’t work. If you see a girl at school that you like, don’t be afraid
to introduce yourself to her. Treat her like an equal and she’ll treat you the
same way. I should probably have a talk with the principal at your school.”
“No, Cami, you can’t do that! If the rest of the school
finds out you…”
Cami shushed her stepson three times and petted his hair
some more. “Nobody else has to know that I talked with him. It’ll just be a one
on one conversation. They shouldn’t be teaching that abstinence crap anyways.
It’s not realistic. There’s a lot they’re not talking about that they should.
Do you even know how to use a condom?”
Owen shook his head and Cami sighed in disgust. “Yeah,” she
said. “I should definitely have a talk with that principal. In the meantime,
you’ve got homework to do. I’ll leave you alone and let you do that. And
remember, if you have any questions that you don’t want to share in front of
the class, you can share them with me. Okay? I love you.” She kissed him on the
head again and proceeded towards the bedroom door. “Good talk tonight, son.
Let’s do it again sometime.”
“Uh, Cami?”
“Yes?”
“C….could you not tell dad about what happened this
morning?”
Cami smiled and made a lip-zipping motion to solidify her
silence. She then waved at him and closed the bedroom door behind her. Owen
plopped backwards on his bed and breathed heavy sighs of relief. Embarrassment
still clung to him tightly and the tears still hadn’t dried up. But at least
now he knew what he needed to do. He slowly picked his exhausted body off the
bed and proceeded to delete all of Cami’s pictures from his computer. “I need
this family. I love her too much for this bullshit,” Owen said to himself.
