The Girl On The Cam

Chapter-10

"Oh my baby, Amber." I wake up to my mother covering my face with my spit-kisses.

"Oh hey mom. You're home." I yawn and my mom chooses this exact moment to try and squeeze the air out of me.

"I missed you so much, baby." She says in her voice which would've been soothing if I didn't know what she was upto.

See that's what my mother does when there is something she wants me to do. She'll all smother me with kisses and hugs and sweet words and try to manipulate me into thinking that whatever she's saying actually makes sense.

It was Cassie's job before she went to college and I became my mom's next target.

"I made us some pancakes. Your favorite" She chimes in that sweet voice of hers that I wished would read me bedtime stories as a kid but all I got was 'You're a big girl, Amber'.

And for the record, pancakes are not my favorite breakfast.

A crime.

"Oooooh when did you get this? A new boy?" Mom picks up the lingerie from last night that was thrown carelessly on the floor (because I'm that person) and holds it up as if it was some sort of trophy.

This is already weird. How am I supposed to tolerate them for ONE WHOLE WEEK before they have some other important business trip to attend to?

Notice the invisible air quotes on important.

"No mother. Sometimes I buy things for my own satisfaction. " I want to scoff so badly but that would just lead to my mother scolding me about what manners have I learnt at the best "private school" they sent me to.

Sometimes I want to tell her that she shouldn't have. That atleast students in public school wouldn't have been so snobby and over-privileged.

But that's a battle I am unwilling to fight.

Sighing, I get up from my bed and walk downstairs with my mom where I find my dad in the kitchen, reading some business magazine on his ipad.

Whatever happened to print media. Don't you just love the smell of freshly printed paper? Flipping through glossy pages of a magazine?

Do you want me to get you tickets for the 19th century?

Hey, not fair! There's actually people who still enjoy reading from a physical copy rather than a digital version.

"Good morning, Dad." I kiss my father's cheek and he half-smiles at me in return.

How warm.

"How have you been, Amber?" He asks, removing his reading glasses.

"Good."

My parents start having some whisper-discussion after my mom passes me a plate of pancakes with chocolate syrup. It appears pretty heated.

Why can't they ever have these fights in their own room and preferably not over breakfast?

"Oh please, Richard. Amber is a big girl. She doesn't mind such things."

Mom snickers at whatever dad said and they go back to their discussions while I stuff my face with pancakes and tune out their hushed voices.

My eyes wander to the small painting in the kitchen which I made when I was five and got it framed for my mother as a mother's day gift. It is a drawing of a small girl with 2 pigtails and her mother and I've written "For my Mommy" under that.

Mommy, huh?

Oh God, no.

After sexting with this guy last night, I don't think I'm capable of ever saying or hearing that word without associating it with images of men on their knees and dicks tied by rope.