Bad Penny (20 page)

I was pretty sure I knew the answers to where and when. The film had been taken in a cubicle and really the only cubicles I ever visit are those in the department loos, specifically those reserved for female members of staff. When I had gone for a pee earlier, the loo paper had been white and recyclable, as it usually was. Blue paper was unusual, but I could vaguely remember some perhaps a month before.

How, was a trickier question, and one that particularly fascinated me. Cameras can be pretty small, but I was sure I'd have noticed one in a lavatory bowl. Besides, it was hard to see why it wouldn't be damaged by water when the loo was flushed. Fortunately, there was one way to satisfy my curiosity, assuming that the camera hadn't been removed.

As I walked down the corridor towards the relevant loo, my mind started to calm down and consider things more rationally. My initial intention had been to find how it had been done and pinch the camera. Unfortunately, if I did that, whoever was responsible would guess that they had been discovered and go to ground. Instead, I would have to investigate but do nothing that would reveal my knowledge. The loos were on the floor below, a small washroom with only two cubicles. I entered one at random, acutely aware that I might once more be presenting my bare bottom to the world. Having had the coffee I managed to pee and, as I stood up, glanced into the bowl.

Nothing seemed unusual, but the location of the camera was obvious, and very clever. Nobody, but nobody investigates the little soap cages in a public loo, and that, of course, was where the camera was hidden. Of course, I couldn't study it in detail for fear of giving myself away, but I had no doubt of my deduction. The camera was probably hidden in a waterproof casing of some kind, which had then been painted that peculiarly intense blue which toilet soap always seems to be. It was presumably activated remotely and the images captured on computer.

Given that such a small object had to have a limited broadcast range, I could be sure that the pick-up was in the department building, which narrowed my search considerably. Other than myself, there was only a handful of people who used the toilet. I felt I could safely eliminate all my female colleagues, none of whom I could conceive of doing such a thing. There were only three female graduates, and two were intense, fiercely intellectual young women who could safely be eliminated. The third was Wendy Smith, a bright, cheerful girl who I was supervising myself. We got on well and, while there was certainly something mischievous about her, I couldn't really imagine her wanting to post an AVI of me peeing on the Internet.

That left people who weren't supposed to be in the loo, and it seemed pretty certain that it would be a male student, probably a third-year. Third-years had their own benches, powerful computers and access to all the equipment they'd need. They were also a pretty rowdy bunch and I could easily see them finding the idea of filming their female lecturers in embarrassing situations absolutely hilarious.

I left the loo with my suspicions narrowed down to about six people. Back at my flat, I put the AVI on to my hard disk. I knew that if I tried to ignore it, I wouldn't be able to get to sleep properly. I would just end up getting up in the early hours and playing it while I masturbated, so it seemed sensible to give in to the inevitable earlier rather than later. I put the AVI on repeated play and spread myself naked in my armchair, my fingers going to my pussy as I watched the image of myself peeing into the toilet bowl and felt the humiliation of knowing that the image in front of me was available to anybody with the technology to get at it. By the time I came, I had one finger in my bottom-hole and was wishing I'd done the same when I was caught on film.

It had been a long time since I felt guilty and ashamed of myself after masturbating, but that time I did, and I went to bed plotting revenge.

Not that revenge was easy. I had thought that tracking the culprit down would be simple. As a lecturer I had access to all the student computers, and it should simply have been a question of searching hard disks until I discovered some tell-tale trace that linked the user to the camera in the loo. There was nothing. One or two had bookmarked pornographic sites, but these were just collections of girls in rude poses and gave no hint of more debauched activity. Finally, I had to conclude that the students were either innocent or very, very careful.

Having drawn a blank, I decided to investigate from the other direction. Accessing the ‘Peeping' website at home, I once more found the page inviting surfers to watch me pee and then moved up to the main page.

Half an hour later, I was sitting there with my fly undone and my hand down my panties. The owner of the site was a compulsive voyeur and a complete pervert. Everything he presented was dedicated to catching girls in awkward and compromising poses. There was a photo-gallery of girls sunbathing topless and nude; another of girls accidentally showing their panties; a third of girls undressing, seen through bedroom windows. Most of these appeared to have been collected from around the world, but not so the hidden camera movies. There were three of these, all showing girls peeing in detail that left nothing at all to the imagination. There was the one of me, another of Wendy and a third of one of the female first-years who shouldn't really have been using that loo.

I didn't approve, but I couldn't help being turned on. The photos had had me massaging my pussy through my jeans; the AVI of Wendy prompted me to unzip and slip my hand down my panties and, when I got to the one of the undergraduate, I couldn't resist wriggling my trousers and panties down and masturbating over the sight of the pee gushing from her neat little pussy.

After coming, I sat down to try and derive some useful information from the site. Whoever had planted the camera was obviously at the university, and some of the still pictures also showed local scenes. These intrigued me, as several of them had been taken from the same place and were remarkable in that the photographer had been very close to the girls and yet they had obviously had no idea of his presence. They had all been taken from a low angle, two showing views up girls' skirts, and a third a girl bending to tie her trainers in such a way that her knickers showed. My first thought was that he must have used a video camera concealed in a bag, but the angle just wasn't right. Finally, I decided that the pictures must have been taken through a small window at pavement level, or perhaps a ventilator.

In the background of all three was the upper part of a war memorial which I recognised, along with the upper stories of several buildings that also seemed familiar. Then I realised where the place was: Hulme Green, a shopping area at the junction of three roads to the south of the city. The area was well away from the university, but in a suburb that was one of the main student accommodation areas. I smiled as I sat back, now pretty sure that I would be able to work out who the Peeping Tom was.

Investigation of Hulme Green that weekend quickly bore out my theory. The photos had been taken from a broken ventilator at pavement level. Unfortunately the ventilator opened out from a semi-subterranean public lavatory, for men. This was hardly the sort of place I could hang around, let alone go into, so I bought a coffee at a nearby café and sat down to watch and think.

As I observed men's comings and goings, it quickly became apparent to me that the Hulme Green Gents was more that just a public convenience. For a start, the same men kept coming back with a frequency that suggested that either they drank by the gallon or that they had some ulterior motive. I have met enough completely open gay men to know what was going on; the place was clearly what is called a ‘cottage'. The men I was watching, or at least some of them, were visiting the toilets for sex, an idea that was somehow pleasantly rude although it was sex of a type that in no way involved me.

The whole thing was becoming great fun, with the thrill of the chase blending with an erotic
frisson
and just a hint of danger. As I sat and watched, a plan started to take form in my head. By the time I had finished my second coffee, it was fully formed and, while it relied on one or two assumptions, it was also pretty well risk-free and easy enough to put into effect.

The first assumption was that the Peeping Tom was proud of what he did and wanted to share his dirty secret with others. The fact that he had posted the pictures on the Net rather proved this. The second assumption was that he'd use the place again. As I would have heard if anyone connected with the department had been arrested as a Peeping Tom, it seemed reasonable to think that he had got away with it and would be back.

It wasn't practical to stake the place out, and I had better things to do anyway, yet it struck me that if I left a message on the wall suggesting a meeting then the culprit was likely to respond. I would have to bait my hook by offering to swap pictures or something; but, once done, I could simply observe the suggested meeting place and see who came. Then I'd know who it was and could concoct a suitable revenge at leisure.

The problem was getting into the gents. Hulme Green was pretty busy and I didn't have the guts to simply stroll in, especially when there was a perfectly good ladies right beside the gents. On the other hand I am slight, short-haired and fresh-faced and was sure that, with a bit of effort, I could pass as a boy.

When I came back the next day I was armed with a black marker pen and full of a deliciously illicit thrill. After a bit of trial and error, I had managed to make myself up to look like a very effeminate fourteen-year-old boy. It wasn't the world's best disguise, but a brief test run proved that it was good enough.

Going out as a boy produced all sorts of strange feelings. For a start, I felt as if I was in a completely different world, partly because I was pretending to be something I wasn't and partly because of people's reactions. I'd read works by feminists that described going out disguised as men. The main comment had been that one is no longer looked at primarily in terms of the sexual characteristics of one's body. I found this to be true, but oddly disconcerting rather than a relief. I also found myself disagreeing with them that one gets more respect as a man. I certainly didn't, or at least not as my adolescent male alter ego. Attitudes towards me ranged from total indifference, through wariness, to a sort of carefully judged aggression, as if determined to make me accept a lower place in some imaginary pecking order. Fortunately, total indifference was by far the commonest of these and I reached Hulme Green without incident.

Being Sunday, there were fewer people about, yet going down into the gents still required a fair bit of courage. I sat on a bench eating a sandwich and watching men go in and out, screwing up my courage until I was sure that nobody else was using the loos. Twice I delayed, on some imagined pretext, but once the sandwich was finished I had no further excuse for loitering. Rising to my feet with a good-sized knot of tension in my stomach, I began to walk towards the iron gate that was the physical aspect of one of society's strongest taboos.

I swallowed as I crossed the imaginary barrier and descended the steps towards a right-angled opening that looked black and ominous. If I felt like Orpheus descending into the underworld, then it's probably mainly my overactive imagination, yet what I was doing was something perhaps more socially unacceptable than going naked in public.

As I pushed the door open, the first thing I noticed was the smell: scarcely pleasant, but intensely male. Inside were several sinks, a long porcelain trough and a row of cubicles. The function of the trough was obvious, yet its very unfamiliarity served to strengthen my feeling of being out of place.

One glance told me that the broken ventilator had to belong to the end cubicle, and a dozen quick steps took me to it. As I slid the heavy iron bolt home on the door, I once more felt secure, although in the very heart of the lion's den. Looking up, I could see the ventilator, a torn plate revealing a tiny patch of sky outside. As a peep-hole, it was ideal. Looking around, one thing that really struck me was the graffiti. The walls were covered in it: comments on football teams, boasts of sexual prowess or conquests, supposed phone numbers of willing girls, but, most of all, offers to meet for homosexual sex. The number and the urgent tone of these surprised me, suggesting a vigour to the local gay scene that I had never suspected. Further proof of this was given by a hole in the wall, the height of which made its purpose very obvious. It had been hacked through the metal wall, a fact which seemed to me to demonstrate an absolutely brutish lust for sex. The thought of meeting the man prepared to tear through a metal wall to get what he wanted both scared me and turned me on, although logically I knew that, as a girl, he probably wouldn't want me at all. Above the hole someone had written the words ‘Glory Hole', making it even more obvious what it was used for.

The place had a dangerously sexual atmosphere to it, which was beginning to get to me. So were some of the comments on the wall, and I decided to make the most of what would probably be my only opportunity to read them. The one that had caught my eye was a claim that ‘Sally from the chippy' gave blow jobs for five pounds. As two other men endorsed the remark, it seemed to me quite likely that she really did, and the idea of this girl having her cock-sucking ability advertised in a public lavatory affected me strongly. The very dirtiness of the idea was really exciting, and I found myself fantasising that, if I put an exhortation of my own abilities down, I'd get a line of dirty old men coming round to my flat to have their cocks sucked. They'd pay me five pounds for it, or maybe four, as I ought to undercut Sally to really show what a little slut I was.

Another piece described buggering a girl in one of the local parks. The man claimed to have had her kneeling with skirt up and her tights and panties pulled down. He had pulled her top up so that he could feel her boobs, greased his cock with Vaseline and put it up her bum when she thought she was going to be fucked. Apparently, she had struggled but quickly started to enjoy it and had let him come up her bottom. I doubted it was true, yet I'd had something not dissimilar done to me, and so perhaps it was. In any case, the very idea made me shiver and had me imagining men standing exactly where I was and masturbating over the dirty little story.