Ruby has just learned how little control Mia has over herself when she’s horny, especially when she’s being touched. So she decides to test it. Partly because she’s amusing herself, partly because she’s having fun with Mia, and partly because she suspects Mia’s self-control might be something they can develop over time.

This outtake is only for you, Patrons and paid Substack subs. You guys da real MVPs and you can expect more exclusives to come💚

~~~

“You have no idea,” Ruby said. “Come here. I want to try something and you’re going to hate it.”

“What?”

“Come here.”

Mia came. Ruby got her onto her back and worked down her body, and when she settled between Mia’s legs she stopped and looked up the length of her.

“Rules,” Ruby said. “You keep talking.”

“About what?”

“Anything. Groceries. What you’d buy right now if you walked into a store.”

“That’s so stupid.”

“You stop talking, I stop.”

Mia laughed at the ceiling. “Fine. OK. Eggs.”

Ruby started. Hugging one of Mia’s thighs in each hand, pushing her tongue against Mia’s clit.

Read more

This is Chapter 7 of an ongoing series.

Start from Chapter 1 if you want anything to make sense💚

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6

Note: this is early access for paid subscribers. It will be free later, like all Jack, Ruby, Mia main story chapters. Your guys support means the world! 🌍💚

Note 2: this is the longest chapter yet. It's been so fun to write 😏

~ - ~

Thursday, June 25, 2026. Maplewood, New Jersey.

-- 4:00 pm

“We’re home!” Jack yelled, walking through the door, shaking off the wet folder at the doormat, the front door slamming shut with a crash.

“In case you have no situational awareness!” Beth yelled louder, ribbing her dad.

“Inh khase you have no shichuational awareness...“ Jack mocked her in a quieter voice, as he kicked off his shoes and went inside.

“Hi, hon!” Ruby said from the counter, flipping on the kettle. She came around the kitchen island to kiss him. “How did it go?”

Jack was looking at the robe. At her wet hair. Then at the stairs, where Mia was coming down. In another robe.

Oh. Fuck.

Mia’s hair also wet, pushed back, her rubbing it dry with a towel. “Hiya!”

“Hi. Yeah,” Jack replied.

Nobody said anything else. Jack had not counted on having to act today. It had been a good day so far.

Jack’s mind was doing laps in his head, making no particular progress. Nothing made sense. He snapped at himself. Forget ever doing anything with Mia and look at the situation as if you never have. That’s it. Right? So...

“You girls having fun over here?” Jack grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl and peeled it. He thought having something to do with his body would prevent doing something dumb with it out of desperation.

“You know what, I could’ve gotten absolutely drenched two less times today, but other than that, yeah,” Ruby said, looking at Mia, shrugging, “we had a fun day, right?”

“Yep, fun day.” Mia smiled, hands in the pockets of her robe, standing on the stairs, leaning on the railing. Not a fucking care in the world.

Jack thought maybe this really was just an innocent thing then?

Beth joined them, having removed her wet jacket and shoes.

“Hi, Mom! What... are you guys up to?” Beth asked as she took in the full scene then.

“Whatever do you mean, daughter?” Ruby put on an exaggerated fake face and voice, clear that it was on purpose.

“Where are your clothes?” Beth asked Mia.

“In the dryer,” Mia said.

“Yeah,” Ruby said.

Beth looked at her. At her mother. Roscoe was at Beth’s legs, poking her hand with his nose. She leaned over slightly, without looking, to give him a little scratch.

Jack could not take his eyes off Beth, expecting the worst.

“Oh my God, is that my robe?” Beth said.

“Sorry, B.” Mia looked down at it. “I hope you don’t mind. It was the only one in the bathroom.”

“I don’t care. It’s just funny. You look like a cat someone failed to drown.” Beth chuckled.

“Oh-kay,” Mia said.

Jack chewed the banana.

“So what’s this whole thing about - you two hanging out?” Beth asked, not having moved.

“Oh, nothing,” Ruby said.

Jack realized she must be using the supposed-to-be-secret birthday planning as cover for whatever happened here.

Beth shifted from one leg to the other, hands crossed. “You guys are being weird.”

“No, we’re not!” The kettle clicked off and Ruby poured the water into a teapot. “Now, how about you stop poking, before you ruin any surprises that are definitely not being planned?”

Beth squinted. At her mom. At Mia. At her dad. A smile sneaking in. Not to replace the confusion and suspicion on her face, maybe, but at least to join them.

“How did you guys get on?” Ruby asked.

“Well...” Jack said, as if accompanied by a drum roll.

“No!” Ruby’s eyes went wide.

Jack’s mouth full of banana. Tingles of relief spreading to his feet all of a sudden.

“What?” Mia asked, looking around, excited.

Now the smile seemed to fully replace the other emotions on Beth’s face. “Oh, you know...” She raised her hand with a set of car keys hanging off the index finger, a little Honda logo on it. “I got a mothafuckin’ caaaaaaaaaar!”

Ruby and Mia screamed. Mia hugged Beth and they jumped around.

Jack patted Beth’s head, laughing, as he passed them on his way to the bathroom. In the bathroom, he just stood for a bit. Drank some tap water. Listened to the happiness through the door.

He heard the girls pass the bathroom, on their way down the hall.

“I gotta chuck these in the dryer,” Beth said.

He came out of the bathroom, feeling the need to hide from everyone. He clicked on the TV, took his folder and sat on the couch. Maybe he could pretend to be busy.

Beth’s voice could be heard from the laundry room. “...thinking we go for a drive? I’ll give you some clothes.”

“Hell yeah, let’s do it.” Mia’s voice.

Beth opening the dryer. “Oh, never mind, look. Your stuff’s dry already.”

“Sweet! I’m thinking Wendy’s?”

“Yes!”

“Oh, shit, can I borrow shoes? Mine are soaked by the door.”

Jack tried to genuinely focus on the preliminary geotechnical engineering report for a proposed development, but, of course, he could not. Site plans, test boring logs, soil results, Mia and his wife in robes, foundation and earthwork recommendations. The supposed head of Dauwalter Excavation was too far down a rabbit hole of his own making.

~ - ~

Thursday, June 25, 2026. Maplewood, New Jersey.

-- 10:40 pm

Jack put on music in their bedroom. Some piano lounge jazz thing.

“So am I going to have to start giving you a heads up for when I’m coming back home in case you’re here with Mia?”

Ruby chuckled. “Shit, I got carried away, baby, I’m sorry. I definitely should have let you know. We’ll need to start thinking a little more strategically.”

They kept their voices low, just in case, but the music was loud enough and the house was such that they knew they weren’t going to be overheard outside their bedroom.

“So, come on.” Jack looked at her as they got the bed ready, taking the covers off, folding them over the end bench. “Tell me everything.”

“Take those off.” Ruby meant his pants. Jack obliged, of course. By the time they were in bed, all he had on was a white tank top. Ruby wore her black satin nightgown, nothing underneath.

Jack sat with his back to the headboard and his wife got on his lap, touching his cock, getting it hard. Dripping saliva on it to get it wet. Jack reached around her to touch her pussy and found it dripping wet.

“You’re really about to tell me something, huh?”

“It’s been a bit of a day, hon.”

“No complaints from me.” Jack smiled.

“What a gentleman.” Ruby smirked.

She rubbed his cock against her hot, wet pussy a couple times and sat on it slowly.

“Fuck,” they both said at the same time, foreheads touching, eyes closed.

“Jinx, you owe me a Coke. So,” Ruby said, not waiting for her quote-unquote joke to land.

Jack was fully inside her, and now she sat on his lap, moving her hips a little.

“We met up at Lonnie’s around 10:30.”

Ruby told him about the cafe, the spa, the way back to the house, how neither she nor Mia had said anything the whole drive. He listened to all of it, having trouble focusing at times, almost cumming once or twice. The sauna bit was especially difficult and he had to have Ruby stop moving for a while or the story would have to come to an end.

And he didn’t want that.

~ - ~

Thursday, June 25, 2026. Maplewood, New Jersey.

-- 1:15 pm

“Buddy!” Ruby yelled, her voice high, at Roscoe who greeted Mia and Ruby with his usual enthusiasm as they kicked off their soaked shoes. “How’s my little buddy? You fuck shit up while I was gone? Look who’s here!” She pointed at Mia.

“Roscoe!” Mia called him over and he jumped toward her, wagging his body along with his tail, twisting himself up. “Hey, buddy!”

“I’ll put on some water, you want tea?” Ruby asked, as she walked to the kitchen, leaving Mia with Roscoe.

“Tea would be great. Green?”

“Sure!”

“Thanks!”

Ruby put on the kettle and as she came back, she noticed Mia looking at something on the doorway, still halfway bent down scratching Roscoe’s head.

Oh. Right. The doorway. Beth’s height marks. And a couple of Mia’s in there, too.

Let her be, Ruby figured. It’s weird, Mia needs to process. Who’s kidding who? So did Ruby.

Ruby opened the freezer and took out a frozen pig’s foot. “Roscoe!”

Roscoe ran over. Ruby showed him the pig’s foot. “Sit.” Roscoe sat and licked his nose. Full attention. “Here.” She handed him the foot. Roscoe gently grabbed it in his teeth and settled in, middle of the living room. Chewing and crushing and cracking away at it.

Ruby washed her hands and went to get Mia.

“Come with me, sweetie.”

They walked down the hall and into the laundry room. Familiar smell of mildew and washing liquid. Jack’s tennis outfit hanging, semi-drying on the standing pull-up bar. He never hung it out properly.

“Take those off,” Ruby asked, gesturing at Mia’s clothes.

“Right here?” Mia asked.

“Yeah.” Ruby swung herself around, gesturing at the space they were in. “Good a place as any.”

Mia peeled off the T-shirt. Then the pants.

“You’re enjoying this.”

“Enormously.”

Mia stood now in fancy black lace underwear the rain had soaked all the way through. Twice. Ruby had noticed them in the locker room at the spa, but hadn’t had the chance to really take them in. Take in her in them. God, Mia was so beautiful.

“Can I borrow something?” Mia asked.

“No.”

“Ruby.”

“What?” Ruby laughed.

“You want me to walk around naked?”

Ruby shrugged and unbuttoned her pants. Noticing, as she did, Mia’s hands uncrossing and coming down. Ruby pulled off her blouse and before long they were both in their underwear. In the laundry room. Like this was The Sopranos or something. Like Ruby was going to check Mia for a wire.

“I see how it is,” Mia said.

Ruby gathered up their clothes, threw everything in the dryer. Turned it on. Click. Low rumble. Fan under it. The buttons and rivets of their pants clacking irregularly as they tumbled.

“You cold?” Ruby asked.

“No. You?”

Ruby shook her head no.

Mia came over to her. They’d been standing at what must have seemed to Mia like a weirdly cordial distance. But really Ruby was just using the distance to admire her and to enjoy the feeling of Mia looking at her.

Mia put her hands on Ruby’s stomach. The way she did it reminded Ruby of how she always imagined Reba from Red Dragon touching the sedated tiger. She traced cool fingers on Ruby’s ribs. Ruby wore eggshell lace underwear, not entirely see-through everywhere, but some parts of it.

Mia looked at her own fingers moving on Ruby’s skin.

Ruby felt like she was on a swing. With her eyes closed. And the downswing was carrying on forever.

The panties were light, with a thin elastic band at the waist. Mia’s finger slipped beneath it easily, pulling it down just a little. Exposing just a bit of tan line. Ruby was clean-shaven, just that morning, still smooth. She hoped Mia wouldn’t judge her about it.

She caught herself. Judge? What judge? About what? Come on, what’s this silliness?

But she cared. Fuck, she cared what Mia thought.

“I keep wanting to say something,” Mia said, barely. It seemed to Ruby like she maybe wasn’t fully saying anything. Just speaking.

“What?”

“Nothing in particular.” Mia was still looking at Ruby’s body. Her hands so gentle. Wherever they went, they barely touched Ruby’s skin. “Just to say something.”

“You don’t need to fill the silence with me, sweetie.”

“I like it when you call me that.”

“Sweetie?”

“M-hmm.” Mia nodded, biting her lip, looking up at Ruby finally. She moved into her, chin on Ruby’s chest. Deep brown eyes, almost black in the dark laundry room. Rain pouring outside. So warm between them.

Ruby could barely keep her own fingers off herself. She was so worked up from the anticipation and the one-sided spa adventure. Thank God for that cold plunge.

“Can you get naked?” Mia asked, surprising Ruby.

She did. Get naked. Unclasped her bra, pulled down her panties, not letting them drop. She bunched them all up in her hands, put them behind her back. Can’t just drop them, need to think about evidence. Plus, she knew hands behind her back usually gave a view to Jack that evoked a certain response. Sometimes the response was childish, sometimes like he wanted to do something terrible with her.

“How’s this?” Ruby asked. Completely naked. Exposed. Not sure if she felt confident or played at it.

She watched Mia watch her. Mia wasn’t hiding anything. It was clear that she was nervous, the fingers always looking for something to do, thumb folding into the palm to feel around for the calluses. She was also excited. Mia’s eyes giving a glimpse into what her attention was on. It was one hundred percent on Ruby and nothing else.

That’s why the pose did nothing, she figured. Mia was already… affected. Any pose or move was just a drop in a bucket now.

“You’re so...” Mia’s eyes shot up to Ruby’s for just a moment, back to the body again, head tilting, fingers fidgeting slower now. The two of them standing at a slightly awkward distance again. “Ruby, I don’t know what to do.”

“What do you mean?” Ruby smiled, genuinely interested. So excited and on edge she could... she didn’t know what she could.

Damn it, this girl was making Ruby so stupid and Ruby loved every second of it.

“God, you’re beautiful!”

“What do you mean?” Ruby laughed.

“I mean look at you--”

“No, I meant - thanks, sweetie - but I meant... you said you didn’t know what to do?”

“I did?”

“Yeah,” Ruby said, so full of glee. This girl was so flustered. And that made Ruby even more... She ran one of her hands up to her own chest, rested it below her collarbone, making sure a pinky brushed and pulled her nipple. Fuck, that felt good.

Mia shook her head, eyes closed. “Sorry!”

“What for?”

“I don’t know what happens. I get lost.”

“When you’re nervous, you mean?”

Mia squinted, as if to correct her a little.

“Horny?”

Mia nodded.

“Jack said something like that, yeah.”

“Oh, no!” Mia grabbed her face. Looking at Ruby then through parted fingers. Ruby chuckling, moving in closer, putting her hands on Mia’s ribs. “Your husband!”

“No, no, stop that.”

“I keep forgetting you two are not separate people. No, I mean, of course you are, but you’re like almost the same person to me, like some sort of a shared entity or something and I slept with him that night in the car before you even - or I didn’t exactly SLEEP with him, sleep with him, but you know what I mean, and I felt so guilty and I also felt so good and then you--”

“OK, sweetie.” Ruby laughed.

“You--”

Ruby had Mia’s head in her hands. They looked at each other. Ruby leaned down, Mia tiptoed up to meet her and they kissed. Slow. The soft wet parts of Ruby’s lips smothering Mia’s lower lip. Letting go with the softest little sound.

Ruby opened her eyes. In a moment so did Mia. Mia took a deep breath and let it go.

“I’ve never been with a woman before,” Mia said. “Before you, I mean.”

“Coulda fooled me.”

“Really?”

Ruby nodded. Smiled.

“Did it feel good? When I licked…” Mia asked.

“I have not stopped thinking about it since.”

Ruby thought that if Mia had been a blusher, she’d have blushed just then. Then Mia’s lips curled up a little at the corners.

“Take me somewhere.”

“Where?” Ruby asked.

“Where I can… go down on you,” Mia said, looking up at Ruby through her eyebrows.

Ruby could tell Mia was powering through nerves. It made it that much better.

“Come.” Ruby turned and asked for Mia’s hand.

Ruby realized she’d been counting on having to seduce Mia. She had not quite considered that Mia would need no seduction. She didn’t need to be coaxed or guided. She wanted all of it, it seemed.

“I guess we’re not having tea then?” Mia chuckled.

As they walked to the second floor, Mia asked, “Have you been with a woman before?”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” Ruby replied, going to the bedroom, thinking then that maybe the bedroom would not be the place for this. Not without Jack.

“What’s that mean?” Mia asked.

“Jack and I, we’ve had a few threesomes over the years with other women.”

The guest bedroom, she thought. Yeah.

“Oh, OK,” Mia said. “Did you like it?”

“Sure. Well... it’s a little complicated, maybe I can tell you later?” Ruby turned around, inside the guest bedroom. Realizing all of a sudden just how completely fucking naked she was, as she found Mia’s eyes locked on her body.

“Sure, sure,” Mia said, looking up then, maintaining eye contact, as if caught cheating off of a classmate’s test.

Ruby sat down on the edge of the bed. Mia standing in front of her, still in her black lace set. She looked almost blasphemous. Ruby didn’t know why she thought of that word. She leaned back on her arms, putting one foot up on the bed.

“I didn’t think I’d be back here again,” Mia said.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

Mia knelt down. One hand rested on top of Ruby’s thigh, the other one on the inner thigh of the raised leg.

Ruby was so wet. She could sense the slightest breeze on her pussy. It felt like it literally dripped, she thought. When was the last time that had happened? She was almost ashamed at how wet she was. Not because of the wetness, but because it was caused by Mia. And a girl half her age. Her daughter’s best friend since, Christ, middle school or something?

It’s so wrong, she thought.

“It’s so pretty!” Mia was looking at Ruby’s pussy.

Ruby followed Mia’s attention. It was all over the place, but mostly on Ruby’s body. Mia seemed to be forgetting her nerves.

Ruby herself, with every passing moment, was having a harder time focusing on anything but Mia.

Mia let go of Ruby, putting her hands instead on the floor, it seemed, no longer touching her at all. On all fours.

And Ruby finally felt it. The heat of Mia’s breath on her pussy. Fuck! The wet, hot tongue touching her clit, sending tingles throughout her body. She was so close, already. She could not for the life of her remember the last time she had been this sensitive, this close to the edge, for this long.

Mia’s still-wet hair lightly grazed the insides of Ruby’s thighs.

“Fuck.” Ruby’s hips rolled and stomach flexed. She wasn’t doing any of it.

Mia stopped.

“No, no. Don’t stop, sweetie.” Ruby laughed. Breathless. Desperate, somehow?

Mia continued.

“Yeah.”

Ruby watched her for a moment. Mia’s eyes were closed. Concentrating. Her tongue moved slowly over Ruby’s clit, then wandered lower.

It felt so fucking good and she wanted to let Mia do whatever she wanted, but Ruby needed the release, otherwise there was no way she could think clearly.

“Up a little, sweetie,” Ruby instructed. “Lick my clit, baby.”

Mia obeyed.

“There.”

Fuck. There.

Ruby fell back on her elbows. She had imagined this. Imagined teaching Mia, telling her what she liked, watching her figure it out. In her imagination, she was not this close - what, twenty seconds into it?

Mia sped up a little too much.

“That’s it, sweetie. A little slower.”

Mia made a quiet sound against her. Ruby felt it resonate in her body.

Jesus Christ.

Ruby’s foot slipped off the mattress and hit the floor. She wanted to chuckle, but Mia’s tongue was doing things to her that she was too scared to interrupt for anything, let alone humor.

“Yes... Keep going...”

Ruby closed her eyes.

For a little while she could still follow what was happening. Mia’s tongue. Her breath. Hair brushing the insides of Ruby’s thighs. The unusually soft skin of Mia’s face. The pressure building low in her stomach every time Mia passed over her clit.

But soon enough she couldn’t follow anything anymore.

“Keep going…” Ruby swallowed. The words barely came out sounding like the words she was trying to say. “Don’t stop.”

One of her hands reached forward and grabbed Mia’s hair, but let go. She realized there was no way she could control anything there. Ruby couldn’t operate a push-pull door at this point. She grabbed the sheets instead.

Mia kept going.

The sheet twisted tighter in Ruby’s fist.

She felt nothing distinct, no specific touch she could recognize anymore.

“I’m...”

Her whole body tightened. There was a moment where it was almost too much, almost unbearable.

Then it broke.

Ruby came with her fists wrapped in the sheets, hips lifting despite herself, a sound coming out of her that she would probably have been embarrassed by if there had been enough of her conscious self left to be embarrassed.

Mia didn’t stop. And for a while it was heaven. Then it got to be too much.

“Fuck. Fuck, OK.”

Ruby reached down blindly, but her hands were still caught in the twisted sheets, so she used her legs - pushing them together lightly on Mia’s head and turning her hips a little - to let Mia know it was over.

“OK, sweetie. Jesus.”

Mia pulled away.

Ruby dropped flat onto the bed.

Completely. Fucking. Undone.

Mia climbed on top of her. Looking down at her through a laneway of dark hair. A sweet smile that seemed to expect something?

“Did I do good?”

“Sweetie!” Ruby took her face, pulled her down, kissed her. “You did so fucking good!”

“Do you cum easily as well?”

“Not always.”

Ruby needed a break.

“You…” Ruby said, one hand on Mia’s hip. Catching Mia’s face in the other, holding it rough, folding Mia’s skin, wanting to keep her here. As hers.

Don’t say it, she thought. Keep your shit together, woman! “You really do something to me, Mia.”

Ruby was sorely disappointed in herself. She’s not supposed to swoon and hand over all her power. But seeing Mia’s eyes, so happy at Ruby’s words… ah, fuck, it was worth it.

She made a little squeal, maybe putting it on a little then, and dropped into a snuggle on Ruby’s body, nuzzling her face in Ruby’s neck.

But it wasn’t just cute. Mia was grinding.

“I need a little breather, sweetie!” Ruby said, hugging Mia.

Mia hugged back. “Of course!” Then she gave Ruby’s nipple a great big lick and sucked it into her mouth. A few circles around it with her tongue and she let it go - a little pop. Looking at Ruby then as if to say ‘how about now?’

Ruby chuckled. Most of the timid tics and nerves were gone from the girl at her side now.

Mia got up to her knees and undid her bra. The wet lace fell.

Had Ruby not seen breasts before? Even Mia’s - she’d seen them before. But not like this. She felt grateful for the situation they were in. Alone, naked, vulnerable. Ruby wanted Mia so bad it was embarrassing. But Mia wanted her right back.

“We can take a break,” Mia said. “I can keep it together.”

She sat down on Ruby’s thigh. She kept moving her hips around ever so slightly.

“You keeping it together, there, huh?” Ruby asked.

“Are you complaining?” Mia asked back.

Ruby shook her head. Feeling that the break might be nearing an end for her too.

“But, seriously, is there anything you’d want me to do differently?” Mia asked, hips circling a little, grinding back and forth, fingers kneading Ruby’s body in a gentle way wherever they went.

“Are you worried you don’t know how?”

“Oh, yeah. Definitely!” Mia said.

Mia’s curiosity and honesty excited Ruby. Mia was not pretending at all, it seemed. She was just here. Fully in the moment.

“OK,” Ruby said, bunching a pillow under her head, so she could look up at Mia more easily. “Did you make me cum the way you make yourself cum?”

She thought about it.

“Yes?” Mia said slowly.

Ruby laughed. “Where’s the confusion?”

“I guess you came from what I also cum from. As in, rubbing my cl- your clit.”

“OK...”

“But I guess different women cum differently? Some from stimulating the clit, right? Some from--”

“Penetration, yeah.”

“Yeah, right! So, anyway, I, honestly, I cum like crazy from almost anything,” Mia said, looking at Ruby’s stomach, shooting a glance up at her once in a while, clearly feeling awkward.

“Oh?”

“I’ve orgasmed a few times just from touching my nipples and squeezing my thighs together.”

“Whoa!”

“Is that weird?”

“No! No, sweetie,” Ruby said. “It’s just a little unusual, and... well, how do you feel about it?”

“Sometimes awesome,” Mia said, thinking. “Like if I need to get off quickly, it’s easy to do. I’ve heard some girls say they struggle with that. I don’t.”

Ruby listened, nodding.

“Some other times I worry a little. Like what if I’m a crazy nympho and it drives all my decisions in life?”

“Do you have a ton of sex all the time?” Ruby asked.

“No.”

“When was the last time?”

Mia smirked down at Ruby.

“I mean before now.” Ruby slapped Mia’s thigh and Mia chuckled.

Mia’s happy energy was filling Ruby’s body and mind with something volatile. She could just burst out in a weird scream for no reason, if she let herself. What the hell is this idiocy? It’s nice, of course, but damn.

“Last Friday, then?” Mia was clearly nervous to say it.

“With Jack?” Ruby asked, not changing her expression or tone.

“Yeah.” Mia’s hands got slower, more absent.

“And before that?”

“Umm...” Mia thought. “I guess... Well, in the closet with you, but that was not... I dunno, does that count as sex?”

“Not for you, I wouldn’t think.” Ruby smiled. “I’ll count that for myself, though.”

“So then with Jack in the car,” Mia looked guilty. “That was June 6th, I think? It’s the 25th now.”

“And in between those, how many times did you masturbate?”

“Maybe once a day, but skipping a day here and there, probably?”

“Congrats, sweetie!”

“Hmm?”

“Not only are you not a nymphomaniac, but most women on the planet would die to be you! That includes me, as well.”

Ruby raised her palm and Mia hit it with hers, slow, confused.

“Look, sweetie,” Ruby said, “you orgasm easy. That’s a good thing. You’re not a sex-crazed maniac who can’t stay in school or has to go to Sex Addicts Anonymous. That’s good. Do you get horny a lot and easily?”

“Easily, yeah, but I guess not necessarily all the time or a lot... Just when there’s reason for it, I guess. And the occasional random one.”

“The horror!” Ruby said. She continued, slow, coming up with unnecessarily colorful words as she went. “A young, drop-dead motherfucking beauty with a healthy sex drive, who has people lining up - with burnt feet, on broken Tabasco bottles - to ruin their lives to be with you?”

Mia laughed. Ruby didn’t really speak like that. Sometimes she thought like that. With Mia it had come out so easy, she was surprised it came out so well. Mia dropped down, taking Ruby’s jaw in one hand, her other hand on the headboard, and slipping her tongue in Ruby’s mouth.

“I guess that doesn’t sound too bad, when you put it like that,” Mia said after the kiss.

Ruby grabbed her and rolled her onto her back. Mia smiled, looking at Ruby. The smile read like a challenge to her.

“Hey, you know, about Jack and--” Mia started.

“Would you like to cum first?”

“Yes, please, ma’am!” Mia screamed.

Ruby laughed and went lower, Mia pushing herself up higher, to sit up against the headboard a bit.

Ruby said, “To answer your question about making me cum, you did really good. I’m no expert at making women cum either, but I am an expert at making myself cum.”

Mia listened, it seemed, though, her mouth was getting a little slack, as Ruby got closer to her stomach, then down low to her pussy, pulling her panties down as she went, ending up between Mia’s legs.

“And I figure, there’s no man who has the toolset we have. By default, we have to be better at making each other cum, right?”

“Yeah... I guess that makes sense,” Mia said. “But I might not be the most challenging bust, as they say.”

“Bust?” Ruby chuckled.

“Never mind, sorry, just...” Mia said, her hips rolling, face growing a little pained and distant.

“OK, sweetie, come here.” Ruby lay down on the bed, legs off the end.

“Oh my God,” Mia sighed, feeling Ruby’s finger run from her clit gently down to the soft, slick skin below her pussy.

She leaned down and opened her mouth over Mia’s pussy. She made sure to taste her. She planted her lips wide above the clit down to below her pussy, sliding her tongue gently inside her, but being met with tight pressure.

Ruby could hear Mia moan quietly: “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” Almost crying, it sounded like.

She looked up to see her squeezing her own breasts, knees curling up, feet sliding around the bed.

Ruby moved her head side to side, moving her lips and tongue between Mia’s smooth pussy lips, found her clit, sucked it into her mouth hard and flicked it up and down with her tongue. She sucked hard, but licked light and slow.

“Holy fuck, Ruby!” Mia said loudly. “I’m gonna cum! You’re gonna make me cum!”

Mia grabbed Ruby’s hair. Ruby was so excited, another clench in her stomach, building to something more.

It was over fast. Ruby kept a steady rhythm on Mia’s clit, but Mia’s body, her legs most of all, shook out of control. Her face contorted. She covered her own mouth as the orgasm shook her.

The sight of Mia like this. The thought of it. God, it drove Ruby mad.

She let Mia calm down. Ruby climbed up as Mia was still shivering and panting, but instead of waiting, Ruby pulled Mia down flat on the bed and swung her leg over her. Ruby’s pussy was now in Mia’s face, and Mia’s was, oh - not quite at Ruby’s. Ruby did have about seven inches on her.

Ruby thought it might be too much for Mia and she expected to be stopped, shooed off. She would have stopped. But Mia, though still getting back her breath, hugged Ruby’s bottom, hooking her hands through Ruby’s inner thighs, around to her hips, pulling Ruby’s pussy down onto her face, kissing it, licking it.

“Fuck, Mia!” Ruby yelled.

Surprised again. Who the hell is this girl?

Ruby was still on her hands and knees, but she got up for a little, just to look back at Mia. As she did, Mia moved her tongue from Ruby’s pussy to her asshole.

“Whoa!” Ruby exclaimed.

Mia didn’t stop for another few seconds. Then she asked, still panting, “You don’t like that?”

“Do you?”

“Do I like licking yours or do I like...” Mia asked.

“Both?”

“I love to play with my ass.”

“Oh...” Ruby said, thinking, but the thinking was interrupted by Mia pulling Ruby in and her tongue finding Ruby’s asshole again.

The feeling was... foreign, a little weird. She’d never done anal. Jack had touched it many times with his hand, but never anything inside and she always moved his hand away. She figured anal was off the table with Jack due to his size and she’d never been too curious about it herself.

But this... Ruby was definitely... getting into this. As Mia licked her ass, tongue pressing against the asshole harder and harder every time, Ruby touched her pussy, which was dripping all over with Mia’s spit and her own juices. It was dripping on Mia’s chin and throat.

Ruby rubbed her clit, fingered herself a little, one finger only. Holy Jesus, she was... she was probably going to cum again. Maybe not now, but... And at this point it was not clear what it was. Was it Mia? Was it Mia’s tongue on her asshole?

Just then Mia moved one hand to Ruby’s pussy, letting her thumb work Ruby’s clit as she continued licking her asshole.

It was all she could do to just sit there propped up on Mia’s body and keep from collapsing. She could feel pressure building, the tremble in her thighs signaling.

Ruby wanted to bend down and lick Mia’s pussy too, but she didn’t want Mia to stop licking her ass and they couldn’t do both at the same time. What the hell was happening to her?

So instead she put her hand over Mia’s pussy and slid her middle finger between her lips. Mia raised her knees, opening her legs wide, even pushing her hips up and down a few times. Ruby used the very tip of her middle finger to push against Mia’s pussy. It slid in a little, through the pressure.

“Fuck, you’re so tight.” Ruby blurted out. She had meant to just think it.

“Mmm...”

In for a penny, in for a pound, she thought. “How did you take Jack?”

Mia didn’t answer, but she did slide her thumb up to Ruby’s pussy and pushed it inside her.

“Fuck!”

Ruby kept going deeper inside Mia. To which Mia responded by moaning louder and it was clear Mia was having trouble focusing on what her hand, tongue or any other body part was doing.

But Ruby didn’t mind. Quite the opposite. She wanted to see what Mia would do. She wanted to torture her just a little. Just to see.

“Keep licking my asshole, sweetie,” Ruby encouraged her, as her middle finger was inside Mia as far as it would go. “God damn it, Mia, your tongue back there... you keep surprising me.”

Again, with the words, she thought.

Ruby hooked her finger and felt the soft front wall of Mia’s pussy. She circled it a little at first, then fixed her hand in one position, her finger pressed against the front wall, and tried to move her hand back and forth in short, rapid strokes, almost like a vibration.

“Ruby!” Mia screamed. Her free hand was hanging on to Ruby’s leg so tight. “I’m gonna... fuck, Ruby, you’re gonna make me...”

Ruby sat down a little on Mia’s face, smothering her a little. Not hard, just to get Mia to lick her some more.

Mia did, but she was having trouble. She was losing control. She went silent, just panting, hugging Ruby’s legs and ass, her face buried in Ruby’s pussy now. She vibrated into Ruby a muffled “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fu--”

Mia went silent and still. Her strong hands gripped Ruby so hard it almost hurt. And then she squirted.

Ruby’s mouth went slack. She didn’t know what to do so she just kept going. Her cramped hand moved back and forth as rapidly as she could make it move.

Mia was still completely silent and motionless as it happened, her whole body tensed. And just a few seconds later, Mia quickly straightened out her legs, which now violently shook and squeezed Ruby’s hand. She slapped Ruby’s ass and grabbed onto Ruby’s skin. A grasp for some kind of control.

Mia inhaled a large breath. And let out a quiet scream.

Ruby smiled, surprised, eyebrows up. Then turned back to take a look at Mia. Mia was on her back, eyes wide, catching her breath, looking at Ruby. Ruby got off her and as she turned, Mia grabbed and pulled her down, gave her a wet, quick kiss and went back to panting. Mia was squeezing Ruby everywhere her hands went, her movements not making any sense.

Ruby rubbed her own clit, slow, almost without thought, while Mia got her balance back. They kissed, smiled, laughed, sighed, but it was a while before anyone said anything more than a fuck or a God.

“I’m so sorry,” Mia finally broke. She looked down to where there was now a large wet spot. “I’m sorry.”

“Mia! What do you have to be sorry for?”

“It just felt so good! I could have stopped you, changed to a different... but...” Mia put her face to Ruby’s chest. “I wanted to cum, I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing, sweetie!” Ruby laughed.

“OK.”

The clock on the wall ticked. It was a gift from Jack’s parents. Even over the rain outside, she could still hear it tick. Normally the sound would aggravate Ruby. That’s why it lives in the guest bedroom, not Ruby and Jack’s. But now. Tick. Tick. Tick.

“After the closet...” Ruby moved her attention from the ceiling to the window behind Mia. “I asked Jack to go down on me.”

“Oh?” Mia ran her hand up Ruby’s forearm, leaning her head back to look at her.

“Yeah.” Ruby laughed, a little embarrassed, only shooting a glance at Mia here and there, otherwise looking out the rain-streaked glass at the black trees outside. “I had him get on his knees and lick my pussy. I stood up in our bedroom against the wardrobe, sort of like you had me in the closet that night.”

“Stop!” Mia squeezed Ruby’s arm. Eyes wide, clearly excited and flattered, Ruby thought. “When was this?”

“That same night, after you left.”

“After the dinner?”

“Mmhmm.”

“God!” Mia said, loud. She put her head back down, turned away from Ruby, scooting backwards into her arms. Ruby stroked her hair. “I... Man, I really...”

Ruby shut up and let her think.

Mia didn’t move at all. Ruby couldn’t see if she was looking out the window or what. Then Mia said, “I was afraid it was just a one-time thing with us that night.”

“You didn’t get the note?”

“No, no, I did, yeah.” Mia nodded. “But I thought maybe, I dunno, like maybe you saw me more like a plaything or something, I don’t know.”

Something tugged in Ruby’s chest. She said nothing, but held Mia tighter.

Mia looked back over at Ruby. “I’m just being silly. Like...” She sat up a little. “I’m not saying this is or isn’t anything serious or anything like that. Don’t get me wrong.” She spoke quickly, as if anything said would be misinterpreted and needed clarification. “And I know we’re in like a very weird situation here with... gosh, Jack and Beth and everything and I’m not even saying I want anything serious or that I don’t want anything serious. Or that anything serious even is, like... on the table or anything--”

Mia stopped. Ruby had let her ramble, smiling.

“You’re enjoying this, huh?” Mia pushed Ruby’s shoulder.

“Oh ya.”

“Well, it’s not funny!” Mia laughed despite herself.

“I’m not really laughing, am I?”

Mia just watched her, trying to decode Ruby’s expression, maybe?

“You said...” Ruby put a hand on Mia’s. “You thought you’d never be back here.”

Mia stared.

“What did you mean?”

“I don’t want to say.” Mia looked down, fingers brushing Ruby’s hand.

“OK, I won’t pry, but if you wanted to--”

“I said it because I thought it and I thought it because I honestly never in my wildest dreams thought you’d be interested in me.” Mia looked around the room, scoffing out a little chuckle. “God, this is so awkward to say out loud.” She turned to Ruby. “You’re like a fucking magical unicorn to me, lady!”

Ruby laughed. Mia too.

“What does that mean?” Ruby snorted as she laughed.

Mia lost it. “What the fuck was that?” Then she imitated Ruby’s snort.

Ruby laughed harder, air leaving her and refusing to come back. She tried to avoid snorting again as she sucked in air, but it happened anyway. Which made Mia laugh even more.

That carried on for a while.

They wiped tears. Ruby’s face hurt. Roscoe was outside the door, sniffing around and doing his little inside barks.

“Oh, Jesus,” Mia said, laughter aftershocks still holding her as she wiped her tears.

“You were saying?” Ruby was in the same state.

“Yeah, what was I saying?”

Ruby pushed out her chest. “Something about me being a magical fucking unicorn?”

“Nah, never mind.” Mia laughed again and got up. “I need a drink.”

“There’s a glass in the--”

“I know,” Mia said, as she went through the door into the adjoining bathroom.

Ruby heard her fill up a glass, drink, fill again, tap off.

“Here.” Mia came back in and handed Ruby a glass of water.

“What I meant was...” As Ruby drank, Mia spoke. “You’ve always been - and still are - I don’t know… a role model. To me. An older woman, I’m sorry.” Mia shrugged and widened her eyes, as if to say ‘sorry to point it out, but who are we kidding.’ “And you’re so composed, in charge, classy, always have the right thing to say, the perfect life, the style, the grace, the everything!”

Mia sat down. Close to Ruby. Their bodies touching.

“You’re like a fucking rock star to me, you know?” Mia said.

Ruby felt Mia’s vulnerability. She let things sit for a bit. Thinking what to say. Thanks? No.

Instead of saying anything, she reached up and touched Mia’s face. Her hair. God, her hair. There was nothing she could do to make it look bad. Wet, dry, down, up.

A short run of buzzes sounded from downstairs as the dryer had gone silent. Done. God, had an hour passed already? How? She looked at the clock. 2:20 pm. They really should get up.

Mia seemed to notice Ruby thinking about it. “Should we...? Get going?”

“No,” Ruby said, changing nothing, still stroking Mia’s hair. “When Jack told me about you two that night in the car.” She looked at Mia. “I was very excited, but also hurt.”

“God, I’m so--”

Ruby shook her head and looked at Mia, asking for her to listen. “I was hurt because you’d betrayed me. You’d done something you knew would hurt me.”

“Ruby, I’m so sorry.” Mia’s eyes were getting a little red.

“But it had to hurt, there was no other way. I chose that. Does that make sense?”

Mia shook her head, a tear ready to fall from one eye, the other filling too.

“Before that night, a while before it, a few months, Jack and I realized, both of us, that we had feelings for you. That we could not keep our eyes and thoughts off of you, Mia.”

Mia swallowed hard. The clock ticked. The rain pelted the window. It was so warm and comfortable inside.

“Even before anything happened, Jack and I talked about it. A lot. Planned for it, even, as weird as that sounds. But because we thought about it for so long, we both knew that the only way we could both have anything with you was that one of us would have to go first. You would have to hurt the other one.”

Tick, tick, tick. No more dryer. Just the rain and the clock.

“Mia, I...” Ruby wiped a tear from Mia’s cheek. “I think the world of you. I like you so much. So, so much, that I was willing to be the one that got hurt in the process. Just to get a chance at maybe someday us being in this situation.”

Mia turned, bringing more and more of her body toward Ruby.

“And if this is too much, too weird, I totally get it, and we can--”

“You guys... wanted me?!” Mia smiled through tears.

Ruby nodded. “You have no idea, Mia.”

Mia leaned in and kissed Ruby. She sniffled between kisses. “God.” Mia looked up and chuckled, wiping tears. “Sorry!”

Ruby pulled her back down gently and kissed her.

They hugged and Ruby pulled Mia over herself, rolling into the bed, and they laughed again, legs tangled, hands playing with each other’s bodies.

“This is really great,” Mia said.

“I was thinking the same thing.”

“I wish I didn’t have to leave.”

Ruby didn’t reply. She agreed. But too many words had been said already, maybe she didn’t need to add to the tally?

“Well,” Ruby said, “you don’t have to go anywhere yet.”

Mia squinted up at her. “No?”

Ruby shook her head.

“What did you have in mind?”

Ruby’s hand reached around Mia’s body down to her ass. “I was thinking maybe I could lick you some more.”

“Oh?” Mia was playing coy. Ruby was already kissing down her arm, then back. “Is that so?”

Ruby went lower on Mia’s body, Mia on her stomach, propped up on elbows, looking over her shoulder, running out of angles, but not reactions. Mia’s back arched and hips moved up and down. Slow, but jagged. Like she was not quite in control all the way.

Ruby had Mia’s body under her now. Mia’s butt. So... God, perfect? She was envious. And grateful. And, fuck, so incredibly horny, again. Ruby thought maybe this was what men felt like. They sure blabbered on about it a whole lot, but if they were really in this kind of state of need constantly, as they claimed - maybe she owed Jack an apology or two.

Ruby massaged Mia’s thighs, pushing up and down over the muscle. Mia moaning and groaning, now having put her head down on the bed, eyes closed. Ruby moved her hands over Mia’s ass. She rolled her knuckles on the cheeks a few times. She spread her cheeks. So pretty.

“So pretty.” God, did she say it out loud?

“You like it?” Mia asked, eyes still closed.

Ruby dripped saliva on Mia’s spread ass. Mia inhaled.

“I do, sweetie.”

Ruby leaned down, watching her saliva pool at Mia’s asshole and drip down to her pussy. Ruby licked it.

“Fuck, Ruby!!” Mia groaned.

Ruby kept Mia’s cheeks spread and kept licking, surprised at Mia’s asshole sort of... twitching? Moving a little, tightening and letting go. And Mia was losing her mind. Her hips moved up and down now, Ruby holding her ass down on the bed as much as she could, Mia moaning and groaning and almost screaming.

“God, Ruby!” Mia tried to open her legs, but Ruby had her own around them, trapped. “Finger me, please! I need you inside me, Ruby!”

Ruby let Mia open her legs and she helped her scoot up. Mia was now on her knees, ass in the air, head down on the bed.

Ruby licked her up and down, clit to asshole, asshole to clit. Multiple times, breathing and groaning into Mia as she went.

“Fuck, Ruby, I’m gonna cum!”

Ruby licked Mia’s asshole and used her thumb and palm to finger Mia and rub her clit. It was a bit awkward having never done these things in this position, but intuitive enough.

This time Mia’s ass and legs were the first to tell Ruby. The muscles in Mia’s glutes started spasming, and her legs shook. She straightened her legs and dropped down on the bed, legs wide. Ruby followed her.

“Fuck,” Mia moaned.

Ruby lay down, spreading Mia’s cheeks, Mia’s thighs under Ruby’s arms, and she kept licking Mia’s asshole as she came.

Ruby kept going, but slower.

And slower. Until she was just barely moving her tongue and Mia was still shaking, but much less intensely.

Ruby had expected Mia to let her know when to stop. But Mia did not. She just lay there, still rolling her hips a little and breathing moans in and out, steady.

Ruby’s tongue got tired. She bit Mia’s cheek.

Mia didn’t yell, just exhaled another little moan. As Ruby got up next to Mia, Mia slowly rolled over, her eyes so barely open they may as well have stayed shut.

“How was that?” Ruby asked.

“You have to ask?”

“I’ve never done that.”

“I’ve never had that done to me.”

“So,” Ruby said, “it was good, then?”

Mia jumped up to kiss Ruby. “Who’s insecure now?”

“I never said you were insecure!”

“I just am, you don’t have to say it.” Mia smiled at Ruby, as she licked Ruby’s lip and smooched her.

“You don’t seem overly insecure to me.”

They snuggled up, Mia at Ruby’s side, Ruby sitting up on pillows a bit, looking over Mia. Admiring her body and savoring the fact that they were here. Finally.

“So you’ve never been with a woman?” Ruby asked.

“Can’t say that anymore.”

“How was it?”

“Oof.” Mia sighed. “So much better than I expected. You?”

“Same.”

“Oh, but you’ve been with other women, you said?”

“Eh, kind of. With Jack, in threesomes, just a few times. But this is different.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Ruby said, missing a cigarette all of a sudden. The last time she had one was before getting pregnant with Beth. “The threesomes never felt personal. Between Jack and me, sure, but never so much with the other woman. That’s why we haven’t done them in a very long time.”

“You’re not jealous?” Mia’s hand moved slow on Ruby’s stomach. “Seeing Jack with another woman?”

“A little. Not as much as it turns me on.”

“Interesting...”

“OK, here’s something,” Ruby said. “How would you feel if you saw Jack fuck me?”

“Oh!” Mia sat up a bit. Thinking. “Shit, I think it’d be very weird, but also hot.”

“So maybe you understand me.”

“Yeah, I might.” Mia sat up on Ruby’s lap, pinning her back by her shoulders. “Are we going to do that?”

“Do you want to?”

“Yes,” Mia said.

Mia’s eyes. Still the same girl, but something a little more daring in them now.

“Do you miss having a cock in the mix here?” Mia asked.

Ruby chuckled. “Yeah, you know, this is awesome, but I do really like Jack’s cock.”

Mia bit her lip, holding a breath. She let it just fall out. “Fuck, I do too!”

“Jack himself...” Ruby shrugged.

“Take it or leave it, yeah! Totally.”

Ruby broke first and Mia joined her. As Ruby laughed, Mia jumped backward on the bed, landing with her knees around Ruby’s ankles.

“Whoa!” Ruby’s eyes widened and she was left all alone up there.

“Don’t worry, I got you!” Mia smirked.

Mia moved in between Ruby’s legs, lay down on her stomach, lifting Ruby’s legs a little by the backs of her knees. She didn’t wait, she licked Ruby’s pussy.

“Oh,” Ruby was taken by surprise. Again! “Right... OK!”

She settled in, held her legs up herself, running her heels over Mia’s muscular back, holding Mia’s hair bunches in her hands. She let Mia do all of it. Fuck, she was so taken with this girl.

She thought about Mia, about all the times they’d been face to face lately, all the glances and touches and situations. The cafe, the spa, the dinner, the closet. Here, now. Some other times flashed too, how she had spoken to Jack about her multiple times, how they planned their approach after they finally had dared to admit to themselves and each other that they were incapable of seeing Mia in any other way any more. They wanted her. She wanted her. And now she had her between her legs, licking her clit.

And now, again, she could feel the senses, having heightened almost to the point of overstimulation, start to drop out of her perception. She was cumming again.

“Mia!” She grabbed Mia’s hair, held her head. She managed to squeak out a quick “I’m cumming!” and her body fell away. Her legs twitched a little, hips rode up and down without her meaning for them to do that. There was a complete absence of all thought, pure experience of nothing. Bliss.

She returned and Mia had slowed her licking to almost nothing. Perfect. A quick study, Ruby thought. But who’s kidding who, this girl had taught Ruby more today than Ruby had taught her.

“Holy!” Ruby said. “You can give Jack a run for his money with that, sweetie.”

Mia chuckled. “Stop!”

“There’s that insecurity!” Ruby teased.

Mia slapped Ruby’s thighs and Ruby twitched, her hands going up, expecting Mia to come in to tickle her. She didn’t and Ruby realized she was expecting it because it was a Jack thing. To tickle her whenever he felt teased.

“Sorry, I keep bringing up Jack.” Ruby pulled in Mia’s hips as she came back up to straddle Ruby again. “This is our time, it doesn’t need to be about anyone else.”

Mia looked at Ruby, thinking, it seemed. “You know, I don’t mind it.”

“No?”

“I like you both. I want you both. I wish he was here.”

A quick chuckle left Ruby, without her say so, something between hurt and relief. “That would be fun!”

“He was so sweet, after the whole Fairleigh-mixer-Beth-Jean-Jacques thing, you know? The next day he, well...” Mia put a finger to Ruby’s chest. “First he said some really nasty shit, which sucked, but then he turned it around and I could tell he really meant it. He said he thinks about me all the time and the way he looked at me...”

Ruby didn’t know that. She had to work a little to keep it together. Not put Mia in the middle of it. But Jack had skipped these details in his retelling of the events. Maybe it was innocent.

“I coulda melted, fuck. And now that I’m here with you and everything, I can see that you guys really care about each other and... me? And - I don’t know.” Mia trailed off.

No, not innocent. Ruby knew how those words would leave his mouth and why. Motherfucker doesn’t have it in him to fake that. For better or worse. She told herself it was fine, the words were true for her too and it’s not a big deal, but she knew there was a part of her - and not a small part - that was hurt by it. Not that he said something to Mia, or that he meant it. That he didn’t fucking tell her.

OK, Ruby thought, this is not about him. She filed it away for now. Back to enjoying her moment.

“What do you think... I don’t know, like, what the next time might be? Can we, all three of us, meet, you think?” Mia asked.

Ruby wondered the same. She didn’t want to admit to herself or Mia that she’d not planned that far ahead. She thought this had been too remote a possibility, the day they just had.

“I would love for that to happen, so let’s make it happen. This is all very new for me too, so I don’t have any really satisfying answers for you right now, I’m sorry.” Ruby shrugged.

~ - ~

Back in Jack and Ruby’s bedroom

-- 11:15 pm

“Wait, so she actually said...” Jack took his eyes away from Ruby’s chest for a change. It was difficult. Her nightgown was more of a belt around her waist now. “’I like you both. I want you both. I wish he was here’? Meaning me?”

Ruby chuckled. “Yes, baby. That’s what she meant.”

Jack pulled his face into an impersonation of the Grinch. Quite happy to hear that. But he noticed, now that he was looking at Ruby, that her look was... something in it.

“Is everything OK?”

“Oh yeah. Why?” Ruby got off her knees, grabbed the headboard and squatted on his cock instead of sitting on it. She knew that drove him crazy. “You’re not having a good time?”

“Shit, baby.” Jack looked down, head cocked, watching his beautiful wife slide up and down on his cock, gripping it tight. “I love you so much.”

She kissed him. “I love you too, baby!”

“But you gotta slow down and finish the story.”

Ruby looked at him. He knew the look. ‘Fuck what you want, buddy,‘ was the message. She swung her hips and rocked up and down on his cock faster and harder.

Jack didn’t even think to put up a fight. As Ruby fucked him, making maybe a little too much noise, harder than she had in a little while, he grabbed her throat with both hands. He pulled her in and their tongues met. He squeezed her throat a little, just enough for her eyes to close in pleasure, mouth open, lips slack, face getting to be a shade of red above normal. She continued. And she didn’t need to for long.

He came, and as he did, after the first few pumps, he stopped her on an upswing to watch his cock pulse more cum inside Ruby.

“Fuck, baby!” Ruby whispered to him, her voice raspy from the choke.

Then she fucked him. Slam, slam, slam. Definitely too loud. He didn’t care. And he knew she didn’t either.

After, they stayed like that, but Ruby sat on her knees again, Jack still inside her, his head on her chest now, her chin on his head. Both panting, smiling.

Jack felt like the luckiest married guy in any neighborhood on the face of the planet. “God, I love you!”

Ruby kissed him. “I love you, baby!”

When they got their capacity for speech and thought back, Jack asked, “Was there more?”

“Yeah.” Ruby ran her hands through her hair and stretched her neck. “OK, so she tells me she likes us both and wants us both and wants you, and I said I would love for that to happen...”

~ - ~

-- 3:23 pm

“This is all very new for me too, so I don’t have any really satisfying answers for you, I’m sorry.” Ruby shrugged.

“That’s fair,” Mia said.

Mia rolled off and snuggled into Ruby’s side. The light in the room had gone flat and gray-green from the storm and the clock kept at its ticking.

The better part of five minutes passed.

“Can I tell you something boring?” Mia said.

“Please.”

“I started coaching little kids at the gym. Like the fives and sixes.”

“That’s not boring! Since when?”

“March. I’m just kinda helping out other coaches mostly. But I like it. There’s one kid, Finny, can’t do a forward roll to save her life. Goes sideways every single time. Every time. She’s furious about it.” Mia smiled at the wall. “So I told her she goes sideways because she’s scared of her own head. Now she does it sideways on purpose, tells everyone she meant to.”

“Mia! That’s awesome!” Ruby said. “How come I’ve not heard about this?”

Mia was quiet for a bit. “I dunno. Coach says I’m good with them, though.”

Ruby had a hand on Mia’s back and could feel her breathing. Ruby knew Mia’s ‘I dunno’ subbed in for the truth, but she didn’t push it.

“I think that’s so cool, sweetie. Can I go watch sometime?”

“What, me coaching?” Mia looked up.

Ruby looked back at her. “Mhmm.” She smiled.

Mia put her head down. “I’d like that.”

Ruby felt something then too. Mia thinking more than she said.

After a while Ruby changed the subject. “Can I ask about Nick?”

“You can ask about Nick.”

“Was it bad?”

“No,” Mia said. She fiddled with the sheets. “He didn’t do anything. I asked him for more and he said no. He wasn’t a dick about it. He just said no.”

“That’s almost worse, huh?”

“Right?” Mia turned her head to look up at her again, gesturing. “Everybody kept waiting for me to say what he did or who dumped who why or who cheated. I felt insane.”

Head back down.

She felt perfect. Right there.

Ruby looked at the ceiling. She could have said several true things. She pulled Mia in tighter instead.

They stopped talking.

On the other side of the door, out in the hallway, Roscoe rearranged himself with a long sigh. The rain was still raging and the room had to it a heavy, warm, drugged quality. A used-up afternoon. Spent.

Ruby thought about the clothes waiting in the dryer. She thought about getting up and getting everything squared away, ready for Beth and Jack. There wasn’t much to take care of, but still.

She thought about how she did not want the moment to end.

~ - ~

-- 3:50 pm

Ruby came up out of it, the way you do when you didn’t have much say over falling asleep or staying awake. For about five seconds she had no idea what, where, or when she was.

The clock said ten to four. The room might have been a little dimmer.

Mia was awake, on her side, watching her. She had been watching her for a time, by the look of it, and had decided not to wake her up.

“God,” Mia hugged Ruby and Ruby hugged back. “I wish I could stay here with you.”

The ticking clock and the rain were interrupted by Roscoe’s bark. Much louder this time.

“Fuck!” Ruby tapped Mia. “They’re home.”

“What?!”

Mia was off the bed, standing in the middle of the room with her arms crossed over herself, looking at the window like she was, what? Doing the math on the drop?

“How do you know?” Mia yelled at a whisper.

“Roscoe - he’s fucking psychic about it.”

“They’re not supposed to be back yet, are they?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Ruby was moving. “Bathroom. Get your hair wet. Like you just got in from the rain.”

“Ruby--”

“Do you want Beth to find out today?”

Mia swallowed and hurried to the bathroom. Ruby heard the sink going, water splashing. Ruby pulled out a robe from the cabinet and shoved herself inside, then grabbed the underwear, stuffing Mia’s in her left robe pocket - her own in the right. She quickly tugged the sheets of the bed neat, flipping and ordering the pillows. She picked up the empty glass and wiped the ring it left from the bedside table.

“Grab a robe, whatever’s on the hook there!” Ruby called to Mia. “And a towel.”

Wet spot, fuck. She threw a blanket over it, 45 degrees, over the foot of the bed, covering about half of it, looking like a decorative choice.

OK, done. She joined Mia in the bathroom.

Mia’s hair was dripping.

“OK,” Mia said and stepped away from the sink to grab the robe, as Ruby came up and did the same to her own hair.

Ruby turned, shaking her head, making her hair look naturally rained on. Mia had the robe belted too high, and she was breathing like she’d run up the stairs.

Ruby fixed her robe. She put both hands on her shoulders.

Just then they heard the whirr of the remote-controlled garage door ratcheting open.

“That’s the garage,” Mia said.

“Listen to me. Focus.”

“I think I’m gonna throw up.”

“You’re not. Listen. This is very important. Remember all of it.” Ruby spoke evenly, making sure it was as clear as she could make it. “One! Everything you say is the truth. We got caught in the rain, we went to the spa because of it, we bumped into Mary and Jessa, we made plans with Frank for Monday, we got soaked again, we came here to dry off. Your clothes are in the dryer. It’s all true. You know all of it. Don’t lie. Just say nothing else.”

Mia nodded fast.

“Two! Answer the question they ask you exactly and not a word more. If Beth asks if we had fun, you say yes. You don’t tell her about Frank or Mary or Jessa or who had what drink. Just say yeah, I had fun.”

“OK.”

“Three! Don’t fill the quiet. If nobody’s talking, let it be quiet. It will feel like it’s your job to fix it. It isn’t.”

“OK.”

“And keep your hands off your face. Don’t gesticulate.”

Mia’s hand was already halfway to her mouth. She looked at it like it belonged to someone else and put it down.

“Tell the truth. Answer questions exactly. Don’t fill silences,” Ruby repeated. “You got this!”

Ruby touched Mia’s face, gave her a small, soft kiss and went down the stairs.

She stopped two steps in. “Fuck, here.” She laughed and shrugged as she dug Mia’s underwear out of the robe pocket and handed them over. Then she turned again and went down the stairs, fast, turning into the kitchen.

Mia stood there, shoving herself into her wet undies and imitating Ruby’s shrug to no audience as Roscoe barked at the front door.

~ - ~

Back in Jack and Ruby’s bedroom

-- 11:40 pm

“And you know the rest,” Ruby said, looking down at Jack.

Jack sighed. Fuck. Close call.

“Yeah, I know, I know,” Ruby said.

“I didn’t say anything.” Jack smirked at her.

“We should have been a little smarter.”

“You like the risk, don’t pretend.”

Ruby looked down, playing with Jack’s chest hair. Then ripping one out and looking at him.

“See? You like to poke the bear.”

“You’re a bear, are ya?”

“I’d maul ya.”

Ruby smiled, looking down again.

“It was reckless,” she said finally. “I like a bit of risk, yeah, but there’s risk tolerance and there’s recklessness. I’m sorry about that.”

Jack knew she was genuine in that. “It’s alright.”

Ruby kissed his forehead as she got off him. His now soft cock falling back on his thigh. Ruby magically producing a tissue to clean herself up as she sat down beside him.

They settled in, Ruby’s leg on him, head on his shoulder.

“You told her about the... the deal we have and the others?”

Ruby didn’t move her head off his shoulder. “I did.” Then she did move. She looked up at him. “The others!?“

“What?” He chuckled.

“Like the past victims of a serial killer?”

They laughed. Jack figured she had a point. It did sound weird.

He looked at the ceiling for a bit, as it settled.

“You’re mad,” Ruby said.

“I’m not mad.” He was something, though. “We didn’t agree how and when to tell her.”

“We never said we wouldn’t, either.”

“Yeah.”

“Jack, she thought we picked her, sort of, you know, like an object?” Ruby said. “Off a shelf. Like a girl who was... just around! ‘That one! That’ll do!‘ She’s been lugging that idea around in her head and when I saw that, I told her it couldn’t be further from the truth. If you’d seen her, you’d have done the same.”

She wasn’t wrong. He couldn’t really get a hand on what actually bothered him.

“But I had such a great day, baby,” Ruby said. He could hear her smile without looking at her. She rubbed his chest. A moment passed, during which nothing became any clearer to Jack and Ruby continued. “You know... I don’t know if I told you, but - and I guess it’s pretty obvious - I looked at Mia as a bit of a rival. Especially since the first time you two did anything.”

Jack listened.

“We both liked her, I know, but I wasn’t sure she’d be into me.” She looked up at Jack, so full of energy still, laughing. “God, I sound like a teenager.”

“But you fuck like one too, so that’s nice.” Jack blurted out, not sure himself what that was supposed to mean.

Ruby frowned at him through a smile. “Gosh, you’re so pretty, babe.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek. Back down to his chest. “Anyway, I couldn’t help but look at her as competition at the same time as I, you know... wanted her.”

“Right,” Jack said.

“But today...” Ruby moved her hand on Jack’s stomach. “I didn’t feel like that at all. All day. Not even a little.”

Jack heard her. He was happy for his wife.

“Is that bad?” Ruby asked.

“No, not at all. Clearly. Why would you want her to be a rival?”

“Yeah, right.” Ruby nodded. Her hair tickled him a little.

“So how did you feel?” Jack looked out the window. The storm had passed. The sky was dark now and the wet rooftops caught the streetlights. “Instead of jealousy?”

“I felt...” Ruby got up. Sat next to him. Something vulnerable in her look. “I think I felt very close to her.”

What was that feeling in Jack’s stomach? “Close?”

“Jack, I’ve not felt anything like that toward anyone in more than 20 years.”

“Oh. Close.“

And the thought snuck in. To tell her. Tell her she just described what he felt for Mia. Don’t be a fucking coward.

Jack smiled, looked at his wife. “That’s great! Right?”

Maybe if he told her, she’d be happy for him too?

Ruby put a hand on his chest and looked at him. “You think so?”

“Yeah! Of course.” Jack smiled. “I mean, if you don’t leave me for her, obviously. I will clean you out in the divorce.”

Stop joking around, you idiot. Tell her. Tell her you were scared. That you kept it from her. That you...

They smiled at each other.

~ - ~

Thursday, June 25, 2026. Maplewood, New Jersey.

-- 4:50 pm

“And! It has a button,” Beth said. “For the trunk. On the key. Watch.”

Mia, hands in pockets, smile plastered, eyebrows doing the work. “I’m watching.”

They were still parked. Still in front of Beth’s house. Beth had also previously opened the trunk from the driver’s seat and turned around to look at it. It was like watching a proud mother. Or a grandpa amazed at the smartphone having satellite images of his house.

“That’s sick,” Mia said, doing some work to suppress the sarcasm in her voice.

It was a 2019 Civic, dark gray, ninety-one thousand miles. Beth talked about it the way people talk about a dog they rescued. She had already named three things wrong with it, making plans on how she was going to make it right. No, no, not right. Improved.

They drove, though, finally. Beth took the long way, out past the middle school and the ball fields, both windows down. The post-rain air was so nice.

Beth kept both hands on the wheel at ten and two and checked her mirrors obsessively.

Mia sat sideways against the door. She let Beth do the talking.

She was sore. Not in a way anyone could see, hopefully. The soreness was low and warm and it moved when she moved and every time it moved she was back in the guest bedroom and then, without any say in the matter, she was in Jack’s car, and then she was in Beth’s passenger seat again looking at Beth’s hands on the wheel.

She was happy for her. That was about the only uncomplicated, no-need-to-question feeling Mia had left at this point.

“You’re not even listening,” Beth said.

“The alignment’s off and the previous owner was a lady.”

“OK!” Beth threw up a hand and scoffed.

Beth raised a finger. “And it coulda been a dude. It’s just a hair-tie in the door, not a curling iron and a box of tampons. They coulda cleaned up a bit more, is what I’m saying.”

At the drive-thru window Beth ordered for both of them without asking. Mia had no complaints.

They ate in the lot, the Wendy’s sign casting a shadow over the car.

Mia wanted to go home. She’d had too much of a day and not enough time to process even a fucking second of it. Let alone to have to now be here lying to her best friend. Again.

She was tired. No. She was something else. But tired was a good word in the meantime.

Beth’s phone lit up in the cupholder and she turned it face down without picking it up.

Mia sucked her Sprite through the paper straw, staring at Beth. The straw folded. She took off the lid and sipped. Still staring at Beth.

Beth ate at least four single fries one by one. Then a two-fer, dipped in honey mustard.

Mia huffed at her. “Bredda!” She put on a bit of a heavy accent she knew her sensitive bff would find distasteful.

Beth chewed, leaning forward to look up at the sky. “It’s Christian.”

“Oh-kay.”

“He’s been... Whatever. He’s been texting.”

Mia opened and closed the visor. “Ooh-kay-ahh.” She dragged a raspy note.

“It’s nothing. I’m not replying.”

“OOOOOOOOOOOOH-key-doke, little buddy!” Mia yelled, her voice echoing halfway across the state.

Beth pushed out a quick huff of a chuckle through a poorly suppressed smile. “Oh, fuck off!”

Beth was now looking down at her spicy chicken sandwich. It reminded Mia of the way a person stares over the edge of a cliff.

“It’s hard. Being single. You wouldn’t get it, you’re so independent, you don’t need anybody, whatever - I mean, it’s honestly great for you. But I’m not like that. I feel better when I’m in, you know, a relationship.” She gestured with her eyes as much as her hands and shrugged with one shoulder. “Obviously he doesn’t deserve it. Obviously. I know. But I don’t know. Maybe. It’s just, I feel kinda lost without, you know... someone to count on.”

A car rolled past behind them, wet asphalt making the tires hiss.

“Didn’t you say he lied to you?” Mia said.

“Yeah.”

“To your face, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Told you you were crazy, imagining things?”

Beth nodded and deflated.

“So what do you think, B? He’s changed, huh?”

Mia chewed on a fry, her actions being so far away from where her mind was. The fucking hypocrisy, man. She needed, more than anything else, for this day to end.

Beth’s finger traced the volume buttons on the steering wheel.

Mia lifted the top bun off her half-eaten burger, letting it fall back into place. “Someone else can risk it and find out. Not you. Not again. You want someone to count on, you got me.”

Mia looked at Beth. Beth didn’t reply. But the wheels were turning in there, she thought. It wasn’t too long ago she would have probably cried or not even been here, instead somewhere with Christian.

“You’re annoying,” Beth said.

“It’s a pleasure.”

“And right.”

“I know.” Mia leaned over and pulled in Beth’s head for a little hug. “I wish I wasn’t.”

“I know.” Beth hung on to Mia’s arm. “You smell like my mom.”

“I used whatever shampoo was in the bathroom,” Mia answered quickly, but made sure not to sound rushed. Commanding her body to not hyperventilate. Her body obeyed, to her surprise.

They ended the hug. Mia looking at Beth as she leaned back to her seat. “Don’t break. Don’t text that dipshit.” Mia bit her lips together and said the bee sound with her whole body: “Big gyal ting!”

“Mia!”

Beth looked around for anyone who might have overheard, which made Mia laugh. So she continued.

“Big gyal tings!” Clapping her hands on each word. “Ya dun know!”

Beth blushed, laughed and hurried to get the windows up, turn on the music. “I swear, you need a muzzle!”

Mia’s head pounded. She had to keep the act going and it broke her fucking heart.

“Yuh cyaan muzzle dis big dawg! Big dawg nah go inna no muzzle!”

The speed and ease of it terrified her.

~ - ~

They were most of the way to Mia’s house when Beth said, “Hey, how were your clothes dry?”

Mia’s whole body went cold.

“Huh?”

“Your clothes. In the dryer. Your hair was still soaking when we walked in, but your stuff was done drying.”

Answer exactly what is asked. Nothing else.

“Yeah? What’s the question?”

“So did you come in from the rain with wet hair just before we got home? Or did you get back earlier? The dryer doesn’t do its thing in a minute or two.”

“Oh, yeah. We got back a while before you,” Mia said. “I was so cold I took a bath.”

“A bath.”

“I couldn’t get warm.”

“In my house.”

“In your house.”

Beth made a face. “You took a bath in my house.”

Mia smiled at Beth with a face that she hoped said ‘yeah? what’s the problem?‘ Her actual words to go with the face: “I’m sorry?”

“No, it’s just weird.” Beth checked her mirror. “It’s fine. It’s weird, but it’s fine.”

They carried on. Mia not knowing whether to be relieved or terrified.

“So what have you two come up with for my birthday, then? Seeing as you’re hanging out so much.”

“You jealous?” Mia poked her.

“No!”

“Think I’m gonna steal your mom?”

The words felt weird.

“Stop trying to deflect! My birthday. Plan! Spill!”

Mia frowned. “Pfff! As if, sniff!”

Beth was suspicious of something. But she probably didn’t know what of, right? Just weirded out that Mia and her mom hung out just the two of them. Birthday party planning is a perfectly fine excuse and they’ve always been friendly. Mia told herself it was OK.

Mia sat there with her hands still where they felt comfortable: one in her lap, one on the window. She didn’t move them and didn’t fill the quiet.

Except. Ruby’s hair had been wet too. Fuck.

Ruby’s hair. Wet. Ruby was not supposed to have taken a bath. Or, wait, no, she could have taken a shower in the other bathroom, right? OK. See what happens, she thought.

They were at the light before her street. The same intersection where she asked Beth’s father to take the turn so she could ‘see his penis.’ Fucking idiot, who talks like that! What, you thought it was naughty and cute?

Head in the game, almost home.

Mia’s heart was going and she waited to be asked about it.

“Welp. Here we are, miss.”

“Thanks, driver!” Mia leaned over and gave Beth a kiss on the cheek and hugged her.

“Love you,” Beth said.

“Love you,” Mia replied. “Don’t fucking text him, please.”

Beth didn’t say anything, but she nodded at Mia after the hug.

~ - ~

Inside, the TV was on in the den and her dad was on a call in the kitchen with his laptop open, one hand doing shapes in the air. Her mom was at the table with a magazine.

“There she is,” her mom said. “What’d you get up to?”

“Not much. Met up with a friend, covered a class, Danielle called out sick.”

“Mm,” her mom said, and turned a page.

Her dad put a hand over his phone and said, “Hey, kid,” and went back to it. She didn’t like it coming out of her dad. That word.

She went up the stairs.

It had taken her no effort at all. Damn, she thought, lies. They’re coming out like she’s not even trying. As if they were true.

She sat down on the edge of her bed without turning the light on. Just for a bit, she thought. It felt right.

She wasn’t talked or walked or led into any of this. Nobody had made her do anything with Jack. With Ruby. Nobody had made her stand there in Beth’s robe and lie. She made her choice, one thing at a time.

It was on her.

She was still sore. She thought about being in Ruby’s hands. She imagined Jack fading in on the other side like some cheap Hallmark movie.

She fell asleep in her clothes.

~ - ~

Thanks so much for reading 💚

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~~~

Thursday, June 25, 2026. Maplewood, New Jersey.

– 8:40 am

“He’s wearing the shirt.”

“I can hear you,” Jack said.

“Mom. He is wearing the shirt. To a car lot.”

Ruby didn’t look up from her book, sipping coffee. “Which shirt?”

“The parrots.”

“Ah.”

“It’s a good shirt,” Jack said.

“It says you’ll pay sticker.”

Beth said it into the fridge, and Ruby watched Jack take the hit and enjoy it. He was leaning on the cabinet by the hallway, drinking his coffee.

“I’m gonna do the talking,” Beth said.

“And what am I gonna do?” Jack replied.

“You look at the engine and make the face.”

“What face?”

Beth made the face. She got the eyebrows right and the little sideways nod, and Roscoe barked at nothing out in the hall, and Jack laughed.

Ruby closed her thick book with the trojan horse on it, she hadn’t been able to focus on it anyway.

God, it was a good morning.

Ruby knew exactly what her mind was doing. She’d been up since six. She’d heard more birds out there than any yard in New Jersey actually has, and the bread had tasted too divine, and everything in the house smelled like coffee and coconut sunscreen. Of course, none of it was real. But who cares?

“What time’s the appointment?” Ruby asked.

“Ten.” Jack rubbed at his left forearm, absently, the way you rub a thing’s been bothering you too often. “We’ll be out most of the day. She wants to look at two.”

“Three,” Beth said.

“Three?”

“Two and one more if the first two are bad. And if the finance guy tries to walk my rate up, I’m just going to ask him what the buy rate was.”

“The what?” Jack said.

“The actual rate I qualify for. Before he pads it for his commission. They’re allowed to mark it up like two points, it’s legal, it’s just shitty.”

“Where do you even learn this stuff?”

“There’s this place called the internet.”

“OK.” Jack said.

“It’s like a library, right,” Beth continued to stab her father. “But you can also ask questions and watch these things called videos.”

“You fuckin’-” Jack took pebbles out of the decorative glass cylinder in the hallway and started pelting Beth. “Respect you elders, you little-”

“And you can get on there, they have like these stores. You can tell the big bright box that you want undies and a walking cane-” dodging the pebbles, “and it gets delivered right to your door.”

“OK, kid, we get it,” Jack laughed, ceasing the air assault, to Ruby’s disappointment. She loved watching Jack and Beth go at it. “You probably think you’re the first generation smarter than the one before you.”

Then Beth had gone back to the fridge and found the yogurt she’d been looking for. Ruby watched her daughter eat standing up in the kitchen she’d be gone from in ten weeks time.

Couple months. And then the house would be theirs.

The idea of her daughter leaving for college produced a thread of relief. That caused a bit of guilt, but the guilt didn’t bother her. She didn’t need her every thought to be flawless and motherly to know she loved her daughter.

Ruby looked at Jack’s arm. “That still bothering you?”

He turned the palm over as he walked up to show her the pink new skin and scabbed over cuts. “Pulls when I sleep on it.”

“Healing nicely, though. Just a bad spot, huh? A lot of movement.” Ruby said.

“What’re you up to today?” Jack said. Ruby let him change the subject un-called-out. She had her attention on something else today.

“Meeting with Mia at Lonnie’s.”

Ruby said it into her coffee. She said it the way she’d have said dentist, and she felt her own pulse tick up, but she knew that had not made it to her face.

Beth looked up. “For what?”

“Nothing.”

“For what, Mom.”

“Nothing, sweetheart. Adult business. Deeply boring.”

“Oh my God, is this the thing? It’s the thing, isn’t it?”

“There’s no thing.”

“There’s a thing,” Beth said to Jack.

“I don’t know nothing about no thing,” Jack said. Unconvincing, but by design, Ruby thought.

Beth pointed the yogurt spoon at both of them, smug in her knowing, and went to find her shoes.

Then it was the two of them and the dog and the sound of Beth upstairs.

Jack put his cup in the sink. He came around behind her and put his hands on her shoulders.

“You okay?” he said.

“I’m great.”

“You look great.”

“I know.”

He laughed and kissed the top of her head.

“OK, tell Mia I said hi.”

“Will do.” She put a little extra on it, the way a cartoon villain might.

“Don’t say it like that.” Jack laughed, walking away.

“Yes, dear,” she said it like that.

She was kidding, of course, but it was all colored by the fact that Ruby had been obsessively thinking about the night of the dinner, some two weeks ago now. In the shower and in the car and at the grocery store and at lunch and while listening to a podcast and... like a teenager.

Ruby felt behind, compared to Jack. That was one thing. Balancing too much Mia on one side of the marriage for too long would sink it, no doubt.

But the birds and the rainbows and the unnatural morning light were not there that morning for reasons of marital balance.

Mi-yah. She thought. She remembered again, like she had done every day. The surprise of Mia taking charge. The way she had made her lose composure. The touch of Mia’s tongue between her legs.

Time to make new memories.

~~~

Thursday, June 25, 2026. Lonnie’s cafe, Maplewood.

– 10:30 am

“She thinks I’m a bad person now.” Mia said.

“She doesn’t.”

Ruby turned her cup a quarter turn on the saucer. Was that something?

Ruby had ordered without opening the menu. Said good morning to the girl behind the counter by name, even made her laugh. And it didn’t sound like it was a fake laugh either.

Fucking Ruby, man. It’s like the whole town takes a step in toward her as she walks by. How does that happen? Or was that just Mia projecting?

It didn’t help that Ruby, in her white blouse and smart pants, looked like she was taking a quick lunch break, soon to go back to running some Fortune 500 company.

Mia had decided to try and keep her outfit casual, she didn’t want to overdo it. She knew because she had overdone it at first, hours earlier, and then decided it was a mistake. To be stuffed in an unfamiliar outfit, held in a scaffolding of makeup? No need to feel any more like a make-a-wish kid. Jeans and a T-shirt for her. Hair down.

Is she just following Ruby’s lead here? Or is she making her own choices? She wants to be here, sure, but...

“Tell me what she actually said.”

So Mia told her.

She’d been carrying it around since Fairleigh and it had come out messier than she wanted, but the information was there.

“There are so many lies twisted up there, you know, that I can’t even keep them straight.” Mia said, after.

“You can,” Ruby said. “You just don’t like how it feels.”

“Yeah, maybe,”

Ruby was right. She could keep her shit together. But how did she know that? Mia herself barely did.

“Later in the night she asked me what I meant when I’d said ‘I need you’ to Jack.”

Mia had expected Ruby to say something to that. She didn’t.

“I said I panicked. That I meant, like, we’d be stranded. Me and Beth. No ride, no way home, and he’s in a cell, and what’s that do to your family, right? So, I need you, as in, we all need you. Which is true. It is true.”

Ruby nodded. “Sure,” she said.

And that was it. She didn’t push. Mia almost wished she would have. Though not sure why.

Mia pulled a piece off the pastry she wasn’t eating. “I keep thinking, if it was the other way around? Would I have taken her apart? Would I have found the shit she’s hiding?”

“She’s not going to find it,” she said. “Not from you. You’re better at this than you think.”

“Not at the top of the list of things I’m trying to be good at. But it’s something.”

Ruby said nothing.

Fucking Ruby, man. Here with her. Out in public?

“Can I ask you something?” Mia said.

“You can ask.”

Mia had rehearsed about nine ways into it. She’d rehearsed them at the gym and in bed and once out loud when she knew no one could hear. Every time it had sounded, when she got to the end of it, like asking for absolution, forgiveness. So she picked the shortest version.

“Does he tell you everything?”

Ruby looked at her over the cup.

“No,” she said.

“Like what?”

Ruby smiled at her, almost a laugh.

“Oh,” Mia nodded, understood. “How would you know? Right.”

“I mean, I know enough to know that there are things he leaves out and he knows I know. Does that make sense? It sounds complicated and stupid, now that I’m saying it out loud.”

“I think I get it.”

Mia waited for more. There wasn’t more. There was just Ruby, warm and completely unbothered.

Mia put a hand around her iced coffee to have something to do with it. The condensation had made a ring on the table and she smeared it with her thumb, and when she looked up Ruby was still looking at her, and had been the whole time.

“So the party,” Mia said.

“The party.”

They did the planning they’d met for. They actually did it, solid fifteen minutes of it.

They talked about guest counts and about which of Beth’s friends couldn’t be in a room together anymore, and Ruby pointed out that Beth would probably somehow sniff out any booking they made at any of her favorite restaurants, and she was funny about all of it in a dry, low way that made Mia keep laughing and imagining Ruby’s hands on her.

“So not a restaurant, maybe?” Mia said.

“Not a restaurant.”

“Her actual birthday’s the seventeenth.”

“Mm. A Friday.”

“Right. So why not do it away,” Mia said. “Do it somewhere... I don’t know, like a getaway?”

Ruby put the phone down.

“Go on.”

“There’s that place they used to take us. Well, you used to, and my folks.” Holy shit that’s weird, she thought and moved on quickly on purpose. “With the cabins? Up past Newton Hollow. Birch, Birch-something. Lake thing. There was a lodge and there was a sorta DJ-ish music guy who was, honestly, pretty good?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s Birchwood, I think? You got it, I remember. Huh... That could work.” Ruby sipped her second flat white. “And Beth used to love that place. Love!”

“Yeah, I know.” Mia smiled, proud. “She still brings it up as a sorta nostalgia thing.”

“Damn, OK, that could work.”

“So that, then? Book the cabins, get everyone up there, she has no idea, and then it’s not a party, it’s a whole - “

“Weekend.”

“Weekend.” Mia said.

Ruby laughed at that, and picked the phone back up and started a new note, and Mia sat there with an entire flock of mockingbirds in her stomach, thinking holy shit, did she just make a getaway happen. With Jack and Ruby?

“But that’s...” Ruby said. Leaning in a little, as if to not be overheard, but there was no one in the empty patio at Lonnie’s. Dark clouds gathering to interrupt the sunny morning. Only these two. Mia leaned in too. “That doesn’t sound like the kind of thing for a big crowd, does it?”

“Yeah, not exactly the kind of thing you do in, like, a big group...” Mia was so excited, she wondered if Ruby could see past the silly face she put on. Mia saw that they could all go away. It would be risky and stupid, and they’d probably not even get any alone time, but she wanted to do nothing more.

“Yeah...” Ruby mused. Mia knew Ruby was actually relieved to possibly have a plan for Beth’s birthday that didn’t involve having to wrangle a ton of people together.

“So it’s almost like we have to keep it small?”

“It’d be almost weird not to.”

Both of them making exaggerated villainous faces at each other then. Ruby was the first to break, submitting in laughter. Mia’s face relaxed, smiling, looking over Ruby lean back, wondering then if Ruby knew just how hard of a time she was having trying to keep it together.

Ruby opened her eyes and her face changed into something a little more serious.

“Don’t do that here.” She said.

“Do what?” Mia asked.

“That look.”

Mia’s ears went hot.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Ruby turned her cup another quarter turn. “Our eyes say plenty. Even when nothing else is happening. Actually, especially when nothing else is happening.”

Mia felt the whole town go quiet around the table. She looked at the ring of condensation on the table instead. The clouds were getting darker. Wind picking up. The weather had turned completely.

“You know what?” Ruby interrupted the silence. “The spa on Vose is pretty much dead on weekdays.”

“Oh?” Mia tried not to seem overly eager.

“You feel like getting out of the rain?”

“It’s not r-”

A thunderclap. Both of their eyes went wide.

“How did you-” Mia started.

“I didn’t!” Ruby said, grabbing the table, genuinely surprised, smile sneaking back in.

It started raining. A little at first, but in about 20 seconds it was like a monsoon.

“Are you a witch?” Mia asked.

“Fuck, I might be.”

“So, what was it you were saying about a spa there?”

“A party planning committee retreat, I’m thinking,” she had to almost yell to be heard over the rain now, looking at the threatening sky around them from underneath the awning. “Strictly professional, of course!”

“We have been working very hard!” Mia doing her best to mimic Ruby’s matter-of-factness.

“A little steam?”

“Oof. A little schvitz?” Mia scrunching up her eyebrows to say ‘don’t mind if I do’.

Ruby chuckling at her jokes did something to Mia that felt so unfair.

~ - ~

Thursday, June 25, 2026. The Wellhouse Spa, Maplewood.

– 11:20 am

“Wait! I don’t have a swimsuit,” Mia said in a loud whisper to Ruby, wringing out the end of her shirt in the lobby.

The awning had gotten them from Lonnie’s cafe to Ruby’s car mostly dry. The walk from the car to the spa’s front door had drenched them in seconds. Mia struggled to remember the last time it had rained this bad.

“They sell them.” Ruby was already at the desk. “Two, please. A medium and a small.” Mia noticed she didn’t look back at her to check her size.

The girl behind the desk didn’t ask for a membership number, didn’t ask for anything. She just pulled two sealed suits off the shelf.

“You come here a lot?” Mia said, once they were walking.

“Don’t tell anyone.”

Why did it seem like Ruby was always saying more than the thing she’d said? Why did Mia imagine cold, goose bumped skin under Ruby’s soaked blouse as they walked to the locker room?

“Oh, would you look at this!” a lady from inside the locker room said, full of what seemed like forced enthusiasm.

“Mary, Jessa.” Ruby replied, walking in, kisses on cheeks. “How’s things?”

Mia knew them too. Their naked breasts touched her as they exchanged cheek kisses and pleasantries. Mary was her old classmate Ray’s mother and Jessa had once renovated a house with her mother Joan before they ran out of money or something. Just one of Joan’s numerous expensive attempts at finding herself.

“Oh, you know,” Jessa sighed, putting on a show, “it’s just such a shame, my bad ankle. I can’t work, I can’t jog. All I can do is soak and steam.”

“A tragedy, truly.” Ruby said.

“And what’s your excuse?” Mary asked Ruby and Mia.

“Mia, how’s your mother?” Jessa asked.

“She’s good, thanks. I’ll tell her you asked.” Mia said. She wanted to melt into the locker and for something shiny to distract them.

“Jack’s out with Beth, shopping for cars.” Ruby replied to Mary. “We had some event planning to get done. Then we got soaked in the rain,” she looked over at Mia. “Now we’re avoiding pneumonia the only way we know how.”

The ladies laughed.

Mia had to put her head in her purse behind the open locker door when she turned and noticed Ruby had already peeled off her wet blouse and bra and was busy gathering her hair in a ponytail. Her upper body exposed. And it was goose bumped, she had managed to notice.

OK, keep it together now, Mia told herself.

The locker room was tiled, smelled like eucalyptus and someone’s expensive shampoo. Two rows of lockers, a bench down the middle.

“Mia, how’s things with Nick?” Jessa asked.

“Who’s Nick?” Mary said. Pulling on the top of her swimsuit. Mia had hoped they were on their way out.

“Oh, Nick’s... You know, I think he’s at UNC now, he went on a football scholarship.”

“You guys not talking anymore?” Jessa was turning in the mirror, checking out her own ass.

“Nah, not really.”

“Who’s Nick?” Mary asked louder.

“Nick and Mia used to date,” Ruby said. Turning to Mia after. “But that was, what? Like almost a year ago now?”

“Yep.”

Mia didn’t feel like retreading her private past in front of these strangers.

“That’s a shame, you guys were so cute together!” Jessa said.

“How’s the antiques game, J?” Ruby asked.

Mia wondered if Ruby had changed the topic on purpose.

As the small talk continued playing in the background, Mia was changing quickly, not looking around. Her clothes thrown in the locker, the fresh swimsuit on. Hers was a two-piece dark purple one, surprisingly cute and fit her well.

She turned around to see what Ruby’s looked like, but she had gone somewhere. In the restroom, Mia figured.

“Rinse before the pool, please,” a sign said, in a font that tried to be friendly. It was, actually, Mia thought. Good choice. The showers were the open kind, four heads on a tiled wall, matte glass separating the stalls.

Mia went in one of the stalls, pressing the button to start it. The warm water felt so nice and the noise gave her a reason to feel like she had some privacy.

“Whatcha doing?”

“Huh?” Mia pushed back her wet, heavy hair, opening one eye to find Ruby in front of her, holding her towel. “I’m showering.”

Her swimsuit was very similar to Mia’s, but a dark green color, looked almost suede, with a little shine to it. Classy. Fuck, Ruby could attend a masquerade ball in a barrel and still look classy.

“You shower before going swimming?” she asked.

“But the sign-” Mia laughed. “I mean, who am I to question a sign.”

Ruby laughed.

“Let’s go.”

Mia took her towel off the hook and felt like a wet street dog next to Ruby.

The pool room opened up all at once past the showers - one large room, high ceilings where the only windows, the skylights, were streaked in rain.

An older man at the far end of the pool climbed out, toweled off, and was shuffling off.

“Frankie!”

“Ah, Mrs. Dauwalter - morning!” he stopped mid-shuffle, rubbing his red eyes, and they all shuffled toward each other to meet in the middle.

“This is Mia.”

“Nice to make your acquaintance, miss. Frank.”

“Hello, nice to meet you, Frank.” Mia smiled.

“How’s the hip?” Ruby asked.

“About as good as it’s gonna get, I think. All according to age.” He trailed off a bit and snapped back to Ruby as if he had owed her an apology for the indulgence. “Haven’t seen you in a bit. Keeping busy, then?”

“No, I’m here every day. Trying to bump into you.” Ruby was putting on a bit of a flirty act.

“Sure, sure.” The old man laughed. “Tell Jack I said hi.”

“Will do. When are you making the ribs again?”

“Whenever you want, dear. Sunday afternoon?”

“Make it Monday afternoon and I’ll bring vinegar slaw and Yuengling?”

“That’s a deal then!” Frank made a finger gun at Ruby and made a clicking sound. “It’s been a pleasure, ladies.”

“Nice to meet you, Frank!”

“Walk away slow, buddy, give us a view.” Ruby said.

Mia suppressed a laugh, looking at Ruby. “You guys friends?”

“Yeah, kinda?” Ruby didn’t seem sure. “No, yeah, we’re friends at this point, I’d say. Weird.”

“How’d that start, then?”

“About like this? He comes here to swim for exercise and we kept bumping into each other and I guess small talk has turned into something a little more? He lives alone, his kids live far away and I get the feeling he can use the company from time to time. Sometimes I go over there myself, sometimes with Jack.”

“That’s so sweet.”

“Not entirely selfless. He cooks these incredible ribs - no idea how. And he’s full of wild stories.”

“Open invite?”

“For sure. Let’s get a drink.”

Mai Tai for Ruby, Mia got a Virgin Mojito.

From the little bar built into the far wall like a walk-in closet - one guy behind it fixing their drinks then - they could see a hallway with a bunch of dark glass doors, a hand-lettered sign by each one - FINNISH SAUNA, STEAM ROOM, INFRARED SAUNA, SALT ROOM.

They walked themselves into the pool. They didn’t talk about Beth. They didn’t talk about the party, or the getaway. Ruby told a story about a hot yoga class she’d walked out of after ten minutes because the instructor kept saying ‘find your edge‘ and Mia laughed so hard she got chlorine water up her nose.

“Do you think those two suspected anything?” Mia asked. Meaning Jessa and... Mary, was it?

“They’ll suspect something if you looked like you were hiding something.”

“Did I?”

Ruby laughed, and shook her head.

“Maybe a little. I doubt they noticed. They’re uhh... how would you say it nicely?”

“A little self-obsessed?”

“Bored and intellectually atrophied, I was going to say..”

Mia hoped Ruby’s judgement didn’t land on her like that. She felt like Ruby could probably see through any kind of bullshit anyone tried to feed her or themselves.

“And we have nothing to hide anyway, right?” Mia said. “Just two girls out on a leisurely spa day.”

Ruby said nothing, just smiled, looking up at the skylight, rain flowing, looking to Mia like part of the decoration. Ruby’s hands were stretched out to the sides, resting on the side of the pool. Mia was a few feet away in the round corner of it, doing effortless leg-lifts under the water.

“You living out your calisthenics dreams there?”

They both laughed. Again. Mia was surprised by how much they laughed. And relieved. She had fun with Ruby. And with her husband.

“Jack.” Mia said.

“Yep?”

“He’s got some...” Mia not wanting to be insensitive or seem nosy. “He’s so sweet and calm usually.”

“Right.”

“But at the mixer thing...”

“Mhmm.”

“Yeah. I just wanted to ask... I dunno, like, he’s not usually like that, right?”

“No. Not on the outside, anyway.”

“He’s always seemed very composed.” Mia sipped.

Ruby considered. “He is. But he...” Maybe she didn’t have it all or didn’t know how to say it? Mia was hanging on the edge of her imagined underwater seat.

“Look, the thing with Jack, to sorta simplify it so that this conversation wouldn’t have to be an hour long, is that he’s all the good things you think he is. And he’s all the bad things a good man has to be. The problem, more or less, is that he’s fucking terrified of the bad aspects and wants to pretend like they’re not there.”

“Mm.” Mia looked down, thinking.

“Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Mia answered. She wondered, Ruby having mapped out Jack like this. Did Jack know? And if it was so easy for Ruby to navigate everyone’s psyches... It made Mia wonder how much of this whole situation had Ruby orchestrated herself? And why?

“Not to say it’s all good.” Ruby said. “His outbursts could land him in real trouble. They are rare, so there’s that, but a guy like that.” Ruby chewed on it. “I mean, look at Beth, right? Do you want to see your father do shit like that - as an overreaction?”

“My father wouldn’t, but I see your point.”

“Then again,” Ruby said, dragging it out. She looked around for people without it looking like she was doing it. Except to Mia. She’d been doing plenty of that herself. “I’m not embarrassed to tell you that I find the darker side of my husband very sexy.”

Mia smiled, looking at Ruby, knowing what she meant.

“It’s hot, right?” Ruby said.

Mia laughed.

“I was nervous and scared for him at the mixer. But after, I kinda noticed my thoughts going back to it. Maybe the danger of it, maybe the... what is it? The contrast?”

“The good, the bad.”

“Yeah!”

“He’s an animal.”

Mia took a deep breath, eyebrows up. “You can say that, yeah,” as she took a sip.

“OK, sweetie,” Ruby splashed a bit of water at Mia, playfully. “enough fantasizing about my husband, I’m right here.”

“You want me to fantasize about you?” Mia said, looking very much away from Ruby.

“Do you?”

Mia breathed deeper, feeling her body. She wanted so bad to wrap herself around Ruby. Tell her to just shut up and take her. What would they do? She didn’t know. She’d only been with guys. Fuck!

Mia dipped into the water. Swam a little lap and came back to rest on the edge, chest to the side of the pool now.

“I’ve been meaning to ask, how do you do that,” Mia said. “The whole - “ she gestured, vaguely, around. “Being fine. Making it look like nothing. Snapping in and out of it in a second the way you did in the closet.”

Ruby considered the question longer than Mia had expected.

“Give it another twenty years.” She took a drink from her Mai Tai.

“Pff, this fucking broad.” Mia heard herself saying before she could catch and censor herself.

Ruby choked on her Mai Tai, the red-orange liquid splashing back on her lip. Both of them laughing then.

“You know,” Ruby said after palming some pool water to her face to rinse away the cocktail, “I like this version of you.”

“What version?”

“You keep surprising me, Mia.”

Mia’s stomach did a somersault. “You better not talk to me like that, Mrs. Dauwalter. I’m liable to let my eyes betray the nature of our relationship again.” She did her best to keep it together and appear at least as funny as she was flustered.

“Oh? The nature of it?”

Mia put her plastic virgin Mojito on the edge of the pool and kicked off.

She did a small arc, coming back toward Ruby, stopping a few feet away. She didn’t say anything. She looked around. The bar guy was on his phone. Frank had left. No one in the main room anywhere. Jessa and Mary somewhere in the saunas.

Ruby looking at her now. It seemed like she was no longer looking at Mia as the family friend or the party planning assistant. Ruby was breaking her own rules. Her eyes were.

But she must have known, like Mia did, that no one was watching. Right?

“What is it, sweetie?” Ruby asked. “The nature of our relationship.”

Mia dipped into the water slowly, it rising to just under her nose. She tried not to giggle when it made her think of a hippo. She didn’t want to ruin the mood. She had ruined plenty of charged moments with her stupid jokes before and she’d been on a good streak of not doing that lately.

Instead she stared at Ruby. Letting her eyes say what she didn’t quite know how to put into words. And Ruby really fucking stared back at her. The attention felt so revealing on Mia’s body, even underwater, the light broken, image distorted. She felt like she couldn’t have a single thought just then, not one that wouldn’t be shared with Ruby.

“You tell me.” Mia came up just long enough to say it and dipped back down.

Ruby rested her elbows on the side of the pool. The bathing suit even darker now. Mia could see her nipples hard under it and she didn’t try to hide her attention wandering down to them.

Click.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Ruby said, rolling her eyes.

“-m I supposed to give a damn about your downturn or whatever? He tells me Venice in the spring and then he’s giving me some sob story about how he’s getting squeezed or whatever.”

Along with the sound of a glass door clicking open over one of those round latches, the lady background noise came back in full force as Mary and Jessa came out of one of the saunas or steam rooms behind the wall. They hadn’t made it to the pool room yet.

“Eww, don’t talk shop when I’m talking shopping, that’s what I ALWAYS tell mine.”

Mia laughed, watching Ruby get annoyed.

“Let’s go.” Ruby said.

“Where?”

“Where we won’t be bothered.” Ruby effortlessly pulled herself up to the edge of the pool, sitting on it now. “Unless you wanna stay here, keep pretending you’re an alligator or whatever.”

Mia felt like she might need to consult a priest to get Ruby out of her head. But not quite yet.

~ - ~

Thursday, June 25, 2026. The Wellhouse Spa, Maplewood.

– 11:55 am

Ruby left the pool, hearing and seeing Jessa and Mary go to the bar. Mia following her. Those two seagulls won’t come back to the saunas for a bit, they’ll drink and be in the pool or hot tub.

Ruby picked the Finnish sauna. The least visited one, dark enough to blind anyone coming in for a few seconds, the extreme heat is disorienting and tiring, and it’s definitely too much work for Jessa and Mary to endure.

“Oh wow,” Mia said, as they walked through the dark glass door. “This is a hot one.”

“It is that,” she moved in behind her, closing the door, looking at Mia.

“Come here,” Ruby said.

She took Mia by the hand, spinning her around to face her. She kissed her, not used to having to lean down to do it. Just as she remembered. Her lips tasted so sweet now, tongue still cold from the icy drink. An arousing contrast to the hot room.

“Mmm,” Mia softly pushed against Ruby’s chest, both breathing fast. “Isn’t this too risky?”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“Fuck no.” Mia pulled Ruby back down by her neck.

Ruby walked Mia back toward the seating. The planks hot to the touch, but skin adapting quickly to the shock.

They sat down, Mia on Ruby’s left. Next to Ruby on the other side - a wooden bucket, water and a copper ladle in it. Meant for throwing on the hot rocks to create steam.

Ruby had a hold of Mia’s face with one hand, her lower back with the other. Their tongues finding each other, Mia’s feeling so... fuck... refreshing? Nourishing? Life-affirming? There were no words in Ruby’s vocabulary for the things Mia did to her.

Mia then surprising her once more by sliding her hand under Ruby’s top, grabbing her breast firmly.

Then Mia stopped the kissing, she shot the door a quick glance and then gave her full attention to Ruby’s breasts. She pulled Ruby’s top up and over, cupped them, from the bottom, from the side, admiring them.

“God, your breasts!”

“God, kid, your... everything!”

“He calls me kid too.”

Silence. Ruby read the fear in Mia’s eye. Their eyes had adjusted to see details in the darkened room now. And Mia had the look as if she’d just waved a piece of meat in front of a tiger, hoping then the animal would take it and not kill her instead.

“Does he make you cum?” Ruby said, already knowing the answer, no intention of killing Mia.

“Yes.”

Ruby put her hand to Mia’s lips, working them open, gentle. Mia opened her mouth, Ruby slid her middle and ring fingers in, noticing her own wedding ring for a change.

She used her other hand to slide under the front of Mia’s bikini bottom, pulling it away from her abdomen a little, seeing inside the untanned areas not meant for anyone but herself and the most intimate of friends. Mia spread her legs a bit wider and Ruby put her slicked up fingers against Mia’s pussy.

“Oh my god, Mrs. D.”

The muscles on Mia’s stomach twitched a little. Ruby wondered if that was true of all of her, body answering before her mind caught up.

“It must be so overwhelming to be you, sweetie.”

Mia didn’t open her eyes, she was breathing heavily, her head leaned over to Ruby’s shoulder. Ruby giving her a kiss on the head, whispering to her as she gently rubbed Mia’s soaked, slippery pussy.

“Your feelings are loud, I bet. Can you make sense of them?”

“Almost never.” Mia said.

“How’s this feel?” as she rubbed Mia’s clit.

“Fuck.”

“Does it feel wrong?”

“Yes.”

“Do you like it?”

“Yes, Mrs. D.”

“My husband is Mr. D., I’m Ruby. It’s my hand you have between your legs, sweetie.”

Mia grabbed Ruby’s hand under the elbow. Not to stop it, but to almost hold on. As if it was a theme park ride and they’re about to drop.

“Fuck, Ruby, I’m gonna--” Ruby felt Mia’s body tense, her stomach pushing in and out.

Click.

The door.

Ruby told herself to focus.

She put her left hand down between Mia’s legs, relieving her right hand to move, first using it to pull her bikini top back over her breasts, then to the bucket of water by her side. Ruby found the ladle by feel, and brought a full scoop of water down on the stones in one motion.

Mia grabbed Ruby’s hand, pulled it away from her.

The invisible steam from the rocks blasted them.

Mia propped herself on her hands on the bench, leaning down, scooping her hair behind her ear, looking over at Ruby in what seemed like a mix of fear and desperation.

Ruby just looked at her, smiling. Mia’s eyes had a hard time staying on one thing. They darted from Ruby, to her knees, to the person coming in.

The woman closed the door behind her, eyes squinted, putting out her towel on the bench on the other side of the room, laying down quickly, face to the wall. The hot steam pushing her there quicker. Well timed.

Mia grabbed Ruby’s hand, tight. Like she had lost the control needed for measured touch. She pulled away the front of her bikini herself and moved Ruby’s fingers back down there.

She had gone rigid, right at the edge of orgasm, a tremor low in her thighs.

Ruby moved her fingers. Rubbing Mia’s clit. The woman lay there just a few feet away.

There were sighs in the room. Perfectly justified. Nothing odd. Nothing suspicious at all, as Mia came, holding onto Ruby’s arm with both hands, as if to stay afloat out at sea. Mia pressed her mouth against Ruby’s shoulder to stop, it seemed, from screaming or moaning.

Mia’s shaking subsided in time.

She looked over at the lady. Then back at Ruby. She mouthed a big, slow WHAT THE FUCK? at her and Ruby did all she could to stop herself from laughing out loud.

Both of them were out of breath, there was nothing to prepare you for heat and humidity like this.

Ruby removed her hand from between Mia’s legs. She sucked her middle finger clean. Mia smiling at her, they exchanged a quick, quiet kiss.

“Welp, alrighty. I gotta get myself in the cold plunge, this is too rich for my blood.” Ruby said and got up.

“Oof, yeah,” Mia said. With a theatric sigh. “Same.”

Out into the little hallway then, the cold plunge more or less a hot-tub-sized hole in the ground, just much deeper.

Ruby lowered herself in slowly, long steady breath out, goosebumps, hard nipples.

Mia stood over her, sweat dripping, looking down.

“When are Jack and Beth back?”

~ - ~

Thanks so much for reading 💚

Huge thanks to my supporters — you’re the ones who make this possible! You can join them here on Substack or on Patreon, where you’ll get chapters early, teasers, notes, and images and later on bonus scenes, voting on plot when appropriate.

Chapter 7 is outlined and coming soon.

This is Chapter 5 of an ongoing series.

Read them in order if you want anything to make sense💚

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6

~ - ~

Friday, June 19, 2026. Super 8 motel Fairleigh

– 11:05 pm

“Wait, Jack,” Mia said.

She was still pulling on her jacket when he started the car, so she jumped in the passenger seat with half of it in her lap.

“-exit nine offa Route 15, just past Newton Hollow, out on beautiful Lake Hessian!” An abrasive radio DJ voice blurted from the sound system. “That’s right, I said camp!”

“Her location hasn’t moved,” she said, looking at the phone, pushing her other hand all the way in the jacket finally. “She’s still at the place.”

Nothing.

Jack didn’t back up to exit the parking spot, instead twisting the wheel all the way right, driving up and over the little concrete stoppers, whatever those are called.

“-at Birchwood Lakes Family Camp I mean cabins, folks, real ones, real beds - you’re not SAVAGES! Bonfires every single night, all summer long, s’mores, live music from a guy named Denny who is honestly pretty good, and a private b-”

Jack pushed the volume button, plastic panels creaking under his finger, the radio clicking off. They were out of the Super 8 parking lot.

“Jack?”

Nothing.

He wasn’t ignoring her. Ignoring somebody takes effort, a little performance of not listening. There was none of that. He just genuinely seemed like he didn’t hear her.

“OK,” she said, to no one.

She had been in cars with Jack a lot. He drove like a dad. Blinkers, full stops, one lazy wrist on the wheel. That guy was not in this little car.

Mia watched his hands. Ten and two, strangling the wheel. Forearms like the marble guys at the Met. She’d stared at some Roman wrestler on a class trip. She remembered feeling like the statue might move.

Any other night she would have enjoyed the view.

“That’s a stop sign,” she said. “Jack. That’s a- JESUS!”

They shot the crossing. Empty. Nothing coming either way. Thank God.

“Jesus...” she breathed.

She touched his forearm. It was like laying a hand flat on a washing machine mid-spin. Indifferent to touch.

“Jack. Please slow down.”

Nothing.

“Say something.”

Nothing.

A kid would be screaming, she thought. A kid would punch the wheel and cry. This was not that. Packed down, wearing a seatbelt, doing sixty through a college town. She was not afraid of him. She checked, looking around inside her own body and couldn’t find it. But for the first time she understood that he was a dangerous man. It didn’t seem like Jack at all anymore.

She wanted to avoid thinking too much about Beth having sent a literal fucking SOS and the phone it went to having been lying on the floor of a motel room. In this jacket. While Mia had been busy with Jack’s...

She rolled the window down an inch and let the air hit her face.

The courtyard came up on the right. String lights between poles, a food truck closing up, just a few people outside.

Beth. Standing. Whole. Fine. Thank God.

Then the rest of it. The tall guy. Jean-Jacques, was it? Standing too close, tipped over her, a cup in his hand. Beth with arms crossed, her weight going backward. A pseudo-smile Mia recognized from a dozen other situations.

“There,” Mia said. “She’s right there. She’s OK.”

He took the little car across two parking spots and slammed it into park.

“Jack.”

He was out of the car before she got her seatbelt off.

~ - ~

Saturday, June 20, 2026. Maplewood, New Jersey.

Back home. The next afternoon.

– 3:10 pm

“Hi, buddy. Yes. OK. Hello.” Beth let Roscoe walk and jump and wag and push her backward into the hall as they entered. “OK, little buddy, OK! Yes! Good boy! Yeah, you!”

The dog had met them at the door acting like they’d been gone for a year.

The drive home took much longer than it had to. Nobody was in a hurry to get anywhere. After picking up the car from the shop, dropping off the cursed Yaris, waiting for the guy to find the keys to the Range Rover, they stopped at a Wawa for gas. Then stopped at a lake one of the girls found on the map. Jack sat in the shade with a coffee, returning a call from his foreman - a permit inspector had shown up early. Beth and Mia swam out to the buoys and back and lay in the sun for a bit.

By the time they dropped Mia off at her house, the whole thing could almost pass for the trip that had been planned.

Almost.

Beth went off toward the stairs. “I need a shower and then I’m calling Grandma back. And I gotta call Alice with her tax stuff before four.”

“OK, sweetie.”

Ruby came out of the dining room, removing an earbud and snapping shut the case. She kissed Beth on the head as she passed.

“Just remember they put people in cages for tax evasion,” Ruby said. She got a half a laugh out of her daughter, and watched her all the way up the stairs.

Jack knew this part. Twenty years. She wouldn’t ask what happened, make a big deal. She’d just read the situation, as a reflex, the way a baby would sense a parent’s mood. Or the way someone with an alcoholic for a parent can tell you who’s had a few before they’ve said a single word.

He watched her get to him and stop.

“We’re OK,” he said.

“Mhm.” Her eyes went down to his left hand. The wrap was neat. Two little butterfly tabs, tape folded flat. Not his work. “Let me have a look, alright?”

“Yeah.” He motioned his head toward the backyard. “Let’s take it outside.”

The smell of cut grass, somebody’s mower going a street over, Johnson’s house likely, he thought. Most other houses had the robots going now. Roscoe pushed past their legs and went off to patrol the fence line.

They sat at the patio table. Ruby took his hand in both of hers and started unwinding the wrap, and Jack started talking.

He told it in order. Mia getting the text, telling him. The drive over. A very quick recap of picking up Beth at the mixer. The after.

~ - ~

Friday, June 19, 2026. Super 8 motel Fairleigh.

– 11:35 pm

“Go ahead. I want to talk to my dad,” Beth said.

She got out of the Yaris and waited.

Nobody had said anything the whole way back.

Mia looked at Jack. Then she went. The door clicked shut behind her, the curtained window lighting up.

The lot was quiet. Moths at the light over the walkway.

“Thank you for coming to get me,” Beth said.

Jack put his left hand in his pocket, easy, like he’s just... standing around. The cut was open.

“Of course.”

He could feel the blood seeping, warm and steady, the pocket lining starting to stick. Long as it stayed in the pocket, it was nobody’s problem.

“I mean it. And I’m sorry I lied to you. That was stupid and I knew it as I was doing it, and I’m sorry. I needed help and you came. That’s one thing.”

“OK.”

“You scared me, Dad.”

Jack stood, saying nothing. Remembering, for some reason, all the times he’d gotten a talking-to as a kid.

“Look,” she said, bending her pinkie open from a closed fist. “He behaved like a bit of a jerk-off, for sure,” bending open the ring finger then, “He got a little drunk and he was annoying and he wouldn’t take a hint, and I handled it maybe not all the way as I should have, I know all that.” Finger by finger, her fist became an open palm.

She continued, “But he didn’t do anything. He wasn’t gonna do anything.”

Jack opened his mouth, made like he had something to say. He did. Jack wanted to say she had no fucking idea what she’s talking about and even less of an idea of what that manlet was or wasn’t going to fucking do, Beth.

But he swallowed it, because he knew, as he had calmed, that she was mostly - if not all the way - right.

“And I texted Mia. MIA. You know why? Because I wanted my friend to come grab me out of an awkward thing, and tomorrow it’s a story we laugh about. That’s all I was asking for.”

“Beth...”

“Instead my father comes flying. In front of everybody I just met, learned their names and majors and whatnot, shit!” She stopped to compose herself. “People I’m going to school with in September. So now instead of a mostly-personal funny story for my friends and I - right? - I’m the girl whose dad almost killed a TA at the welcome mixer.”

Jack stood there. Took it.

“Not to mention you threatened that other kid!” Beth said. Rubbing her forehead with what Jack read as disappointment and exhaustion.

Jack, again, had nothing.

“You made it worse,” she said, quieter then. “You came to help me, and you did help me and I love you and you also made it worse. Both of those are true. That’s all.”

He almost collapsed when Beth said I love you.

He looked at his daughter. Forty-two years old and he’d never learned to do what she was doing just then. She was angry, emotional and somehow still knew exactly what the problem was and could speak about it with clarity and fairness.

“Fair,” Jack said.

“That’s it? Fair?”

“You want me to fight you on it?”

“No.” She hugged him, quick and hard, arms in and out. “Good night, Dad.”

“Good night, sweetie.”

She went in. Jack stood in the lot a while longer, hand in his pocket, holding the bloody pocket lining tight with his throbbing fist, a piece of his thigh-meat with it.

~ - ~

Jack’s room, Super 8 motel Fairleigh

– a few minutes later

“-born in Switzerland in 1875, the son of a rural pastor,” the TV said.

Some documentary Jack hadn’t been following.

“-on Lake Zürich in Switzerland, in spring, 1959. At the age of eighty-four-”

He sat on the end of the bed as the dry narration continued, with his shorts in his hands. Blue, white pocket linings. He’d pulled the left pocket inside out. The white cotton had gone deep red, the blue - stained dark now, almost black. Stiff where it had started to dry.

An overreaction. Yeah. You could say that. Beth found herself in an awkward conversation, and then there was blood.

Through the wall, he could hear Beth’s voice.

He could make out most words and the rough profile of the sentences.

Why didn’t you just get an Uber? Why would you bring my DAD? Now he knows I snuck out AND he made a scene.

He should stop listening.

Mia, lower, harder to catch.

I’m sorry. I panicked. I was worried, B.

Almost true. Completely plausible. Nothing suspicious. He’d made her a liar too.

Next door went quiet. On the TV the dry narrator voice was then replaced by a black and white recording of an old man with a thick foreign accent he thought looked familiar.

“-the type is nothing static. It, it changes within the course of life. But I most certainly was characterized by thinking. I always thought,” Or had it been ‘over-thought’? Jack couldn’t tell. “from early childhood on. I had a great deal of intuition too. And I had a definite difficulty with feeling.”

Jack zoned out, his eyes de-focusing on one of the thousands of threads in the bloodied fabric. The old man’s voice soothed him.

It came up like heartburn. Like he’d swallowed wrong.

A dull expanding ache in his throat.

No sound, mouth slack.

Air pushed from him, body frozen in a spasm. The room closing in.

Eyes completely blurred over with tears.

The cry didn’t last twenty seconds.

Jack wiped his face with his wrist, tossed the shorts in the wastebasket and clicked the TV off.

~ - ~

Saturday, June 20, 2026. Maplewood, New Jersey.

– about 10 minutes after Jack and Beth got back home

Ruby had the old wrap off and the new one half on. She hadn’t said much through the whole thing.

He looked at the fence line. Roscoe was out there lying in the one patch of shade, watching them, then biting down on a wasp and missing.

They had gotten to the motel, where Beth had made Jack realize he’d really shown his ass. That part he’d told her, plain and simple, as it happened. And what he’d overheard through the wall. He skipped his stupid little breakdown.

“OK,” Ruby said. “But back up. The mixer itself. You went through that part fast.”

Of course, Jack knew she would ask.

“Honestly, some of it’s kinda... blurry,” Jack said.

“Tell me the blurry version.”

~ - ~

Friday, June 19. Rathbone Arts Courtyard, Fairleigh College.

– 11:15 pm

“Dad?”

He realized it was his daughter’s voice after he’d already bulldozed through the patio past the small group of about four kids without even clocking he’d felled a couple of the flimsy chairs on his way. The front of the guy’s blazer was in his fists and the guy’s back was on the brick of the building, heels off the ground.

“Don’t talk,” Jack said. “One word, I go to prison.”

The guy’s mouth stopped moving. Up close he was younger than he’d looked from the parking lot. He smelled of booze.

Somewhere to the left, Beth’s voice. It didn’t reach him where he was. He wasn’t there.

“What are you, fucking twenty five?” Jack said, quiet, into his face. “She’s eighteen. I know she gave you an out. And you didn’t take it, huh?” Spit flew from Jack’s mouth as he spoke. “A grown man, pushing yourself on a girl barely eighteen. You think you’re a fucking man? You wanna be a man?” Jack pushed the kid’s tits up into his throat with his fists turned up, never loosening for a second. “How about I make one outta you?”

Jack scanned his face, seeing every pore on this guy. Cheeks twitching, making a face like he didn’t know what this was all about. Fucking pissant.

Voices around him, Beth, Mia, both saying some version of stop, he assumed.

“A man’s game charges a man’s price.”

Jack imagined watching the life go out of his eyes, feeling the last breath leave the body.

“Man, I don’t know... what did I do?” Jean-Jacques said.

Something in the kid’s breast pocket. Jack hadn’t felt it happen. Crunching in his palm, stinging a little. He squeezed his blazer harder so he wouldn’t have to squeeze the pissant.

“Jack. JACK.” Mia’s voice.

“Look at me, Jack, please.” She was at his arm now. He didn’t move. “You’ll go to jail. You hear me? They’ll put you in a cage for this, Jack. Come on. Beth needs you.”

Beth, he thought. Fuck.

“Ruby needs you.”

What would Ruby say about this? She’d have Jack let him go and find the French pissant later herself and ruin his life in some way he’d never even figure out was being done to him.

“I need you,” Mia said.

Jack came back.

He let the guy’s heels find the ground.

“OK, buddy,” Jack said. He kept his voice level. “The event is dry. Faculty everywhere. You’re a TA - hmm? - and you’re drunk at a freshman welcome thing - mhmm? - and you drunkenly tried to corner an eighteen year old freshman. One email ends you.” He made a face at the pissant to ask him if he understood and the pissant nodded that he did.

“And if that doesn’t work for you,” Jack said, leaning in one more inch, “I’ll just go to prison.”

He let go. The blazer stayed crushed in two scrunched up places on Jean-Jacques’ chest. The left side darker than the right. The white shirt under it red.

Jack opened his left hand, looked at the blood in the lines of it. He wiped it down the front of the guy’s shirt, leaving a large red mark.

He looked behind him. Nobody said anything. The group of four kids hadn’t moved. The guys closing up the food truck.

The string lights buzzed.

“Girls. Car.”

He saw Mia and Beth as he walked away but didn’t look at them directly.

Almost out of the patio he stopped and turned around, realizing then one of the kids had his phone out, filming him.

Jack approached the kid, oversized button down, some kind of winter hat in June. Same kind of sartorial nonsense on the three kids behind him, two guys and a girl, all freshmen, he assumed.

“Would you delete that for me?” Jack said. “Please?”

He looked at the kid, not at the phone between them.

The kid lowered the phone. Looked at Jack, at the phone. Putting it between them, screen up so both could see what’s happening. Jack not looking at the phone yet, the kid’s eyes jumping up and down between the screen and Jack.

“OK, here,” the kid said.

Jack looked down and saw him tap the trash icon and tapped again to confirm.

The kid looked up.

Jack didn’t react.

“I deleted it.”

Nothing.

“I’m sorry, I... I don’t understand?” the kid said.

“Collections. Bottom of the page. Recently deleted.”

“Oh.” He went into it, and the phone asked for his face, and he put his face down over it, his beanie, or whatever it was, touching Jack’s chest. Came back up, a grid of recently deleted videos, including one of Jack, were on screen.

“Select it for me, please, and delete it.”

The screen asked one more time. The kid pressed it.

“I really appreciate it, thank you,” Jack said. Looking up at the girl then, much more genuine, “My apologies, I hope I haven’t fucked up your guys’ night.”

The girls were waiting for him.

Mia shifted from foot to foot, arms folded tight, chewing her lip.

Beth’s face was doing the talking. If he had to guess, it said something like “What the fuck’s the matter with you?”

“OK, come on.”

~ - ~

Saturday, June 20, 2026. Maplewood, New Jersey.

– 3:30 pm

“I knew I’d fucked up.” Jack was talking to the fence or the table or the vision of Roscoe sniffing through the flowerbeds more than his wife. “It was on Beth’s face when I turned around. I was sure before I got to the car.”

Ruby had both his hand and the roll of tape, working the last strip down flat over his palm. She didn’t look up.

“A man’s game charges a man’s price?” she said.

“Yeah, I know,” Jack said, scoffing. “What a fucking joke.”

“It’s a good show, babe.” Ruby tried not to laugh, looking at him, eyebrows raised.

“I’m no fucking Rust, though.”

“Well...” she turned his palm around, “maybe that’s a good thing, huh? And in some ways you are.”

“Oh yeah?”

“And Marty too.”

Jack didn’t know how to feel about that. But he knew what she meant.

“And Marty said the line, not Rust. Why didn’t Mia just get her an Uber?” Ruby said, not pausing between topics.

Jack looked at his wife.

“Because Mia was in my room when Beth texted her.”

Ruby’s thumb stopped on the tape. A second, maybe two.

“In your room.”

“Yeah.”

“So you didn’t know Beth was gone,” Ruby said, working it out loud the way she did, like she was laying tile, speaking low to not be overheard, “until Mia came and told you.”

“Yeah.”

“You two, then...?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s the first time.”

“Yeah.”

Ruby nodded.

“OK,” she said. “Later on, I’ll want the details.”

She went back to the wrap, and Jack let her.

Ruby taped the last corner down and sat back to look at her work.

“Anything else?”

Jack thought about a Wawa off Route 15.

“I was ugly to Mia,” he said. “At a gas station, on the way home. Told her the whole night happened because of her. Basically.”

“What’d you say?”

“Doesn’t matter. I was cruel. Reduced her to a piece of meat. Apologized right after and meant it. Not her fault at all, of course. And I think she was fine. Understood I was... out of sorts, you know?”

Ruby watched him. This was where she’d usually find it, some half-second pause or a little something in his jaw. His eyes sliding somewhere they shouldn’t. She’d have him spit it out. She’d have him name it. He knew he should.

She just nodded and squeezed his taped-up hand once and let it go.

Add another secret to the pile, huh? Not to her, though. He wasn’t supposed to do that to her. She was still the best thing that ever happened to him. He couldn’t risk it. He needed to say it. Say it. Fucking say it now, moron!

“I know you’re in a ton of pain, do you want a pill?”

“No, thank you.”

“That palm’s all twisted and torn, it’s the kind of injury that-”

“It’s OK, Rubes.”

Ruby sighed. “Don’t let it get infected, OK?”

She stood, gathering the old wrap and the scissors into her lap, then off it.

“Beth heard her,” she said. “The ‘I need you‘ thing, right?”

“Man, I think so, yeah.”

“Has she said anything about it? Since?”

“No.”

She went to Jack’s side of the table.

“Come here, buddy!” she said, chuckling as she pressed his big head to her stomach, his hands touching her legs down low, reciprocal. Undeserving. “You could learn something from that show.”

“What’s that?” Jack asked, cheek pulled up on his skull, stuck between his wife’s warm belly and his thick stupid head weighing him down.

“Bad men don’t concern themselves with questions of right and wrong.” She kissed his head. “Let me fix you a snack, hon.”

~ - ~

Saturday, June 20, 2026. Wawa, Route 15, New Jersey.

– 11:20 am

“She’s not really talking to me,” Mia said.

Beth was inside securing the right kind of gummy bears. Jack had the pump handle in his good hand, watching the numbers climb.

Mia had come around the car to stand near him.

“Beth?”

“Yeah.” A short laugh. Not genuine, sounded like. “Not mad-mad. Just short. Clipped. Asked if I wanted the window seat like I was some stranger on a plane she was being polite to.”

Jack watched the numbers. Forty-one dollars. Forty-two.

“She’ll come around.”

“Probably.” Mia picked at a rip healing over on her palm. “How are you doing?”

Jack looked down at his hand. The wrap had gone gray and loose overnight. One handed job.

“This whole fucking situation happened because I couldn’t pass up a piece of ass!”

Mia’s hands went down by her sides.

“Mia...”

“No, it’s fine.” It wasn’t. Her voice had gone thin and careful.

“It’s not fine. I didn’t mean that. Not you. I meant...”

“I know what you meant.” She still wasn’t looking at him. “You meant it about yourself, and it came out pointed at me.”

Neither of them said anything for a second. Somewhere behind them a pump clicked off.

“I’m sorry,” Jack said. He meant it. Really fucking meant it.

Mia looked at him then. Whatever she had found in his face, it was enough.

“It’s OK,” she said. She smiled. Jack believed it.

To his own great surprise - and, God, relief - he smiled back. Not some fake small talk placation either.

Mia made him smile. Even now.

Her eyes dropped to his hand again.

“Who did that,” she said. “A raccoon?”

“I did it.” Jack putting on a kid voice, fake proud.

“Give it here, dummy.”

Dummy. Not Jack. Or Mr. D, God forbid.

“Here.” She had him sit on the concrete curb by the pump while she dug gauze and Neosporin out of her bag on the back seat. She unwound the mess he’d made of it, careful, her knees against his.

“Does...” She turned his hand palm-up in hers, thumb tracing the edges of the cuts. Multiple - stabbed, torn, rotated. “When you get angry. Does it hurt? You know, like... after?”

“Why do you ask?”

She thought about it. “I hate to think you’re hurting.” She made a face at him. Not pity. Something. Care?

“You stopped me,” Jack said, watching her hands work, changing the subject. “Last night.”

She squinted at him. “I don’t know about that.”

“I’m telling you,” he said, looking at her. “I should never have put you in that position.”

Neither of them said anything else for a while. What the hell had even cut him? Something in the guy’s pocket, he thought. Something hard.

“Was it like,” Mia said, thinking, reaching in the bag, “like a pen or something?”

Jack looked at her.

“I guess?” he said, after a while.

The pump clicked, and started again on the next island over.

“Oh, fuck. Your meeting.”

“What?”

“The gymnastics thing. This morning.” He leaned over to check the watch on his wrist, upside down in Mia’s hands. “You missed it. Because of me.”

“Oh.” She kept wrapping, unbothered. “I called them. Said I had a family emergency.”

“Mia.”

“I’m serious, don’t worry about it. Truth is, I didn’t really want to go anyway.”

He watched her hands work, small and quick and sure of themselves, having patched her own palms so often.

“I wish I could kiss you right now,” Jack said.

Between them and Wawa was the Range Rover and they were down low to the ground. Mia smiled up at him, her thumb sliding up and down on the outside of his thick, rough palm.

“You know,” Jack said. “I think about you all the time.”

Mia opened her mouth to say something.

“They were out of the bears but I got bananas.” Beth held one pack of yellow banana shaped gummies draped over Mia’s shoulder, waiting for her to grab it. “I know you like ‘em.”

Mia put her hand on Beth’s, smiling up at her. Her face said she was relieved to see Beth not hate her.

“Oh my god, just take the candy, dickhead!” Beth rolled her eyes, then laughed with the rest of them.

Something pulled tight behind Jack’s chest then. Quick, like a fist closing partway, pain down his left arm. Must have sat funny on the curb, injury tripping the wires in his hand or something.

It let him go in a bit.

“There,” Mia said, taping the end down flat. “All good.”

~ - ~

Saturday, June 20, 2026. Maplewood, New Jersey.

– 3:50 pm

“...can or not. So if the numbers are right, you clear about sixty after shipping,” Beth’s voice said, muffled through the screen door.

Jack was still sitting where Ruby had left him, the yard gone warm and gold in the afternoon.

Through the kitchen window he could see them. Ruby at the counter buttering bread, then cutting something. Beth behind her, phone wedged between shoulder and ear, punching numbers into his old calculator from the shop, hip against the counter.

Beth said something to Ruby, covering the receiver. He couldn’t catch what. Ruby laughed at it.

Beth looked up then, and found him through the glass.

For a second neither of them did anything.

Then Jack smiled at her.

Beth’s mouth did something back that wasn’t quite a smile but maybe wanted to be. She tipped her head toward the kitchen. You coming?

He nodded yeah.

He figured she was moving on. And why not? To her it’s done. She said what she had to say. Now the routine will chip away at the tension until it’s back to normal.

His daughter would be none the wiser. Great. Father of the year.

Something closed around his ribs then, sudden. Not quite letting him think or move or breathe. He sat very still and let it pass. Had to be the hand, or the heat. Both, probably.

Beth stealing a slice of pickle from her mother. Tossing it in her mouth quickly and shrugging.

The pain lasted longer now. He took it. It was going to pass, no sense complaining about it.

Beth dodging the incoming dishtowel smack.

The feeling passed.

Jack got up and went inside.

“Ay, kid!”

“What?”

“That’s my pickle.”

“And?”

“Literally eating away at my margins.”

“Just making sure my father’s salt intake stays below excessive,” Beth said.

“And how do you know this is for you?” Ruby added.

“But I thought...” Jack put on a face, looking down at the ground, swinging his body around, pretending to be a sad little boy and matching his voice: “I thought you were going to make me a snack?”

“Is that supposed to be cute?” Beth said, stuck somewhere between cringing and laughing.

“Are you cringing at me?” Jack’s face went serious. “You steal my pickles?” He advanced.

“No, not this shit again, dad!” Beth backed up, putting up a finger.

“You pick away at my snack?” Jack stepped forward, hands coming out, fingers forming into claws. “Like I’m some kind of this and that? You trifle with me?”

“OK, OK!”

“Does he even know what ‘trifle’ means?” Ruby laughed.

Beth had put the counter between herself and Jack.

“I bet he don’tn’t,” Beth burst out, as Jack rushed at her, missing her and instead grabbing Ruby.

“And you! Wench!” Jack picked up Ruby by her armpits. “You dare mock me!?”

“Babe!” Ruby shouted, through laughter and twitching. “Your hand!”

“What hand? I have but claws, with which I shred the flesh of insolents such as yourself.”

He did his best to dramatize and remember all the weird words he’d read in random old books. The hand killed him, yeah, but the sound of his girls laughing...

Jack laughed with them, louder than he had to.

~ - ~

Thanks so much for reading 💚

Huge thanks to my supporters — you’re the ones who make this possible! You can join them here on Substack or on Patreon, where you’ll get chapters early, teasers, notes, and images and later on bonus scenes, voting on plot when appropriate.

Chapter 6 is coming soon, and it is very much the opposite of this one - very erotic.

I asked whether you wanted Chapter 5 now, despite it being a quieter, non-erotic chapter, or whether you preferred to wait and read it together with Chapter 6. Most of you here on Substack voted for ch5 now, so here it is.

Thank you for caring about these characters even when their clothes stay on.

Start from Chapter 1 if you want anything to make sense💚

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

~~~

Friday, June 19, 2026. Maplewood, New Jersey.

– 8:40 am

Jack sipped from a paper cup as he pulled onto the highway.

“OK,” Beth said, phone in one hand, motioning with the other. “So check-in is at ten-thirty, but we’ve got to arrive fifteen minutes early.”

“We’re not even out of Maplewood yet, sweetie,” Jack said.

“Do you want to drive or be in charge of the itinerary?”

“Can I pick the music?” Mia reached forward from the back seat, her hand asking for the AUX cord.

“Shush!” Beth snapped, making a show of her teeth.

“Down, girl!” Jack said, laughing.

“How did this happen? Did you and the missus traumatize her as a baby or something?” Mia giggled as Beth spun around to slap at her, Mia’s forearms taking the brunt of it.

“Check-in!” Beth said, returning to the front seat, much louder now. “Is at ten-thirty. Let’s be there at ten-fifteen. Can we do that?”

“Yeah, we can.” Jack said.

Jack was relieved his high-strung daughter had fallen into the planner role for the trip. His own brain was too far in the gutter to plan. But he knew this would be good for Beth, and he was proud to see her take it seriously. Shit, she took everything seriously.

“We go to Parking Lot C.” Beth continued, then paused, reading. “Unless Lot C is full, in which case we’re supposed to use the visitor overflow behind Harrison Hall.”

Mia leaned forward from the back seat. “She’s been like this since middle school.”

Jack had a hard time not grabbing Mia’s head and pulling her in to smell her hair or kiss her.

“Some of us believe society functions better when people know where they’re going.”

“Some of us get lost in Target.” Jack chimed in.

“That was once!” Beth said.

Mia and Jack laughed.

“Anyway, ten-thirty welcome thing, eleven-fifteen campus tour, twelve-thirty academic advising session.”

“Mine?” Mia asked.

“No, mine. Yours is at one with the athletics department.”

Mia groaned. “Ugh. Athletes.”

“You’re an athlete,” Beth said.

“Barely.”

“You’re literally going there on a gymnastics scholarship.”

“Sure…” Mia didn’t seem as excited.

How was she doing such a good job keeping it together, Jack wondered. He figured he shouldn’t be surprised. Mia had taken charge with Ruby at the dinner last week, turning the tables on her. Shocking his wife was no easy task and this girl had done it.

“OK, what then?” Jack asked.

“Then we have a dorm walk-through at two.”

“We’re all going to that one, right?” Mia asked.

“Yep. Then we have an hour and a half until the Summer Welcome Mixer at Founders Hall.”

“Let me guess, you’ve filled up every one of those ninety minutes for us.” Mia said.

“Affirmative!” Beth snapped her fingers. “There’s a spot in town called Millie’s, reviews are good. I’ve got a feeling about this place. This could be our Luke’s.” She turned to Jack. “I’m thinking lunch there and then maybe you could drop us at the mixer?”

“Oh!” Jack said. “I see how it is!”

Mia laughed.

“Fine! Just discard me.” Jack faked offense.

“OK, can I have the cable now?” Mia’s head was up front again.

“No! After Dad picks us up around six-thirty from the mixer, we have an hour-plus drive to that haunted stagecoach inn Dad booked.”

“It’s not haunted! It’s historic,” Jack said.

“So you didn’t find it on a site called ‘besthauntedhotels.com’?” Beth’s eyebrow arched at him. He didn’t respond. “OK. Then tomorrow morning Mia has a gymnastics team… coach? Gymnastics meeting thing at ten.”

Jack nodded. Beth scanned the phone.

“You guys know I’m sorry, right?” Mia said. “You wouldn’t even have to stay overnight if it wasn’t for my dumb meeting.”

“Don’t be silly, kid.”

“Yeah. We’re a package deal for Fairleigh,” Beth said.

“And I get to stay at a haunted hotel,” Jack added.

“HAH!” Beth pointed at him and they laughed.

“And now?” Mia asked Beth a moment later.

“What?” Beth said.

“Cable?”

“Now you can, yes.” Beth put the free end of the cable in the air.

Mia grabbed it. Soon the center touchscreen said “Gracie Abrams - That’s So True.” The car got filled with the sounds of Mia singing.

She was alone at it at first. As she sang, she pulled Beth along with her. That was always their dynamic.

Beth joined her at the, what was it, chorus?

Jack couldn’t help but smile and tap the steering wheel with his thumb. Beth seemed really happy. Right at that moment there was no Christian, no plans, just singing a song with a friend on a road trip, a future full of hope. And it was Mia who pulled that out of her.

Beth leaned back toward Mia, laughing through the next line. Jack was observing through the rear-view, seeing Mia laugh too.

He caught Mia looking away for a moment when Beth didn’t see her, her face changing for a second.

He thought maybe he was not the only one in the car having to deal with invasive thoughts. The song pulled her back in. She seemed to let it.

As she hit another howling chorus she looked at him, and noticing his eyes on her, she lit up, head cocked forward, smiling.

God fucking damn it, how could she do that so easy? Jack felt like a little boy, head filled with silly ideas. Like maybe they could fake their deaths, get new identities? Go to Mexico or the Caymans. Like maybe if they crashed the car, Mia’s body would just explode in a cloud of flowers accompanied by angelic chants. What was that? Why was a grown-ass man harboring this silliness?

Maybe that’s what Mia does? Maybe that’s why they want her. Maybe that’s why she can turn his cautious baby girl into a road trip pop star.

Another chorus. Every howl getting louder.

Shit, had Mia coaxed him too?

No. He had wanted it. Planned for it.

And there it was. Sharing the car with them. The dirty secret that would never let him enjoy another family moment in true innocence.

He wasn’t cheating. Mia was an adult. So why did it feel wrong?

OK, it happens to be his daughter’s friend. But, really, social pressures aside, who really cares?

Ah, who’s kidding who? He knew it was wrong and why. That’s why he couldn’t keep a thought straight in his mind. He had grown out of being a child not just aged into an adult, and that meant knowing when you’re full of shit and not running from it. It was wrong because he made Beth live a fabricated version of her life. He lied to her. And he had no choice but to keep lying, right? Same with Joan and Ron. Not best friends, but close enough that he had no desire to hurt them.

As the miles went by, the girls went from singing, to talking, to playing Zitch Dog. Ruby texted Jack. Asking how things were. Jack texted, “All good.” But he really wanted to say that he felt like a terrible person and would like Ruby to make it all better. There was a line between honesty and unproductive whining. At least he could still walk that one.

Beth had fallen asleep, sweater wrapped in a ball under her face on the window. The music was turned down low. Jack yawned and drank the last of his coffee. He looked up in the mirror, but couldn’t see Mia.

Then he felt a tingle on his neck. Mia’s fingers.

They didn’t say anything.

Jack looked at his sleeping daughter.

He took Mia’s hand in his, reaching over his left shoulder. He pulled it further ahead and kissed her knuckles. She touched his cheek, running her fingers over the side of his neck, where his hair turned to skin.

He smiled. Why the fuck did it feel like it was worth it?

~~~

Fairleigh College Campus, Fairleigh, New Jersey

– 12:35 pm

Jack tagged along to the check-in, welcome session and the campus tour. During Beth’s advising meeting, he and Mia had a half an hour to kill.

“Where’s your meeting?” Jack said, pointing around at all the buildings at once.

“I think it’s that one.” She pointed.

“What do you wanna do?”

“You!”

Jack choked on his coffee. Mia laughed.

“Listen, I’m really flattered, of course, Mia, but–”

“Oh my god, Jack! I’m kidding!”

“Right.” Jack gave her a half-hearted laugh.

“You gotta learn to relax.”

“I’m relaxed.”

“Sure.”

He saw her smirk at him. It all felt like a challenge. Was she challenging him to contain himself? Or the opposite? Jack wanted to pick her up, kiss her neck, make her squirm. He felt twenty again.

They walked one of the many paved paths through the campus.

“So…” Jack said.

“Hmm?” Mia turned her head, her hair wafting perfume at him.

“At the dinner, you, uhh…”

“Yes?”

“Well, you know…” He didn’t know how to say it. It was weird to talk about.

“What, Jack?” She smiled, eyes excited. He felt like a fish on a hook. “Kissed your wife?”

“Among other things, I’m given to understand.” He scratched his head and laughed.

“So that’s a thing with you guys, huh?”

Jack didn’t quite know what to say to that. Was it? A thing? It hadn’t been up until very recently.

“Not really, no,” Jack said. “Not like this, I mean. It’s not a… thing, altogether.”

“So?”

“So - what?”

“So, what is it?”

“It’s… complicated.”

“OK, thanks.” Mia scoffed.

Jack thought about what to say. He didn’t feel like it was his place to dump on her the whole truth. Ruby would need to be involved. How had they not talked about what to tell her if she asks? The idea that she would ask was so probable. Would it have killed them to plan a little more? Use their heads rather than–

“She knew what happened in the car, right?” Mia asked.

“Yeah.”

Jack expected Mia to judge him.

“All of it?” she asked.

“Mhmm.”

“And she wasn’t mad?”

“No.”

“That’s insane.”

They walked a few more steps.

“She wasn’t angry at me?” Mia asked.

“No,” he said it quickly.

“You sure?”

Maybe too quickly?

“Yeah. She just didn’t want to be left out.”

There was fear and excitement in her eyes.

Whenever he looked at her he thought ‘life’. She was so full of fucking life.

“You guys are interesting,” Mia said.

They said nothing for a moment.

“So, what about you?” Jack asked. “This thing… what is it for you?”

Mia thought. Then she danced ahead, taking a few big, jumping leaps. Stopped. Spun around. Stood. “It’s fucking exciting, Jack, is what it is!”

Jack laughed. He was sure this girl would end him. But there was a lifting feeling somewhere in his stomach. Her presence made Jack happy. He thought he might welcome her ending him.

“It is that, kid!”

Jack had caught up with her and she fell back in line as they moseyed forward.

“And stupid,” Mia said.

“Right again!”

“Kid… I like it when you call me that,” Mia said.

“I like you.”

He saw Mia blush and smile as he looked over her at nothing in particular. He figured looking at other things would make him appear less like a man creeping on a college student. Or as your father creeping on your best friend, as far as Beth was concerned, were she to look out of one of the windows around here.

“Jack?”

“Hmm?”

“When do you think we might meet again? Alone.”

Jack didn’t know. He wanted to but he had no plan. Why the hell didn’t he?

“Soon. Just don’t know when exactly.”

“You want to, right?”

“You have no fucking idea, kid.”

He saw Mia’s chest rise with a large inhale, corners of her lips tightening.

“Alright, well,” Mia said. “Now I gotta go to this stupid meeting. And all I’m gonna be thinking about is how I’d rather climb you like a tree.”

Jack laughed, embarrassed. “I’m not a tree.”

Mia was picking up speed toward the Wexler Athletic Center, stride quick and sure, calves flexing with every step, the muscle in her back shifting under her tank top as she swung her arms. He watched her go longer than he should have. “Like a big sexy tree, Jack!” she almost yelled.

Jack couldn’t hold the smile in. He thought the last time he would feel something like this was twenty years ago.

~~~

Outside Millie’s Grill, Fairleigh, New Jersey

– 3:20 pm

“This the place?” Jack asked.

“Yep, this is it,” Beth answered.

“Nowhere to park.”

Jack went past it, did a u-turn. “You guys jump out and go get us a table, I’ll find a spot.”

The girls got out and a few minutes and another couple of not entirely legal u-turns later a spot had opened up across the street from the restaurant.

“This is a private parking spot, man,” a jittery voice asserted, as Jack got out.

He looked around and saw a five-foot-nothing man in his twenties or fifties, clearly a junkie. His hand out, asking for money.

“No, buddy. Sorry. But I appreciate the effort.”

The junkie mumbled, as Jack locked the doors and waited for cars to pass before crossing toward the diner.

“You don’t hear so good?” the junkie wouldn’t leave it.

Jack said nothing, but kept his body angled partially to the traffic, partially to the man bothering him.

“I told you, man! You owe me twenty bucks.”

“Right!” Jack said, laughing through his nose, looking around for the passing cars to give him an opening.

The junkie approached. Jack put up his hands. “Don’t crowd me.”

“Oh, yeah! Big guy! Tough guy! Think you own the fucking street, tough guy? Do you? How about now?”

The junkie had a little Swiss Army knife-looking thing in his hand, holding it down by his side, blade chipped and stained, the twitchy man leaning toward him. Jack put up one hand between them to create space. “Bud, listen. Put that thing away, let’s not make–”

The junkie stepped forward too quick for comfort, eyes glassy and unfocused, lips twitching.

Jack backhanded him in the side of the face, sending him head first into the bumper of his parked Range Rover, the man then folding to the ground.

He could imagine breaking the man. Enjoying breaking him. The snap of his fucking bones. He thought he could threaten HIM!? This fucking lowlife?

He pushed the thoughts down. That’s not him. His anger talking.

“Just be on your way, man. Fuck.” He didn’t think there was going to be any retaliation.

Jack felt bad for the man. That was someone’s son. But the rage was still there, looking for somewhere to go. He swallowed it and crossed the street.

The junkie shuffled away, rubbing his head.

Entering Millie’s, he found Mia at the window table, eyes wide, looking at him. Shit, that’s right, the girls. But Beth was not at the table.

“You OK?” he asked, walking up and taking a seat opposite her.

“Me?” Mia asked. “Are you?” She reached for his hand. He realized it was a little bruised, maybe scratched.

“I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“Jesus, what did he want?”

Jack rubbed the back of his neck, sighing.

He wanted to say something wise about how the junkie wanted what everyone wanted, he supposed, but some people went about it the wrong way. Something about the opioid epidemic, the human condition.

“Money,” he said.

“Does it hurt?”

“I’ll be alright.” Jack smiled. “Can we not tell–” He stopped himself. Suddenly considering he’s adding to the pile of lies, even if this one wasn’t that… heavy. He waved off the unfinished thought.

“No, yeah, I won’t.”

Beth came out of the restroom just then and Jack pulled his hand from Mia’s, turning his attention to the menu.

~~~

Millie’s Grill, Fairleigh, New Jersey

– 4:00 pm

“Damn,” Jack chewed, wiped his hands.

“You said it,” Mia sipped the last of her milkshake through a straw.

“Huh?” Beth looked at them, asking for admission and admiration and approval. “Huh!? What did I say?”

“Don’t gloat, sweetie!” Jack said. “But, yeah, fair.” Jack looked at the menu. “Millie’s… I’ll have a reason to make the drive down here.”

“I like it here,” Beth said.

“Yeah?” Jack asked.

“Yeah. The campus is so nice and I met some people already, they’ll be at the mixer.”

His daughter seemed good. Really good now. Jack knew all her boy troubles and whatnot was all going to be silly shit even to her in hindsight. And still he had to swallow around the knot in his throat.

~~~

Outside Millie’s Grill, Fairleigh, New Jersey

– 4:12 pm

“Dad?”

Jack joined the girls on the street after paying the bill.

“Hmm?”

“We have a flat tire.”

Jack looked across the street. His car did have a flat tire. Two of them, at least. And something stuck in the back left one. As they approached he saw it was the junkie’s little pocket knife.

He should’ve either paid him or slapped him much harder.

“Oh-kay.” Jack pulled out his phone. Shot a glance at Mia. She shot back. They said nothing.

“What happened?” Beth said, looking around.

“Man, I musta ran over something,” Jack said, yanking out and tossing the knife while Beth went around the other side of the car.

“Alright, well,” Jack pulled out his phone. “I’ll get you an Uber to the mixer and sort out the car in the meantime.”

“I got the Uber, dad,” Beth said. “Take care of the car?”

“Deal.”

~~~

Founders Hall, Fairleigh College

– 8:05 pm

Jack pulled up to the mixer in a Toyota Yaris. He could barely fit inside it.

He saw the girls already outside, in a group of people split into handfuls, standing around, talking.

Jack got himself out of the car, its tiny size making him feel older than he was, having to grunt and muscle his way out.

He propped up against the car and waited. Beth was one of three people listening to an older, taller guy speak. He didn’t much look like a first year, maybe a senior or a TA or something. Jack wasn’t aware of all the terms. He had a lot to say, apparently. Jack’s suspicions confirmed that colleges were generally filled to the brim with dipshits in love with the sound of their own voice.

He saw Mia in a different handful, a small one, only two of them. Mia and some guy. Jack couldn’t help but take the boy’s measure. Taller than Mia, in shape, thin wet mustache.

“Yoohooo!” Jack hollered, hoping to embarrass his daughter.

Beth saw him and covered her face. Mia laughed, put down her drink and grabbed Beth. They both waved at the other kids.

“Our savior!” Mia said in a fake whisper.

“I could’ve remained unsaved for a while longer. But fine,” Beth said.

“You already got an extra hour and a half thanks to this whole thing.” Jack motioning then in the direction of the car. “I was supposed to get you at six-thirty, remember? According to your rigid plans.”

“This is a real upgrade, Mr. D!” Mia gestured at the car as they walked up, Jack moving to get himself back inside.

“Oh yeah! I’m doordashing while you guys are drinking spiked punch.”

“It wasn’t spiked,” Mia said.

Jack looked at her, eyebrow up. She mirrored him. They both looked back at Beth in the back seat like that. She put up her thumb and index fingers, shrugging with a squirm on her face.

Jack squinted, switching back and forth between both girls. Them trying not to giggle. “You seem fine…”

He turned the key and the little car spurted to life. Its engine sounding loud and comical compared to the Range Rover.

“Our car’s not getting fixed until the morning. This was the only loaner they had for us,” Jack said.

“Where are we staying?” Beth asked.

“Did you forget? The Publick House Hotel,” Jack said. “In Chester. We’re going there now.”

“Nope.”

Jack looked back at her. She was already on her phone.

Beth saying then, not looking up, “Your ghost hotel has a check-in cutoff at nine and it’s a ninety-minute drive.”

Jack looked at his watch. Eight past eight. “Shit.”

“More than that in this, actually,” Beth said, pointing to the roof of the Yaris. “I mean, dad, you did book a destination inn further away from campus than our home.”

“Yeah, I guess it doesn’t leave a lot of room for error. Sorry, sweetie.”

“No… worries!” Beth turned her phone around to show him. “Two rooms at a Super 8? And we get about three extra hours of sleep.”

“Nice!” Mia said.

“It’s all we can get on short notice and it’s only one night–” Beth said.

“No, no, I wasn’t being sarcastic…”

“You weren’t?” Beth asked.

“No! Vending machine dinner? Shitty TV? Sleepover with bestie?”

“As compared to talking about philosophy, politics and evolutionary psychology with like-minded and intellectually hungry peers?” Beth looked out the window. “Yeah, Funyuns and Maury, that’s all the mental stimulation a curious mind requires.”

Jack and Mia made a face at each other, Jack pretending to push glasses up his nose, Mia laughing.

“Sorry, I just heard myself,” Beth said.

“So you had a good time, then?” Jack asked.

“Such a good time! Thank you so much for driving us up here! I’m sorry for being a dickhead about it.” Beth touched Mia’s shoulder.

Mia winked at her.

“What about you?” Jack asked Mia.

“Yeah, good. I mean, I’m not sure I enjoyed it as much as Beth. But definitely good, thanks.”

Jack felt she was being polite.

Beth spoke from the backseat, as they drove off. “Jean-Jacques was telling me there were these chimps they did experiments on– Jean-Jacques is a senior at Fairleigh and a TA for Miriam Voss. Anyway they did this experiment where a chimp could unlock a door and let another chimp into the room. There was food on this platform, but sometimes it couldn’t pull it in alone. And when they gave it a choice, it learned which chimp was actually good at cooperating and kept choosing that one. So it wasn’t just understanding that it needed help. It remembered who was useful.”

“Well, I’m glad you had a good time,” Jack said as he punched the Super 8 address into the navigation.

“September can’t come soon enough!” Beth said, looking out the window, smiling.

Jack saw Mia smile at her. She seemed happy for Beth, but he felt like the happiness stopped there. Was she not excited about Fairleigh?

~~~

Super 8 motel Fairleigh (2.6 stars on Google)

Jack’s room

– 9:50 pm

Jack watched a rerun of Maury. Regina swears her twin boys are Eric’s.

A knock on the door had him jump a little. These motels, barely a wall separating you from whoever walks up to your room. That’s why he made sure the girls were in the room next to him. If he needed to, he could throw the old brick of a TV through the wall and Kool-Aid Man himself through.

He clicked the TV off, opened the door - in his boxer briefs, one of his fun Hawaiian shirts unbuttoned - to find Mia.

“Hey!” He looked around. “Everything OK?”

Mia nodded, looking up at him, smiling. He smiled back.

“What are you guys up to?”

“Oh, nothing. Bored.”

“Where’s Beth?”

“Sleeping.”

Jack looked at his watch. 9:51.

“No, she isn’t.”

Mia said nothing.

“Where is she?”

“She’s fine.”

“Mia.”

“She went back out with the people from the mixer.”

Jack froze.

“She really wanted to go. She asked me not to tell you.”

He felt his pulse in his scalp.

“You lied.”

“I panicked.”

“OK, I’ll get dressed and go get her.”

Mia sighed. “Jack, listen…”

“That’s my daughter.” He kept his voice calm. “She can’t just do what she wants.”

“She can make her own choices, though, right?” Mia said, leaning over trying to get him to look at her.

Jack didn’t listen. His shorts were on and as he zipped and buttoned them, he was looking for his car keys.

“She’ll be back here in like two months, on her own, she’ll be going out, it’s what people do in college.”

Jack found the keys.

“I have her location on my phone,” Mia said. “You do too, right?”

He was on the bed, tying his shoes, shirt still open save for one button down low.

He slowed down.

Maybe running out of here in a huff and dragging her back was not the right move.

He looked up at her. Mia standing by the open door, leaning on the doorway. The lights from the street made her smooth legs shine under the jean shorts. Her face barely visible, leather jacket over a tank top. He thought if they could somehow take all the bad decisions middle-aged men made and put them into a person, they’d come up with this girl.

“Look, here.” Mia came forward, opening her phone. “That’s the event page, it’s a planned thing with a local band and whatnot. It’s not just students, it’s some faculty as well, it says.”

Jack took the phone, looked at her, then at the page.

“It’s not a rager she’s at,” Mia said. “She’s safe. Or as safe as she can be without you standing next to her, making the college kids piss themselves.”

He looked at the event page. “Fairleigh After Dark: Summer Sessions at the Rathbone Arts Courtyard.” Local student band, food trucks, lawn games, faculty supervisors, alcohol-free. Mia was likely right, but he still felt like he needed to do something. He checked his phone. Beth’s location was at the same spot as the event.

“What about you?” he asked Mia. “Why didn’t you go?”

“I had a headache.”

“And now?”

“Feeling much better, thank you.” Mia smiled a big smile at him.

It was clear there had been no headache.

“You said you panicked?” he asked.

“Mhmm.” Mia looked around, thinking. “She asked me to not tell you she went out. And I didn’t want to lie to you, but then…”

Jack waited.

“I don’t know, I just thought about the secret I’m keeping from her and it paled in comparison, I guess? I could lie for her for a change, not to her. You know?”

They said nothing.

“Is that dumb?”

“No.”

Jack didn’t know where to put his eyes. He wanted to say something to make it better, but what was there to say? He put his eyes on the little strip of skin between her top and the shorts.

“Mia, this is…” He gathered his thoughts. “I don’t like that I don’t know if I’m letting Beth go because it’s the right thing to do or because I’m choosing to stay here with you.”

Mia shut the door and leaned against it, hands under her back.

“You know, Jack, she’s my best friend. I sat next to her all day. I’ve been listening to her heart break over Christian lying to her, while I’ve been lying to her about something much worse. I’m betraying her trust in a way that makes me sick.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said.

“Thanks. But I don’t think you’re hearing me.”

Mia pushed herself off the door and walked toward where Jack was still sitting on the bed, him having to look up at her for a change.

“I’m not here on impulse.” She moved closer. “I understand what you feel.” She stopped herself. “Maybe not all the way, but I understand. I love her.”

Mia was right in front of him now, walking in between his legs. She put her hand on his shoulder. She tucked her hair behind her ear on one side, looking down at him close to her. He noticed her hand shake a little as she did and her palm was a little cold and wet to the touch. She was nervous.

“This is a terrible idea, Jack. Maybe it means we’re terrible people. And I’m choosing it anyway.”

Mia kissed him.

“I need you,” she said.

There was something underneath the want in her eyes, something closer to fear than desire, gone as fast as he caught it.

Jack thought things that could not be said out loud. Things that scared him. Things he had to tell his wife and hope she won’t divorce him.

“Mia.” He looked at her and searched for words.

She looked at him, one eye, the other one and then back. Lips. She smiled in pain and Jack somehow was convinced he knew what she thought.

He stood up, wrapping one arm around her waist on the way up and lifted her. Her legs wrapping around him. He stood there, Mia feeling weightless, her strong legs hooked behind his back, hugging him, looking at him, smiling, he could see a little tremble in her face.

He kissed her. Slow. Tasting her with care. Taking little breaks to look at her, her smooth skin, naturally red lips. The way the light from the street and the little night lamp on the dresser hit her features. Her undivided attention.

“I want you, Jack.”

Jack exhaled, his stomach dropping at her words. She had a hold on him beyond… whatever he had thought this could be.

He slowly lowered her onto the dresser, the night lamp thudding to the carpet, unbroken, rolling under the dresser.

He unbuttoned her shorts. She used her hands against the dresser to push her body up a little, legs together, muscles around her stomach and ribs visibly contracting, as Jack pulled her shorts off her, along with the underwear, and tossed them at the chair in the corner.

She breathed shallow, fast breaths, following his every move with her eyes.

He couldn’t believe it. Was she really there?

Sitting on a dresser in nothing but a tank top and a leather jacket. Those tan lines, a pale triangle. He could live on those tan lines.

Her lips were so wet on his. Her face so small and delicate compared to his. He felt like a big monster in front of her. But she looked at him like only he mattered.

He ran his hands down her legs and could feel her tremble a little when he touched her inner thighs.

As he took the backs of her knees and pushed them up a little higher, he knelt down in front of the dresser, his face right in front of her pussy. He lifted her a little, she moved forward to the edge of the dresser.

Her pussy dripped. The flesh on her stomach twitched, tickled by his breath.

Mia’s hands found the edges of the dresser, gripped them as Jack kissed around her pussy. He ran his open mouth across her pussy, smearing her juices on himself, taking in her scent. Mia moaned.

His tongue started low and played around, light and easy.

Mia’s hand grabbed his hair as he made his way up to her clit.

“Oh, fuck, Jack!” she whispered what was to be a scream.

Her legs wrapped around his head, the soles of her feet running up and down his back. Jack had his hands on her waist, running under her legs. He felt her shiver and twitch. He’d barely licked her clit for twenty seconds and she was already…

“Make me cum, Mr. D! Fuck, fuck, fuck, I’m cumming!” She pulled his hair. It hurt but he didn’t care. Her hands were grasping, grabbing at him, his shirt collar, back, sides of his face, hair. All the while her body shivered out of control.

As her shivering subsided a little, he stopped licking. He kissed her pussy and it amused him that her body shivered in response.

He stood up, going in for a kiss. Mia was still sitting up on the dresser, but she’d slumped back against the wall a little, recovering, a smile on her face. As he kissed her, she found his chest, her fingers looking for buttons. He tried to help her but she didn’t let him.

“Let me!”

Jack stood back a few inches, letting her look at what she was doing. She undid the one button still closed on his short-sleeve shirt. Her hands pushed aside the side of the shirt, palms open running over his stomach and chest. He saw her look at him with fascination, thirst, interest.

It tickled a little as her delicate hands made their way from his hairy chest down to the button on his shorts. She opened it, then slowly unzipped. His cock was all the way hard by then, expanded over his left thigh. She pushed his shorts and underwear down and he helped her a little.

“You have the biggest cock I’ve ever seen, Mr. D.”

Jack didn’t say anything, just smiled. He let her pick it up in her hands. She looked at it, cocking her head, licking her lips.

“Do you think,” Mia said, lining it up over her abdomen, pulling Jack in gently. “Do you think it will fit?”

She held it against herself, staring.

Jack moved a hand under his cock, feeling for her pussy. He touched her hole with his middle finger, pushing inside just a tiny bit.

“I don’t know, baby,” he said. “What do you think?”

“Make it fit.” She bit her lip and smiled at him. Mia leaned forward. She cradled his cock in her hand and dripped saliva on it from her open mouth. Jack was dizzy.

Their height matched perfectly. Mia had gotten him wet and slippery and Jack rocked back and forth, sliding between her pussy and her hand.

“Fuck, girl…” he said. “You drive me crazy, you know that?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. D!” She grabbed his cock harder, rolling it around on her. Her breaths were shallow and irregular.

“You want it, baby?”

“Yes!”

“You want my cock inside you?”

“I haven’t been able to think… about anything else, Mr. D!” she said, almost panting. “I need it! Please fuck me!”

Jack leaned back just a little. He held it with the tip pressed to her clit. She still grabbed the edge of the dresser with one hand, the fingers on the other one bent against Jack’s abdomen, as if to make sure she could stop him if she needed to.

She was looking down. Jack rubbed her clit a couple of times with his cock and, he had to admit, he was flattered by how large it looked because of how small Mia was compared to him.

He slid the tip of his cock down to her pussy lips, pushing against her lightly now. Almost none of him went inside. Between Mia’s saliva and her wet pussy, his entire cock was wet, shiny and slick.

“Fuck me, Mr. D!” She grabbed his shirt and pulled him. Jack had to brace against the dresser himself, forcing into her inch by inch, her body clenched so tight around him it bordered on pain. She screamed. She put her hands on his face, looking into his eyes, her whole body convulsing. Jack looked down. He saw her slight frame had taken his cock fully. And his cock was being squeezed. He didn’t know if she was doing it on purpose.

They kissed, tongues pushing past each other, saliva dripping like they were no longer human.

Mia let go of his face and grabbed her own thighs, holding her legs open for him. He ran his hands from her hair to her face, shoulders, over the jacket, the tank top, down to her waist. He grabbed her around her thinnest part, feeling that he’s not missing that much from being able to close his grip around her.

He pulled almost all the way out and pushed back inside. Mia’s head fell back against the wall.

Again, harder.

He wanted to test how much she could take. He didn’t want to hurt her. And, at the same time, he did. That scared him.

She looked down between them, whispering, “Yes.”

He fucked her faster.

“Fuck, Mr. D, you’re gonna make me cum again,” she said louder now. “Please make me cum, Mr. D.”

Every time she called him that he felt like he got harder. He knew it wasn’t true.

“You like it when I fuck your little pussy, baby?” It felt weird saying it, but not weird enough to make it any less hot.

“Yes, Mr. D, I love…” she panted. “The way your big cock hurts me! I never want another one, just yours!”

The dirty talk was taking him to a dark place.

“Come on my cock, baby. Be a good little girl!”

“Fuck…” she stopped moving in a controlled way and instead her orgasm took over. She shook and grabbed him, wrapping him in a hug. He stayed still, his cock fully inside her feeling like it was a few pumps away from exploding.

“Holy shit, Jack!” she said, arms still wrapped around him, her legs now dangling off the edge of the dresser.

“Jack now, huh?” he said, smiling.

She pulled away enough to look at him and slapped his chest, embarrassed but smiling. “Shut up!”

“I ain’t saying nothing!” He laughed.

She leaned down and grabbed the base of his cock. “I somehow didn’t believe this would actually happen.”

“I know what you mean.”

Mia had probably expected a little pause, Jack thought.

Instead, he lifted her knees and fucked her more.

Long, steady, deep strokes.

He expected to be stopped and yelled at. But instead Mia closed her eyes and leaned her head back, breathless. He wished he knew what she felt.

Fully inside her, he stopped. He let go of her legs and started taking off her jacket.

Then her top.

She was finally fully naked in front of him — breasts just full enough to fill his palm, nipples tight and hard, a dusting of freckles across her collarbone he’d never been close enough to notice before, the muscle along her stomach flexing with every breath. He wanted to memorize all of it before this ended, however it ended.

Mia sat back, supporting herself on her arms. She wrapped her legs around Jack’s waist.

“You’re so beautiful, kid!” Jack said.

“So are you!”

As his eyes darted across her body, whenever he looked at her eyes, they were looking at him and smiling.

“No, but I mean, you are…” Jack said. “There are no words.”

“Get me down from here, please,” she said.

He pulled out, she moaned a little and quickly gathered herself before Jack put his palms under her arms and lifted her off the dresser.

Having landed, she put her hands on his waist and guided him backwards to the chair in the corner by the window.

“Sit down,” Mia said.

Her voice sounded confident and he obeyed, but Jack thought he could detect a hint of tentativeness in it. Was she trying to impress him? Did she know he wanted to impress her?

The chair had no armrests, so Jack didn’t quite know what to do with his hands, he just gripped the seat and watched as Mia leaned over, hands on his knees. She pushed them open and turned herself around, facing away from him.

As she bent over, saliva rushed to Jack’s mouth. He started leaning in to bite and lick her, but she had other plans.

Mia took his cock through her legs, she’d come all the way between his spread knees and was lowering herself now. Her hand guided his cock inside her. As the tip pushed past the tightest part of her, she gasped, going still for a second like she needed to adjust.

After a brief pause, she sat down on it all the way. They both moaned.

She stayed down there, sitting up straight, her hands on his knees. He admired her strong back, the curves of her hips, the way her whole body still carried the discipline of years of training even collapsed loose and open like this. He ran his hands over her back. She moved her hips in slow circles, not getting up. He felt her hands on his balls.

“Fuck, Mia.”

She looked over her shoulder, not quite meeting his eyes, smiling.

She pushed herself up. Jack could not enjoy the view enough. He was going crazy. He was picturing taking her by her hips and slamming her down on his cock. Picking her back up and doing it again.

But he didn’t. He let her ride him.

Mia’s body was more than capable. This probably barely counted as a warmup for her. But he could sense she was trying the position for the first time. That made it better.

“You’re so good, baby.”

“You like it, Mr. D?” she asked.

She kept fucking him and stroking his shaft.

“Yes, baby! I can’t…” Jack strained for words. He grabbed her ass, his wedding ring catching light from the window. “I just can’t believe we’re doing this.”

She rode him faster. He couldn’t take it. He knew he’d cum if she didn’t stop.

Jack gently pushed her up off his cock, with his hands on her ass. He stood up and gently moved her to the bed, guided her down on it.

She lay on her stomach, legs hanging over the bed. Exposed. So exposed.

“You can do whatever you want, Mr. D.”

“I know, baby. I will,” he said, as he knelt behind her.

He spread her ass cheeks. “I will do whatever I want with you.”

She didn’t say anything, but Jack thought he could see her body react to his words.

“I will fuck you whenever I want.”

The words landed harsher than he expected them to. Was he still playing?

“Mhmm…” she moaned and nodded rapidly, back arched, head straining to look over her shoulder.

“Your little pussy, baby…” he put his hand on the top of her head. “Your mouth…” he ran his hand down the back of her head, over her back, not understanding why he was saying all of this out loud. “Your pretty, little asshole…” he spread her cheeks again and licked her asshole.

Mia grabbed and pulled sheets. She moaned into the bed.

He licked her all over, moving his hands wherever he could, pressing her into the bed, feeling her stomach, enjoying the feel of her in his hands and enjoying that he could reach so far while his face remained between her legs.

“Please fuck me, Mr. D!” she motioned.

She got up on her knees on the edge of the bed, her head stayed down.

“Please, please, please, fuck me!” she cried. “I need you to fuck me, I need your penis inside me! Please fill me up, Mr. D!”

The word “penis” - it sounded out of place and wrong. She knew exactly what it did to him.

She meant every word. So did he.

“Here, baby, take it,” Jack said, moving his cock under her pussy. “Put it in.”

She took it and put it right where it had to go. Jack did not hesitate. He pushed it in. Not all the way, but more forceful now.

“Mr. D?”

“Yes, baby?”

Mia’s fingers found her asshole. She rubbed it in circles with her middle finger.

“Will you share me with your wife?”

Fuck! His wife!

No, wait, right… He’s not cheating, this is OK. Moron.

“Do you want Ruby to fuck you too, baby?” Jack asked.

“Oh god, yes! I want Mrs. D to fuck me. I want her riding your penis while I sit on your face. I want to watch you fuck her. I want…” she moaned as Jack fucked her harder and harder.

He could feel it coming. “Fuck, baby. I’m going to cum.”

She got up and moved away, his cock sliding out.

“Come here, Mr. D,” she said and pulled his hand, coaxing him to the bed to lie down on his back.

He did as she wanted. He thought she would make him cum in her mouth. Instead she climbed on top of him and stood up on the bed over him, her feet at the sides of his hips.

She looked down at him and he looked up at her. For a second he got a vision of some ancient pagan goddess. He felt like she was the reward from a monkey paw wish. And it was so magical, he knew he should dread the price this all came at.

But just then… He just wanted to freeze this moment.

“I want you to cum inside me, Mr. D.”

Jack heard the words but…

“I know it’s wrong,” Mia said. “But I need it! I need you and I need you to cum inside me. I want to feel your big cock cum inside me, please.”

“Mia, I–” Jack tried to say and sit up.

“No, Mr. D. Don’t talk,” Mia said, squatting down and finding his cock and using her free hand to push him back down. “You have all the power.”

She guided his cock inside her, exhaling through pursed lips, breathing ragged.

“You can pick me up and stop me. You can do what you want with me. But please, please, please, Mr. D…”

She squatted up and down on his cock, the bed caving and creaking under them, the sound of her ass slapping on his lap.

“Just cum inside me, please! I need it!” she fucked him faster. “I’m going to cum again and I want you to cum inside me.”

Jack looked down between them. He saw all of it.

Her pussy lips with a tight grip on his cock.

She made him feel bigger.

Her juices were dripping, strings of them stretching from her body to his, snapping and falling, rejoining and stretching again.

Mia started shivering, he could feel she was getting close again and so was he.

“I’m going to cum, baby,” he said.

“Fill me up, Mr. D.” She started rubbing her clit. “Fill me up, Jack, I need it! I have to have it.”

“Take it, baby. Fucking. Take. It!”

As Jack came - one pump… two, three… four - so did Mia.

She shook and did her best to keep fucking him. But she couldn’t.

She collapsed on him, sitting up, still in a squat, but her hands rested on his chest as her legs gave out, shaking out of control.

He was cumming inside Mia, for fuck’s sake.

And he had more.

He grabbed her waist, gripped her tight.

Jack lifted her up, his cock leaving her pussy almost completely.

Then he slammed Mia back down.

She screamed with no sound.

Up.

She panted and saliva ran from her mouth down onto his chest.

Down. Slammed. Hard.

Again.

Her voice disappeared as he raised her for the last time. Her body hung helpless in his hands while his cock pulsed more cum inside her.

Down. Slow.

He sat up and hugged her. Her legs relaxing around him, her panting body collapsing on him.

Jack moved to the edge of the bed slowly.

Mia was digging her nails in his back, but gently. As she caught her breath, she kissed his neck. The big exhales from her nose sweeping down his shoulder cooled him down.

He was still inside her. He felt Mia’s hot wet pussy lips on skin around the base of his cock.

Jack moved her off his shoulder, took her face in a gentle hold, thumb on her throat, his big hand halfway around her neck, fingers behind her ear. He got her eyes to look at him.

They smiled big, happy, exhausted, stupid smiles at each other.

Jack felt so exposed and vulnerable. And powerful at the same time.

“How you feeling, kid?”

“Like…” Mia said, kissing him, then thinking, looking for words maybe. “Good!” She laughed.

“I know what you mean,” Jack said, bending his head down, Mia cradling it against her cheek.

Jack felt himself going soft.

He gently filled each of his palms with one of her ass cheeks, lifting her up a little, his cock sliding out.

Jack put her back down, her feet behind his back, knees in the air under his arms, her pussy lips rested on the top of his still plump cock.

He felt his cum dripping out of Mia, covering his cock, running down around his balls.

Jack took her face in his hands and kissed her. Slow, deep kisses, tasting her lips, letting his fingers explore her features.

“I really like you, Mia!”

“I really like you, Jack!”

Jack laughed because he knew how fucking stupid this was, how childish. But he also laughed because… she made him happy. Seeing her, being with her, pleasing her.

He stood up, holding Mia in a hug, her legs dropping straight down. He spun her around and put her down on the bed.

“Shower?” he asked.

“Umm…” Mia thought. “Maybe when my legs start working again?”

“You flatter me, Mia!” Jack said. “Let me get you a drink.”

“OK!” she said. Sparkling, she threw herself back on the bed, rolling around, legs clearly working.

He thought then that they really should get dressed and Mia should get to her room, in case Beth got back, but he didn’t want to ruin the moment.

“Hey, kid?”

“Yeah?”

“Not to fuck up the moment or anything, but can you check Beth’s location, please?”

Jack flicked on the bathroom light switch to get some light in the room without having to turn on the terrible ceiling lights in the room.

“Oh, yeah, right! Sec!”

Jack came back to bed with two cold cans from the mini fridge.

“Sprite or Coke?”

“She’s still at the thing, we’re good,” Mia said. “Sprite, please!”

Jack handed her the can and sat down beside her on the bed. Mia put her hand on his now soft cock.

“You know,” she said. “All the crazy sex talk aside, I really do love your cock, Jack.”

“Oh yeah? Even like this? All tiny and dead?”

“Tiny!?” she said, eyes wide.

“What?” Jack laughed.

“You’re crazy. This thing just…” she seemed to look for words and came up short. “Come on, man, it’s huge.”

“Whatever you say, ma’am!” Jack drank his soda, finishing half the can and trying his absolute best to not audibly burp.

“OK, so… Not to ruin the mood or anything, but we should maybe get to a pharmacy?” she said.

“Pharmacy?”

“Yeah, for Plan B?”

“Plan B?”

“You don’t know what Plan B is?” Mia laughed.

“No, I know what it is.”

“So, like…”

He kissed her. “Let’s just stay here.”

He moved lower, kissing around her chest, running circles around her nipple with his tongue.

“Hmm…” she moaned, reluctantly saying, “But we should really do it today. Tomorrow we have the thing and I don’t want to wait.”

“You’re not going to get pregnant, Mia.”

“Well, that’s not really a gamble I want to make.”

“No?”

“Not unless you want me to give birth to Beth’s sister.”

That sucked the air out of the room.

“I’ve had a vasectomy,” Jack said. “I tried to tell you.”

Mia stared at him. Then covered her face.

“Oh my god.”

“Yeah, sorry, I tried to tell you. You weren’t exactly letting me.”

“Yeah…” she touched his chest, thinking. She seemed embarrassed. “That was really fucking reckless of me, actually. I’m sorry.”

Jack didn’t say anything, just gently brushed her leg with the back of his hand.

A few seconds later he asked, “Is the moment over?”

She turned and jumped on top of him with one fast motion. Landing face to face. “You tell me.”

“I don’t know what you know about senior citizens, kid–” Jack started.

“Oh, Pshaw!”

“Pshaw?” Jack laughed.

“Yeah, Pshaw!” Mia laughed, taking a seat on his lap, rubbing her naked flesh against him. “You wanna tell me I couldn’t get you to go again?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“How much you wanna bet?”

“Not gonna work.”

“Oh yeah? What if I put your cock in my mouth right now?”

“Try it,” Jack said.

Mia squinted at him. He squinted back.

“OK,” she said and jumped back. In seconds, she had his soft cock fully in her mouth and held it there, not using her hands, just wiggling her tongue under his shaft. Looking at him the whole time.

“I admire the effort, of course, but…”

As he spoke, he felt something.

Her eyebrows went up a little and she cocked her head. As if to say “See?”

“You’re gonna kill me, kid.”

Mia spoke a whole sentence, maybe nine or ten syllables. Which made Jack laugh and she did too, almost choking. They both lost it laughing.

When they calmed down, Mia went back to sucking his cock, which was now almost hard again.

The phone rang. It wasn’t Jack’s.

Mia went to get it from her jacket on the floor. Jack waited, nervous. Was it Beth?

“Who is it?” he asked.

Mia got to her phone when it had already stopped ringing. It only rang a few times.

“Umm, it was Beth.”

Jack was looking at Mia, waiting for information. Had she gotten back so fast? Was she in trouble? Were they in trouble?

“What’s happening?”

“Missed message. She called me to get my attention in case my notifications were off.” Mia threw the phone to Jack on the bed, screen up, as she started shoving herself back into her clothes.

The screen said: “SOS! come get me! now please”

====================
END OF CHAPTER 4
====================

Thanks so much for reading 💚

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Recap of Part 1

Jack (42) and Ruby (40) are happily married, Beth (18), their daughter, is heartbroken over Christian (19), and Beth’s best friend Mia (18) comes over for dinner. Jack comes to realize Mia is looking at him differently and he finds himself increasingly attracted to her. After dinner, Jack is giving Mia a ride to her parents’ house. Mia compliments him, telling him his body feels “like warm stone, or something”. She redirects him away from her parents’ house, and lets Jack know she wants him. Jack knows he should just keep going straight, take her home; a good man, a good father would not do this. But he takes the turn anyway. What Mia doesn’t know: Ruby was aware the whole time that Jack might pursue Mia; they have some sort of a deal about her.

Recap of Part 2

Jack comes home and tells Ruby everything that happened with Mia in the car. Ruby wants the truth, including the ugly parts, and makes it clear she refuses to stay just the wife hearing stories after the fact. The next day, Mia is with Beth in the town square, feeling awful while Beth talks about being lied to by Christian. Then Ruby appears. When Beth steps away, Ruby repeats Mia’s “warm stone” phrase, making it clear Jack told her. Mia realizes Ruby knows, but she can’t tell if Ruby is warning her, forgiving her, or inviting her.

(---SPOILERS END---)

=======================

~~~

Wednesday, June 10, 2026. Maplewood, New Jersey.

– 6:42 pm

The bottle slid around in Mia’s sweating hands as her mother Joan rang the bell. Mia thought it would be perfect, in a way, if she smashed a fancy wine bottle on Ruby’s lawn, in addition to having an affair with her husband.

Had she not taken creative writing courses? Had she not talked her way out of a hundred invitations to a hundred different things she wanted to avoid? She still couldn’t get out of this dinner?

Who was she kidding? Scared or not, Mia wanted to know what came next. If only she could find out without both families present to witness it.

The door opened to show a smiling Ruby, the light behind her making her outline shine. Mia’s forearms burned, gripping the bottle.

“I made ziti!” Joan said, instead of any kind of greeting. “Emilio says it’s the best he’s seen a new student do.”

“Beth’s going to jump on that like a starved dog,” Ruby said, as she kissed Joan on the cheek and motioned her inside.

“Beth!” Joan yelled. “I got ziti, sweetie!”

Mia’s face contorted in second-hand embarrassment, even though the Dauwalters had known the Taylors for too long to be surprised by their personalities.

“Ziti! Sweetie!” Ron said, emphasizing the rhymes, and then pausing before forcing out an over-the-top laughter. Then he also exchanged a cheek kiss with Ruby.

Mia loved her father. She did. And despite all her rationalizations, she still wanted to step into traffic.

Mia saw what her dad could never: the tiny wince in the corner of Ruby’s eye. There and gone before Ron finished laughing.

“Look at that dress!” Ron said. “Ooooh-weeee!”

He wasn’t wrong. Another sundress, this time emerald green, low at the chest and slit high on one leg.

Ruby looked down at Ron standing a few inches shorter and faked a whisper with a lean. “I’ll let Joan borrow it, dear!”

Joan fucking wishes! Mia’s mom would not fit in it. She wasn’t fat or anything like that, but for Ruby’s dress she was too short and had a little too much going on around the chest and other places. Mia felt guilty and odd. Her mother was a perfectly fine, pretty lady, no reason to compare her to Ruby. No reason at all.

“You coming?” Ruby said. Everyone inside, just the two of them now.

“Hi!” Mia entered and handed Ruby the bottle. With Ruby’s eyes on her now, Mia wondered if Ruby knew she had changed six times, each outfit making her feel like an idiot freshman playing dress-up, before ending up in this fitted white tank top and short, dark, flowy skirt. It made her feel pretty a little more than it made her feel ridiculous. The little strip of bare skin across her middle was good for the heat, at least.

“Oh, thank you!” Ruby took it. As she did, she leaned down to give Mia a kiss on the cheek. The dress fell loose around Ruby’s chest and Mia found her eyes darting. Not quite seeing anything explicitly forbidden, but somehow feeling that all the forbidden places were as near, threatening and alluring as they’d ever been. Ruby smelled like fresh, cold pine and coconut. Fuck. The kiss, like the last one two days ago at the town square, went on a little long. Nothing anyone else would notice, perhaps. “Welcome.”

“Thank you.” Mia couldn’t quite tell if there was anything else in Ruby’s look. She could no longer tell with her at all. All she knew was that Ruby’s attention was undivided.

“Let’s go on inside,” Ruby said.

“Thank you!” Thank you? She’d said that already. What was wrong with her? She had to keep it together.

The house looked exactly the same, which felt obscene somehow.

Same dark floors. Same warm kitchen light. Same smell, clean and expensive, never bleachy, never fake lemon, never like the detergent aisle at Target. Same hallway Beth used to drag her through when they were thirteen and late to everything. Same stairs, family pictures. Same big shallow bowl by the door where Ruby kept keys and sunglasses and whatever else women like Ruby dropped in bowls. Mia put her purse next to the bowl.

It had always been Beth’s house. Now it was Ruby’s. Jack’s. The hallway had doors she had never thought much about before. Upstairs was not only Beth’s room, but Jack and Ruby’s.

A nonsensical idea gripped her: she wanted it to be her house. But that—

“Mia!” Beth yelled. Coming over from the kitchen, already reaching for her.

Mia smiled because Beth was smiling.

“Come on,” Beth said, grabbing Mia’s hand. “I have insane tea.”

Mia let herself be dragged. Halfway past the kitchen island, she saw Jack. He was standing with one hand in his pocket and the other wrapped around a glass he had not lifted to his mouth. Their eyes met for a second.

“Hi, Mr. D,” Mia said, waving with a shrug.

“Hey, kid.”

Kid. Where the butterflies had been in her stomach, there was now a motherfucking elephant.

“So this girl, Amanda, right? Absolute disaster. Like, they should have this bitch in a conservatorship or something. Don’t let her near hot liquids.”

Mia nodded. Beth had had her first trial shift that day, at “Sleepy Cat,” a coffee shop by the town square.

Through the screen door, Mia caught pieces of the kitchen: Joan at the oven, operating the space like she owned it, narrating her culinary class war stories; Mia’s dad with his hand on Jack’s shoulder telling him he’d been salivating over that bottle of Macallan 18 since the moment they’d put the dinner on the books; Ruby opening a drawer without looking, pulling the right thing from the right place with no effort; Jack asking if Ron had really been saving himself for two weeks; Ron going, “Not myself, just the bottle!” and exploding at his own joke.

Mia was surprised Jack laughed too. He usually didn’t.

“Are you listening?” Beth stopped.

“Yep.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Amanda, hot liquids, public safety, conservatorship.”

Beth narrowed her eyes. “Okay, maybe you can just also look like you’re listening?”

“No chance.”

Beth continued and Mia’s attention kept wandering back to the kitchen. She did her best to listen, but… Jack. Ruby. Her mom and dad. Jack and Ruby pretending it was just a normal Wednesday. Mia pretending she didn’t know the taste of Jack’s cum. Pretending she didn’t know Ruby knew. Or knew something, anyway. How the hell had she gotten here?

“By being a dumb whore,” Beth said.

Mia’s attention snapped back. “What?”

“I mean, clearly! How else could this moron of a girl be the supervisor? She’s blowing the manager. For sure!”

“Oh.” Mia laughed, relieved. “Right! Totally.”

Beth studied her. “You’re being weird.”

“My parents are just being embarrassing.”

Beth looked back through the screen door. “Our parents are always embarrassing.”

“I guess.”

Ruby called from inside.

“Girls! Food!”

Beth looked at Mia, squinting. Then she shrugged and they went inside. Mia was thankful it was dropped so easy.

As they came back in, Mia noticed Jack’s face, looking at her, then Beth, then Ron or Joan, she wasn’t sure. He was trying to be harmless and casual so hard it almost made her laugh out loud. At least she wasn’t the only one sweating bullets.

~~~

– About 10 minutes later

Ruby sat at one end of the table, nearest the kitchen island. Jack sat at the other. Mia had Ruby on her left, Beth on her right. Joan was next to Jack on his right and Ron between Joan and Ruby opposite Mia.

“This is actually insane,” Beth said, pointing her fork at the ziti.

Joan clasped her hands under her chin. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

“No, I mean, I’m mad at how good this is.”

“Emilio says I’m a natural.”

Ron made a sound.

“Who’s Emilio?” Ruby asked.

“My instructor.”

“Ah.”

“I told you, right?” Joan looked at Ruby, then Jack. “I tell him, I say, Emilio, I swear to God, I’ve never so much as boiled an egg before. He says, Joanna!” Joan did a thick, excellent, borderline offensive Italian accent. “This is impossible. It’s-a like-a my nonna came down from heaven and-a she cook-a through you.”

Beth looked at Mia. Mia looked at Beth. They did not laugh. Somehow.

Jack said, “It’s very good. Right, sweetie?” Jack turned to Beth.

“That’s what I said, yeah.” Beth had her mouth full, reaching for bread.

“Yeah, no, it’s good,” Ron said. “So, girls, are you excited about embarking on your higher education journey next year at Fairleigh?”

“Dad, not everything’s a journey,” Mia said.

“I’m actually so excited, Mr. Taylor. I can’t wait.”

“Good, good. I know you girls will do us proud.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. Very proud of you guys.” Jack chimed in, looking at the girls and making eye contact with everyone in a way that seemed to Mia like checking off items on a to-do list.

Mia was happy to see Beth excited about something. She could tell she was finally clawing her way out of the heartbreak hole Christian had put her in.

Mia herself could barely remember why she’d wanted to go to Fairleigh. A gymnastics scholarship? OK. It was a reason. She wasn’t sure it was a good one. She had been excited about college until… Last week. Well, right, that did make sense now that she considered it. No Jack in Fairleigh.

“There’s nothing more important than a good education, I always say.” Ron tore open a piece of bread, spreading crumbs over his plate.

Jack nodded, measured, listening.

“I mean…” Joan gestured with her wine glass to Mia and Beth. “It’s also very important to seize and experience your youth while you have it. It’s summer, for Christ’s sake, you guys gotta enjoy that too, right?”

“That’s a good point, girls, yeah! Well said, Joan,” Jack said.

Mia contained a laugh at that, failing to keep the tight-lipped smile inside completely. Jack’s placation of her parents was hilarious to her. She looked around the table, everyone carrying on, chewing, small talking, and ended up on Ruby. Ruby seemed to have the same look on her face. If Mia had it right, they were both sharing a laugh at Jack’s expense. But of course. Ruby knew too. Mia felt she should stop smiling, move on—wouldn’t their shared amusement imply an admission of guilt?—but the way Ruby looked at her made her realize how alone and isolated she’d felt that evening.

Just then she felt much less alone.

“Jack, you’re still giving my girl a ride?” Ron said.

What looked like panic to Mia flashed somewhere in Jack before he turned to look at Ron. She was too surprised and frozen to panic herself.

“Fairleigh. Next week right? Mia’s still OK to tag along with you and Beth?” Ron asked, chewing bread.

“Oh!” Jack said. “Yes, of course, that’s the plan, so that’s what we’re doing. Right?” he asked toward the girls, snapping a tiny look at Mia as well. A rare one at that dinner. Mia was acutely aware of the absence of any extra eye contact that night between her and Jack.

“Correct!” Mia said.

“You know Jack, babe,” Joan said to her husband. “If he says he’s going to do something, he will.”

“Very dependable, Mr. D is,” Mia said. And looked at Jack nod, stuff his face with a piece of asparagus and wash it down with about two fingers of whiskey. She felt something. Making a big man squirm made her feel powerful and tingly. When it was already too late, she caught herself turning to Ruby, going “isn’t that right?”

“Correct!” Ruby said, mirroring Mia. Without waiting, she turned to Mia’s dad, “Ron!” she put a hand on him.

He made a startled noise and looked at Ruby.

“What are you doing?” she asked him.

“Hmm?” he chewed, a puzzled look on his face.

“Why are you drinking out of that glass?”

“Ooh, that’s right, Ron, we got these—” Jack was getting up, but Ruby stopped him.

“No, no, I’ll get them.” Ruby turned to Ron to explain, “We bought these whiskey glasses and haven’t had the cause to use them yet. Your… what was it?” She pointed at the bottle.

“Macallan 18, dear. Old enough to order its own Macallan 18!” another Ron-splosion shook the room, Roscoe waking up, looking around for trouble.

“Your of-age whiskey deserves proper glassware. I’ll be right back.”

A step into leaving, Ruby turned back around and said to Mia, “Sweetie, any chance you could help me? I need some cloth napkins from the linen closet.”

“Of course,” Mia said and got up.

“You’re a doll! They’re in the linen closet upstairs next to the master bedroom, under the shoe rack in the corner, I think they’re in a sort of brown chest down there,” Ruby said, as she herself went behind the kitchen island and opened a cabinet, rummaging around inside it.

Mia was feeling better about the evening. The silent exchange with Ruby about Jack’s behavior had settled her nerves a little. It all felt more like play now. She was almost completely certain, thinking back on it, that Ruby had probably pretended not to remember what her dad’s fancy whiskey was called. She was so quick and calm and, if you paid attention, very funny. Everything seemed to be going…

Well, shit. It was going alright.

But her battery was depleted, this dinner draining it. So going up the stairs, she took the opportunity to slow down in the dark stairway and hall leading to the walk-in linen closet. She took a few breaths and felt her body. It calmed her down and energized her. A trick she’d learned from a sports medicine book.

She passed the master bedroom and managed to suppress the urge to peek inside.

In the closet she found the cloth napkins with no trouble and as she closed the chest she heard the closet door open and close again behind her. She stood up. Ruby watched her now, one hand behind her back, still on the doorknob.

Mia wanted to tell her she found the things, what are they called? She wanted to say she was about to come down. To ask Ruby if she forgot something, or…? To say something, to scream or even whisper.

“You found ‘em?”

Mia nodded yes. She was now acutely aware of her surroundings and what she was wearing. A survival thing, maybe? She didn’t know, but she knew she was thinking about equal parts ‘I hope this skirt won’t make it harder to fight’ and ‘please, be here to fuck me’.

Ruby came closer at the same steady pace, making Mia look up more with every step. Ruby put one hand on Mia’s wrist, the other on her side, as she gently kissed her. Mia kept her eyes open. The kiss was short. Ruby leaned back and looked at her. Mia was more certain now she recognized what she’d been seeing in Ruby’s eyes before, at the door, at the fountain. A little bit of vulnerability. Ruby’s demeanor had shifted. She was still in charge, but she either failed to hide or showed on purpose that she had something to lose. She had the look of a girl who hoped to be chosen - Mia knew the feeling well.

Mia didn’t know what she was going to do until her hands were already moving. She grabbed Ruby by her arms, pulled her down and kissed her. This would never happen again, she was sure. Ruby was an icon. Being here in the closet, being chosen by her, she felt like a rich and famous movie star had somehow sought her out and plucked her out of obscurity. Mia had to use this opportunity while she had it.

After a second’s delay, Ruby’s hands searched out and found Mia’s hips. Could it be? Could Mia have taken Ruby by surprise? Mia pushed Ruby’s arms back a little. Not away, God forbid, she did not want her to leave, but just enough to tell her to pause.

“Hey,” Mia said. She wanted something to ask or say, but couldn’t think of anything.

“We can stop,” Ruby said. Mia saw she meant it, but didn’t want to.

She wanted to ask why Ruby was doing this. What she knew. What she wanted. But she still couldn’t speak, so she pulled Ruby down again and they connected in another kiss. Ruby was so effortless. She seemed to know exactly where Mia’s tongue and lips were going to be before they got there. Was she guiding them there? Did Mia care?

No.

Some sane part of her tried to step back. The rest of her stepped forward.

If this really was her only chance, she wanted to make it count. She pushed Ruby against the shoe rack. Ruby’s face was surprised but inviting. Mia bunched up Ruby’s dress, holding her eyes. She saw fear, hunger, excitement. Mia felt drunk and empowered. Her hands finally got under the flaps of the dress and were shocked to find no panties at Ruby’s hips to hook into. “Oh!” she said.

Ruby’s eyes were surprised. Mia knelt down as Ruby said, very quietly, “Oh my fucking God.” Ruby’s leg went up on the opposite wall as Mia went low and licked her pussy. The first time her tongue touched her pussy lips, Ruby grabbed the sides of her head, digging her fingers through Mia’s thick, dark hair.

“What the fuck,” Ruby whispered, her legs trembling a little. Ruby had been so dramatically altered from the composed ideal woman, wife, mother she had been just seconds ago. How did this happen? And was Mia really the one responsible for this change?

She had never made out with a woman, certainly hadn’t licked a pussy. She had expected it to feel stranger than it did. Instead it was soft and warm and intimate, and the fact that it was Ruby made her feel like she was having an out-of-body experience. She told herself to focus. Find the clit. She did and she licked it, back and forth, slow.

Loud steps were stomping up the stairs. Ruby put her leg back down, stepping toward the door and moving her dress down all in one move, zero hesitation. She said in a low whisper “Watch out, sweetie. Open that brown chest. Make like you’re looking.” Ruby stepped up on a stool on the other side, pretending to look for something. Beth yanked the door open.

“Where’s the Bluetooth speaker?”

“Our bedroom, I think?” Ruby answered.

Beth moved on to the master bedroom next door.

Ruby looked down at Mia, stifled a laugh. She motioned for them to go. Mia followed behind. Before they left the closet, Ruby turned around, her hand on the door, and planted a single wet kiss on Mia.

“What are we going—” Mia started but Ruby stopped her with a simple look.

Mia had gotten a taste of the kind of power she didn’t think she could ever have. And now it was gone. Ruby didn’t need to ask for it back. She just had all of it. Again. Just like that. What?

She had to follow Ruby down the stairs. Pretend she had anything on her mind other than the taste of her.

~~~

– A few minutes later

Mia envied Ruby being able to snap out of it just like that. She figured she must be doing OK herself as well, seeing as no one had cornered her demanding an explanation yet. But Ruby wasn’t just managing. Ruby wasn’t just normal. Ruby was pouring wine, passing around bread. Laughing. Asking questions. Keeping the room moving. Mere seconds after her daughter’s best friend had licked her pussy. She was still walking around with no underwear. Right. Ruby had come to dinner like that. Just like Mia had, the night Jack drove her home. Except Mia hadn’t had a plan. Not that day.

But as much as she was envious of Ruby’s ability to move on and compartmentalize, she also found herself being more and more attracted to her. To Jack’s wife. Mia looked at Jack. Did he know? He didn’t seem to. But then again he was so deep in method acting tonight, who could tell? If she sat closer to him, would he smell his wife on her?

She felt that if she didn’t orgasm in the near future, she would lose her mind. Fuck it. Maybe at least then she’d be in the right mind to fully inhabit this situation she’d created.

The music played. Beth had put on some jazz playlist.

“You good?” Beth asked Mia.

“Mhmm.” Mia nodded. “Just enjoying the music. What’s this song called?”

“No idea.”

The food tasted weird now. She wasn’t hungry anymore. Not for fucking ziti, anyway.

~~~

– About an hour later

Jack and Beth were cleaning up in the kitchen, as Ruby escorted out the Taylors. Joan and Ron stepped out and as Mia left, Ruby handed her her purse.

“Get home safe, sweetie,” she said, and then quieter, “And breathe.”

Mia looked at Ruby. She was scared someone would see something weird about the way they behaved. But there was no such fear on Ruby’s face. Didn’t she have more to lose than Mia?

“Goodnight, Ruby,” Mia said, knowing only Ruby could hear her. They exchanged a little peck. Perfectly innocent. Mia’s soaked panties would disagree, though.

The half-block walk to their car seemed like eternity to Mia. She couldn’t wait to… Could she maybe make an excuse and just run and hide somewhere so she could touch herself, so she could think again. Her body burned. She felt like she was going to evaporate in a fine mist.

Ron and Joan engaged in absent-minded bickering in the front seat. The back seat was completely dark, save for the street lights going by, casting rays on Mia’s thighs. They were too self-absorbed, right? She could probably just…

Mia tentatively slid a hand under her skirt, using the other hand to cover her lap with her purse. But every time they passed by a street light, it was clearly visible that Mia’s hand was under her skirt.

But her parents were not paying attention, come on. It was OK.

Her heart raced. She was on the verge of orgasm since before she even sat down in the car. Under her panties, her pussy was soaked and sticky. Oh my God, what if they can smell it? Or hear her? Is she breathing loudly?

She pressed her finger against her clit and froze.

“—could say that in terms of just the look of the thing?” Mia had no idea what her mother was saying.

“Mhmm,” her dad might have been in the same boat on that.

Whatever they were saying, they didn’t pay attention to her. She rubbed her clit. Light, rapid circles. Fuck! She was going to cum. She begged herself and God to just let her cum and not make a noise.

Mia had all but fucked Jack. Jack had made her cum so good. Ruby had kissed her. Mia had gone down on Ruby. She was now… Oh my God! Could they really want her to–

“Mia? Do you want ice cream?” Ron asked without looking back.

“Nothankyou!” Mia answered way too quickly, her eyes down on her lap, wide in panic. Waves of pleasure making it nearly impossible to stay composed. She could keep her body from convulsing too hard, but could not force herself to stop touching.

As her parents went back to talking at each other, she rubbed herself until she was finally done.

Afterward, shame and sobriety hit her fast and hard. What was she doing? Masturbating next to her parents? Was she losing her mind? This is not OK!

Alright, she had to get it together. She pulled her panties back over her dripping pussy, certainly a wet stain on the back of her skirt, no doubt about it. Thank God it was late and the skirt was dark. She licked her finger clean. It tasted so good and she still wanted to cum more, but had to put herself together.

She pulled down her skirt and opened the purse to check messages. A little note fell out.

It said “I’d love to return the favor.”

~~~

– Same night, around 3:00 am

Mia woke from a dreamless sleep with a thought. She didn’t know where it came from. It didn’t matter. The thought was loud and clear and she couldn’t believe how in the hell it took her so long to notice the importance of it.

Jack was going to take Beth and her on an overnight trip to Fairleigh next week.

================

End of Chapter 2

================

Huge shoutout to:

- The early readers for their support! You can join them on Patreon. We also have images, extra stuff, drafts, early access, behind the scenes and sometimes even voting on future content.

- All of you for the incredible response to the first chapter!

- To Ruby for being such a fucking rocket.

Recap of Part 1

Jack (42) and Ruby (40) are happily married, Beth (18), their daughter, is heartbroken over Christian (19), and Beth’s best friend Mia (18) comes over for dinner. Jack comes to realize Mia is looking at him differently and he finds himself increasingly attracted to her. After dinner, Jack is giving Mia a ride to her parents’ house. Mia compliments him, telling him his body feels “like warm stone, or something”. She redirects him away from her parents’ house, and lets Jack know she wants him. Jack knows he should just keep going straight, take her home; a good man, a good father would not do this. But he takes the turn anyway. What Mia doesn’t know: Ruby was aware the whole time that Jack might pursue Mia; they have some sort of a deal about her.

(---SPOILERS END---)

=======================

~~~

Sunday, June 7, 2026. Maplewood, New Jersey.

– 12:20 am

“You guys left, what then?” Ruby asked.

Jack had expected her to ask or say something to ease them into it, but of course he knew her and should have known better. “Well… small talk in the car. She was very complimentary of the fatherly work I’ve done and she talked about us.”

“Us?”

“You and me.”

“What about us?”

“She said we were cute together. That it was obvious we’re really in love.”

Ruby’s body tensed a bit then—enough for Jack to notice.

“Yeah, uh… listen. If you tell me you changed your mind or don’t feel right with this—we drop it. The whole idea. No questions—” Ruby interrupted him, aggressively grabbing him by his seashell shirt, stamping him with a smiling open-eyed kiss.

“Just excited. Tell me.” She sat back. Jack sat on the foot of the bed, facing his wife.

Mia had touched his hand, then apologized for overstepping.

“Oh, wow,” Ruby said.

“She was leading,” he said. “Or trying to.” Jack cringed at himself and laughed a bit.

Ruby knew what he meant, and said, “It’s very ‘she likes me, she likes me not’, yeah.”

“Yeah!” They shared a bit of a laugh and settled. “So, yeah, I mean, I told her it was ok to touch me and she could just call me Jack, enough with the Mr. D shit, you know?”

He told her about the laughs they had shared, Mia’s comments about his body.

“Warm stone…” Ruby repeated.

“Warm stone,” Jack shrugged, trying and failing to look humble.

“You fucking loved that, I know you did.” Ruby slapped his knee.

Jack made a purposefully girly noise, swatting her away. “OK, OK, I did, shut up!”

“Did you like her saying it?” Ruby asked, emphasizing the word ‘her’, not fully joking then.

“Yes, I did.”

“OK, what then?”

By the time they had reached the red light at Hoglund and Maine, Mia was almost done pretending. She kept looking at him, then away, working herself up to something, as far as he could tell.

“Almost at her house, then?”

“That’s right. She goes ‘turn here, it’s quicker.’ So I tell her, you know, straight is faster for sure. And she’s doing a lot of wording and gesticulating now, not really saying much, but more like delaying and working up courage. Then she stops herself. Takes a deep breath. And goes, word for word, ‘Basically, what I’m trying to say, Mr. D’—she turns to me—‘I would like to see your penis, and I think it’s better we do it on a street that is not in front of my parents’ house.’”

Ruby took a huge breath, eyes growing wilder, exhaling slowly, fingers tracing her collarbone.

“I put up a little bit of a fight, but, you know… it was sort of half-hearted. As I was pretending to object, she looked at me and played with her dress. Pulled it up a little, and slid her hands to the insides of her thighs.”

Ruby leaned her head back against the headboard, pulling one knee close to her chest. He could almost see her pussy, but the black sundress was still covering her.

“Jack…” Ruby didn’t have to say anything, Jack knew. Hot. Wrong. Words didn’t fit it right.

“So,” Ruby’s fingers were disappearing under the dress, “you turned?”

He did. Almost didn’t, having a crisis for about ten seconds. He left that out.

“Yeah.”

“Wait,” Ruby’s finger came back up, her thinking then. After a moment, she said, “Did she know I knew?”

“No.”

“Did she think you were cheating on me?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“So yes.”

Ruby looked at him, then away. They sat for a bit. Jack didn’t envy Ruby’s position. He had gone out and started the thing. If Mia didn’t want Ruby too, then consent or not, he had made Ruby the wife at home. He had no way of giving her a place in what had already happened.

And Mia had… yeah, shit, either way you cut it, Mia had betrayed Ruby.

“Well, ok,” she turned back to him now. “We knew this would have to be the way.” She meant that they couldn’t just knock on Mia’s parents’ door and ask her if she wanted to fuck them both.

“You alright?” Jack asked, not approaching.

“Mhmm,” she nodded, and he believed her. “I want to hear the rest. She asked to see your cock?”

“Yes.” Jack regrouped. “So I… I turned and we—”

“Jack?”

“Hmm?”

“You better tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

Ruby didn’t answer right away. She just looked at him.

He hated that look. The trouble with Ruby was she heard edits. And then she looked at him in a way. A way that let him know the jig was up.

“Are you leaving something out?”

“No. I mean—no, not really.”

Ruby waited.

“There was a second there at the light.”

“A second.”

“More, maybe.”

“OK.”

“I almost didn’t turn,” Jack said. After a moment he added, “I told myself to go straight. Take her home. Be a good man.”

Ruby watched him.

“I thought about Beth. You. Mia. Ron and Joan. Everybody. I thought ‘a good man would not do this’.”

“And then?”

“I turned anyway.”

They sat, Jack not knowing where to put his eyes, so he let them de-focus looking at a random crease in her dress.

Ruby nodded, slowly.

“Don’t leave those parts out.”

“I wasn’t trying to—”

“Yes, you were.” Her voice was soft. She was fucking right.

Ruby’s expression relaxed. “We can’t ignore the ugly parts.”

He nodded.

“OK,” she said, leaning in, giving him a kiss, squeezing the muscle around his knees. “So you turned.”

“So I turned,” Jack told her about the dark spot under the broken streetlight, the first kiss, the touches. How quickly he could switch from guilt to sexual reminiscing. Back to being horny. As if the guilt had no weight to it at all. Was it just posturing?

As Jack spoke, sparing no detail, his wife’s fingers disappeared under the dress again. Jack knew his part in this was to sit there, tell the story truthfully, and let his wife enjoy herself. He had learned that part twenty years ago.

~~~

20 years ago, more or less.

~~~

Thursday, July 13, 2006. Maplewood, New Jersey.

– 8:40 pm

“You’re quiet,” Ruby said.

“I’m not quiet.” He had absolutely been quiet.

They were a couple drinks past dinner, two months into whatever this was, and Jack was trying to not seem too eager.

“You’ve been quiet for almost a minute.”

“I was admiring the view.”

She glanced behind her, toward the rest of the patio and the bright restaurant behind it.

“Not that view.” Great job playing it cool, stupid.

Ruby looked back at him, trying not to smile too much. “That was terrible.”

“Worked, though.”

“It did not.”

“You’re smiling.”

“I’m humoring you.”

“Good enough.” Jack took a drink and glanced past her shoulder. At the table near the little ficus tree, a man in a short-sleeve button-down with little anchors on it was explaining something to a woman who had clearly left her body some time ago. Jack decided it was probably insurance-related, based on nothing but the shirt.

“What?” Ruby asked.

“Nothing.”

“No, what?”

“I’m just wondering how long before a man starts ordering salmon because his doctor told him to.”

Ruby glanced back, then turned to him again.

“That’s you in 20 years.”

“Pff, come on.”

“You already have the shirt.”

“This is a good shirt.”

“It has dragons on it.”

“No, it—” Jack realized it had dragons on it. “Oh, fuck.”

They both laughed. Ruby kept laughing after he stopped, pleased with herself, one knee hugged to her chest, dress falling loose over her thigh. Jack looked away, forgetting this was not their first date and looking was OK.

The patio had gotten darker around them. Not dark-dark, just the kind of summer evening dark where everybody looked a little better and every table seemed like its own little island. Jack’s Long Island iced teas were probably doing at least some of the work on that fantasy. Somewhere inside, a woman’s loud laugh could be heard. Jack bet she was laughing at something that probably wasn’t that funny.

Ruby’s hand slid from her shin to her ankle. Then back up. Down. Was it an absent-minded move? Maybe pretending it was? On her way back up her hand went around the other side of her leg, up the calf. Again: slow.

She was still smiling, but her breathing had changed. Not much. Enough. Her eyes had gone a little unfocused, then sharp again when they found him watching.

“Ruby.”

“Jack.”

“What are you doing?”

“Having dinner.”

“We finished dinner.”

“Then I’m relaxing after dinner.”

He gave her a quiet laugh. “Right.”

Her hand disappeared behind her knee, under the loose fall of the dress.

Jack felt his own smile go stupid and helpless. “Are you—”

“Am I what?”

He looked around.

Her hand stayed where it was. Nothing obvious. Nothing anyone else could point at. But Jack saw the little tightening in her shoulders, the way her mouth softened and pressed together again.

“Ruby,” he said again, lower this time, smiling. “What are you doing?”

She leaned back in her chair. Not far. Just enough to give him a better angle if he chose to take it.

“Have a look.”

“At what?”

She tilted her head. Come on. His insecurity was speaking for him—he knew what she meant.

Jack stared at her, and she stared back, daring him, but there was something under the dare now, he thought. Something… less polished and refined. He could see it and, seeing it, understood that if he made the wrong joke, or grabbed her wrist, or looked around like she had embarrassed him… it’d be the wrong move, is the thing he sensed. He didn’t want to do any of those things anyway, not really. Only as an awkward reflex, to shoo away discomfort.

“Oh, boy,” he said, pushing his chair back. “You know what? I think my shoe’s come undone.”

Ruby’s mouth opened in silent laughter.

“Tragic,” she said.

“Could happen to anyone.”

He bent under the table.

For a moment he saw only shadow, the edge of the tablecloth, her knee, the black dress gathered in her hand. Then his eyes adjusted.

She was touching herself through her underwear.

Jack stopped breathing.

Ruby’s fingers, covered in numerous rings of various sizes and shapes, moved, slow and careful. Then she shifted the fabric aside just enough to remove any doubt about what she was doing. Her fingers slid around in circles, showing him how wet she was.

Jack made a sound he hoped could only be heard from inside his own body.

He sat back up too fast, bumping his knee on the underside of the table.

Ruby was looking at him.

Not laughing now. Not exactly. There was pleasure on her face, yes, plenty of it, but something else too. A question. Maybe even a little fear. Not fear that someone would see her masturbating. Or… not only that.

Fear of what he would do with what he had seen?

Jack swallowed.

“You OK?” she asked.

He almost laughed. She was asking him?

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m very OK.”

Her mouth moved like she was trying not to smile too much. Her hand was still under the dress. Still moving. Slower now, maybe because he was watching her face and not what she was doing.

“You’re not weirded out?”

“The way I get weirded out is by getting extremely hard, apparently.”

Ruby closed her eyes for a second, smiling through a breath.

“Good,” she said.

The waiter appeared beside the table.

Jack saw him before Ruby did. Or maybe Ruby saw him and simply decided that did not matter. Jack had no idea. The young man stopped with a trained, empty smile, paid not to see or understand too much.

“How is everything over here?”

Ruby kept going, not looking at the waiter.

Jack looked up at him.

“Oh, great,” he said. His voice sounded almost normal. “Really great.”

The waiter nodded. “Can I get you anything else?”

Jack looked at Ruby.

Ruby looked at Jack, barely present anymore.

Her breathing was faster now.

The waiter’s eyes darted from Jack to Ruby to Jack.

“No,” Jack said. “We’re good.”

“All right then,” the waiter said, already turning away, quicker than previous times.

Ruby’s shoulders dropped, free hand finding and grasping the table, rings clashing with the wood. She was in a full-body shiver now, which she tried to contain as best as she could.

Jack recognized the movement, of course. Her head coming down, along with the rest of her body, leaning on the table, eyes closed, still shivering, sounds of pleasure catching low in her throat.

Jack could have told her to stop. Could have made a joke. Could have looked around the patio again and turned this into something embarrassing, something she had done wrong.

Instead he stayed where he was.

He watched her.

That was all.

At twenty-two, he thought the test was whether he could handle how wild she was. At forty-two, he knew better. The test had been whether he could let her be, or whether he would make it about himself.

She looked up when it passed. His eyes were still on her. They laughed quietly and touched glasses like idiots.

~~~

Present day

~~~

Sunday, June 7, 2026. Maplewood, New Jersey.

– 12:40 am

“Tell me exactly what happened,” Ruby asked, losing herself in pleasure then, but listening.

He told her about Mia leaning over the console to kiss him.

“What did she look like? Her body, what was it doing?” Ruby wanted to know more, not just the mechanics. Jack had been there and experienced everything firsthand, but Ruby had to scavenge his memory for the impression.

Through all of this, Ruby touched herself under the dress.

The first time he held Mia’s face, he had felt it all at once: protectiveness, desire, guilt. Ruby asked if she had seemed scared and Jack said yes she did, but also excited and eager. Mia had seemed nervous, hopeful, a little wild. And her face had seemed so small and soft in his hands.

“Did you keep kissing?”

“No, actually. She took my hand. She licked my fingers and sucked one of them.”

“Which one?”

“Ring finger. And she sort of licked circles around the ring,” Jack saw her react to that. Not entirely negatively, but it was significant. He admitted then that he didn’t know why Mia had chosen that finger, whether the licking of the ring was something she’d done on purpose because of the marriage, on purpose because it was just hot, or in the absence of any thought at all.

“What do you think it was?”

“Honestly, I get the feeling it was maybe just hot and unplanned. But I could be wrong.”

“Did she say anything about me after that?”

Jack said no and then paused. “Not directly… but sorta. Later, I’m gonna get to it.”

Then she said “‘Mr. D?’ and I said ‘Yes, Mia?’ and she said ‘Can I see your penis?’”

“And she insists on calling it a penis, huh?” Ruby smiled with her cheeks, corners of her lips pointed down.

“Yes.” Jack paused to see if Ruby had other interruptions to get out. “I said nothing for a bit, just enjoying the moment. It was very exciting, having her ask. Having her want to see it. I don’t know if I can explain it.”

“I get it, I’m pretty sure,” Ruby was swallowing hard.

“‘I want you to see it,’ I told her.”

He tried to move quickly through the obvious parts—Mia taking out his cock, the gasp, the first lick, her mouth. Ruby let him, until his hand reached Mia’s back, then lower.

“She wasn’t wearing anything under it,” Jack said.

Ruby’s hand stopped for a moment. Eyebrow up.

“I don’t know if she planned it, hoped for it or just dressed that way for other reasons. I really want to know, though.”

“Me too.” Ruby sharply inhaled, which Jack was almost certain meant she had slid a finger inside herself more fully now.

Ruby asked Jack what Mia was saying and doing.

Ruby’s hand was moving again, and Jack had trouble looking anywhere else.

“She told me she’d fantasized about my penis since she learned how to masturbate,” Jack said.

Ruby swallowed. He told his wife that he pulled up their daughter’s best friend’s dress over her tanlined bottom. Mia’s perfect petite body in his lap, his cock almost all the way disappeared inside her mouth. “I could barely see. Let alone think. I told her she was a good girl, and that we were doing such a bad thing.”

“How did she respond?” Ruby asked.

Jack felt her attention sharpen.

“She kissed it, put it against her cheek, and said, ‘I love your cock, Mr. D.’”

“What did you think about?”

“I thought about wanting to do nasty things. I wanted to cum inside her, pick her up and fuck her, use her as an—” Jack’s shorts were filling up once more. He couldn’t find words to describe his fantasies.

“I love the darkness in you,” Ruby said as she pulled up her dress, showing her husband her hand doing circles around the opening below her clit.

Jack was ashamed of it. Feared it. But Ruby’s recognition of the darkness made him think it was OK to have thoughts, even unpalatable ones.

“I told her it was so wrong,” he said after a moment. “Though of course, I did nothing to stop it. She asked me to please let her keep going. I told her she was so young. She said, ‘I’m a consenting adult, Mr. D,’ and I asked if this was really what she wanted. She told me to touch her and find out.”

He gave Ruby the version she wanted: not just where his hand went, but how Mia moved against it. How wet she was. How sensitive. How she pushed back when he touched near her ass.

Ruby’s breathing changed at that.

“She wanted that?” Ruby asked.

“I think so.”

“She said, ‘Oh my god, I’m such a bad girl. Please make me cum, Mr. D. I want to cum so bad,’ and I called her by her name and told her she was a good girl, as she came, and as it was happening, she took my cock all the way into her throat.” Ruby’s eyes widened at that. But Jack kept going.

“She told me no one had ever made her cum.”

“What?” Ruby said, almost taking a break.

“That was my reaction too, though I kind of got it, with her age and lack of experience, maybe?”

“And she could take your entire cock? I can barely do that.” Ruby considered, still rubbing, but slowing down a bit. “I think your idea about Mia’s lack of experience might be a little misguided.”

“Maybe.” Jack paused. “After she came, she said I’d opened something in her. Still Mr. D then.”

Ruby watched him.

“I didn’t know what to say. Then she said, ‘I want to taste your cum, Mr. D.’”

“It’s hard to imagine her like that,” Ruby said, “But, fuck, it’s so…”

“Yeah, I know, baby. And she kept at it, too. She said, ‘I want your cum in my mouth. I know it’s wrong and we’re ruining our lives and we will be in so much trouble, but I need it.’ That’s what I meant earlier,” Jack said. “She didn’t say your name. But ‘ruining our lives’ meant you too, far as I could tell.”

“I see.”

“But I told her it’s OK. She didn’t hear me, I don’t think. She was only focused on one thing, she was obsessed. I’ll be honest, it was incredible. To have her want me to cum inside her so badly.” Jack touched his cock then, feeling new surges of heat.

“She kept saying she needed it. That she wouldn’t sleep if she didn’t taste it. And I encouraged her.”

“What did you say?” Ruby asked through strained breaths, rubbing herself faster now, her feet digging into the bed.

“I told her it was hers whenever she wanted it.”

Jack recoiled before saying the next part. Too private. Too ugly. But Ruby got the truth from him, that was the deal. “I told her I would sneak into her house and let her suck the cum out of me while her parents slept. I’d cum inside her any chance I got.”

He half-expected Ruby to be angry. She wasn’t. She just lost herself further and further into the story, using her free hand now to pinch her nipple, biting her lip.

“I was touching her all over her pussy and ass when I was getting ready to cum and she seemed to get back into it as well,” Jack’s ability to go into details was diminishing as he himself was reliving the story then. “I put my little finger in her ass, just the very tip of it. She groaned and I told her to take my cum and she did. I started cumming.”

Jack moved over Ruby then, taking her by the backs of the knees and pulling her down the bed.

“As I came, my finger was still in her little asshole.”

Ruby was on her back now. Jack pushed her legs up, opening her to him.

“I was pumping my cum into her throat, and rubbing her with my whole palm. Her pussy, her ass, all of it. She was so wet.”

He dripped saliva on his wife’s pussy from his opened mouth, having salivated from reliving the evening. Her hips were in the air below him, held there by his hands. Her mouth was pressed shut, lips almost white, the sound trapped in her throat.

“As I was almost done, I could feel her cumming again. She was rubbing herself against my palm.”

Jack lifted Ruby higher.

His wife’s familiar, pink, wonderful pussy and tight asshole were right there in front of him, on full display.

“We came together,” he said. “I can’t wait to make her come again, baby. I want you to see it. Feel it. I want you two together.”

Then he lowered his mouth and gave Ruby one decisive, strong, long, hot lick from her asshole to her clit.

He put her down and went back to his seat at the end of the bed.

Jack watched his wife finish the job herself, writhing on the bed, one hand tight on her breast, the other between her squeezed legs.

Jack gave her a moment to recover. As he did, he squeezed his cock. Throbbing. So soon after Mia. Surprising.

“The story’s not over, though,” Jack said.

Ruby got up, straightening her dress, giving her husband a kiss. “Please, continue.” They both laughed a bit.

“Afterward she called me Jack,” he said.

Ruby sat with that.

“After?”

“Yeah.”

“No more Mr. D?”

“No. She was normal again. Or not normal, exactly. Just… not like she’d been a minute before. Not sex-crazed. I don’t love that description of her, but I don’t know what else to call it.”

“I get it,” Ruby said. “So, Mr. D… she’s doing that on purpose. And calling it a penis as well, I think, no?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

He paused.

“I hate how much I liked it,” Jack said. “The Mr. D thing.”

Ruby’s hand rested on his leg.

“And I think she knows I like it. I think she used it because she knows.”

That was the part that made him feel sick. Or made it hotter. He couldn’t quite separate those.

“Yeah, it’s…” Ruby gestured. She seemed to agree. Not just with the shame, but with how hot this forbidden dynamic was. And what were they going to do about it anyway? Stop here?

“Honestly, I don’t want to stop. Even though we probably should,” Ruby said.

Jack said nothing. His cock was still hard as a rock, mocking his moral struggle.

“Why didn’t you go all the way with Mia?” Ruby asked.

Jack opened his mouth, then closed it again.

The answer did not come easy or clean. That meant it was liable to be honest.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Not exactly.”

Ruby waited.

“I think part of it was… what we were already doing felt like more than enough. Enough for the first time, I mean. It was already insane. It felt like we’d crossed every line there was.”

“Except the one.”

“Except the one,” Jack said. “And part of it was probably that I wanted you there for that. If it happened. When it happens. I don’t know. Maybe that’s me making myself sound better.”

“Is it?”

“Maybe. I wanted to fuck her. I definitely wanted to fuck her. I’m not going to sit here and tell you I stopped because I’m a gentleman or some shit.”

Jack stopped to think, then continued thinking out loud.

“Maybe it was hotter not to,” he said. “Leaving it there. Having something still waiting. Or maybe she asked for exactly what she wanted right then, and I gave it to her, and that was the shape of it.”

Ruby’s eyes moved over his face.

“And afterward?” she asked.

“Afterward she said she wished we could meet like that again.”

“And?”

“And I told her we shouldn’t.”

Ruby gave him nothing.

“To which Mia gave a disappointed, deflated response, nodding to agree with me. Then I told her we would anyway.”

That got the smallest breath out of her. Not a surprise, exactly. Not approval either.

Jack felt the need to explain and hated himself for it. “I did say we shouldn’t. I made sure she heard that part.”

“But you also told her you would.”

“Yes.” He’d tried patting himself on the back for some semantic bullshit. Like a fucking coward. “You’re right.” He thought for a bit. “But it’s what we wanted, right?”

Ruby looked down at her own hand, at the wedding ring, it seemed. Then back at him.

“Yes,” she said. “That was the door.”

Jack let out a breath he had not meant to hold.

“But,” Ruby said.

There it was.

“I’m not going to sit here just jacking off to the transcript forever.”

Jack knew it. He nodded. And he wanted her to join.

“No, Jack. I mean it.” Her voice stayed soft. “This was hot. Very hot. But I’m not going to become the wife you come home to with stories. I’m not going to be your audience.”

“You’re not.”

“Yeah. Not yet.”

He had no answer to that. He saw what she meant. A lot was hanging on whether Mia would be interested in Ruby as well. If she wasn’t, it’s a problem. If she was—that’s an even bigger one in some ways.

Ruby leaned back against the headboard again, calmer now.

“If this keeps going,” she said, “we have to move it forward.”

Jack nodded.

That sounded simple. Forward. Sure. Whatever the hell that meant.

“Do you feel something for her?”

Jack sat back a little.

“Yes,” he said, having taken a moment to genuinely think on it.

“What do you feel?”

“I don’t think it’s romance.”

“You don’t think.”

“No. I mean, yes. I mean I don’t think it is. It’s confusing because she’s not a stranger. I’ve known her since she was a kid. I had feelings around her before there was anything even remotely sexual in my head. Protective feelings. Fondness. Familiarity. Whatever you want to call it.”

Ruby watched him. “And now?” she asked.

“And now all of that is still there, except now I’ve had my hands on her, my cock in her mouth, I’ve made her cum. I can’t take any of that back.”

Ruby looked away at that, but not like she had been hurt.

“I mean—”

“I know what you mean.”

He believed he was telling the truth. But he had believed he would not betray Beth either, right up until he just fucking did it. He had thought about it. And then just did it. So what did his certainty mean now?

“I’m really not a fan of what this adventure is revealing about me as a man.”

That got half a smile from her.

“At least you know,” she said.

“Great.”

“And I’m right there with you, Jack.”

“At least there’s that.”

She laid her head on his lap, petting his leg.

“When do you think you’ll see her again?”

“I don’t know. We have no plans. This happened barely more than an hour ago.”

“Right.”

Ruby went quiet.

“Even without plans, she’ll come here again eventually,” Ruby said.

“Yeah, probably.”

“With Beth?”

“Most likely.”

“Alone?”

“I don’t know. Not likely,” Jack said. “Well, maybe.”

“What did you tell her about me?”

“Not much. I told her I love my wife.”

“Did she believe you?”

“I think so.”

“Does she have any reason to think I know?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

Jack watched her nod in silence. He didn’t like that particular silence. Something in it.

“I might not need to propose anything.”

“Ruby.”

“We have to make a move.”

“Agreed. But she could panic.”

“Yes. She could panic regardless.”

“She could tell Beth.”

Ruby’s expression sharpened at Beth’s name, but she did not cower. “She could already tell Beth. I more or less almost entirely trust that she won’t, though.”

Jack stared at his wife. As long as she fucking more or less almost entirely trusted her.

Ruby scared and excited him.

“I just want to see what she does,” she said.

“What do you have in mind?” he asked, more or less almost entirely certain he wasn’t going to like the answer.

~~~

Monday, June 8, 2026. Maplewood, New Jersey.

– 4:18 pm

Spending time with Beth was weird now.

Mia loved her. She did. She loved her and she had fucked her father.

Not fucked. Technically. She had only sucked his dick in a car while he made her cum twice and touched her in places she had not known she wanted to be touched by anyone.

So, fine. Tomato potato.

Beth was really going through it with Christian, but Mia, bff of the year, could only think about Beth’s father and his wonderful, heavenly, thick, stupidly perfect tasty cock.

What the hell was wrong with her?

She didn’t know. Something had changed. But of course something had changed. Everything had changed. Her whole life was upside down now, and no one knew except Jack.

Beth sat beside her on the stone edge of the fountain, flicking water with two fingers, talking like the words were coming out because if they stayed in her body she would explode.

“It’s not even just that he cheated,” Beth said. “I mean, obviously fuck him forever, but it’s the lying. Like last month when I asked if something was going on and he made me feel insane for asking.”

Mia looked at her.

Really looked now.

“He said I was paranoid,” Beth said. “He said I was inventing problems because I was scared of leaving for school. And I believed him. I apologized to him. Apologized!”

Mia felt something cold move through her.

Beth laughed once, but there was nothing funny in it. “That’s the part I can’t stop thinking about. He had the real version. I didn’t. He got to walk around knowing what my life actually was, and I was out there making decisions with fake information. Made me a fucking fool.”

Christian had done the thing Mia was doing.

No. Worse. Mia was doing something way worse.

Beth turned her head. “Are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“What did I say?”

“You said he made you feel insane for asking,” Mia said. “That he had the real version and you didn’t. That you apologized to him, when it should have been the other way around.”

Beth considered that, then nodded. “Okay, fair.”

“And you are not a fool,” Mia said, emphasizing each word.

Mia had gotten lucky. She had been doing that a lot lately. Getting lucky. Making irresponsible decisions and then being allowed, somehow, to continue without having to answer for them.

Her phone was in her hand, screen black. Jack could text her, maybe? She kept thinking at the phone.

He would not text her. He couldn’t. Neither of them were that stupid. They had made no arrangements except the agreement that they would meet again.

Probably.

Hopefully.

Mia prayed, silently, for God to please let it happen again.

She had to snap out of it.

Come on. Her best friend was right there, heartbroken, venting. She couldn’t just sit there remembering Jack’s big strong hand holding her head down on his cock.

Back to reality, Mia.

Focus.

Beth. Beth. Beth. Christian. Boys. College. Gelato. Town square. Sun. Fountain. Water. Ruby walking over. Pigeon.

Ruby walking over.

Mia’s thoughts stopped so abruptly she coulda sworn they hit something.

Ruby crossed the square in a white dress, blond hair loose, sunlight catching on her arms and collarbone. She looked like she belonged there more than anyone else did. Like the benches and trees and the clock and the fountain were all falling into place around her.

She was looking at Beth.

Then she was looking at Mia.

What was that look?

Why was she here?

Act cool, stupid!

Mia turned back toward Beth too quickly.

Beth had not noticed. She was still going, “And now I keep replaying everything. I keep combing past conversations for clues I was too stupid to understand.”

“You couldn’t,” Mia said.

Beth looked at her.

“You couldn’t,” Mia said again, softer. “That’s not on you. That’s on him.”

“Yeah, but—”

“No. Seriously. If someone is hiding something from you, and they’re good at hiding it, that’s not you being stupid. That’s them lying.”

The sentence came out strong enough to sound real.

That was the worst part.

She meant it.

Beth’s eyes got wet, and Mia wanted to crawl out of her own skin.

“You’d tell me, right?” Beth asked.

Mia’s mouth went dry.

“If I was being ridiculous,” Beth said. “Or if someone was lying to me. You’d tell me.”

Mia could hear the fountain, the soft rush of water, people talking outside the café, a dog barking once from somewhere behind them.

“Of course,” Mia said.

The way Beth looked at her made her want to confess. She didn’t. Mia smiled. Apparently that was what she did now.

Lied and smiled.

“Of course I would.”

Beth nodded as her thumb wiped the wet from her eyelid. “Good.”

Mia reached over and squeezed her knee.

Ruby came and sat on the side of the fountain. Not too close to Mia. Not far either.

“How are we doing?”

“Bad,” Beth said.

Ruby nodded. “That tracks.”

“Mom.”

“What? You asked for honesty.”

“I did not.”

“It was implied, I felt.”

Beth smiled despite herself, and Mia hated Ruby a little for how good she was at that. For being beautiful and calm and funny and soft, all at once. For effortlessly allowing the world to form around her.

Ruby looked at Mia then. Just looked. Not angry. Not suspicious. Maybe not anything.

Mia’s body did not believe that.

“Hi, honey,” Ruby said.

“Hi, Mrs. D.”

Mia heard it after she said it. Mrs. D. Fuck.

“Ruby is fine, sweetie,” Ruby said.

Beth groaned. “Mom, no one calls you Ruby.”

“People call me Ruby.”

“Dad calls you Ruby when he’s annoyed.”

“And when he’s not.”

Mia examined her cuticles. Enthusiastically.

Ruby’s perfume reached her. Clean and warm. Grown-up. Expensive maybe. Or maybe Mia was assigning value to everything because she was losing her mind.

Beth pushed herself off the fountain edge. “I’m getting snacks. You guys want anything?”

“No, thanks,” Ruby said.

Mia shook her head. She was pretty sure she couldn’t move.

Ruby stayed seated at the fountain beside her.

There was no reason for Mia’s pulse to be doing what it was doing. Ruby had said nothing. Ruby knew nothing. Jack would not have told her. Why would he tell her?

Unless he had. Unless they talked.

Married people talked. Did married people talk about this? No. No normal married people talked about this.

Ruby looked toward Beth leaving, then back at Mia.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Mia said too fast. “I’m good.”

Ruby smiled a little. “You don’t look good.”

That was it.

That was death. That was the police. That was Beth crying. That was Ron killing her, Joan using it as an excuse to move to Belize. That was dying of shame right here in the square.

HOMEWRECKER.

“I’m just worried about Beth.”

“I know.”

Mia nodded.

Ruby’s eyes stayed on her.

“She loves you,” Ruby said.

“I love her too.”

“I know.”

Mia could not tell what she heard in Ruby’s voice.

Ruby rested one hand on the fountain wall between them. Her fingers were long, nails pale, wedding ring bright in the sun.

Mia saw the ring and immediately remembered Jack’s hand.

His finger in her mouth.

The ring against her tongue.

Oh, fuck.

She had licked his wedding ring.

She had put his married hand in her mouth and licked the ring like some kind of message.

Had she meant it?

No. She had been horny and stupid and trying to do something hot.

Ruby’s palm moved slowly over the stone beside her.

“These get so warm in the sun,” Ruby said.

Mia stopped breathing.

Ruby looked down at the fountain edge, like she was only talking about the fountain edge.

“Warm stone,” Ruby said.

The water kept falling behind them.

A kid laughed somewhere near the clock.

Mia’s whole body went numb.

Ruby looked at her then.

Not smiling.

Not angry.

Just there.

Mia opened her mouth and nothing came out.

Ruby’s voice stayed soft. “That’s a good phrase.”

Mia swallowed.

“I didn’t—”

Ruby waited.

Mia had no idea where that sentence was supposed to go.

I didn’t mean it like that.

I didn’t mean for him to tell you.

I didn’t mean to want him.

I didn’t mean for you to find out.

“I hadn’t thought about it. I guess it is, yeah,” Mia said, smiling and hoping to Christ her nose would not grow large enough to hang her over a man-cave fireplace like a swordfish.

Ruby’s mouth softened.

Beth appeared from the café window with a paper bag in one hand and a drink in the other. “They were out of the good chips, which feels targeted.”

Ruby took her hand off the stone.

“Obviously a personal attack,” she said.

Beth dropped back beside Mia and shoved the bag between them. “Eat something. You look pale.”

“I’m fine,” Mia said.

Ruby stood, smoothing the skirt of her dress. “I gotta get going.”

Beth leaned into her mother’s side for a quick hug.

Ruby kissed the top of Beth’s head. Easy. Natural.

Then she turned to Mia.

Mia stood because staying seated felt impossible.

Ruby leaned in for the usual cheek kiss. Mia had done this a hundred times. Hello, goodbye, birthdays, holidays, dinners at their house, rides home, ordinary life.

This time Ruby’s hand touched the side of Mia’s neck.

Not aggressive. Not dramatic.

Just there.

The kiss landed on Mia’s cheek.

Ruby smelled clean and expensive. She was so close. Mia’s body wanted to lean in as much as she wanted to make a run for the border.

Beth was digging through the paper bag. “Do you want the weird barbecue ones or the disappointing plain ones?”

Mia looked at Ruby.

Ruby looked back.

Mia could not tell if she was being tested. Or warned? Hunted? Forgiven?

Invited?

“Yes,” Mia said.

Beth frowned. “To which?”

Mia blinked. “Plain. Sorry.”

“Fuck, ok. Here.”

Ruby smiled at that, kissed Beth once more, and walked away across the square.

Mia watched her go, taking the bag from Beth’s extended arm.

Come on, turn around, Mia thought.

Look at her like that again.

Let her know she wasn’t imagining it.

Ruby did not turn around.

Mia sat back on the fountain edge. The stone was hot under her thighs now. Too hot. She put one hand beside her, where Ruby’s hand had been.

Warm stone.

Jack had told her.

Or Ruby had guessed.

No. You couldn’t guess that.

He told her.

Jack had gone home to his wife and told her what Mia had said in the car.

Why?

Beth bumped her shoulder against Mia’s. “You are being so weird.”

“I’m tired.”

Her neck still felt Ruby’s fingers. Ruby’s smell lingered. Her mouth remembered Jack’s ring.

================

End of Chapter 2

================

Huge shoutout to:

- The early readers for their support! You can join them on Patreon. We also have images, extra stuff, drafts, early access, behind the scenes and sometimes even voting on future content.

- All of you for the incredible response to the first chapter!

- To Ruby for being such a fucking rocket.

This is Chapter 1 of an ongoing series.

Read them in order if you want anything to make sense💚

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6

My name is Jack Dauwalter. This is how I started a relationship with my daughter’s best friend.

Saturday, June 6, 2026. Maplewood, New Jersey.

– 7:00 pm

We were all around the kitchen island doing the tasks assigned to us by Ruby, the woman of the house. Blond. Tall—at 5’9”, just a few inches shorter than me. Dressed in a black sundress under the white apron. Nothing on under the sundress. Information I was privy to as the husband, lucky enough to get to watch her dress and undress whenever I pleased.

Beth, my daughter—18, currently experiencing some vague boy trouble and grumpier than usual—was cubing up feta cheese (Ruby was cutting cucumbers, I was cutting celery).

Beth was doing a good job of putting up a brave, annoyed face, but we knew her well enough to know she wanted to be surrounded by family and the clatter of dinner being made while she waited for the aching heart to nurse itself back to health.

“You sure you don’t want to go out?” Ruby asked Beth.

“Mom.”

“Ope, that means no,” I said.

“It means stop looking at me like I’m a dying cat. I’m allowed to be in a bad mood in my own home.”

“You’re right.”

“Good,” Beth said, “then everybody act normal.”

“Normal?” I said.

“Oh Jesus,” Beth sighed as I did my Taz the Tasmanian Devil impression.

“Honey.” Ruby stopped me. “I don’t think that’s helping.”

“Fair,” I said, and we all went back to our tasks.

I threw a single pistachio to Roscoe, our dog. Kid was mixed beyond recognition, the size of a small Labrador, just as friendly and cute.

Beth said, “He’ll shit like crazy.”

“You’re just jealous Roscoe got a snack and you didn’t.”

“Pff.”

I threw a pistachio at her face. “Catch, girl.”

“I’m not a dog.” She picked up the pistachio from the fold in her sweater and ate it. I was looking at her while cutting celery. She made a face at me and returned to cubing feta cheese, smiling just a little.

Ruby and I exchanged a look. Silent communication. See that smile? Progress.

“Where’s my snack?” Ruby asked.

“You’ll get yours later.” I touched her ass, the hem of her black sundress fluttered and flowed, catching air.

“Ewww-ah!” Beth growled.

“Oh, OK.” Ruby gave my arm a squeeze.

Beth shivered and shook her head with a disgusted look on her face. Blond hair making waves in front of her face.

I looked at my wife as she spoke to Beth but looked at me. “You know, young lady, when you spend 20 years married to the love of your life, you’ll understand what a blessing it is to not only tolerate, but desire your chosen–”

“EWWWWWWWWW”

Ruby and I laughed.

“That’s fucking gross.”

“Hey, language!”

“Deee-zaaaaaa-yer! Who speaks like that?” Beth mocked us.

Laughing at Beth’s dramatics, Ruby and I exchanged a peck on the lips, the back of my hand gently feeling through the apron for the spot where her thigh met her abdomen. I liked having my hands on my wife. Sue me. She was slender, toned, sensual, delicate. Forty, somehow. Not one of those fake-tit ghouls who made excuses to touch my arm at the farmer’s market. My Ruby was in a different category entirely. And on top of all that, an all-around excellent wife.

If I didn’t know January Jones existed, I might spend my hall pass on my own wife.

“Besides,” Ruby said then, “aren’t all you eighteen-year-olds supposed to be hormone-mad and horny 24/7?”

“Mom!”

“OK—” I said. “Now I’m gonna be sick.”

Ruby went back to cutting cucumbers. Surely smiling.

“Roscoe, come on, buddy,” Beth said, grabbing a piece of halloumi and leaving through the screen door into the backyard. “Let’s leave this nuthouse!”

I turned, grabbed my wife under her arms, around her waist, lifted her up. She laughed a beautiful, sexual, quiet laugh. Just for me. This woman never stopped doing it for me. She had the kind of body that got better with time, somehow. Wonderful small breasts, perfect little nipples. Tight ass. Strong, smooth legs. A little tan. With a healthy shine to them. I sometimes wondered when that would end. Just then I wondered why I was not inside her.

“Unhand me, you brute.”

The doorbell rang.

I gave her a kiss and put her down. She gave my cock a little squeeze with a wink. The shorts were now just a little too tight for comfort.

“You better get that, big guy!”

I tucked my quarter-hard cock down a little on my way to the door. Not too bad. I toweled off my hands as I opened the door.

“Hey, kid!”

“Hi, Mr. D!”

Mia. Beth’s best friend since middle school. Short, standing at about 5’2”, deep brown hair, shoulder length, with just enough wave to move when she did, falling delicately on her lightly freckled, strong gymnast shoulders. The shoulders were on full display in the floral dark red bodycon mini dress. It was a little difficult to keep it together, I’ll admit that. The tuck was still working, though—thank God.

I felt a little silly standing in front of this girl in shorts for some reason. Then she looked me over. Quick but not quick enough. Thinking about what she might’ve seen, I didn’t feel too bad. Broad shoulders, a farmhand’s build, tan enough. I was not exactly a pudgy mess. At 42, I took pride in it, though you’d never hear me say it out loud.

We exchanged a polite kiss on the cheek. I patted her on the shoulder, and she put her hand on my forearm. Damn, that tuck was not going to hold forever.

“Thanks for coming over.”

“Of course!”

“We tried to get Beth to go out with friends or something, but…”

“Oh, yeah, I know, boy trouble. Christian’s been a bit of an effin tool lately.”

“Any serious offense there? Anything I should know about?”

“Umm, no, not really.”

I smiled with a nod. “Good. I hope you didn’t cancel any plans?”

“No, not at all! You know I love eating your food.” She winked. I always liked this girl.

“OK, then. Go on, help the missus set the table and let’s eat!”

She went inside past me as I held the door. She smelled like a creamy liquor made of apple pies. It was hard to not follow her with my eyes. I even gave in a little. And her body in that burgundy dress was quite a reward for my lack of restraint. Goosebumps—actual goosebumps—formed under the dark hair on my forearm.

– 7:40 pm

My wife sat to my right. Beth sat next to her, opposite me, and Mia sat on my left.

“I think I saw them setting something up at the square,” Ruby said.

“Ugh…” Beth grunted, pushing food around the plate, barely eating.

Ruby used her face to ask Mia and me: what’s that about?

“I think what Beth is trying to say,” Mia said, “is that Christian’s going to be there performing with his band.”

“Ah, copy that.” Ruby snapped her fingers and pointed at her head to say she remembered now.

“Bethany, darling,” I said, reaching across the table, “just say the word and I will go down there with a paintball gun.”

“Ooooh, I’d love to see that!” Mia’s eyes were wide and encouraging of the idea, as she looked around the table at everyone as if to say ‘You in? You in? You in?’

“I’ll hold him down,” Ruby said.

Beth gave in and huffed a little laugh through her nose.

“That’s my mothafuckin’ wife!” I kissed her hand.

After a moment, when we all went back to eating, Mia said, “Honestly—and I know it sounds bad, I’m sorry.” She was talking to Beth specifically, then to the whole table. “I’d literally pay to feel that kind of heartbreak.”

“Don’t romanticize this,” Beth said.

“No, you’re right, I know it sucks, and I’m sorry. Definitely. But only something serious and meaningful can make you feel like that.”

“Is there a point?” Beth asked.

“All the boys in my life are more interested in beer bongs or gaming or, excuse my language, just hooking up.”

I clutched my pearls.

Mia and Ruby chuckled; Beth rolled her eyes.

“I’d love a serious guy who wants serious things. Someone I could be genuinely interested in. Someone with some depth. Solid, you know?”

Ruby then said, “Your time will come, sweetie. Trust me. At this age it’s just how boys are.”

“It’s true,” I said.

“Can’t imagine you being like that, though,” Mia said, taking me a bit by surprise there. Looking at me then.

“Me? No. Very mature, always.”

“HAH!” Ruby laughed. “This guy was a shithead and a half for most of his twenties.”

“Hey!” I feigned offense.

“But you were my shithead.” She blew me a kiss.

“Aww,” Mia said, “you guys are so sweet together!”

“She’s right though, yeah,” I said, chewing, “boys are boys are boys are boys. We’re all pretty dumb for a very long time, but then life sort of sets you straight.”

“And this, uhh, setting-straight business”—Mia pointed around with her fork at nothing in particular—“when would one typically expect for that to kick in?”

I pondered that. Shrugged. “Dear?”

“Somewhere between the positive pregnancy test and the delivery,” Ruby said. “Sometime after the first panic attack, but not before some kind of last-ditch effort to clutch at their youth.”

“I never had any kind of last-ditch effort to clutch at my youth,” I said.

“No, no, definitely not,” Ruby said. “You definitely didn’t—what is it the kids say, get on your tits?—get off your tits on MDMA and booze, spend the night dancing at some warehouse rave and have to go sober for half a decade.”

“Oh.”

“I do believe it’s ‘off’ your tits,” Mia said, laughing. “Respectfully.”

“Thank you, sweetie.”

“Yes, Mia, thank you,” I said. “Well, yes, there was that, I suppose.”

Mia laughed.

I enjoyed listening to Mia talk about the shortcomings of all the boys her age a little more than I should have. I couldn’t help but compare myself against her complaints and realize that I would fit the role of what she was looking for. Every complaint she had about boys somehow sounded like a compliment aimed at me. Probably just wishful thinking. What man doesn’t want to be complimented by a pretty young woman?

“Honestly, I don’t even need perfect,” Mia said. “I’d settle for someone who knows what he wants and can make a decision without consulting a friggin’ group chat.”

I know what I want, I thought. And nothing any group chat has to say about it is of any consequence to me. As the thoughts bubbled up, I realized they were… well, the thing I couldn’t help but want was Mia.

– 8:20 pm

The first course was done and Roscoe was demolishing a toy penguin over by the kitchen island behind Beth. We were all watching him. Not a bad show.

Speaking of, at one point during the show, I looked at Mia. Her hair was tucked behind her ear on my side. It created a natural path. From her eyes, to her jawline. The little, almost imperceptible white hairs on her cheek revealed by the light hitting her just so. Down to her neck, the artery pulsing, her throat moving as she swallowed water. Down further to her breasts, not large, but just right. B cups maybe. And they needed no help from any bra. Are those… Jesus, I could see her nip–

I looked up to find her looking at me and I looked away immediately, toward Roscoe demolishing the toy. The white filling flew around in chunks. My face burned. When I looked back ten seconds later she was still on me. Mia held my eyes for just a split second before looking down without moving her head, the dimples deepening in her lightly blushed cheeks. Whoa. Does she…?

“Roscoe, come on now!” Ruby said. “Give that poor animal a break, buddy!”

“He’s really something, huh?” Mia said. But she looked at me as she said it, lips looking a little fuller and wetter now.

“Oh yeah!” Ruby said, turning back to the table. Mia’s eyes snapped to her, eyebrows up, lips reorganizing quickly into a friendly, inquisitive smile. “You should see him go at the dog park. Everything is either fightable or humpable.”

I laughed along with them, but all I could think of then was that burgundy dress. And what it concealed.

– 9:40 pm

These shorts, which, thank God, were dark and not stretchy, were really earning their keep tonight. I was at the family dinner table hard as a rock and twice as dumb.

Ruby and Beth went to get the dessert ready, leaving Mia and me alone.

Fuck.

Quick, pick an innocent topic to talk about.

“So how’s your old man? Does he come home from our tennis matches and tell you how he kicks my ass?”

“No, actually, the other way around.”

“Ahh! So he’s a truth teller, your dad.”

She nodded, looking at me. I couldn’t quite tell why, but I was getting the idea that maybe she wanted to tell me something.

“That’s why you’re such a good shit, Mia. Ope, sorry!” I raised my hands to apologize for forgetting myself.

My brain screamed for me to keep it together. To not let out even a little bit of my hunger in front of my daughter. She was her best friend, after all.

“So what’s Joan planning to do with that Medusa statue?”

“You saw that?” She laughed. I nodded. “Oh, well, you know Mom,” Mia said, putting on Joan’s voice, “never done discovering her very bestest, authentic-est self!”

I laughed at that, relaxing back into my chair, letting my legs fall to the sides. My leg bumped into hers. I felt it and knew, I fucking KNEW I should have pulled it back.

“I’m just glad it’s no longer candle-making.”

But I didn’t. I pretended to not notice. I figured if she said something, I’d say I thought it was the leg of the table, sorry, kid.

“My dad just keeps encouraging her as well.” She was looking over to the girls prepping dessert now.

Wait. She was pretending our legs weren’t touching either. “Do you guys need some help?” She slid forward in her chair, slow and controlled, her leg sliding further against mine, and, without waiting for an answer from the kitchen, got up.

I couldn’t believe it. I thought she was playing with me. As she walked away, there was power in her body from the relentless practice and competitions and she was swaying it more than she needed to. She knew I was looking. On the other side of the kitchen island, hovering over the dessert tray being prepped, she tucked her hair behind her ear. Her hand traveled slowly, freely from the back of her head, over her neck, down over her chest.

Don’t bite. Not now, not here.

Dessert came. Saved by the tiramisu.

– 10:30 pm

Ruby and I were in the kitchen, talking, maybe playing a little grab ass. The girls were on the couch on their phones, taking occasional breaks to show each other something, which usually earned a little exhale from the one being shown the thing. I’ll be honest, it was still hard to focus on anything else other than the thought of Mia making eyes at me. What was she thinking?

“Alright, guys, thank you so much for the dinner!” Mia said.

“You going?” Ruby asked over the Tupperware she was handling.

“Yep, got practice in the morning.”

“How are you getting home, sweetie?” Ruby asked.

“Uber.”

“Don’t be silly! Jack’ll take you.” Ruby pressed a Tupperware lid into place with both thumbs, not looking at me.

“I will?”

“He will?”

“He will!”

“Of course, I’ll take you!” I tried to put a little reluctance on that.

“It’s really OK,” Mia said. In my opinion, there was very little conviction in her words. “I don’t mind Ubering.”

“No, no, come on, my lovely wife’s right as always. Any foot fetishist in a Yaris can download an app and start giving young girls rides on dark evenings.”

“Eww!” Beth said from the couch, not looking up from the phone.

“Yes, daughter, exactly. Eww!” I grabbed the keys to the Range Rover. “Let’s go get you home.”

– 10:38 pm

“You’re such a cool dad, Mr. D.”

“Oh yeah?” I laughed. “How so?”

“Taking me home, being protective, it’s sweet.”

“No, stop. Just can’t let a pretty girl get into a stranger’s car for no good reason.”

“Pretty, huh?”

She shot me a look, eyebrow raised. A look I read as teasing.

“Well. You know what I mean!”

The eyebrow stayed up.

“Oh, drop it, kid, you’re pretty! Not for me, but just generally, obviously.”

“Obviously,” she said, clearly not believing me. She seemed to enjoy seeing me squirm.

After a little while she said, “And you’re so cute with your wife. It’s so clear you guys are really in love.”

“I do love my wife.”

“And that time you busted into Tim’s party, found Beth drunk and stoned, dragged her out of there kicking and screaming.”

“You were there?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Sorry you had to see that.”

“I was glad to see it, really. I kinda sometimes wish my parents cared that much.”

I said nothing to that.

“Everyone tries so hard to be cool instead of protecting their kids from creeps and bad decisions,” she said. “Or that time Beth and I were robbed by those two assholes.”

“Oof. Yeah, I remember that.”

“From what Beth tells me you beat them within an inch of their lives.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

My lawyer had told me to not say that. And it really wasn’t that bad.

“Beth was in the parked car, pointing them out to you, right?”

So the long and short of it was that when Beth and Mia were fourteen they’d been robbed by two twitchy twenty-year-old thuglets. The girls were pretty shook up about it, of course, but otherwise fine. To try and rectify the situation, I took Beth around the same neighborhood where it had happened. And we found them.

I’m the first to admit that I had (and still have) quite a bit of anger in me, all of which needed to be processed and channeled and whatnot. Generally speaking, I was good at controlling my emotions. But someone laying hands on my little girl—that had given me a justified reason to… process some anger in an unhealthy way, let’s say. I don’t feel bad about it. Righteous anger is a hell of a cheat meal.

“Oh, they were just dumb kids.”

“She said there was a lot of blood.”

I waved that off. “Dumb kids bleed real easy.”

Mia laughed, grabbing my forearm. Her delicate hand, so small on mine. I felt my impulse control being disassembled by the waves of cold heat her touch sent over me.

I looked at her. She took her hand off me, her laugh gradually turning into a smile and an apologetic grimace. “Sorry, Mr. D.”

“For what?”

After a moment she said, “Overstepping, I guess?”

“You can call me Jack. You’re an adult. You don’t have to apologize for touching someone’s arm.”

I made a tiny fake jab toward her arm. She laughed and slapped my fist. “Stop! You’d break me!”

“Oh, stoooop!” I laughed.

“What, you’re huge! And those arms are… Well, you know.” She was flushing. “It’s like you’re made of warm stone or something.”

As she mused, I looked at her and saw her, not very covertly, eyeing my body. Her eyes moved over the loose-fitting T-shirt under the silky, seashell-patterned, short-sleeved button-down, then my legs, while the buttons on my shorts and the darkness of the car did a lot of work to hide my erection from her.

I had to get my eyes back on the road, but I couldn’t help but be thrilled about what was happening in the passenger seat. I knew she was thinking about something real hard and maybe even working up the courage for something. The smile on her face was changing. Getting braver. More dangerous.

We were stopped at a red light.

“Oh, you know what,” Mia said, “turn right here, it’s quicker.”

“It’s faster to go straight, we’re almost there. Why do you want to turn?”

“I just figured that maybe… maybe it’s better to go there… Because that street, as opposed to this street…” She was doing a lot of pointing and turning and gesturing now, drawing out what she was saying, seemingly on purpose. Maybe because she was scared to say it? “And that one doesn’t have many trees and it’s a little too…” She exhaled heavily, steadying herself. After a brief pause she said, “Basically, what I’m trying to say, Mr. D…” She looked at me now, fully turned to face me. “I would like to see your penis, and I think it’s better we do it on a street that is not in front of my parents’ house.” She was shaking a little—a mix of fear and excitement. It was the same thing I felt.

“Whoa, Mia!”

“Would that be a problem?” she said as her fingers played with the hem of her dress, going higher up, revealing more of her tan, silky, strong thighs.

“Oh, boy, Mia.”

Her fingers were moving toward her inner thighs now, and her chest rose and fell with deep, strained breaths.

“The light’s green, Mr. D.”

Beth. Joan and Ron. Fuck, I mean, Mia too. I could ruin all of our lives. Ruby’s too. But Beth’s most of all. The kind of man I’d want anywhere near Beth would take Mia straight home. No question. Just go straight, you fucking idiot.

I turned the blinker on.

The steering wheel was damp from my sweating palms. I slowed down on this new street, looking for places to park with a bit of privacy. And it just so happened that there was a streetlight out between a couple houses. I pulled in.

We stopped. I killed the engine.

I turned my head to her. Her leg, the one nearest to me, was tucked in below her right one on the seat. I got a view of her inner thighs disappearing into the darkness under the dress.

She leaned in over the console and gave me a kiss. It was almost a peck. She was looking at me, hopeful, nervous, a little wild.

Her face felt so small in my hands. Like a sweet, friendly animal to protect from the world.

She snuggled her face up to my hand as I touched her cheek. She smiled.

Mia moved her face into my palm, her hot breath flowing down my forearm. She took me by the wrist, her fingers slim and delicate.

She pulled my hand down a little and maneuvered her lips to the tips of my fingers. Her tongue glistened as she found my ring finger. She put it in her mouth slowly, working her tongue in circles around the wedding ring, looking at me then. She pushed my palm away from her slowly, my finger leaving the comfort of her hot, soft mouth.

“Mr. D?”

“Yes, Mia?”

“Can I see your penis?”

I said nothing, looking at her. I felt as though her words were going to turn me into a puff of smoke.

“I want you to see it, Mia.”

Her breathing was fast as she reached over to unbutton my shorts. She had to unbutton them all the way and reach inside deep, as I closed my eyes in excited pleasure. Her small, soft, trembling hand found it and she pulled it out, with a bit of help from me hooking my fingers behind the waist and pulling the shorts down a bit.

She let out a bit of a gasp, looking back up at me.

“Mr. D?” she said, squeezing my hard cock at the base, swinging its weight around a little.

“Mmm?” I moaned, looking down at her.

She looked up at me and said, “I knew you had a big one.”

I tensed it and made it pulse in her hand. Her compliments made me feel like I could run through a brick wall.

It isn’t that big, it’s just good. But for her size and experience (I assume) it must have seemed big. We must have looked like Beauty and the Beast, proportion-wise. I wasn’t exactly turned off by that.

She looked down slowly and gave the tip a lick like it was a lollipop. I groaned. I put my hand over my mouth, elbow on the window frame, and caught a glimpse of my wedding ring. I could not believe this was really happening. My cock had not felt this hard and full for a long time.

But it was happening. Oh yeah, the twitch in my groin as she opened her mouth and took my cock.

The tactile feel of her silky smooth dark hair in my hand.

The silky dress fabric folded and snapped under my sweaty, large palm, as I slid it back and forth over her strong, slender back. The dress was very thin; I could feel her spine, her ribs, the muscles. Her behind in the air, knees on the passenger seat.

She was sucking it with purpose now. Not fast, but… with feeling. With enthusiasm. Stopping at the top to take breaths, letting out moans through her nose on the way down.

She couldn’t take my cock entirely. But now that it was slick with her spit—sticky and syrupy from the tiramisu—she was getting closer than most could.

I ran my hand lower down her back, and what did I feel? Or rather, didn’t feel…

Mia, you dirty slut. She was not wearing any panties. To a dinner at her friend’s parents’ house. Had she planned this? Or was she hoping for it?

“I have fantasized about your penis since the day I learned how to masturbate,” she said, no longer mincing words.

She laid her left leg down on the passenger seat, lying flat now across the front over the console, fitting inside the car just right. This allowed me to pull up her dress and reveal her tanlined ass. I could swear I was salivating. I looked down at her.

The pleasure I was receiving was out of this world. Mia was still doing her absolute best to get it inside her all the way, grasping my shaft with her left hand, with her right hand clamping around the shaft on the other side, under my sack, so that when she went down, her cheek and lips, sometimes nose, slightly grazed them. It wasn’t the most technically refined blowjob I had ever received, but what mattered was who was giving it to me: this perfect young girl, so hot, so perky, with perfect little ass and perfect little tits, in her perfect little dress.

“You’re such a good girl, Mia.”

She squeezed my cock with her hands like a cat making biscuits.

“And we were doing such a bad thing,” I said, without thinking.

She took my cock out of her mouth, panting, catching her breath. She looked up at me.

“I love your cock, Mr. D.” She kissed it, watching me. She propped it up against her cheek, nuzzling it, giving my balls a playful kiss. She ever so lightly slapped her cheek with it.

I wanted to cum in her mouth as she looked at me. I wanted to keep cumming, to fill her up. I wanted things I knew better than to want, things that were shameful to me and impossible to push away. This girl made me insane, putting images in my head.

Somehow I was convinced we were seeing these images together.

She sucked the tip into her mouth as hard as she could, given how slick and slippery with my precum and her saliva it was, and let it go with a smacking pop.

“Oh my God, Mia. This is so wrong.”

“Please let me keep going, Mr. D.”

“But you’re so young.”

“I’m a consenting adult, Mr. D.”

“Are you sure this is what you want?”

“Touch me and you’ll know.”

I touched her pussy and it was so wet and hot that my finger slid right between her lips. Not inside; it was too tight.

She almost screamed, her eyes closed, head down between my legs, her moans vibrating into my balls.

I rubbed her slit up and down slowly, surprised at the size and hardness of her clit. And it was sen-si-tive! Whenever I glided over it, she’d shiver and arch.

I slid my fingers further up, lightly grazing her asshole. I spread her cheeks a little with one hand, and though it was dark in the car, I could see just how clean, pristine and tight it was. I touched it again and I could feel her push up against my finger. I couldn’t believe my own thoughts, but I could have sworn she wanted me to put my finger inside. But I held off.

I went back to her wet slit instead. I rubbed her pussy gently, up and down, as her head was moving up and down on my cock. She took tiny breaks at the top to exhale, moan, inhale, and go back in. My balls were wet with her saliva and she was struggling to cup them in her right hand as her left worked the very bottom of my shaft.

I worked on her clit for a bit, and as she got wetter and wetter, looser and looser, I worked my index finger at her opening. I put it in a little and the pressure from her squeezed it. She wasn’t doing it on purpose; it’s just how tight she was. I didn’t move it.

I left my index finger still and rubbed her clit on and off with my middle finger. She herself was moaning and writhing in my lap, such a sensitive girl, and her pussy was performing its own dance, pulsating, exacting waves of pressure on my index finger.

She moaned louder. “You’re gonna make me cum, Mr. D. Oh my God, I’m such a bad girl. Please make me cum, Mr. D. I want to cum so bad!”

She took a big breath and shoved my cock deeper inside her mouth than before and something opened up and it went in all the way.

She shivered and moaned out of control and I felt her finally release.

“Oh, yeah. Good girl, Mia.”

Her body kept shivering for a bit and she calmed down. She came up for air, spit dripping on my cock and her hands from her open, gasping mouth.

“Mr. D, thank you! No one has ever made me cum.”

“No one!?” My words were shocked, but I wasn’t.

“The boys my age don’t know what they’re doing.”

“Well, you sure know what you’re doing, Mia.”

“Really? You think so?”

“Didn’t you just take my penis all the way into your throat?”

“I DID! You noticed!”

“How could I not?”

“It’s the first time that has happened.”

“Wow, it’s really something.”

She came up to me to kiss me. “I think you’re opening something in me, Mr. D.”

I didn’t know what to say. I was in complete awe of this girl, in my lap. Going from my daughter’s cute friend, my buddy’s daughter, to this convulsing perfect storm.

Just as I was looking for words, my hand still enjoying the feel of her ass and my cock pulsing in hers, she said, “I want to taste your cum, Mr. D.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes, Mr. D. I want you to cum in my mouth. I know it’s wrong and we’re ruining our lives and we will be in so much trouble, but I need it.”

“It’s OK.” I touched her face, encouraging her.

“I don’t think I can live without it, Mr. D. I won’t sleep if I don’t taste your semen.”

“All yours, Mia,” I said through a smile, knowing she wasn’t listening.

“Cum in my mouth, Mr. D, OK? I want to taste your cum, please!” She seemed obsessed, barely hearing the words I was saying, barely understanding what was happening. To her, it was just her and my cock, as far as I could tell.

“Of course, Mia.” I couldn’t wait to cum in her mouth; I was already leaking so much precum. She went back down, and with a soft exhale I said, “Suck my cock, baby. I’m going to cum inside your throat.”

I kept whispering to her as she sucked and moaned.

“I can’t believe I’m inside you, girl! Go ahead, take my cock. It’s all yours for now. It’s yours whenever you want it, Mia.”

She was moving in my hands. I realized my own grasp on reality was slipping.

As she gave me the sloppiest head I’d ever received, I kept whispering to her, “I will sneak into your room and you can suck the cum out of me while your parents are asleep. I’m going to cum inside you any chance I get. Just forget everything and suck my cock now, baby.”

My finger was inside her again and I could feel her body recovering from the orgasm, getting wetter again, writhing against my palm again.

I removed the finger and instead laid my full palm over her vagina and ass and rubbed slowly, fully, back and forth.

“I’m going to cum, Mia.”

She continued to suck at the same pace.

I was so close. I could already feel it. I took my pinky finger and pressed the tip of it against her asshole.

I must have pressed a little too hard. It slid inside her.

She groaned into my cock, her mouth still completely stuffed with it. She kept on sucking, her asshole tightening on my pinky, just one little knuckle in.

“Go ahead, Mia, take my cum, OK?”

She bobbed her head faster and I came. One pump—oh God—two pumps, her head was up now and suctioning the tip of my cock into her mouth HARD—three pumps—her head was moving down all the way into her throat again.

“Mia, fuck—” I took her head with my left hand and pushed it down. I think my right hand must have been twitching in reflex because she curled and arched her pelvis in response.

As I came more and more—four pumps, five, six, seven—I removed my pinky from her ass and rubbed her slit and her clit with my middle finger stretched out to cover her whole crotch.

I couldn’t believe it, as I came—pumps eight, nine, and ten—she was coming again at the same time as me. She moved her head despite her body being mostly out of control at this point, her legs shivering, giving themselves some bruises against the interior of my car, but she didn’t care. Neither of us did.

I don’t know about her, but this was the hardest I had come in a good while.

She came up carefully, stopping at the tip and using it almost as a cork. She took a couple of steadying breaths through her nose, and I could hear and see her swallowing my cum.

“Such a good girl.”

“Mr. D.” She was still catching her breath. “You made me cum again, Mr. D!”

“I hope you didn’t mind my finger there…”

“No! It was… Thank you, Jack!” she said.

She sounded completely normal now. Panting, recovering, but no longer crazed.

“Hey, Mia.” We locked eyes. I put my hand on her neck, thumb touching her cheek. “That was really something.” I smiled and we kissed.

After a moment, we sat back, lazily cleaning ourselves up and looking around a little, but there was no one around. She laughed, the way a truly relaxed and happy person might, you know? And I joined her in that.

“I hope I can see you like this again sometime, Jack!”

“We really shouldn’t.”

She nodded in agreement, obviously swallowing a healthy dose of disappointment along with it.

“But we will.”

She lit up. Kissed me all girly. Settled back into the passenger seat.

– 11:20 pm

“OK, bye! Thanks for the lift, Mr. D!”

She got out and went up to her house in a half-jog. I wondered for a bit if Joan and Ron would ever find out about this. I had been friendly with her parents since our girls were in diapers. Not best friends, but close enough. But right then it was beside the point. Her ass shook from the half-jog and it made my old, boring soul sing.

– 11:29 pm

“OK, ladies, the party is over, the day is done, my Ubering shift is over. I am entitled to a beer and some me time, yes or yes?” I said as I came back into the dining room and opened the fridge for a beer. The words made me sick. I was a liar now.

Ruby was doing the dishes, Beth was on her phone in front of the TV.

“Get her home safe?” Beth asked without looking up from her phone.

“Sure thing, honey!”

I kissed my wife on the cheek, opened my beer and propped up against the counter next to her as she scrubbed a casserole dish.

She leaned in a bit, looking over her shoulder at Beth before saying, “How’d it go?”

“Well…” I said, taking a drink, giving her a look.

“No!” she said.

I made a shushing motion.

“Already?” she asked, impressed.

“I guess I’m just that irresistible.” I swallowed the cold beer and exhaled. Inside, I was somewhere between shame and pride. Fear and elation.

“I can’t wait to hear all about it.” Ruby kissed me, bit my lip, licked it, kissed it again, then went back to the casserole, smiling, her chest rising and falling faster now.

—

Thanks for reading.

If you want part two, subscribe.

Note: ideally I would give you more context about all the things that have happened with Kat up to this point, but it’ll have to wait. It’s too hot right now.

The day was written off the moment it began. The hangover, in cahoots with this damned heatwave, put a can of Coke Zero in my hand and escorted me to the living room couch. It left me like an iPad baby.

Coke Zero because I’m not big on putting unnecessary poison in my body. Aside, of course, from all of yesterday’s numerous drinks. And “only when I drink” cigarettes. And any powdery substances arranged in lines for purely aesthetic purposes that may or may not have been hoovered up - - entirely accidentally and in a frankly disappointing display of nasal curiosity. That’s all alleged, obv.

Point being: hypocrisy be damned, or something. It’s too hot to give a care. How hot? You know that guy who goes “it’s the humidity that gets you”? In this kinda heat he’s liable to be found as the wheezing centerpiece of a Ren Faire evacuation.

Careful, don’t get the wrong idea. I’m no party animal. At the age of twenty, going into my second year of college, you would not be crazy to think that, but you’d be wrong. I’d honestly rather have stayed inside, windows open, fan on, maybe have a beer. By no means am I old, of course, but it does feel, especially on hungover mornings like this, that my drinking days would be better left behind. Yesterday was a special occasion. A friend of mine had a birthday a couple days ago and another musician friend landed a spot on a tour with a pretty big band. So, yeah, of course I gave into peer pressure - - maybe even a little bit of FOMO - - and we went for drinks.

Only a few minutes had passed, I think, between waking up and ending up over here on the couch. Let’s see. Fading back in, waking to the clicking sound of my eyelids before the picture sharpened. Straight to shower. A cool one. Towel off, barely. Fridge, envious of the khshhhh-kh-tssss pressure release from the coke can, stood over there for a sec enjoying the cool air, the sweet smell from the fizzy drink. And here I am. Only a few minutes. Just counting so I could understand if I’m missing something. Because how am I sweaty again?

Disgusted to even admit it to myself, it felt good to look down at my stomach. It felt good because the stomach was flat and the contours of muscle greatly exaggerated by a glint from the TV. Disgusted at the confused vanity of a man sitting alone in his darkened flat admiring his own physique in a state of deflation and perspiration. But when else would I enjoy it? Shape of my life. I know you haven’t seen him, but trust me, if Woods Sr. is any indication of what I have in store genetics-wise, this is probably as good as it’s getting. Hypocrisy, meet modesty. Both of you, be damned.

Some commercial for something loud between episodes of Two and a Half Men. I scoffed all high minded at the programming (RIP the Chromecast, gone too soon, in an unfortunate vacuuming catastrophe). Thought back to last night. A slack, airless, still July evening in Milford. What is it about heat like this? All of this is completely void of any research on my part, mind you, but it feels like heat makes us do some counter-intuitive things. People: huffing, puffing, wiping brows, seeking shade, avoiding movement. Give those same people some darkness preceded by a sunset sky, a crowd, music, drinks. And now somehow we all agree - the lights shine a little brighter, everyone goes dancing because the music sounds a little better through some mechanism, talking, exerting ourselves in ways we’d unanimously agreed are inadvisable. If you’re gonna walk on ice, you might as well dance? Is that it? Heat, sweat, dancing and delirium as preferable over quiet submission? Rebellion?

And in all of that, somehow, for some reason, everyone gets horny. Maybe not everyone, I don’t know. I do. And it feels like one of those survival things. Like how you get aroused sometimes during a high fever, a spell of the flu. To continue your lineage for the end-times are upon you. Is that real? Just bro science, probably. I coulda looked it up. I didn’t. Because… you know.

Kat barged in just then.

— I saw a girl in a wig. A wig! In this weather?

Light flared through the darkened kitchen-living-room for a short moment. A gust of air exactly the same temperature barged in. Subtracting and adding nothing except another reason to complain. So adding, actually? Or is that subtraction because you add a negative? Nevermind.

— What color?

— HUH!? — she yelled. She liked doing that.

— The wig, — had to stop to take a pained breath. — what color?

— Oh! Blond, to be fair, yeah, but a hat is a hat, no?

— That’s crazy. — I said with the dragged out inflection of a sub-par sports podcaster checking his phone during an interview.

Kat and I have been roommates for a few months now. Four, I think? Kat’s full name’s Katherine David. A college history professor at Milford University. Don’t confuse that with University of Milford, which is where I go. Go hawgs! She’s here for another semester and then it’s back to Putney with her. We got along quite well from the start. She rented this place and put up an ad for the room I’m in now and when I came by to check it out we bonded over London stuff, as I spent my gap year there before starting college.

Not to be crass, but the dynamic got even better when we started having sex with each other about a month after I moved in.

— The flat’s pretty hot, not gonna lie, — I call it a flat sometimes, yes. Her fault. Her terrible influence, plus my annoyingly brief time in the jolly old country. If I gave it any more thought, I might ask why I talk to my forty-year-old roommate so much that I’ve started picking up Britishisms, which must be doing catastrophic damage to my odds with anyone who isn’t my homesick British roommate. But hey. Snap out of it and sniff the air. It hurts to breathe. I obviously can’t be arsed to ask myself uncomfortable questions. Hypocrisy and modesty, welcome introspection. You lot can all piss off.

I turned, slumped over the back of the couch to look at her, — It’s not much better out there, huh?

— Oh, come now! That’s no way to attack the day, young man! Who’s gonna carry the boats, Hale-othy?

— One time! One time I watched a Goggins video.

She danced around the kitchen area as she put away her bag, took off her heels, grabbed a baby carrot, a cherry tomato and a can of Coke from the fridge. Carrot in her mouth like a cigar, the little tomato balanced on top of the Coke can as she nudged the fridge closed with her hip. It was clear she was reeeeeeally powering through the situation. She does that when the going gets tough. You slow down, you start thinking: surely you can’t get going again. That’s what she says, anyway.

God. Fucking. Damn. You’d never guess forty. Dancing now, she was in her work clothes: tailored high-waisted trousers, a snug fitting white blouse, the kind of lightweight, almost-pantsuit thing that made her look taller than she was. Slender frame, clean lines, dark hair still somehow behaving in the heat. Images of Caroline Polachek flickered in the triangle of empty space between the couch, the blind-covered window and the raised kitchen area.

— We must not be defeated!

— Uh-huh.

— Victory at all costs!

— That one of your toga guys?

She open-palm-slammed the counter with both hands, the ring on her right middle finger making a muted clink. Poised like a human turret. — You HAVE to be joking!

I’d say I gave her a pretty good confused dog look, but that’s just what my face looked like today.

— You know, I try to teach you something. It’s your country’s history too!

— I think you mean our country, gov.

Her nose sucked in a deep slow breath, forming a fireball of - -

— Kidding! Kidding! — I raised a hand to stop the incoming nerd rage spaz. — Churchill’s the man. Come. Sit.

I turned back to face the TV and realized that this small interaction had drained me of what little energy still remained. I heard/felt/sensed she wanted to say something witty, but moved on. A rarity for her. Instead she opened the freezer and sent an ice cube at my head. Missed. It hit the CD rack to the right of the entertainment center.

— Jeez.

— What’re you gonna say to that, Billy Big Bollocks?

— Something funny about The Blitz? — unsure of myself, I muttered in response.

— Chamberlain would have loved you.

No idea what that one meant. — Right. Pull up a couch cushion. — I patted the spot to my left. — Charlie’s trying to fuck the babysitter or something.

— No, I gotta go and - uhh — she stopped by the couch, distracted by the TV, I thought. A short moment later she sat down. Looked at me, clearly spent. We shared an acknowledging smile. — Who’s kidding who?

— Das right! — I offered my can for a clink and she returned the trashy gesture.

— Love me a bit of Charlie.

— Sure you do!

— Wait, you know what that means?

— Of course! I’m surprised you do! Didn’t peg you as a nose beers gal.

She snorted out a laugh. — Oh my god! Nose beers! I remember that.

Did I tell you I went out with an Aussie for a while?

— Ah yeah? Good on ya. What’s his name?

— Simon.

— Simooooon.

— Loved a bit of goey, Simon did.

— Really?

— Oh, yeah. ‘Nothing like a nice glass of Nosé,’ he used to say.

— Ha! That’s a new one!

— Good one, eh?

— Simon sounds great.

— He — she began, stopped, seemed to think for a second and with a look and a nod said — yeah, he was alright, actually.

— Glad to hear he’s a good guy at least.

We speculated a bit more about why Australians, at least the ones we’d made contact with, were such fans of the schneef but soon enough the small talk petered out and we watched Two and a Half Men. Alan was helping Charlie with his accounting after Charlie’s accountant, played by Richard Lewis, informs him his shit’s dried up or something, ah fuck, I can’t honestly keep up. Just pump the laughtrack into my ears.

— Oh, how was the party? — she asked, in a slight turn-lean toward me, but eyes still fixed on the TV. — Is your friend excited about the tour?

— Hmm? Oh. Yeah, very much so. Wouldn’t shut up about it. Very happy for him.

— You sound it.

— No, I really am. I’m just fuckin’...— I sighed and gestured down to the vague coordinates of my body, indicating the suffering we mostly shared. Though I bore the brunt of it, given yesterday’s sins. I was also thinking about last night and the girl I had made out with at the Arbory (hands down my favorite bar in Milford). A little crumb of panic flashed in my body. The flash was over before it began and I had the heat and hangover to thank for the fact that it even flashed in the first place. Kat and I are not dating, obviously. I know you don’t have all the context for that, but do you need it right now? Do you? I don’t know, analytic thinking is out somewhere with introspection and modesty and I think there was another one. Trying to scrounge up a coherent sentence out from under a bus stop bench, I bet.

We’re not exactly in the same dating pool, is my point. So the fact that I made out with a girl wouldn’t bother her, right? I still don’t need to share it. We’re not holding each other to anything, but I - well, I feel a little something sometimes when I think of Kat with other men. I don’t think she does. And neither of us should, right? So let’s not. Ok? Ok.

Charlie’s hitting on a hot brunette at the grocery store now.

— Wait, you were on campus today?

— Yeah. Summer course office hours.

— How was it?

— Hot, boring, got some reading done.

— What’s on deck?

— Bulgakov.

— Don’t know him.

— Russian guy. The Master and Margarita. That’s the name of the book.

— Any good?

— Unexpectedly so.

— How so?

— Ummm… — she thought for a bit. — I think it’s the way he writes.

We shared a laugh at that. Her laugh made a little boy of me.

And she was willing to sound foolish, even though she wasn’t. I found that hard to resist.

As we continued to enjoy the programming and the numerous annoying commercial breaks, her leg brushed up against mine. I couldn’t imagine having sex right now. She was still in her high-waisted trousers, and even slumped into the couch, she really did something to my insides. But it’s so sticky and hot and I’m so poorly assembled. Unsound in an anatomical way.

All that’s my brain, though. My sensible side — seems I still have one. Kat’s special effect on me was exercising its power on authorities higher and more powerful than rationality.

I took a sip from the cold can and put it to my left eye. So nice. Right eye now. Out of the corner of my cold-lidded left eye I thought I saw her looking at me. Coulda sworn she was looking at my stomach as well. Or maybe the outline of - - I looked down there myself and yeah, of course. Regardless of what I wanted or had the appetite for, my cock had appetites of its own and it was subject to a higher authority. It was down there now, slumped over still, but beginning to stir and these shorts, the only thing I had on, were barely clothing, given all the free space and air flow. She wasn’t hiding her looks. She didn’t need to. God, this woman really had me. Thank god I showered.

After a little while, she laid out on the couch, legs curled in her seat, head on my lap, facing the TV. Her can of Coke she put on the floor. I felt her cheek on my heavy cock now and wondered if she felt it on her face. Oh god, of course she would have - there may as well be nothing in between, the shorts were so thin and silky. Kat had confessed, very embarrassed, that before anything had happened between us, she’d accidentally seen me toweling off after a shower. She’d come home as I was getting out of the shower and caught a glimpse through the two, in her words, “fortunately positioned” mirrors - one by the entrance on top of the cupboard where we dropped off keys and bags, and the one on the bathroom wall all the way across the flat. She swore she looked away as soon as she snapped out of the surprise. I believed her as well. Because she admitted to pleasuring herself to the image of me naked multiple times after that.

I should explain something. I was never a great student or very witty or good with girls or anything, but what I did have was one of those best-in-show cocks in the flaccid category. It didn’t get much bigger hard, but it also didn’t need to. Most girls couldn’t… sorry. Bragging is an ugly thing. And what’s there to even brag about, right? This is not exactly an important quality. But I like that she likes it. And — don’t tell her I said this — I really like it when she tells me she likes it, especially given the frequency and enthusiasm with which she tells me. She is as generous with praise for my body as I am with admiration for hers.

You could say she was snuggling with my cock. Brushing at it a few times with her cheek, playing it off as failed attempts at getting comfortable. A good couple of her breaths sounded almost like moans. We were both doing some heavy breathing and sighing today, sure, but these were not that.

Kat undid a couple buttons on her shirt and as she moved to do that, she maneuvered my shorts a little higher. I’m almost certain it was on purpose, but she didn’t make it look that way. The shorts were not all the way up my leg, but enough to give the TV a good glimpse. As exciting as that was, I was enamored by something else. The obvious attraction in the room. Kat’s chest, now at an angle between the TV and me, such that I could see the bra. It was one of those light lace see-throughs I really enjoyed. Her breasts were small. I loved them. But I couldn’t see them at this time. I could see, however, the skin on her chest. Like my own, her skin was covered by a thin layer of sweat which shone in the light coming from the TV. Oh God, her chest is wet. The little hairs. It’s rising up and down as she breathes. A little too deep, a little too fast. I blew a quick little breath at her halfway unbuttoned top and a wave of the most distinct little goosebumps traveled across her chest like just the sweetest cliche you’ve ever had the bliss of experiencing. And just then, as a direct result of the wave, almost as if to continue the spread of cause and effect from her wet skin to my body, my cock contracted and relaxed, receiving a fresh wave of blood and pressure. Something tingled somewhere in me. Somewhere in my abdomen or maybe chest or maybe not even strictly inside my body. It made me moan. MOAN! A guy moaning, what’s that? On a day like this, they were difficult to keep inside.

But the moan was fine. More than fine. My moan made her moan. My breaths, deepening, deepened hers. The sharp corners of her lips curled up in a little smile, upper lip shiny. When her eyes were open, she was still watching the TV. She brushed back a strand of her silky brown hair behind the ear on the side I could see. In a sly trick, she did the same motion on the side I couldn’t see. I don’t know if there was more hair down there to brush aside, but she sure did pull up my shorts all the way on my right leg. Never touching my cock with her hand, never acknowledging its presence even.

We carried on watching. She watched the TV. I - her. My cock, contracting mostly involuntarily, was left completely ignored. My abdomen tingled. I felt like I was on a swing with my eyes closed. Pleasure, inexplicable pleasure, from no physical source, kept running drills on my nervous system. As if to see if it could make me cum from just sitting there like some sex scene from a 90s action movie. I had never been so thoroughly and completely teased. Little did I know at the time, this moment would become my most re-visited memory.

I didn’t dare touch her. Right hand on the armrest, the other one resting on Kat’s side on the couch. I just watched her chest. Rising and falling. Sweat beading off it, rolling down, absorbed by the laces of her bra.

Kat rolled her head deeper into my lap. She rolled her cheek, nose and other cheek over my now fully erect cock like a lazy house cat rolling over on the windowsill in the afternoon sun. Moving herself around to lie on her stomach, she suctioned the tip of my cock into her open mouth. She wasted no movement. And now that she had me in her mouth, I flexed my cock out of instinct. As it rose, so did she, pushing her ass in the air and lifting her head. My tip was still firmly in the grasp of her thin, hot, wet lips. Without moving up or down, she sucked harder, trying to drink me like a milkshake. She didn’t use her hands at all. She knew exactly where my cock would go and she used her mouth expertly to guide it with ease. She also knew that I was looking at her. She looked back at me. Strength entered and left my body at rates and intensities that made me feel, just for a moment, weak enough to slip out of consciousness and strong enough to rip a hole big enough in the air in front of me to earn me a flashing charge in a neighboring dimension. I looked away and closed my eyes, but I still felt her stare burning the underside of my jaw. My cock now confidently standing on its own, holding her head up rather than the other way around.

No longer looking at me, but down at my lap she finally released, without moving her head, the suction grip she’d confidently held for the past little while - somewhere between a few seconds and an eon, no one would be able to tell you. Her lips let through a mouthful of saliva that stuck thick to the entire length of my cock, pooled on the rise above it and dripped down over and around my balls, pooling around my taint and between my ass cheeks. The sensation was tender, slow, confusing and pleasurable enough to summon ideas of sin - like I should be doing this with a cloth over my head to hide from God. I realized she’d been saving up her saliva on purpose. Such a volume doesn’t just happen. I still wonder now how I didn’t cum right then and there. I should have.

Kat panting and moaning in a hover above my cock, bubbles of saliva forming and bursting, stuck out her tongue and pausing for just a second - - her ass constrained so snug in her beige trousers, seeing the outline of her panties now, blouse tucked, the seams almost perfectly meeting up at the waist, a still dance of beautiful female form creating a shape I could not be more in awe of - - she confidently went down. She had to stop halfway to guide me into her throat. She squeezed my ankle with her left hand and kneaded my thigh with her right. She stayed down. Her tongue moved from left to right as much as it could, there was not much space in there. Then she rose. Slooooowly.

— Fuck, Kat!

She gasped for air, not so much because she was out of breath, but out of what seemed like delirium. She enjoyed the view of my wet, slick, veiny cock being liberated from her grasp and leaning over to the side a bit. I loved the view too. The sight of her with my cock. Only she could make it disappear almost completely.

I could swear it wasn’t about just sex for her sometimes. Not in the way that I understood sex, anyway. She got something out of it. More. She got some prize out of providing pleasure that I just couldn’t fully relate to. That didn’t stop me from enjoying it, though. I admired her.

All the way down again. Prayed it wouldn’t be the last time.

And back up. She got one breath out, one back in. She hovered over my full, glistening cock with her lips open. She took the base with her right hand, resting the palm on my pubic bone. She dripped saliva. With a tight grip on the base, she swung it around a little. Admiring it. It’s almost like I wasn’t there. But then she looked at me.

I must’ve been a fucking embarrassment. Mouth open, maybe not quite drooling, but close to it. Sweat beading off my forehead, chest, sides of my torso.

— Hot, huh? — she asked. How does a person look and sound so confident while mid-pant, mouth covered in saliva, eyes tearing up? HOW?

I made some stupid non-verbal affirmative noise I hoped didn’t come off as “oh boy yes sirree it sure is hot around these here parts, oo-wee”.

She kept the eye contact going. She knew it made me uncomfortable. She’d said on a previous occasion — It’s ok, you don’t have to look back at me. I still want to look at you. Is that ok? — I’d said yes, of course. I didn’t tell her, but I did like her looking at me. I can’t look back too long, not sure why, but fuck do I like knowing she’s watching me. And so, eyes fixed on me, she reached her left hand down to the ground where the near-ice cold coke can was sweating more than either of us. She put it to my balls.

— OH!!! — I nearly jumped. My limbs all jerking up involuntarily, trying to roll me up like a hedgehog.

She stopped me from getting up. She smiled, eyebrows up, mouth open a little, playfully, carefully, in total control. She shushed me back down gently. And after only another short moment, the cold shock turned into something so wonderful. My breath caught up. I felt a cool wave travel outward from my groin. The cock got a little softer. And just as it started slumping slightly, Kat put it back in her mouth.

— Fuck! Oh my god. — I breathed like a man in pain.

The alienating cold of the can contrasted with the incredible, inviting heat of the inside of her mouth. I don’t know if it was right then or if my mind skipped time, but I was cumming. And I watched. Despite Kat looking in my eyes. That I watched. Her lips and my contracting cock - - the little bit still visible, the rest in Kat’s throat - - cast shadows on my stomach.

It was one of those orgasms that didn’t know when to end. She somehow knew though. She let about three pumps come through while she was all the way down, then she kept on sucking. Another pump. A little pause. She knew I wasn’t done. I think there’s still a dent on the right arm of that couch from that little pause - from my fist closing on the upholstery in a kind of tense plea I couldn’t verbalize.

She took it now, from the tip all the way down and back up. Again. No pauses. Long, smooth movements. The last four or so pumps of my cum flowed from the heat of my body through the cold of the coke-chilled base and back to the warmth of her throat and mouth.

I let go. Crumbled. It feels like the cum has been ripped from my insides and I wish I had more insides to offer her. Take them all.

The base of my spent, heavy cock still in the confident grip of her right hand, leaning to the side now, she took a drink from the can with the other. She bounced down to the floor by my feet, no longer commanding, but lady-like, a little girly even. Still in her business attire. Hair somehow still much more together than it should be. The eye contact is a little different now. She’s different and it’s easier for me to look back. Making me cum seems to change something in her too. I don’t get it.

— You’re really, — I had to breathe. — something. — What am I saying? — You know?

She smiled. Not proud or coy, but sweet. She lifted my cock back up and took it all the way again, brief, tender, like a little goodbye. Then she kissed it, laid it on my thigh, and rested her head on it like a pillow. All without breaking eye contact.