Wendy’s Pink Lipstick Conversion, Phase II — Tuesday

Mary left for work before Wendy woke up, leaving the teenager an empty house and a full day ahead of her. Going to the bathroom she saw a little splotch of blood on her pad. Not much, but she knew her heavy flow would come soon. Tomorrow. Maybe the day after.

Her cramps started again shortly after gulping down a bowl of cereal and toast. Going to her room to get Sara’s pink pills, she wondered if she should take them.

After all, she thought, I have no idea what they are. And I don’t think I should be trusting Sara anymore. Not after yesterday. Not after all the trouble knowing her has caused.

But the pangs clinched her back and thighs, a terrible gripping above her groin, and she almost bent double in a sudden agony. Sweat pearled on her forehead, rolled down her temples, and she shook, trembling as if with fever. Whatever was in those pills had to be better than this, she thought. She staggered to her vanity and retrieved the package of pills from her drawer, tore out two pills and swallowed them dry. Within minutes her pangs subsided, and she felt refreshed, revigorated. Renewed.

An hour later, while lying on the sofa looking for something to watch on cable, Wendy felt an immense pressure building inside her, just above her groin. She sat up. Then she felt the leaking. Looking down, she saw the red mark expanding in an ever-increasing area over her groin, seeping through the denim of her jeans. Shooting up, she hurried to the guest bathroom, shoved down her pants, her underwear, once plain white but now stained a deep crimson. She squatted on the toilet. She reached for her pad, but it fell into the water of the toilet bowl, splashing cold water against the bottom of her thighs. Moments later she heard a flood of fluid striking the water of the toilet as the sudden pressure which had built up inside her dissipated.

Horrified she looked down to see a toilet bowl filled with blood mixed with water. Her thighs were covered in blood, her pubic hair matted with the thick substance.

“What the,” she muttered. “This can’t be good.”

Alarmed, she jolted to call her mother, but hesitated.

“I’ve caused too much trouble already,” she said aloud. “And anywhere it looks like the bleeding has stopped. If it comes back, I’ll definitely call her.”

So, gathering her soiled her clothes, she put them into the washing machine, added detergent, and set the temperature to hot. Then she walked upstairs and showered, after which she threw on a pair of white panties over her pad, a pair of loose pink gym shorts, and a short T-shirt, cut high enough to expose her navel and midriff. Seeing the two books she bought at the bookstore the day before yesterday, just picked up Helen Vendler’s Jillin’, frowned, and selected the other book instead. The Secret History of Edge City by Jack Randall.

This ought to be good, she thought as she curled up on her bed, holding the paperback in one hand as she leaned against her pillows, piled and fluffed against the bedroom wall. Just what I need to take my mind off things.
* * *

Wendy opened the book to the table of contents. The first chapter dealt with something called the Hightower Meteorite and the Reno Arroyo Time Slip. Interesting, she thought. Never heard of it. Her eyes focused on the page.

“Not much is known about the Hightower Rock Meteorite. Officially, it never happened. The meteorite itself is missing, researchers have found no significant residue, no evidence. And yet, a handful of witnesses insist something happened, that something fell to earth that fateful night in September of 1958. Witnesses such as the late Jerry Hollingshead, former owner and operator of the famous Edge City Drive-In, claim without the slightest doubt that something landed outside Edge City near Hightower Rock.

“ “The ‘Queen of Outer Space’ was playing, I remember it clearly, how could you forget Zsa Zsa? I was walking around outside, doing my rounds, making sure the kids weren’t getting out of hand, and just generally keeping the place tiptop and shipshape. Suddenly the night sky toward the east lit up, like a fireworks show, only there weren’t no fireworks. I looked up, and just when Talleah appeared in the corridor to take the food tray to the captive earth men, a bright fireball streaked over the screen, almost touching it right above Zsa Zsa’s lovely face. The fireball sped west and landed, I just know it, somewhere out there in the canyon. There weren’t no explosion though, and I never heard nothing but the sonic boom of the passing, what are they calling it, meteorite.”

“Another witness recalls seeing Nero Craft’s Ford coupe spin out of the drive-in, throwing up dust and gravel in its wake. That same witness swears he saw Betty Blake in the front seat. Other witnesses recall seeing Miss Blake with Nero that night, the last time anyone would remember seeing her. As for Nero Craft, well, that’s part of the story…”
* * *

When the sky burst into illumination in the east, Nero pulled his tongue from Betty Blake’s gaping red lips, shiny with lipstick and saliva trailing from the corners of her petite mouth. The lipstick she wore made them look somehow fuller than they actually were, but Nero didn’t complain. At 28, he didn’t exactly feel himself lucky to be with a high school junior, after all, he was Nero Craft, but he knew options remained limited with the younger crowd, shy as they were. Not to mention protective fathers guarding against unwanted masculine, um, courtship. But Betty, good old Betty, had managed to sneak out under pretext. And so Nero felt, he could admit it, grateful. Or at least conscious of the fact that he should be grateful. He couldn’t really tell what he felt. Desire. He wanted Betty. And he wanted her in that car, at that moment.

Then that damned Jerry tapped on the door window, and the sky in the east lit up like a giant firefly, full of living light, a pink brilliance on the eastern horizon, joining the light made by a bright, full, silvery moon. Nero’s jaw dropped, fascinated. Betty leaned forward, pulling the sides of her open blouse together.

“My god,” she gasped. “Did the commies drop the bomb?”

“No, baby. I don’t think so. Look! It’s coming closer! I think it’s a shooting star.”

Neither Betty nor Nero had to wait long. The shooting star hurtled overhead, just above the screen, shrieking as it passed west. A loud boom followed as superheated air collapsed behind the atmospheric intruder, a flash of pink light streaking above the startled audience. Then Nero turned the ignition, threw his coupe in reverse, and peeled out of the drive-in, sending up a cloud of gravel raining down on cursing and disrupted passers-by. They shook their hands and yelled, but the hotrod Ford was already gone.

Edge City lay several miles behind them, but Nero sped forward, heading west, staring up and ahead at the night sky. The meteorite, the shooting star, should have been long gone, smashed into a thousand pieces as it collided against the hard crust of the earth, but to Nero’s amazement, the object slowed, seeming to hover not far above the Ford, moving as it moved, maybe a mile, maybe half a mile ahead of the car. Betty stuck her head out the open window and pointed with astonishment.

“Get your head back in the car,” Nero shouted, “do you want it to get knocked off?”

“But it’s just floating there! That’s no meteor!”

“I don’t know what it is, but I never saw anything like it.”

The Ford soon careened down the winding roads hugging the sides of Reno Arroyo Canyon, the strange glowing sphere bobbing and hovering just above them. The road swooped down, curving, and the pink light darted forward, coming to a floating standstill midway up Hightower Rock on the other side of the canyon. Then the radiant object dropped, as if let go by whatever held it aloft, and plummeted into the ground beyond the sight of the two occupants in the Ford coupe.

“Dammit!” Nero shouted, “there’s no way across the canyon from here. I’ll have to turn around to get to Heywood Bridge.”

Caught in a narrow pass between a high cut in the road on his left side and a sheer drop off on the right, Nero stepped on the accelerator to burst around the corner ahead, in search of a turnaround. The corner, sharper than he expected in the limited light of his car lamps, veered at a nearly right angle towards the left. The tires of the Ford squealed as Nero wrenched the wheel to make the tight curve. The rear of the Ford jack tailed behind him, sliding right until the rear wheels hung of the sharp drop-off, shaking loose gravel and broken asphalt tumbling towards the canyon floor far below.

The car paused for agonizing moment, hanging on the edge of the road cliff. Betty pleaded helplessly with wide, fear-struck eyes, but Nero could do nothing. Her mouth moved in a silent prayer. Then the back of the car teetered, Nero shoved the driver door open and jumped out as the Ford slid backward and followed the broken asphalt and gravel to the floor of the canyon, rolling over and over on its side, crushing the top of the coupe and breaking the metal body. Nero’s body tumbled after it for a short distance before striking a small, scrub-covered ledge jutting from side of the canyon wall. The Ford’s fall came to a gradual halt in a sickening sound of broken glass, bent metal, and the shrill screaming of Betty Blake, suddenly cut off.
* * *

Mary was pouring through documents, files, and spreadsheets when she heard a persistent vibration coming out of her purse. Confused, almost mystified, she fumbled through her large bag to find the cause. Then she saw the Hipkick, the phone Sara had given Wendy. Mary put it on her desktop and ignored it. The vibrating stopped. Less than 30 seconds later it started again. Mary continued to ignore it until finally, losing patience, and realizing she had to talk to the precocious teenager, Mary answered the fifth call.

“Hello, Sara.”

“Finally, girl. Where are you? Why didn’t you come to school? Nobody’s going to mess you today, I promise.”

“Young lady,” Mary responded. “This is Wendy’s mother. I’ve taken the phone away from her and told her she is not to have anything further to do with you. She’s taken a well-deserved day off, if you must know.”

“Wendy’s mother?”

“That’s correct.”

“Oh how wonderful! I’ve been so looking forward to talking with you. Wendy’s been keeping you a secret, she has, between you and me.”

“Well. I don’t know what you think we have to talk about. And please understand I mean it about my daughter keeping away from you. I don’t much care for the way you, um, texted her yesterday. She’s completely broken up about what happened, as well she should be. She didn’t need you to send her pictures and messages rubbing it in.”

“Rubbing it in. Oh, Wendy’s mom, you’ve got it all wrong. I think I—“

“Good-bye, Sara.”

With that Mary ended the phone call and closed the phone. Two seconds later, the phone alerted an incoming text. Exhaling with exasperation, Mary picked up the phone to look at the message.

“Please let’s talk, Mrs. Love. I’m so sorry to have gotten off on the wrong foot. I’m sure if we discuss this in person, you will at least be able to see it from my side.”

Persistent little thing, Mary had to admit. She did kind of feel a twinge of guilt. After all, Sara was Wendy’s age. Just another kid in need of adult guidance. Obviously Sara’s mother hadn’t been paying attention. Mary felt that twinge again. I guess I haven’t been paying attention either. Might as well hear her out.

“Perhaps,” she texted back.

“See you at lunch?”

Mary sighed.

“Okay.”

“I’ll bring lunch.”

Now, that was thoughtful, Mary mused.

At twelve Mary collected her purse, stood up, and walked outside to the waiting lobby of Adamatic Paper Supply. A small fountain burbled in the center of the lobby, and a row of curved benches lined the glass walls of the entrance. A wide set of stairs let to the second floor of the building. A row of elevator doors line the wall on beyond the stairs, and the lobby itself formed a wide curve that led on the opposite side to a suite of corporate offices hiding behind a locked door. Two security guards in blue uniforms stood in front of the front doors, ready to open for any guest who could provide a suitable reason for entry.

Looking out the window, Mary saw Sara approaching the guards. She caught her breath, surprised by Sara’s elegance, grace, and, well, beauty. Sara had the kind of face that attracted attention, feline, with high and wide cheek bones set above fleshy cheeks that tapered to a round point below her full lips, accentuated now with deep red lipstick. As she neared the guards, Mary marveled at the way she pulled off her makeup, contoured and highlighted to a startling execution, red lipstick with a blue shimmering eyeshadow, dark eyeliner, almost black, and dark mascara. The total effect should have been of one, well, sluttishness, the face of a tramp in heat. On the contrary, Mary found herself approving of the look.

And her clothes matched her well. A dark blazer over a burgundy pullover highlighting large but not oversized breasts. A dark, thigh-length skirt bloomed around the sweep of her hips, hips that swayed like the clapper of a bell. No wonder Wendy regarded her new friend so highly. Though several inches shorter than her daughter, Sara presented an imposing, almost daunting figure, as she strode towards the guards, holding the straps of purse against the swing of her hips with her left elbow while carrying two drinks in clear plastic tumblers. Mary assumed they were some kind of strawberry shake or smoothie by the pink color of the drinks. Mary understood immediately that Sara conducted herself with far more poise and grace than most woman twice her age. It didn’t seem natural, but Mary couldn’t deny the maturity of the girl, almost a woman, really. Nor the appeal.

Sara passed through the guards with barely a pause. Entering the door that both guards held open, she scanned the lobby in both directions, saw Mary standing to greet and smiled warmly. Mary Love wore a gray skirt that swooped to mid-thigh, encasing her wide, full hips, rounder and slightly heavier than Wendy’s, and showing off her fleshy legs, not quite plump. Mary’s full bosom pushed against a white blouse, the top two buttons unfastened, the top curves of her breasts. Her blond hair fell in waves just past her shoulders in a long blond shag that framed her face in golden cascades.

Mary boasted the same high cheeks and tall forehead, the same full lips, but her face sat heavier somehow, older, yes, but more solid too, even in youth, Mary must have been somewhat harder looking than Wendy, who showed a soft, expressive face to the world, gentle, understanding, although reserved, and a little cool. As Sara studied the face of the mother, she saw how her chin, wider and more pronounced than Wendy’s, protruded forward, where the daughter’s receded a little, forming a large gentle button.

Wendy’s mother shifted her legs on low-heeled open toed pink shoes.

Almost rushing to greet Wendy’s mother, Sara set down the two drinks on the bench and held out both hands, taking Mary’s in her own and leaned forward, standing on her toes, to brush her cheek against Mary’s, quickly kissing her in a gesture that caught the older woman completely off guard. Wendy’s mother breathed in the air of Sara’s perfume. She couldn’t identify it. Probably something the young people wore. It smelled nice, a kind of spicy, cinnamon aroma.

“Oh, gosh, Mrs. Love,” Sara effused. “I can’t tell you how happy you made me. You just wouldn’t believe how glad I am to be able to talk with you. Just girl to girl. You know?”

Mary sat down on the bench, brushing the seat of her skirt as she sat and brushing the tops of her thighs. She turned to face Sara, also in the motion of sitting, pointing her knees at the mature teenager. Sara sat down so close, that when she turned to face Mary their knees touched, but Sara didn’t move away. Mary hesitated, uncomfortable with the sudden contact, but she kept her left knee in place, brushing against Sara’s knee, unwilling to concede or yield to Sara. She folded her hands in her lap.

“Sara,” Mary started to say.

“Please, Mrs. Love, let me apologize first. I know what you must think about me after having seen that picture. And reading that message.”

“It was terrible, Sara. I couldn’t believe it!”

“I’m so sorry. I know. But it wasn’t meant that way.”

“Not meant that way! You called her a slut and a whore. And worse!”

Sara sighed and, turning, reached behind her for one of the drinks. Both Sara’s knees touched Mary’s as she twisted around. Then Sara twisted back to face Mary, holding one of the pink tumblers in front of her with a playful smile spread across her charming face.

“Here, take this. It’s simply delicious. Just delicious. They go great with these.” Sara reached into her purse and pulled out a couple of elongated rectangle packages wrapped in pink cellophane. She carefully opened one of them with long, red polished nails and held it out to Mary.

“I got this from the same place. Not too far from here, one of those food trucks. They specialize in smoothies, but I’ve already had these, and they’re wonderful. They really fill you up, too. Just big wafers, really. But wow.”

Mary looked at the pink fluffy wafer doubtfully, but her belly rumbled. Besides, it would be impolite not to accept Sara’s kind gesture. She tried the smoothie with a short sip on the straw. Tasting it, she looked up at Sara and grinned.

“It’s really good, isn’t it. Not too sweet and not too tart.”

After a couple tiny, hesitant sips more Mary greedily slurped down the remaining smoothie.

“Like daughter, like mother,” Sara laughed happily.

“What’s that?” asked Mary, pulling her mouth away from the striped, pink straw.

“Oh, Wendy just loves these smoothies. I don’t think she can get enough of them. You should eat the wafer now. It tastes so much better with the smoothie.”

Mary bit off a fairly large chunk of the wafer sticking from its pink, open wrapper. This time she didn’t hesitate.

“Oh my gosh,” she exclaimed. “Where on earth did you get this? I’ve never tasted anything so, so.”

“Heavenly.”

Sara peered at Mary thoughtfully, almost critically. Pursing her lips, she asked Wendy’s mother a question.

“Do you mind if I try something, Mrs. Love? I mean, if I could make a suggestion? I think you would look so much better with lipstick. I have just the color for you. Would you mind? If I put some on you? Please?”

To tell the truth, the idea startled Mary, even repelled her to some extent. To allow Sara, an adolescent, mature yes but still a teenager, to apply lipstick to her nude lips, in the lobby of her workplace no less, would be to grant her primacy in their relationship, whatever that turned out to be, as short-lived as she expected it to last. She would lose the upper hand attained by age and parental role. Perhaps irrevocably.

Oh, but it was such a small request, and she looked so adorable sitting there, holding out a black and gold tube of lipstick, just like a little girl wanting to play dress-up with her mother! I mean, what harm could it do, just this once?

“After all,” Sara continued in a low voice, almost seductively, Mary thought, “we should always try to look our best, even at home. And wearing makeup helps us look beautiful and alluring. You never know who’s checking you out.”

And she did look good, Sara did. Stunning, in all honesty. And the way she smelled. God it was lovely. Clean, simple, spicy. Cinnamon.

Mary nodded in agreement, eagerly and wordlessly.

“Even at home,” Sara said, finishing her thought. “Here, lean forward. I’ll put it on for you.”

Neither Sara nor Mary paid the slightest attention to a few passers-by who cast a curious glance at the heavily made-up teenager applying a thick coat of glossy pink lipstick to the older woman’s face. When she finished, Sara nudged Mary back gently to review her handiwork. She nodded once in approval and winked.

“So much better. You look hot, in fact.”

God, Mary loved the provocative way Sara talked, delighting in sharing the harmless flirtation, Wendy’s mother pouted her lips in an exaggerated kiss, provoking squeals of delight from Wendy’s friend. Sara clapped her hands and giggled.

Mary finished the rest of her little meal quietly, careful not to mess her new lipstick. The spice in the lipstick burned a little, and a warmth spread through Mary’s limbs. After she took and swallowed the last bite, Sara cleared her throat.

“Mrs. Love. Wendy’s mom. About what I texted Wendy. I know it sounds bad, but think about it from Wendy’s perspective.”

“I am!”

“Are you, Mrs. Love? Are you really?”

Mary hesitated, started to defend herself, then she paused. Long enough for Sara to finish her thought.

“She’d spent the entire day being called that by the rest of the school. They tried to shame her, Mrs. Love. Shame your daughter. Calling her all kinds of horrible names. Sperm face. Cock whore. Cum junkie. Just abusive, really. So I sent her that picture, using the same words they used, but this time with pride. Defiance. I wanted her to embrace it. I wanted her to feel sexy, happy, proud. Not miserable and ashamed. I mean, you want her to be proud and happy, don’t you? You want her to feel good about being sexy don’t you? You don’t want her to feel ashamed of being a woman, do you?”

No. By no means. Never.

Sara leaned forward conspiratorially and took Mary’s hands into her own.

“Between you and me, I think she looked good. Don’t you?”

Mary shook her head.

“No. No, I don’t think she looked good. I think she looked—”

“Happy?”

Mary oscillated among possible responses. Finally she nodded in agreement.

“Hm. Yes. Happy. Happier than I’ve seen her in a long, long time,” Mary said, astonished to be admitting something so personal to the teenage girl facing her, pressing her knee against hers. “But that’s no reason to.”

“But happy is good, isn’t it,” Sara argued. “I mean it’s better to be happy than miserable isn’t it? And Wendy hasn’t been happy for a long time, she’s been miserable for a long, long time, just like you said just now.”

Mary wasn’t sure she put it quite like that, but she found herself struggling to disagree.

“Well, I wouldn’t say miserable.”

“But she hasn’t been happy, and now she is. Or she was when that picture was taken. She looked happy then, and that’s good, isn’t it? Even though, between you and me, her face was just slathered with Brad’s.”

Mary coughed.

“She just looked so happy. So happy. And that’s good, isn’t it? To be happy?”

“Well, I mean. Yes, of course it is.”

“She looked good. Because it made her happy.”

Mary hesitated again, confused by the meaning or intent of Sara’s words, her line of reasoning. But she looked so cute and adorable sitting there, in front of her, Mary Love, Wendy’s mother, knees touching, holding onto her hands still clasped in Mary’s lap. How long had then been holding hands, Mary wondered. Had Sara even let go of them? Looked so earnest and sincere, her auburn hair pulled back in a long braid, her hazel eyes focused on hers with an almost pleading look, wearing an expression that begged for understanding. And Mary so much wanted to understand her, to understand the darling little creature facing her, knees touching hers, holding each other’s hands. The little darling’s soft, warm hands stroked and caressed hers ever so lightly with the tips of her thumbs and fingers, just stroking in an almost petting, soothing way.

A warmth rising to heat flowed through Mary, a glowing feeling diffusing from her lap to her bosom, an inexplicable happiness to be communicating with someone who so much understood her, who got her. A sudden acknowledgment passed through Mary’s mind. She’s only a teenager, but she’s so wise. So compassionate, perceptive, and sympathetic.

“And what made her happy was, well, all that jizz on her face.”

Mary gasped but did not reject the declaration.

“Just slathered all over her face. It made her happy. She looked so good like that, didn’t she?

“Um, yes. I guess.”

“Well, there’s no doubt in my mind, Wendy’s mother. She looked good. So good.”

“She did look good,” nodded Mary, wanting so much to agree with Sara, to win her approval. At the very least not to appear to be rigid, stupid, or narrow-minded.

“With all that come on her face.”

“Yes,” Mary nodded in a whisper.

“Good because she looked so sexy,” Sara continued, stroking Mary’s finger softly with her own.

“Oh, god, Sara, what are you saying?”

“Your daughter, Wendy’s mom. Didn’t she look so sexy covered in Brad’s jizz? I mean, if it were someone else’s daughter, not yours of course. If you saw a picture of Maddy like that, for example, Wendy’s little friend with come streaking down her lips and chin, wouldn’t that be so sexy for you?”

Mary remained motionless, quiet, perfectly still. A tension held her frame taut, tight like a stretch rubber band, ready to break, snap, or contract.

“I mean, if Wendy, if your own daughter looked so good with Brad’s hot come on her, just think how much sexier Maddy would look. You wouldn’t have to feel bad, then, would you? You could want it as much as you could stand without feeling any guilt whatsoever, because she would look so sexy, wouldn’t she, Mary? Her face glazed like a donut, hair dripping with come. God, you’d give almost anything to have a photo of Maddy like that, wouldn’t you? So sexy. So hot.”

Mary found herself nodding, her lips, her mind numb with confusion and desire. The image of sexy little Maddy, her face glazed and dripping with hot come, strands of semen trickling from the bangs of her page boy hair, rose suddenly in Mary’s steaming mind.

“Oh god yes. So hot,” Mary murmured in agreement.

A strange lust seemed to overtake her, an animal heat almost, and when she looked down, she noticed her hips squirming on the bench, her hands holding Sara’s tightly against her thighs, close to her lap. Horrified and aghast, she released Sara’s hands with a jerk and scooted backward, breaking the contact with Sara’s knees that had been maintained throughout the conversation.

“What? No, I mean. What? What are you saying, Sara?”

“Well, you don’t have that picture of Maddy. Yet. But you do have Wendy’s.”

Sara brushed the cap of the mother’s knees, caressing it with light, solacing touches.

“I. I. I don’t know what you mean, Sara,” Mary whispered in a dry voice, twitching her knee away from Sara’s touch.

“Not yet,” Sara said soothingly. “Not yet, of course. But you will.”

Then the girl leaned forward, kissing Mary directly on the cheek near her pink mouth, pressing her soft, red lips against the older woman’s face, so close to Mary shining pink lips. Then she pulled back, flashed a sweet smile at Mary and stood up.

“Oh gosh, Mary, Mrs. Love. I’ve just taken up so much of your time already. I’m so glad you’ve accepted my apology. I’m so glad you want me to be friends with your daughter. Wendy is just so. So. Wonderful. I’m so glad you want us to be together. As close friends should be.”
* * *

The meteorite, the UFO, the craft, whatever name one called it, tumbled after striking the ground, then came to a standstill near the edge of the far cliff, losing whatever power drove it. The hard landing caused a slight, almost unnoticeable fissure to spread near the middle of the round, spherical object. Covered in a hard, black, rough surface, the object looked almost like a very large, dark golf ball but with far more irregular indentures in the surface. The object, the craft, the meteorite, vibrated after landing, emitting a low hum just shy of being inaudible. The vibration grew more pronounced until the object trembled and shuddered, moving to the point of almost rolling. Then it did roll. Slowly, almost imperceptibly it moved towards the edge of the cliff, trembling, vibrating with humming that increased to a loud volume now.

Slowly it began to levitate, rising one meter, two meters, three meters off the ground. It rose to a height of around five meters. Suddenly the hum rose in pitch to a sharp shriek or whistle, almost the sound of a ready tea kettle. It shook and trembled in the air, then plummeted, missing the edge of the cliff and shooting straight down to the canyon below, perhaps fifty, seventy-five feet below. It cracked against the rock side of the canyon and rolled obliquely downstream, following the natural slope of the canyon floor. It stopped rolling after striking a small boulder, cracking the spherical object at the fissure, by now a very large and open crack, and flinging something soft-looking, like wet flesh, a shapeless globule, from its interior. The globule landed in the water at the bank of the river. It oozed deeper into the water until fully submerged, where it drifted downstream with the flow of the stream.

The sphere split into two almost equal hollow halves, lined with a strange pink residue. It glowed, radiating a soft pink illumination in the immediate area of the craft. The light of the full moon, now high in the sky, showed the wreckage of Nero Craft’s Ford coupe resting against the far side of the boulder. The passenger door hung open, and the body of Betty Blake, bloody and torn, hung partially out, her head and torso lay bleeding on the ground, her legs and feet remaining in the interior of the automobile. Far behind the wreckage, a hole gaped in the canyon side, the opening of a grotto in the canyon.

The humming of the round craft stopped when the object cracked against the small boulder. Besides the quiet burble of the canyon stream, a silence fell over the area. Then a low groan coming from Betty Blake broke the silence. Her body quivered, and she tumbled completely from the automobile, sliding and skidding down the slope of the canyon until brushing against one half of the split craft, her bleeding head landing in a small pool of the thick, goo of the pink substance.

The goo clung to bloody clumps of Betty’s hair and seeped over the young woman neck and face until encasing Betty’s whole head in thin membrane of the pink substance. Slowly the pink membrane spread. More of the pink substance spilled over the edge of the broken craft and joined the membrane gradually swallowing the body in a pink radiant layer. The fabric, the clothes, on the body dissolved on contact with the pink substance, leaving Betty completely nude, covered only in that pink sheen. Time passed.

Suddenly Betty’s prone body shuddered, and the woman gasped. She sat up in single movement. The she stood, an hourglass feminine form, the form of a young woman, utterly nude, standing in the pink glow of the broken craft and the light of the moon. Clutching at the side of the craft, she leaned forward, hooked one leg over the edge and fell into the hollow of the hemisphere. Any pink residue remaining on the ground slowly moved toward the ship, sliding across the ground in droplets and small pools, creeping upward on the surface of the strange craft. Time passed.

The other half the craft began to vibrate and hum. The pink glow intensified. Suddenly, with a swift and loud swoosh, that half of the craft rose from the ground and fell with a loud, sharp clack, opening to opening, against the other half the object, where the body of Betty Blake lay concealed. Pink substance oozed from the interior to seal the crack between the two halves, like an epoxy glue. A tiny amount of the pink substance, less than a handful, fell on the ground. Then the craft, now round again and whole, rolled upward against the slope of the canyon, humming towards the opening of the grotto or fissure in the canyon side. It disappeared inside the fissure. Deep inside the fissure something shook and convulsed, and the grotto collapsed on itself, sealing the opening, shutting it behind a wall of tumbled and fallen rock.
* * *

Nero Craft staggered towards consciousness, every part of his body ached, especially his right shoulder. He tried to prop himself up, but his right arm gave way, and he collapsed back to the ground. Lying on his back, staring at the night sky, he saw the moon on its western decline and realized he’d been unconscious for quite some time. Hours, in fact. He tried to raise his hand to look at his watch and winced as a sharp, piercing pain burned through him. Struggling over on his left, he managed to raise himself slowly and inspected his right arm. Limp, but with no visible sign of breakage, he suspected a dislocated shoulder.

He unfastened the middle buttons of his shirt with his left hand, and then taking the same hand propped his limp arm into the opening, glancing at his watch as he did so. The dial remained concealed in the pale moonlight. Then he zipped his jacket as far up as he could to tighten the makeshift sling. It hurt like hell, but his arm hung fairly tight against his body, limiting movement. Standing on the ledge he peered down below him and stared at his wrecked Ford, hideously damaged in the moonlight. Unsurprisingly, he saw no sign of Betty. Looking at the slope to the left of the ledge, he saw a kind of foot path, descending more smoothly and gently along the side of the cliff. Hikers no doubt liked to come here. Or fishers, hunters, and other great outdoor-loving fools. Well. Could he make it?

He felt he had no choice. Betty, if she still lived, needed his help. He could also go up. The same path descending ascended in the same fashion, gradually on a slow incline along the cliff’s side. Though no hero, it seemed somehow cowardly to go up. He needed to at least see how Betty faired. He found a thick, twisted, and knobby branch fallen from one of the scrub oaks, large enough to serve as a stave to support his climb down the canyon. Taking a deep breath and steeling his nerves, he clambered slowly over the side of the ledge, dangled his feet, and shoved himself off the outcrop the few feet to the path below. Pain throbbed through his shoulder as the landing jolted his body. He stuck his stick forward and began hiking down, glad for the coolness of the weather which reduced the likelihood of rattlesnake.

Going down the slope, even that gentle descent, caused immense pain to Nero, awkwardly shuffling forward on his makeshift stave, trying hard not to stumble, not to fall. He limped downward, and with every step, his shoulder jolted, bumped, shooting a searing pain through the rest of his body. Clumps of scrub brush, stumpy clusters of mesquite, coyote and seep willow, sheaves of dried gramma lined the canyon side, casting faint, wavering shadows, dark figures in the pale gloom of moonlight. Here and there small boulders lay directly in his path, boulders which he had to careful navigate around. And always to his right lay the body of his broken Ford. The path he walked would take him some distance downstream from the car, so he’d have to turn right once he reached the end of the descent, near the edge of the canyon stream, a small tributary of Reno Arroyo Canyon River.

Finally he reached the bottom and limped towards his vehicle.

The battered car was empty, and searching the area with a sweep of his eyes in the light of the full moon, he saw no sign of Betty Blake. He stumbled around his car, hurtled and leaning against a large boulder, and saw only broken glass and the metallic pieces of the Ford which had broken off in the fall from the top of the canyon. He found nothing at beyond the passenger door.

“Betty!” He called out, but heard only a gust of wind blowing through the canyon. “Betty, baby, where are you?”

He took a few steps toward the shallow brook and noticed a weird pink reflection of the moon near his foot. He stopped to look down. A small puddle of pink goo, a weird pink oil, had formed a few feet, not more than two or three yards from the automobile. Holding on to his thick stick, Nero bent forward to inspect the puddle. Then he stood up and touched the puddle with the end of his stick. Immediately the whole puddle seemed to stretch, an elongation which grasped and covered the end of his stick like a rubber ferrule. Lifting the stick to get a better look, Nero Craft fell backward as the pink goo stretched in an instant from the end of his stick to his mouth, squeezing forcefully between his lips like a sickening tongue. The pink goo kept extending, transferring its mass from the tip of the makeshift stave to the terrified man’s mouth until all of the pink substance had entered Nero.

By this time Nero flailed helplessly on the ground as a shooting, burning, wrenching pain overcame him. The pink substance slid irresistibly down Nero’s throat, choking him, oozing down his esophagus until reaching his stomach. Doubling forward in pain, Nero cried out once, flung himself backward, stiff and straight as a board, and lost consciousness. And even though he lay as one asleep in a deep canyon, surrounded by the wild, in the midst of predator and stinging beast, nothing disturbed him. And if Nero Craft slept, he did so without dreaming, his soul or his mind wandering alone in the endless halls beyond time and outside of space.
* * *

Wendy yawned and put her book down on her bed, open and spine up to the horror of bibliophiles the world over. Though deeply engrossed in the reading, a sudden restlessness washed over Wendy. She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She scratched her knee and along her inner thigh, then rubbed the itch with her palm, moving her hand slowly back and forth from her knee to her inner thigh, gradually going farther inward until she was touching the hem of her gym shorts. She closed her eyes at the warmth growing in her groin.

Stop it, Wendy. Get a hold of yourself.

She jerked her hand away from her thighs and stood up quickly, idly looking around her room. The blue and white cover of Jillin’, sitting on the small desk next to her vanity dresser, popped into her line of sight. The girl on the cover, an illustration of a teenager with dark hair wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, belt unfastened, one hand hidden behind a partially unbuttoned fly, winked at the reader with a knowing impishness. Wendy tossed her head and picked up the book, thoughtfully taking it back to her bed, curling her legs beneath her as she read. Every once in a while she licked her lips slowly, or pressed her lips together to moisten them. They had begun to feel dry, parched. And somehow bare.
* * *

Mary twitched and shifted in her chair, rolling it back and forth on its casters, restlessly glancing at the spreadsheets and documents on her monitor. Sara had left her almost reeling in confusion and longing after kissing her on the cheek, walking casually away with a pronounced sway of her ass, Mary’s eyes following the sultry movement of Sara’s strong thighs under her dark skirt. The end of Sara’s braided tail swung like a clock’s pendulum above the swell of her tush. Mary almost giggled at using that word. I bet it’s adorable, she thought, her tush. But Sara did not look back, and finally Mary Love had turned away, shocked to find herself so openly gawking at the young girl who had left her visibly shaken and in need.

Her lips felt full and warm, and the heat of Sara’s lips on her cheek almost burned as she walked into the elevator, fighting a strong urge to rub it out. No, she thought. Let me keep it there. It feel kind of. Nice. As the doors to the elevator started to close, an arm reached, quite foolishly. The doors rattled open, and Janet Brooks, who worked in the same department as Mary, entered the elevator cabin. She saw the red lips on Mary’s cheek and smiled jovially.

“Well, Mary. I didn’t think you swung that way.”

“What?” asked Mary.

“Your face, girl, you’ve got red lipstick right by your mouth. Someone kissed you, and it doesn’t look to have been a man. That’s a lovely pink, by the way. It really suits you.”

“Oh that,” Mary replied, laughing, hurriedly wiping at her cheek. “My daughter had to see me at lunch. She’s been really into lipstick lately.”

Janet gave Mary a doubtful look and shrugged.

“Kids, eh?” Janet said.

Now she sat behind her monitor, trying to make sense of the numbers, headings, inventories, assets, and shipping costs. The data in the cells kept swirling around the screen, while documents in email attachments declared open rebellion on both sense and sensibility. The center between her thighs burned into her raging mind, calling for urgent attention, and every time she closed her eyes she beheld the image of Maddy’s face, covered in semen like her daughter’s, tantalizingly vivid. Instead of deflating Mary’s swelling need, it enflamed it, sending her into a desperate furor, as two sides waged war, one to gain control of herself and her rising heat, the other to release, and to release with thoughtless abandon. The image of Maddy’s glazed face dripping with hot come tortured her with desire, lust, the urgent need to come and come hard.

“This is crazy,” she half muttered to herself. “I don’t even like.”

But who would do it, she thought, who would blow a wad like that on her daughter’s friend’s face, Wendy’s friend’s face, Wendy’s little friend Maddy? A man would do it. What man? Steve? Would Steve blow a load across Maddy’s innocent face if Mary asked him to? God, that would be so hot. But how could she get Maddy to do it? How could she get Maddy in bed with her and Steve?

Mary flinched, suddenly aghast at the direction her thoughts, her fantasy had taken. My god, Mary. Get a hold of yourself. She literally shook her head to clear her thoughts, concentrated on the spreadsheet in front of her, trying to forget the steaming moisture in her cunt gathering like the winds of a tropical storm. She spread her thighs on her chair, stretching the hem of her skirt. Maddy’s face lunged across the screen of her monitor, dripping with Steve’s come. Mary’s hips thrust against the seat of her chair, gyrating in a back and forth, side to side motion. The wheels on her chair squeaked, resounding in her cubicle, awakening her from her sexual torridity. Her chest heaved. She quickly stood up, grabbed the Hipkick, and fled to the unisex restroom, single occupancy, and turned the exhaust fan on.

She shoved her skirt down, stepped out of it, hesitated, then pulled her panties all the way down and off. She stood in front of the mirror, dressed only in her blouse. She reached under the hem of her shirt and felt her wet, scalding and wet, pussy. Her hips quivered and buckled as she stroked the valley between her fleshy lips. She moved her hand up and across the trimmed triangle of her blond bush, then back down in a slow and agonizing accumulation of hot desire.

She closed her eyes and saw Maddy’s face, intoxicated with the lust of hot come shooting across her brow, on her rosy cheeks, and into her open, longing mouth. Mary stumbled to the toilet, sat down and fumbled with her phone.

“You don’t have a picture of Maddy,” she heard a voice say. “So Wendy will have to do.”

Oh god oh god oh god, Mary. Don’t do this.

She flipped open the phone and searched for the photo of Wendy, stroking her flowing snatch as she opened the file to see Wendy’s smiling, come-drenched face. Mary furiously rubbed her groin. Saliva dripped from her open mouth as she peered at Wendy’s face, focused intently on the semen covering her daughter’s smile, dripping along her lips.

There’s another photo, Mary. Another of her hot, open cunt filled with that boy’s come.

Oh god, no. You’re her mother. Don’t look.

She found the other photo and opened it, plying her pussy with one, with two, with three fingers as she stared in a sexual frenzy at her daughter’s naked pussy, her blond pubic hair matted with come, spread wide as Wendy held her legs up and apart by the knees. God, look at that pussy, she thought. Look at the come just seep from her, leaking down her ass like that. Mary saw the nipples of Wendy’s breast exposed through the sheer, open pink blouse, sticking long and hard from the curves of her beautiful globes. Mary gaze trailed down Wendy’s abdomen, across her belly button, and returned to the boiling heat of her daughter’s exposed pussy. Her daughter’s cunt. Mary’s rock hard clit trembled, shuddered and pulsed as she rubbed it with the back of her thumb, her fingers deep in her hot, leaking hole. Then the orgasm came, shaking her ass in a steady tattoo of lust against the white seat of the toilet.

Oh god oh god oh god. I’m coming. I’m coming to my daughter’s pussy.

Mary groaned. Shoving her mouth against her shoulder, she stifled a scream as her body shook with wave after wave of orgasm. Wendy. Oh Wendy. I’m so sorry.

Mary Love gradually recovered, raising her head from her shoulder. She rubbed the pink marks left in the shoulder of her white blouse by the lipstick Sara had put on her. She slowly rose, walked to her rumpled skirt and underwear, and carefully pulled both up her legs. She stared at herself in the mirror. With a handful of tissues she pulled from a box sitting on next to the faucet she wiped the tears pooling in the corners of her blue eyes.

What kind of monster am I, she thought. She dabbed at the corner of her mouth, ready to wipe off the pink lipstick with the wad of tissue she held in her hand. Her hand lingered at the corner before falling to her side, the tissue unused.

My god. What have I done?
* * *

Wendy pulled her legs to her and sat up. With the frenzy over, she wondered at her behavior, staring at the Vendler book. She thought she meant to put all this stuff behind her. She had meant to, right? I mean, she had to get it together. Look at her, skipping school, cutting classes for the first time in her life. All because. All because that picture. All because of what that Sara started. God. Life was so much before. Before Sara came into her life. I mean, she had a real shot at, well, something. Making something of herself. Getting a scholarship. Getting out of town, maybe even going to the coast. East or West, it didn’t matter.

Good at French, she could become an interpreter. A journalist, a correspondent. Something. She wasn’t sure what, but I mean. C’mon. She couldn’t skip class to masturbate all day long. She couldn’t get a scholarship with pictures of her face oozing with Brad’s come floating around school. God. Did she really have to smile like that?

With more intent and less haste, she purposefully placed the Vendler book and the lipstick in the garbage bag, walked downstairs to the garage, once more lifted the lid to the garbage can, and tossed the bag in. I just don’t need this crap, she thought. I really don’t. I don’t even really know Sara. And the other day I was ready to marry her practically. Spend the rest of my life with her. Just because. Oh god. How did that happen?

Well. No more. Let other people experiment. Let other girls try things out. I mean, I already did, didn’t I? I mean, I did my part, right? I can just put it all away now, wrap it up nice and neat as something done once and never again, and just get on with this. My life. Whatever it turns out to be. Do I not even have an idea? I mean, I can be anybody, right?

Wendy found herself back in her room, The Secret History of Edge City on turned upside down, its label and cover greeting her renewed interest in escaping her own thoughts. Picking up the book, she followed her reading where she had stopped.
* * *

“Rescue workers found Mr. Craft two days later, alerted by a couple of kids who had been looking for arrowheads and other indigenous artifacts in the canyon. At first the workers feared Nero had died from unseen injuries, for despite all efforts, the young man remained unconscious. However, his pulse came faint but unmistakable. Later, in the hospital, doctors and specialists conferred in outside his private room, confused and astonished at the man’s deep coma. In the meantime, police, rescuers, and volunteers searched the canyon for the whereabouts of Miss Betty Blake, using bloodhounds to try to capture even the faintest scent of her track, but hounds just yapped and sniffed the area around the wrecked Ford coupe. Authorities waited restlessly, eagerly, and suspiciously for the awakening of Nero Craft from his coma.”

When Nero Craft opened his eyes from darkness of his coma into the bright light of the hospital room, he had only one thing on his mind: where had all the pink gone? The strange pink illumination of his, of his, of his, he stretched to find the word, had he been dreaming, had he been, what, wandering bodiless in a gulf, a void, an abyss, a hollow hall, an endlessly wide corridor, had he been hallucinating, had he been, what, if not dreaming, dreaming of a gulf, a void, an abyss, a hollow hall, and endlessly wide corridor of glimmering, pulsating pink, a pulsing, palpitating pink accompanied by a low continual hum, a humming, a drone, a buzz. A buzzing as of many bees endlessly droning in a colossal hive, a hive beyond measurement. And the pain! Oh god, the pain.

Oh, but how could it be pain? So unbearable, so intolerable, so needed. It rose against him, engulfed him, swallowed him into its endless depths and left him quaking, shivering, in need of more. But it hurt, yes? That pain? Was it pain? His mind recoiled at the memory. If not pain, what? Pleasure? Oh god, yes, that’s what it was. An intolerable euphoria, psychic and physical, touching his mind more than his flesh, but encompassing both, his flesh altered. His flesh changed. His flesh molded and refashioned by the articulation of something he could not understand, make understood, or even glimpse beyond the shadows at the furthest reaches of his comprehension, dancing along the edge of some great mystery wrapping around him like multiple, multiple onionskins. And he the center and not the center. Then his mind touched it, and he went out. Into a world illuminated by pink.

The pink faded in the word of white light. Of white incandescence burning above him. Then a female figure leaned over him, and he recoiled again, shrinking backward, suddenly very, very afraid. But the woman smiled, and said in a soft, gentle voice, “It’s okay now. You’re awake. That’s good. Very good.”

Then the woman touched his forehead.

“The doctors will want to see you soon.”

Time passed, the questions continued without pause seemingly. What happened? Where was Betty? What happened to the meteorite? Did it land? Did you see it land? What did you see? Was it a meteorite or something else? What do we mean by something else? Well, now, it’s us asking questions isn’t it? Something else means exactly what you think it means. Something else. Something not a meteorite. Oh, it was a meteorite? Did you see it land? What happened to your car? What happened to the young lady? Where is Betty Blake? What did you do to Miss Blake? What kind of meteorite did you say it was again? Where did you say it landed? What do you mean you think it was something else? Oh, you didn’t say that, did you? We did. We said that. And we mean it too. Because it was something else, wasn’t it? No? You think it was a meteorite? Did you see where it landed? Did it behave oddly?

And on, and on, and on, the questions came at him, one right after another, driving him to distraction, but he stammered the same answers over and over again, knowing somehow not to say anything beyond he had an accident, no he didn’t see it land. No, he didn’t know what happened to Betty. No. No. No. Finally the questions stopped, and the inquisitors, apparently satisfied, withdrew, giving each other knowing looks accompanied by nods, closed their little black notebooks and left the hospital room marching in step in their black suits and black trilbies.

Nero fell back asleep. A normal sleep with normal dreams. Except in this dream he looked in the mirror in the hospital room and saw Betty Blake staring at him from the other side, entirely pink. Then she moved away from the mirror, showing her whole body, nude, and noticeably pregnant.

The sheriff’s visit went much the same way as his questioning by the men in black hats. But the sheriff acted concerned about Nero’s conditioned, expressed sympathy for his accident, and genuinely seemed to want to believe that Nero knew nothing of Betty’s disappearance. After all, Nero had been in a coma for more than a week, had been in a coma when discovered, and no sign of Betty had been detected since then. If Nero had had something to do with Betty’s vanishing, then it would have had to have been in the moments directly after the car’s plunge into the canyon. And nothing, absolutely nothing, tied Nero to her absence. Except his own admission that she had been in the car when it fell.

“The car hung over the ledge. Betty just looked at me. I told her to jump. She just froze. I opened my door and leapt out, hoping she’d follow. But I didn’t see her jump. I didn’t see anything after I hit the rock ledge. Afterwards, I limped down. But I didn’t see anything. She was already gone. I must have been out for about two hours. Maybe longer. The moon was higher. I couldn’t read my watch.”

The story never changed, never deviated. Nero admitted he left Betty in the car. He admitted that she was in the car when it fell. He admitted to jumping out and saving himself. Not something any man with self-respect would admit, but he did. Still, Sheriff Boykin felt more than suspected, and suspected more than thought, that the young man, this Nero fellow, was hiding something. Leaving something out of the story. Well, he’d just have to keep an eye out for him. Just have to keep watch on his comings and goings. In the meantime, there was that girl to look for. And the trail was going cold. Had already gotten cold, in fact. The trail was frozen. But her folks were hot. Steaming mad at him, at the police, at Nero. They wanted answers, and they wanted those answers yesterday.

But they weren’t going to get any. Not today. Not tomorrow. Probably not ever. Sheriff Boykin did not relish having to have that conversation.

But he said his goodbyes to Nero, and Nero went back to sleep. Later that day, his uncle came to get him. Nero’s own folks were dead. Polio, some five years ago. Took the mother anyway. Alcohol and a .45 took the father about a year later. Nero had already left the house by that time. Found a job at a mechanic’s shop. Later, his uncle offered to let him stay in a shack behind his house.

“It ain’t much, but it’s cheap. And I kind of like the idea of you sticking near. Don’t know why. Don’t like the hand my brother dealt you, I reckon. Anyway, your decision. Offer’s open for as long as you need it to be.”

Just a little room and kitchen. A place to bathe. Maybe somewhere to take a girl who didn’t mind the emptiness of it. Uncle never said anything about that. Never much said anything about anything. Now, the next day, as Nero lay on his cot, staring at the ceiling, and trying to calm the pink storm in his head, a voice seemed to call out to him. Faintly, softly, as from far away, or from somewhere buried deep beneath the surface of the earth. Or the surface of reality.

“Nero.”

Nero didn’t answer.

“Nero.”

Nero still didn’t answer.

“Nero.”

Finally Nero answered.

“Here am I.”

“Come find me. I need you. Please. Come find me.”

Nero squinted his eyes, furling his brows in the dim light of the cabin. Although the sun soared high in the afternoon sky, the cabin remained dark. One small window in the front, covered by the awning of a porch that extended the width of the cabin, allowed only enough light to keep the shack in a perpetual gloom.

“Where are you?”

“Nero.”

“I’m here.”

“Come find me.”

Nero sat up. He reached under his cot for his boots, yanked them on, tied them and walked across the gravel and dirt of the so-called back yard to his uncle’s house, his boots crunching on the small pebbles, and alerting the mongrel bitch on its chain. The mongrel growled.

“Hush, dog.”

The mongrel growled in a diminished complaint. Nero walked over and scratched it below its ears.

“Tomorrow, girl. Busy tonight.”

The mongrel whined and dropped her head.

Uncle sat in front of the television, in a rambling armchair, a glass of iced tea in his hand, an unfiltered Pall Mall in his mouth.

“Yeah, boy?”

“Keys to your truck?”

Uncle nodded to the row of small hooks attached to a short piece of two by four nailed to the wall be the door.

“You need me to come with?”

“You got the time?”

Uncle nodded.

“I got the time.”

Nero shook his head.

“It’s just that. I don’t know where I’m going.”

“I’ve been not knowing that for thirteen years, kid.”

Uncle pulled on his blue jean jacket, a favorite of his. “C’mon. We can both not know together. You drive.”

Nero didn’t say anything about the voice in his head. The woman’s voice, whom he recognized now as Betty’s voice, calling to him from somewhere outside of experience.
* * *

Mary sat in her cubicle, silently weeping.

She closed all the files on her computer, typed a short email to her supervisor saying she felt sick, a true statement, and needed to go home. A lie. She had no intention of going home. How could she possibly go home and face Wendy after what she had done? Was there even a word for that kind of betrayal, not to mention depravity? How did that even happen? She had never, never, felt that kind of, that kind of sexual heat before. That kind of driving need. A need to come, come hard, and in the most, well, there wasn’t a word for it. The most feminine way possible. As a woman in need, a woman in heat for her own self. It had passed. For the moment, at any rate.

She could still feel it. Lurking on the edges of her sanity, of her decorum, of her safe and sober consciousness. A laughing, giddy, deliriously hot presence who only wanted to come. And come. And come. She had to stop thinking this way or she’d do it again. Maybe she wouldn’t even go to the restroom this time. Just spread her thighs open right there, facing the opening of her cubicle, letting any passerby see her fingering her wet hole as she panted in heat, tongue hanging dog-like from her mouth, one hand rubbing her tits under her blouse. My god. How hot would that be.

Mary snatched her purse and fled her cubicle, her department, her floor, and her building, practically running to get to her car. She didn’t drive far before the feelings returned. She tried to maintain attention on the road, on the traffic signals, on other cars passing her, or stopping in front of her, but her ass squirmed in the driver seat and she parted her thighs as she tilted her groin at the car seat, humping her pelvis into the fabric in short bursts. She leaned against the steering wheel and groaned.

Oh my god, what the hell is wrong with me?

The thought of Maddy returned to her mind, god, that would be so hot. But how could she do it? How could she get Maddy over? She was sure she could talk Steve into it, letting Maddy give the man head, letting them both give Steve head, each one, Maddy and Mary, taking turns swallowing Steve’s cock. But how could she pull it off? How in the hell could Mary talk Maddy into it? She barely knew the girl for god’s sake. The realization hammered her with brutal force. It’s fucking illegal, Mary. You’re talking about putting Steve in jail if anyone finds out. It’s just a fantasy, Mary. You can’t take it seriously. Just go with the flow, just let the idea come. Let it come, like you want to come. So badly, don’t you, Mary? You just want to come right now, don’t you?

She imagined Maddy kneeling at the side of Mary’s bed. Mary gripped the steering wheel, knuckles whitening as an image of Steve standing over a kneeling the teenage girl, shooting load after load of creamy, white come over her daughter’s friend’s beaming face. Mary saw herself slipping off the bed to slide over to Maddy, holding her close as she kissed and licked the come off the pretty girl’s face. Mary shuddered at the image, and pressed her thighs tightly together.

She forced herself to sit still, breathlessly forcing herself to wait out the charge of superheated sexuality coursing through her groin, vibrating up her spine, and electrifying her brain in an insistent pulse of lust and desire. Wave after wave of heat washed over her body, but she couldn’t close her eyes, couldn’t stop, couldn’t gain release by just touching herself once, just once, between her engorged lips, the swollen labia of her wet center. Her groin twitched against the bottom of the car seat. She saw a turn off down a narrow road, on the right, and swung into it without slowing. The street led to a quiet neighborhood with a few parked cars on each side of the street.

Holding onto the steering wheel with her left hand, she dipped her right hand between her legs, slipping her fingers beneath the narrow gusset of her wet panties. Squealing loudly, she plunged two fingers into her wet and scalding channel, pumping her fingers in and out, in and out, before slipping them out to rub her clit, repeating this action over and over until she felt the flood of her orgasm build to an unstoppable tsunami. She pulled over to the side of the road to finish, shaking and crying behind the steering wheel as she jerked against her right hand in spasms of relief and pleasure.

Relieved, she flung her head against the back of the seat, almost collapsing at the sudden discharge of pent-up fervor. She brushed her hair back over her head, wiped her face with both hands, and put the car in drive before she pulled back into the street.

Mary resisted the thought as soon as it popped into her head, but it flashed momentarily all the same. If Maddy can’t do it, what about Wendy?

Mary spent the rest of the afternoon crying, pounding the dashboard, driving around aimlessly, fighting an increasing sexual pressure. She stopped at a coffee shop, ran to the restroom, pulled her skirt and underwear down and rubbed a quick one out, amazed to be so quickly turned on afterward. She stared at her face in the mirror, at her blood-shot, teary eyes, her red checks, the pink glossy lipstick on her mouth. Her blond hair tumbled around her shoulders, disheveled, unkempt, wild. She resisted a sudden urge to wipe her lipstick off. After all, she told herself, even in this state it looked so adorable on her.

She stumbled to the counter, knees trembling. The girl behind the cash register smiled at her. A young girl, of college age, maybe nineteen. She wore her brown hair pulled back under a black cap, forming a ponytail through the gap in the back where the cap could be adjusted. The girl’s face, though unadorned by makeup, radiated that freshness and glow of youth, her little round lips sitting in a little round face like a pouting kiss, the upper lip fuller than the lower, and both soon trailing to a tight thin line at the corners. The girl’s breasts swelled beneath the black, short sleeve polo uniform shirt, the buttons of the V collar fully undone, showing the partial slopes on both sides, flesh which drew Mary’s eyes inward, hoping to see more.

Mary’s heart skipped.

“See anything you like?”

Mary turned beet red.

“I’m sorry?”

“Those buns,” the girl winked. “I saw you staring at those buns. They look good, don’t they? We just made them today.”

Mary read the name on the cashier’s name tag. Renee.

“Well,” Mary’s voiced trailed off in indecision.

“How about a drink first, and then you can decide on what to eat.”

Mary nodded her head in happy agreement, glad to escape the uncomfortable innuendos. Ordering a non-fat latte she peered at the frosted buns sitting under a clear plastic cover, then raised her head to ask a question, but the cashier had turned her back to prepare Mary’s coffee drink. Mary followed the tail of Renee’s hair as it swung side to side, then her eyes drifted downward, resting on the round curves of the cashier’s ass as it jiggled in the activity of pouring coffee and steaming milk. The seam of the black slacks of the girl’s uniform ran in a tight line through the joint of the two half-moons, wonderfully forming a heart shape, turned upside down. The girl had a thick waist and thick legs, but not fat, not really. A little heavy-set, maybe, thought Mary, with a building pressure of desire, a mounting upsurge of longing.

Mary slowly licked her parted lips with the tip of her tongue, the fog of lust almost completely blanking her mind from protest, restraint, or common sense.

Mary pressed her thighs together, stifling a groan, and shoved her pelvis into the side of the counter. The only customer in the coffee shop, she ventured to slide a hand over the side of her skirt, rubbing the outside of her thigh, longing to move it inward, as another wave of desire flowed through her being. She glanced at the other staff worker, a young man with three day’s growth of beard, sweeping a corner of the shop, partially hidden by the counter as it bent at a right angle to separate the workstation from the customer dining area.

Renee turned around with Mary’s latte. Her mouth dropped open when she saw Wendy’s mother standing in front of her, practically humping the counter, wearing a look of utter abandonment, eyes closed and mouth open between flushed cheeks, a string of saliva dripping from the corner of her pink mouth.

“Oh my.”

Renee held out her hands and pulled Mary’s right hand to her. Mary raised her left hand from her thigh and gave it to Renee, who took both and squeezed them gently, running her thumbs over the tops of Mary’s hands.

“You poor little dear,” Renee said softly. “You need it so bad, don’t you?”

Mary bit her bottom lip and bowed her head slightly, nodding.

“So bad. And I need to take a potty break. Do you need to take a potty break with me?”

Renee walked around the back of the workstation, grabbed Mary’s arm and pulled her with her to the restroom.

“Jeff, cover me.”

Jeff raised his head, looked around, and shrugged.

“What for? No one’s here.”

Renee rolled her eyes at Mary, who giggled and leaned into the young cashier, wrapping an arm around her soft, fleshy waist. Renee’s hand trailed down the slope of Mary’s hip, coming to a rest on the outer curve of Mary’s ass. Mary shivered and undulated her hip to the rhythm of the palm of Renee’s wandering hand. Every nerve, every sense, every cell in Mary’s body tingled, registering new stimulations, new feelings, new emotions. A flood of lust and sexual longing filled Mary’s brain, clouding her mind in a fog as the chemicals in the pink smoothie reached their culmination.

Renee pulled and Mary followed. She barely slammed the door behind her, locking it, before Renee gripped the waist of her skirt, unfastened her top button, and shoved it with her panties to the floor. Bending as she pushed Mary’s clothes downward, Renee face came level with Mary’s enflamed pussy. Renee breathed in the pungent odor arising from the older woman’s snatch. Pushing her face forward and closing her arms around Mary’s hips, Renee covered the triangle of blond pubic hair growing above the opening of Mary’s groin. Renee kissed downward, breathing in Mary’s scent and tasting Mary’s warmth, her tart, wet warmth, as she kissed and licked down to the hardening tip of Wendy’s mother’s clit.

Mary gasped.

“Please,” she panted.

“Do you need it baby?” the cashier asked. “How badly do you need me? Tell your little girl how much you need this.”

“Oh god, honey. Please, please kiss me there. I need it so badly. I need you so badly, girl.”

The mind of Mary whirled and spun. She had never been with a woman before, never even kissed another girl, not even in play, not even just goofing around. She had never felt the remotest attraction to another woman before. Not really. In her cloudy state she couldn’t really remember what she had been like. A swirl of emotions stormed through her. Was she gay now? Was she a lesbian now? Did it even matter? Was this just getting off? Would she ever see Renee again? What if the girl wanted to date her? Oh god, could she really date another woman, a girl almost as young as her daughter? What would Maddy think?

Maddy. What did Maddy have to do with this?

Aware that none of her thoughts made any sense, Mary clung to the top of Renee’s head, knocking her cap off, as the young brunette continued stroking Mary’s clit with the tip of her tongue, sometimes flicking it maddeningly, sometimes covering the whole of her vulva with the entirety of her mouth. Suddenly Mary stiffened, she clutched and pulled two handfuls of brown hair and thrust her pussy at Renee’s open mouth, spasming in an almost painful orgasm of pure carnality. Mary shuddered into Renee, who covered Mary’s flowing pussy with her mouth, her mouth taking in as much of Mary’s tangy and sticky secretions as it could, juices overflowing her lips and trickling down her chin, glistening.

Renee stood up and kissed Mary fully on the mouth. Too dazed with lust to care, too driven by her need to wonder at her first kiss with another woman, Mary opened her mouth, taking in the flavor of her own pussy, tasting her own secretions, allowing Renee’s tongue to enter, touching her tongue tip with her own tongue tip in a dance of fervent longing, loud smacking sounds filled the small restroom, and Mary uttered plaintive cries of pleasure. Renee ran her fingers along the sides of Mary’s face, and Mary in her turn reached for the young cashier, feeling along the sides of her torso, exploring the swell of her waist.

Breaking the kiss long enough to stand back, Renee pulled off her black shirt, revealing her twin globes encased in white lace. Then she unbuttoned her slacks and pulled them down, slipping out of them in a smooth, fluid motion. A mound of unshaved pussy met Mary’s gaze. She reached for a stunned Mary.

“I’ve never.”

“Shh, baby. I’ll take care of everything.”

Renee reengaged Mary in a passionate kiss, tongue writhing against tongue, lip pressed against lip, mouth hot against mouth, wet and aching. Renee reached around Mary to unfasten her bra, and Mary, following Renee’s lead, felt the smooth back of the young woman, delighting in the soft naked flesh as she unhooked the back of Renee white lace. Renee trailed her hand to reach between Mary’s thighs. Once more Mary’s overheated groin lurched and spasmed as Renee’s soft fingers stroked and caressed Mary’s charged labia.

Renee slowly and gently kissed along the side of Mary’s mouth, across her cheek, and nibbled at her earlobe, kissing it, brushing it with her soft small lips as she whispered, “Feel me. Use your hand and feel me. See how wet I am. See how hot you make me.”

Oh god, oh god, oh god. I’m really going to do it.

Mary’s hand drifted slowly to Renee’s parted thighs. Using the flat of her palm, she caressed the girl’s inner thigh, reveling in the soft texture, the smooth skin, the gentle curve of the female flesh, a strange feeling mixed with familiarity. Because Renee didn’t shave. A pleasure Mary had never known coursed through her, charging through the swollen labia of her soaked pussy and shooting up her spine. The woman felt Renee’s pubic hair, a thatch of unshaved fur from ass to high and wide above her mound. She touched Renee’s folds, stroking her middle finger through the wet crevice between her lips, sliding her fingers through the cashier’s pussy, through the cashier’s soft and steaming cunt, through the engorged lips of Renee’s red fire.

“Kiss my tits as you fuck me with your hand.”

Mary whined, pressing her thighs against Renee’s ministering hand. She leaned her head forward, bent down, and, hesitating only briefly, kissed the area around Renee’s dark pink areole, nipple hardening to firmness as Wendy’s mother kissed the yielding flesh, caressing with soft brushes of her pink lips the area around the hardening peak. Finally, unable to bear the restraint any further, Mary covered the nipple with her open mouth, kissing and swallowing the hard tit, flicking it with her tongue, and kissing and swallowing it again, and again, and again, until the older woman became a surging need of breast, fondled pussy, and aching cunt.

Renee continued kissing Mary, the top of her head, her shoulders, finally her neck, biting and sucking on Mary’s soft neck with longing kiss after longing kiss. Suddenly her pussy trembled and quaked, her fluid poured from the depths below her lips, her fleshy folds, covered in pubic hair, matted now with her secretions, hot and flowing, and still Mary stroked her clit or drove her fingers, one finger, two fingers, three fingers into the cashier’s vagina. Mary moaned into Renee’s breasts as the girls shuddered her pelvis at Mary’s hand. Renee groaned and whined into Mary’s neck, one hand running up and down the woman’s back and ass, another driving into her pussy. Then both women stiffened and, covering their shrieks with the flesh of their partner, came in a paroxysm of mutual feminine orgasm.

Each woman held onto the other, clinging to each other as the shudders and violent shaking subsided to a light tremor that rattled through them from time to time. Releasing Renee’s hold, she laughed a sudden outburst of pure joy and joviality. Grasping at anything to say, Mary felt along the young woman’s Botticellian body, stroking her trembling limbs, the sides of her torso, her waist and hips, along the outward sides of the thighs and up to her arms again. Not even her arm pits, she noticed.

“You don’t shave,” Mary said with a happy smile.

Renee swayed a hip and held her head with one hand, striking a pose.

“No I don’t. You like?”

“Oh god, yes,” gushed Mary, almost giddy. “I like it very much. Very much indeed.”

“Good,” said Renee, getting dressed and passing her hair through her cap. “Because you still owe me a pussy licking.”

Mary gaped at the cashier.

“I’ll be here to 6 o’clock everyday this week. After that my schedule will probably change. But it’s set for this week.”

Mary pulled up her panties and skirt, clasping the buttons of her fly.

“Come here girl,” Renee said, “I need one more kiss. You drive me crazy, you know that?”

She looked like a kid beaming up at her, a black baseball cap on her head.

Mary leaned in for another kiss.

A broom handle pounded on the restroom door.

“Customers,” Jeff shouted.

Ten minutes later, after exchanging numbers and more kisses with Renee, Mary sat behind her steering wheel in bewilderment, trying to calm the palpitations of her heart.

“Is this love,” she asked herself, turning the ignition. “Is this how love begins?”

She adjusted the rearview mirror to look at herself. Her pink lipstick had almost completely rubbed off, showing only a few pink smears around the edges of her lips. But that’s not what caught Mary’s attention.

“Oh. My. God.”

Renee’s kissing had left dark bruises, hickeys, all along Mary’s neck. A sudden pride of being, well, owned, possessed, surged through Mary. Of being Renee’s girl.

“Good thing I’m the mom,” she laughed to herself. “Or Wendy would ground me for a month.”

That feeling of euphoria quickly faded as Mary pulled into her driveway, the garage door opening as she slowed to roll in. She remembered Sara’s visit at lunch, masturbating at work to images of Maddy and pictures of Wendy, of fucking herself with her hand on the side of the road. The coffee shop. And now her hickeys which she’d have to hide from Wendy and from Steve. How in the world could she hide them from Steve?

“Oh my stars. What have I done?”
* * *

Wendy had gone downstairs to microwave something, anything, throwing a frozen pepperoni pizza stick into the oven to cook for two or three minutes. She poured a glass of orange juice and looked at the time of the black and white Felix, swinging eyes and tail unceasingly, announcing 4:10. School’s been out for almost twenty minutes. I wonder how it went. Just then her doorbell rang. Putting her glass down, Wendy walked to the door and peeped through the hole. Trina Zschwinzscher’s distorted face peered back at her. Wendy opened the door.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” Trina replied.

“Um,” Wendy hinted.

“Hey, I brought you these,” Trina answered. “Your homework. Maddy opened your locker for me. I would have myself but I don’t have your combo. I went to all your classes to see if you had any homework.”

“You went to all my classes?”

“Well, Maddy helped. She told me your schedule.”

Trina held out a brown paper bag, a grocery bag, to Wendy. Wendy took it, looked inside and saw a couple of textbooks, a notebook, and some pens rolling around in the bottom.

“I just didn’t want you to fall behind. I didn’t know how long you were going to be, um, sick.”

Wendy looked at the girl standing in her front steps. Sporting a bob today with purple highlights streaking a mostly pink hair, Trina flashed a shy smile at Wendy before looking away. Wendy sighed at Trina’s oversized orange pullover showing a pink cartoon elephant chasing yellow butterflies which she wore over blue and yellow floral patterned pants. The pants fit her tightly, following the curve of her calves and thighs, before getting lost under Trina’s baggy sweatshirt. Pink and white checkered sneakers completed the ensemble.

Wendy couldn’t answer for the color, but she had to admit the bob haircut accentuated the girl’s face, bringing out her long sharp nose, slightly hooked, prominent cheeks, and smiling mouth with full, heart-shaped lips, adorned with purple lipstick, naturally. Wendy returned Trina’s smile, trying to capture her wide round eyes, glimmering and brown. But Trina kept looking away. Suddenly a horn honked loudly, and Wendy just then took notice of the blue and white pickup, dented and rusting, idling in her driveway, facing the street. The showoff driver must have backed in.

Trina jumped.

“I really gotta go now, but it was so nice to see you, Wendy. Are you coming to school tomorrow? If not, I’ll bring your homework tomorrow, too.”

Trina’s sweatshirt lifted as the girl climbed into the passenger seat, showing Wendy a glimpse of her round bottom with clear, peach-shaped lines sketching the curves beneath blue and yellow flowers. Then the door closed, the pickup rumbled out the driveway and down West Pigeon Street in clang of shifting gears and grinding clutch. Wendy turned into her house, dropping her homework by the sofa, before going to the kitchen for her pizza stick. As she climbed the stairs to her bedroom, she wondered about whatever happened to Betty Blake.
* * *

“This the place?” asked Uncle as Nero pulled over to the side of the road. A turnaround and lookout had been paved where the canyon veered, allowing space between the canyon’s edge and the highway.

“No. About two miles up yonder. But we can park here. And get down. That trail I used is a little steep. I’m surprised I didn’t get myself killed going down. In the state I was in.”

Nero was right about getting down. Narrow steps had been cut into the side of the canyon, running lengthwise in a slow decline. Every six feet or so a post had been hammered into the ground, over the top of which a sturdy rope ran, providing a handhold for hikers. Uncle massaged his stiff legs with his heavy hands. He groaned at the thought of going down, knowing that any descent, no matter how easy, must entail an inversely difficult going up.

“In for a penny,” Uncle muttered, following his nephew down the incline.

The path led along the jagged flow of the stream, first cutting this way, now veering the other, but about twenty-five minutes of hiking along the water’s side, Nero caught sight of the small boulder where his Ford so recently had landed. As they neared the spot, they could see great scars in the side of the canyon, where cables on heavy winches had pulled the wrecked hull of his coupe back up the canyon, scraping deep holes and gaps into the rock, uprooting the sparse vegetation.

Broken glass alone remained to tell the tale of last week’s accident. No, the week before last. How long had he been out? And yesterday was, what Monday? So the Saturday before last. Betty’s been gone a week, but now she’s calling to him in his mind. He hadn’t let his uncle know that part. No reason to add crazy to the mix of doubt, suspicion, and concern. Uncle looked at a dark stain near the boulder, amid the broken glass, a stain that might have been blood.

“And the cops just don’t know anything? I mean, about what might have happened to that Betty girl?”

“If they do, they’re not saying. Not to me, anyway. I think they think I had something to do with it. I mean, more than just crashing the car.”

“And?”

Uncle cast Nero that look, eyebrow arched, eyes narrowed.

“Well what do you think?” Nero retorted, hiding his shame of jumping while letting Betty fall. He didn’t even try to do anything. What could he have done? Die with her? Was she dead?

“I don’t know what to think, Nero. So I don’t think anything.”

“Aw, forget it. She ain’t here. I don’t know what I expected to find.”

Nero kicked a rock towards the side of the canyon. He looked up and noticed a pile of collapsed rock and small boulders at the foot of the canyon, almost straight ahead behind the boulder where his Ford crashed. The rubble sat back from the canyon wall, as if inset in the middle of two great upturned slabs of rock. He pointed it out to his uncle.

“What’s that?”

“Rubble?”

“No, I mean, what happened there? It looks kind of odd, doesn’t it? All that rubble in one spot? And the way it’s inside like that, like it’s blocking the entrance to a hole or something.”

“I don’t see nothing. Just rock is all. Which ain’t too unusual. Considering this whole canyon is rock.”

“No, something’s wrong with all that. I’m going to take a closer look.”

Uncle watched Nero stumble his way up towards the fallen rock. He started to mumble to himself after about five minutes of watching the kid do nothing but stand in front of a bunch of rocks, shoulders drooped. Then Uncle squinted his eyes, trying to make sure they didn’t lie. Was it his imagination, or did he really see his nephew wave a hand in front of face at the precise moment the rock gave way to reveal an opened chamber, a tunnel into the canyon side? Well, didn’t that just beat everything. Meantime his back screamed at him something awful, and that boulder looked to be as good a spot to sit a spell as any. Let the boy do his thing. Whatever that turned out to be. Kid’s in enough trouble without his interference.

The boulder, flat enough at the top to lie back on, had a low spot on the canyon side, low enough for Uncle to scramble up and lean back on. The sun wasn’t so bad, already it had begun its western decline, casting a fading light on another day on earth.
* * *

That night, Wendy knocked on the door to her mother’s room. Mary had avoided Wendy all evening, not even going down for supper. Which worried Wendy. Her mother always made supper, always insisted on having dinner together, especially since. That one day. Wendy stopped thinking in that direction.

“It’s just you and me now, Wendy,” she’d say. “And we can’t let each other slip away.”

Too late, Wendy thought to herself whenever this maudlin mood struck Mary.

Now Mary hid behind a locked door, refusing to answer Wendy, refusing to come out.

“Mom?” asked Wendy anxiously.

Her mother’s voice finally drifted through the closed door, low and distant. Wendy had to strain to hear it.

“I’m okay, honey. I just feel a little under the weather. I’ll be okay. I promise. Just let me be.”

Wendy shrugged and went back to her room to finish her homework. It really was thoughtful of Trina to bring it to her.

About an hour later, Steve rang the doorbell.

When Wendy answered the door, Steve brushed past her in a hurry, “Hey, kid,” said, “Your mom called me. She sounded upset, so I’m just going to run in and poke my head, okay?”

Not waiting for an answer from the teenager, Steve swept around Wendy and jogged up the stairs. Wendy stood at the bottom of the steps, scowling. Then she stuck out her right hand and flashed a quick middle finger to the unwelcome man who had so recently and so suddenly become a fixture in her life.

Who the hell does he think he is, she thought to herself bitterly and angrily. This is my house.

Steve knocked on the door, tried the handle, then reached up, found the wire key on the top ledge of the door frame, unlocked the door, and entered Mary’s darkened room. In the dim light he saw Mary curled on the bed, holding herself. He stepped softly towards the side of the bed, sat down, reached to turn on the light.

“No,” she said, “leave it off. I like it dark. I have a headache.”

Steve reached over to rub Mary’s shoulder.

“Can I get you anything?”

“No.”

“Mary, what’s wrong?”

Mary hesitated and refused to answer, but Steve persisted in a soft voice, urging without remonstrance. Finally Mary sat up.

“Fine,” she said, “but you can’t say anything. You can’t let her know that I showed you.”

“Showed me what?”

“Promise?”

“I promise.” A feeling of getting suddenly caught up in a conspiracy surged momentarily through Steve. He loved conspiracies.

Mary opened her laptop, quickly found what she was looking for, and turned the screen towards Steve.

Steve grabbed the laptop.

“Oh gosh. How do you have this?”

“This picture went all over her school. Everybody in her school has seen it.”

“Well, I mean,” Steve’s voice stammered to a halt. There really didn’t seem much for him to say.

He closed the picture, saw the other attachment and opened that before Mary had a chance to stop him.

“My goodness,” Steve said. “She really went the distance. She looks nice.”

Mary slapped his leg, suddenly happy and outraged.

“Stop that,” she said brightly. “I knew I shouldn’t have shown it to you!”

“I’m glad you did,” Steve replied. “But how did you get these? Who sent them to you?”

“Um. Well, that’s the thing. I sent did. I sent them to me. Wendy’s friend Sara emailed them to her, I saw them, forwarded them to me, and trashed hers.”

“Why did you send them to you?”

Mary didn’t answer.

“I think I have an idea,” Steve suggested. “Get undressed.”

“Steve.”

“Just do it.”

Mary started to unbutton her blouse, but Steve had already yanked her by her feet. She fell back and laughed as Steve grabbed her waist, unbuttoned her skirt, unzipped the fly and pulled her clothing off her.

Mary’s mind sped, hurtling forward through a cloud of conflicting thoughts and questions. Was she cheating on Renee now? Or had she cheated on Steve with Renee? Should she stop Steve now, or should she have stopped Renee earlier? Was she straight? Was she bisexual? Was she a lesbian? Shouldn’t she kick and protest and shout, no Steve, I’m just not into you anymore, I’m just not into men anymore? Oh but she was.

She was.

She loved the way Steve hammered her with his cock. What was it? Seven inches, eight inches? And god, it was so thick!

About to shuffle out of her blouse, Steve stopped her and said, “No. Keep it on like that, let me see your tits, though.”

Then Steve reached towards Mary’s breasts and pulled her bra cups above them, exposed them to Steve’s view.

“That should do it,” he said. He pulled down his pants and briefs, stepped out of them and stood at the side of the bed, his half-aroused dick protruding towards Mary.

“Put your mouth around me, baby. Get me hard. I’m going to come all over you.”

Mary was on fire. The heat that had kindled earlier returned, a sudden burning need for sex, for cock, for cunt, it just didn’t matter. Not to her. Not then and there. What in the world is happening to me, she thought. Then her lips wrapped around Steve’s cock as she engulfed his member, and her might went blank to rational thought

“That’s it, baby,” urged Steve, “that’s the way to make me feel good.”

Steve had taught her to suck cock.

In the short time they had been together, Steve urged her to try new things, to go out of her comfort zone, to explore her sexuality to the fullest. Mostly she had done so. Except for anal. No way was that happening. Not with him, not ever. Now, as she moved her lips and mouth up and down the length and width of Steve’s dick, she accepted the truth and wisdom of his council. Today with Renee. Now tonight with Steve.

Steve reached a full hardness. Prodding Mary’s head, he pulled her in her reluctance of his cock and pushed her back on the bed, pulling her legs around him so that his hips stood directly in front of Mary’s gaping wet pussy, right at the edge of Mary’s bed. He moved the open laptop towards her face.

“Look at it,” he said. “Look at her legs spread wide like that. Spread your legs wide like that. You want to be just like her, don’t you? You want to get fucked just like your daughter, don’t you? You want me to shoot my load right over your face.”

Steve held the tip of his cock at the hot wet hole of Mary’s pussy. Her lubrication seemed to flow around the bulbous tip as he touched her wet lips, inching forward.

“I will, you know. But you have to ask. You have to ask for it.”

Oh goddam you, Steve.

“Please, Steve. I want it.”

“Say, ‘Fuck me, Steve. Fuck me like Wendy.’”

Oh, goddam you, Steve.

“Fuck me, Steve. Fuck me like Wendy.”

Mary panted, heaved, squirmed. Short squeals and sighs burst from her open mouth as she stared at the image of her daughter on the laptop. She bent her legs, wrapped them around her lover to press him to fuck her faster, harder, to bring him fully into her pussy, to guide him fully into her being. Feeling himself on the verge an orgasm, Steve pulled out of Mary suddenly.

“Mary, look at me.”

Mary turned her as Steve climbed over her, holding his dick over her face as he spasmed and came, shooting several ropes of come over her facing before pulling back and standing up to shoot a few last ropes over her exposed and gaping fuck hole. Steve bent down, rummaged through the pockets of his trousers, brought out his cell phone and held it up.

“Pull your legs to your chest and hold them out wide. Smile at the camera, just like Wendy. Just like your daughter.”

Steve took photo after photo of Mary in the same pose her daughter had made that weekend for Brad.

Sitting at the side of the bed, he showed the pics to Mary, who looked over his shoulder, hanging an arm around him, caressing his shoulder while bringing her come-covered face close to his cheeks.

“You should pick one out and send it to Wendy,” he said. “It’s only fair. You’ve seen her, Mary. Heck, we all have. Imagine how embarrassed she feels. Try to put yourself in her place.”

“But I’m her mother,” Mary protested weakly.

“All the more reason. Let her know she’s not alone. Let her know she has you.”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll send them to you later when you make up your mind. Just let me know. Or I can just send them to you now.”

“No, don’t,” Mary replied quickly. “Let me think about it. Let me think about it for a few days, please. This is all so. So weird.”