Samantha smiled as she leaned back across the counter and looked over her kitchen. It wasn’t particularly large even with the island at the center, but that wasn’t what she cared about. There was something much more important than the range, the counter space, or the pots and pans hanging high enough above the center island.

All of it was, at last, completely spotless.

Before it hadn’t been particularly messy, even with a daughter like Chloe who had a bad tendency of forgetting to so much as rinse off her dishes or a wife like Janice and her occasional habit of failing to notice any mess she’d left on the floor. Neither of them made Samantha’s tasks particularly difficult or taxing, but it would be hard to forget the quirks they threw in her day.

Without those quirks in front of her, it was even possible for her to smile at the thought of her family’s various blind spots.

Now, no matter how hard Samantha looked, there was nothing left that demanded to be placed on a to-do list. Later she’d still need to worry about dinner, and then cleaning up after that. For the moment however, especially with it being only half an hour past noon, it was still early enough in the day that without some special circumstances there was no need to worry about those concerns quite yet.

That meant that for the foreseeable future, Samantha was left to her own devices.

After a quick walkthrough of the rest of her small suburban home, Samantha made her way to the couch, wrapped herself up in a nice fluffy blanket. She was dressed warmly enough, a light sweater and a skirt that nearly reached down to her ankles, both a rather sensible dark blue, but there was a chill in the air—just enough to make her still feel cold. Running the heater when she was the only one home sounded silly when she enjoyed the warmth of a blanket more, anyway. At last, Samantha pulled on her reading glasses and settled in with a book.

Nothing about it was special, but it was the latest romance novel she’d set to devouring and it was doing a fine enough job of holding her attention.

The quirk of this story was in the mystery its beautiful protagonist Astrid was slowly unraveling as she explored her growing attraction to a woman she’d only met at the beginning of the story. Samantha didn’t consider herself any good at solving mysteries, but it added just enough of something extra to keep her wholly submerged as she slowly made her way through the narrative.

She was so submerged in the story that she’d entirely missed hours ticking away. Half past noon became two, and then half past two. No longer was the mystery what distracted Samantha’s thoughts, but a scene of the beautiful Astrid locked away in a room with her new lover. She was making a show of slowly unbuttoning her blouse in a lazy strip tease, and Samantha was too flushed to even think of denying that the intimate writing was carrying her right along with it. I don’t think I could make something like that nearly as sexy. I’d be too nervous, too shy…

Her lips curled into a wry grin as she flipped the page.

I’m sure if I even tried Janice would be so shocked she’d faint…

Turning the page, Samantha’s grin fell away as her teeth closed around her bottom lip. All thoughts of Janice, or how unappealing her own version of the dance would be vanished from her mind entirely. Astrid’s lacy bra was hitting the floor. She was moving in, just about to straddle her lover. What would come next was all too obvious, and Samantha was looking forward to living vicariously through—

BIN-BON!

Samantha screamed as the illusion was broken, and her jerking arms threw the book to the floor with its spine pointing crookedly up to the ceiling.

A hand rose to her chest as Samantha struggled to regain her breath. Her heart was racing. Like waking up from a particularly deep nap or an engrossing daydream, Samantha needed a moment to remember the place and the context around her. She was not watching Astrid about to have hot, sweaty sex with her lover who still very much remained half a mystery so near the halfway point of the novel.

She was on her couch, and someone was interrupting her lazy afternoon.

BIN-BON!

Someone, that she soon worried, wouldn’t wait around forever.

If that’s some important package, or someone stopping by to tell me something that only felt right in person… if something happened to Chloe…!

Hastily, she grabbed the book up from the floor and flipped to quickly find the right page. Bookmark shoved in between the pages with a firmness not unlike the friction she’d imagined Astrid was so soon to feel, Samantha disentangled herself from the blanket, and soon reached the front door. Not even bothering to check through the nearby window she unlocked and practically ripped open the door.

“Hey, Mrs. Kerr.”

It wasn’t a package delivery service, or administration from Chloe’s school suddenly forgetting Samantha’s phone number. It wasn’t any number of other very time-limited and important people that it could be…

It was Mary Lyons.

Chloe’s best friend.

Backpack slung over one shoulder, sinking into a cute leather jacket, short blonde hair looking tousled and messy, Mary grinned up at Samantha in a way that while not inappropriate, still had the housewife blushing for no particular reason. Something about the way the younger woman looked was impossible not to react to, and Samantha was far too off-kilter to rein in all of her reactions.

“Hello, Mary…! I’m s-sorry, but Chloe isn’t home yet!” Samantha’s blush wasn’t going to go away any time soon if she kept stammering, but her heart was still racing too quickly for her to calm herself.

Some combination of the book she’d been reading, the doorbell, and Mary all had Samantha too stimulated to center herself without effort she wasn’t putting in.

“I know.”

Mary smirked.

Nothing about it was egregious. It made sense that Mary would know where her best friend was so soon after school. Her tone wasn’t particularly cold or cruel.

It was smug, but not enough for Samantha to know any helpful way to object.

“…Oh.”

Mary laughed, and raised an eyebrow. “Nestled in the Darkness? I would’ve thought it was a bit early for that.” She pointed straight up to where the sun was still shining overhead.

Samantha blinked in confusion.

Her mind was racing too quickly to help her follow Mary at all.

In a smooth motion Mary’s hand shifted from pointing up, to forward at Samantha. When she still didn’t react, Mary reached forward until she was poking the book that Samantha was still clutching against herself. “This?”

Samantha’s face was burning so hot she wouldn’t have been surprised if her cheeks caught fire. “Oh! It’s… it’s none of your business, really! Just something I was reading…”

“Uh-huh.” Mary giggled, shrugging what felt like dramatically with the way it shifted her backpack. “You know you’re really cute when you’re like this? Can I come in, please? I forgot something in Chloe’s room and she has volleyball practice today. I didn’t really feel like hanging out and waiting for her to finish up…”

Right! It was all Samantha could do to stop herself from smacking her own forehead. Of course! Volleyball practice… No wonder Mary is teasing me!

She stepped back away from the door, motioning inside. “Please, come in… don’t forget to take off your shoes…!” Even if Mary had been coming over to visit for years, it was an instinct for Samantha and it would be far too much to expect her to not give way to instinct while still so flushed and uncomfortable. “What do you mean when I’m ‘like this’, Mary?”

Mary lifted her feet, up behind her and yanked her shoes off of her feet in the most casual way that she could as if dismissing the worry of her shoes while still attending to Samantha’s request at the same time. She pulled the door closed, and the smirk on her face only deepened. “Embarrassed. You get so red. It’s a lot like Chloe, actually. You two can be a lot alike sometimes.”

Samantha couldn’t help but laugh. Being compared to her eighteen year old daughter was a nicer feeling than she expected it to be. “Thank you, Mary… You know where Chloe’s room is!”

“Uh-huh.”

Mary laughed, shaking her head as she moved around Samantha before she stopped and turned back to glance at Samantha. “Hmm. No, I take it back.”

Before she could think to bite it back, Samantha whined. The praise had been a very pleasant, warm feeling. I’ve known Mary for… how long…? Years for sure…! And it’s not the first time that she’s said something nice about me. She’s pretty polite overall, and I know she’s a good friend to Chloe, but something about her saying that… I don’t know why, but it was nice. Samantha frowned, looking genuinely hurt as she shifted awkwardly. Did I do something wrong? Was it the book? It’s really not that important to me—

“You’re always cute.”

Samantha laughed at herself as Mary disappeared out of view. Her blush felt like it wasn’t liable to go away any time soon. If it could burn into her cheeks like pixels on a broken monitor, that felt entirely possible.

“Thank you, Mary, but you really don’t need to say anything like that about an old woman like me!” Samantha called after Mary as she made her way back to the living room to set her book on the small table beside the couch. Astrid’s adventures in romance would need to wait—at least until Mary found what she was looking for.

“Don’t be silly!” Mary called out from several rooms away. “You’re not some ‘old woman’ or anything like that! I know you’ve told me how old you were before and I never believed it…!”

Falling back onto the couch, Samantha shook her head.

It’s nice to be humored by someone my daughter’s age like this, but there’s no way she’s not just being nice. She sighed, finally starting to relax. A lazy smile spread across her face as her cheeks slowly turned back to their naturally pale state. I guess I haven’t been hearing things like that enough with Janice working so much overtime… I can’t remember the last time she did much more than reheat leftovers and then pass out…

Lost in her thoughts, Samantha didn’t realize when Mary stood in front of her until the younger woman cleared her throat. “I’m not kidding. You’re really beautiful, Mrs. Kerr. I always thought you were really pretty—ever since I met Chloe back in junior high.”

Something that Samantha couldn’t place in Mary’s expression had her blushing all over again. At least she could be thankful that she hadn’t spaced out so much that Mary moving in front of her hadn’t startled her. “That’s… that’s very kind of you…?” Samantha smiled a little wider in a lame attempt to cover up how much disbelief screamed in her tone. “You know you don’t need to call me Mrs. Kerr, right? I’m not a teacher. I’m an adult, but I don’t want you to feel like I’m someone you need to treat like that… okay?”

For several moments Mary just stared at Samantha. She didn’t say a thing, and nothing about her glance was leering or unwelcome, but there was a certain intensity to it that made Samantha squirm with vague discomfort.

The silence was nearly deafening, but Samantha didn’t have any idea what to do to move the moment forward. She had no words of her own, her only thoughts were half formed curiosity and uncertainty.

Analyzing.

That would be the best way to describe the way Mary looked at her.

“I can call you Samantha, then?” Mary smiled. It was a much calmer smile, and one that hinted at an almost giddy happiness.

“I’ve only been saying it for at least two years now…! You’re eighteen, a senior in high school... you need to start calling other adults by their actual names!” Samantha’s flush deepened again. She’d meant to sound joking, but instead it sounded far closer to exasperated. “Sorry! I don’t know why… yes. You can call me Samantha. I’d like that, honestly. Almost all of Chloe’s friends call me ‘Mrs. Kerr’ or ‘Chloe’s mom’ and that’s not bad but it’s not really my name… and being a full time mom and wife means I’m a little bit too busy to have a lot of friends my own age.”

Nothing about Chloe made her a difficult woman to raise. She didn’t cause trouble, and even if she’d been playing volleyball for years she wasn’t particularly injury prone. Janice didn’t need much more than dinner when she got home, lunch packed and ready for her in the morning, and sometimes a quick breakfast before she was out the door.

It made it a lot easier for Samantha to express her situation with a bit of lying.

Mary frowned, shifting her weight as she leaned closer to Samantha with a certain physical emphasis. “That doesn’t make sense to me. You’ve always been really nice to me. Chloe never says anything mean about you—” She briefly cut herself off for a quick snicker. “Except to complain that you nag her about her homework sometimes… which after last year, that is entirely her own fault. Not really yours…”

Samantha laughed, finally letting out a heavy breath as some of her built up anxiety from the time between the doorbell and that moment finally subsided. “Thank you. You’re very kind. It’s… just the way it is…! But don’t worry about an old—about a an older woman like me. Is that alright?”

Rolling her eyes, Mary gave an unconcerned shrug.

A shine from a glossy cover drew Samantha’s eyes as she saw a book in her arms—one that she recognized. “What… what are you doing with…” Samantha’s cheeks flushed darkly as she pointed to the book.

Mary twisted her face in confusion before she glanced down and laughed. “This was what I forgot over here. I have to do a psych report on something interesting, so I decided to pick something that always sounded at least sort of interesting even if I don’t know much about it. When we were talking about it in school the other day Chloe said she saw a book about it on one of the bookshelves…” Mary motioned towards a shelf with a notable empty spot over by the far wall. “So she brought it into her room to let me borrow… buuuut I forgot it!”

I know that I was the one who bought that book, but… It… was just something I saw, that I wanted to have around, I never… Samantha’s breath caught in her throat. She knew it was her copy from the creases on the spine. It was a book she’d bought, and nothing she’d hoped for ever came from it.

Susie Blanche’s Deep Exploration of Hypnosis.

“You… don’t mind if I borrow it, do you?” Mary raised a bright-yellow eyebrow. “I’m supposed to use a source that isn’t a textbook, and isn’t online, so… This is kind of perfect. I don’t want to go to the library. They moved it way too far away last year.”

Samantha twisted her face.

There’s no way I can reasonably say no! The library is so inconvenient now, and it’s just a book about hypnosis! Nothing about it is naughty or… but being responsible for my daughter’s friend learning about hypnosis…

Mary couldn’t see the flush on Samantha’s thighs, but the older woman couldn’t stop herself from feeling it.

No, Samantha.

Stop that.

Bad!

“Of course you can borrow it! Please don’t highlight any of the pages?” Samantha winced, laughing at herself as she waved both of her hands to try casually dismissing her own words. Unfortunately, the gesture became far more dramatic. “I just don’t like my books being marked up, that’s all! My mother always used to say how important it was to keep books safe and—”

“Hey.” Mary smiled a lot softer, and set down the book beside Samantha on the couch. A moment later she was pulling Samantha into a tight hug. “Don’t worry about it, okay? I’ll take good care of it. You won’t even realize I used it, okay?”

Samantha returned the hug, and then nodded sheepishly as Mary pulled away. “Of course. Thank you, Mary. Is there anything else I can do for you…?”

Mary tapped a finger against her own lips for several long moments. She looked around as if looking for anything else interesting, and then shook her head.

“Naaaaaaah… Not right now! I’m going to go home and get to work on this!” She adjusted her backpack so it rested over both of her shoulders, and then held the book to her chest with both of her arms. “Chloe doesn’t take psych, but she was whining at lunch about a big test coming up in trig, so don’t let her forget about that!” She winked conspiratorially before moving back to the foyer.

Clueless for how to react, Samantha stayed in place on the couch. She can’t tell what that book means to you. There’s no way she can. It took more effort than Samantha was ready to admit to herself before she felt comfortable standing, but when she did, she made sure more than once to smooth out her skirt and to keep herself from squirming.

Mary was already wearing her shoes, and reaching for the doorknob.

“I won’t! Thank you, Mary! If there’s ever anything I can do…!”

With a grin, Mary gave a little wave before pulling open the door. “I’ll make sure to let you know! Don’t worry about it. I’m a pretty independent girl, Samantha. And I mean it!” She stepped outside, pulling the door half closed behind her. “You’re pretty!”

Before Samantha could get a word in edgewise the door closed.

All that she could do was laugh as she made her way over to the door and threw the deadbolt. She could hear Mary stepping away, whistling to herself enthusiastically.

“What am I going to do about that girl…” Samantha asked herself.

She didn’t ask herself what she was going to do about the feeling still tingling between her thighs. That, she hoped, could be solved by reading more of Astrid’s adventures, nestled away in such romantic, lustful darkness.

That must be why I’m so flustered! Samantha laughed as she made her way back over to the couch. She settled down, and pulled the blanket back over herself. I was just about to read a steamy sex scene. Nothing about my daughter’s young, pretty best friend learning about hypnosis has me hot and bothered. I don’t need that—and I don’t want it! C’mon, Samantha… have more faith in yourself!

You’re not a creep!

Laughing to herself, Samantha pulled on her reading glasses and slipped back a few pages. She needed to get back in the mood first, or the scene wouldn’t hit the same.

Outside, Mary was standing at the end of the walkway leading down to Samantha’s home. She stared at the front door, her teeth closing around her bottom lip. Making a thoughtful, quiet sound, she squeezed the book to her chest before popping in her wireless earbuds. With occasional glances behind herself, she made her way home with a dumb grin on her lips.