She wasn’t technically naked: she had on some gauzy almost sheer thing Ellen had never seen before, but Joyce was nowhere near what you could call clothed.

Her mom had gotten noticeably freer with her body after the divorce, to her daughter’s occasional dismay, but this was something else altogether. Had Joyce gone nudist? Ellen was burning to know what got into her, but she carried herself so perfectly unselfconsciously—you wouldn’t have thought she was even aware of her undress—there was no way to ask. It would have been like questioning a sleepwalker.

Tracy, who looked like she was having an out-of-body experience, went straight to the dining room table and took a seat. Joyce fussed about in the kitchen. Ellen let her placesetting routine kick in: she shuttled by rote between the sideboard and the table, one plate, one utensil practically, at a time. Maybe she was the one sleepwalking. Joyce kept up some inane patter about extracurriculars, which she was always needling Ellen about doing more of. If you only knew from extracurriculars, Ellen said to herself.

Joyce came out carrying a steaming bowl of biryani. Tracy couldn’t take her eyes off of her. Walking behind Tracy’s chair on her last trip Ellen swatted her on the shoulder. Quit staring at my mom’s tits, she thought at her, but Tracy didn’t blink.

Joyce stepped back from the table, eyeing the arrangement, and shook her head. “Four, honey,” she said to Ellen. “You’ve only set three places.” She clucked her tongue and went to fetch the missing dinnerware herself.

But Dad isn’t— Ellen almost opened her mouth to protest, but then the thought hit her, it’s not Dad. Tracy had shifted in her seat, and was staring down the unlit front hall like someone witnessing an apparition. From the corner of her eye Ellen caught movement, the sound of a step, and even before she knew she knew.

He coughed when he came in and Joyce immediately dropped the silverware and trotted over to greet him, heedless of her exposure. He put down the wine bottles he’d brought in. “Hi Daddy,” she said, all throaty, and literally wrapped herself around him. He pushed her negligée up to grab a handful of bare asscheek and squeezed, Joyce cooing her pleasure. It was grotesque.

Ellen made the mistake of catching his eye. Still pawing her mom’s ass, Library Guy grinned at her with all his teeth and shot her a big, lewd wink. And it was like something snapped in her. Ellen felt suddenly, overwhelmingly tired—of everything, him, her mom, makeout practice—the whole dumb inscrutable setup. Even Tracy. Whatever this was, whatever kind of play they were all playing in, she was done. Just let’s get it over with.

Tracy had stopped watching and was occupied serving herself rice. She’s as done with it as I am, Ellen thought. She got a whiff of something from the kitchen. Samosas in the oven, Joyce had said, and Ellen grabbed a potholder from the table to go make sure they hadn’t burned.

Who could tell with any man Joyce went out with what she saw in them? Doughy in a short-sleeved business shirt and tie, somehow still unloosened, Library Guy looked like a high-school soccer coach, or a vice-principal. When the girls came in after they cleared the table, both still in their school clothes, she was on the floor, gazing up at him with big worshipful eyes, her chin on his knee. And now the negligee was gone. Completely shameless.

Right before her and Tracy sat down together on the love seat a look passed between them, and by instant agreement they both took their blouses off. As a joke. It wasn’t anything they’d cooked up beforehand. In fact they hadn’t said a word to each other since he’d shown up. Turned out LG had a thing about conversation while he was eating, though he didn’t mind hearing himself pontificate. Or Joyce burble any of her various agreeing noises. Ellen mostly just stared into the candles he’d made her light, because he wanted mood, and waited it out.

He even sounded like a vice-principal. As soon as he pushed away from the table: “Come see me when you’re done in here,” like they’d been caught skipping class or something. Tracy had the exact same reaction, she could tell. Joyce by the living room door already, waiting simpering with another wine bottle. It was the first thing he’d said to the girls directly all evening.

It was arguably a little weird, the two of them sitting there in Ellen’s living room in just their bras, but her mom being fully on display kind of swamped any lesser embarrassment. The girls were perched well forward in their seats, knees together, hands primly folded atop. That was part of the joke. It was all Ellen could do to suppress a fit of the giggles. Not that Joyce was finding any of it amusing.

“Well I think he’s gonna need to see more than that,” she told her daughter sourly. She looked back to him as if for confirmation.

“So when you looked in on em what were they up to?” he asked her. “Was I right?”

Joyce batted her eyes at him. “Oh they’d been totally making out,” she said. She had the same snitchy tone she used talking to Ellen’s therapist. “Tracy’s blouse was half undone.” She passed a finger down her sternum to illustrate.

“Really,” he said. He patted a thigh and Joyce almost literally jumped at the invitation and settled herself into his lap.

Ellen glared at her. She had an awful superior look on her face for someone who’d just been groveling naked on the floor. “I’m worried I raised a little lesbian, Daddy,” Joyce said. “I think our Leenie was tryna cop a feel.”

He rearranged her to sit astraddle his thigh, facing out at the girls. It grossed Ellen out, how spread open she was, her whole area. Those big floppy breasts. Joyce snickered at her and gave her chest a gratuitous bounce or two, like she was enjoying her daughter’s discomfort.

“You wanted to feel your girlfriend up,” LG told her.

Ellen’s face burned. She’d never been so humiliated. They were scarcely touching but she could feel Tracy stiffen up beside her. Her mom was sort of squirm-dancing on LG’s knee, with an almost feral look in her eyes. Ellen wanted to yell you got it all wrong at her but she couldn’t, not with Tracy there. But there he was, looking at her. He was waiting for his answer.

“I wanted to feel my girlfriend up.” It was hard to say but she forced herself. Anyway, it was true.

“Okay.” He touched Joyce at the waist and she sighed and collapsed back against him. He gestured at their chests with his finger. “Like the lady said, I don’t think you girls are all the way done.”

They looked down at themselves then at each other, confused. I could’ve sworn, Ellen told Tracy with her eyes. Tracy just shrugged and shook her head. This whole conversation and they hadn’t even finished taking their tops off yet.

Ellen shook her titties at him a little, not in a sexy way, just for the pleasure of having them out. Everything felt clearer with her bra gone. Lighter. She even minded it less about her mom being such a bitch. He bent his head next to Joyce’s and nodded towards Ellen’s chest. “So’s that you at her age?”

“I was a cup size bigger,” Joyce said complacently. Right, Mom, thanks, Ellen thought. Always second best.

LG had started fishing around in his pockets looking for something. Joyce watched, resting her hand meaningfully on the bulge at the front of his pants. What a trainwreck, Ellen thought. She had an itching sense of how near and naked Tracy’s breasts were to her, still she couldn’t peel her eyes away from the Joyce show. Joyce seemed to feel her daughter’s scrutiny and turned back to face her, looking amused.

“Hey,” she asked the dude brightly, “how’d you know they’d be fooling around in bed together?”

“The girls?” he said. ”It’s their homework.” He paused his fidgeting. “Makeout exercise. Gave it to em, I dunno couple weeks ago? ish?”

“Wait, so you already—” Joyce looked at him like she was trying hard to piece a thought together. “Wait, how do I know you?”

“Asked you out, you don’t remember?” He had a shrewd glint in his eye.

Joyce sighed, and her mouth stayed open. The thought wasn’t connecting. “Yeah, I can’t really place—”

“Picked you up at work. You told em you were taking a half day.”

The light dawned, and Joyce’s frown lines disappeared. “From the College.”

“There you go. The one who left you the phone message.”

“I played that so many times,” she whispered. Joyce’s eyes were lit with wonder. “That was just today!” She sighed and snuggled back into him and licked his neck. “So it only feels like I’ve known you forever,” she purred into his ear.

“I have that effect on people,” he said. He moved Joyce’s hand off his dick. Whatever he’d been looking for, he hadn’t found it. “Hang on.” He looked over Joyce’s head towards the other end of the couch. “Reach me your purse over there.”

Joyce rolled her head and lazed her arm back behind her catlike in the direction of the side table. The effort made her fall out of his lap entirely. She laughed and lay there sprawled on the couch cushion, half hanging off of it, legs splayed, making no move to get up. Ellen wondered if her mom was on drugs or something. She’d seen Joyce drunk before, but never as messy as this.

He stretched across her to retrieve the purse himself. Joyce kind of squeezed her tits up at him as he passed, and she gave Ellen another taunting smile. “You should make em show you Daddy,” Joyce said, licking her lips. She hoisted herself back upright. “See how good they’re practicing for ya.”

He’d found what he was searching for, though it looked like just a thin white stick. He tossed the purse aside. “Great minds,” he said, waggling the thing at Joyce between his fingers. “Check it out, this is gonna be a hoot.” He tossed the stick in the direction of the love seat.

Ellen jumped, but Tracy, undaunted, caught the thing without seeming to blink. The stick turned out the handle of a tootsie pop, a red one. Tracy’s fingers were already busy at unwrapping it.

“How. Many. Licks?” he intoned, arching his eyebrows at Ellen. Joyce sniggered, but Ellen was at a loss what he meant. Tracy dropped the wrapper and held the thing up to show him. “Alright babies,” he said, “cooperate. No biting. Not the lollipop anyway. See how long does it take you to get to the tootsie roll center.”

Then their tongues met and Ellen right away got the idea. She lost count pretty quick though. Tracy kept teasing the thing around her mouth, it was hard to know where one lick started and the next began. It was all just slobbery and sticky and hilarious and they were probably smearing half the lollipop juice all over their faces. At some point Ellen realized she had her fingers on Tracy’s nipples. She gave them a pinch just to confirm and it made Tracy moan right into her open mouth. She went on pinching. Her girlfriend’s titties felt so dainty to her, so precise somehow, it made her own seem clumsy and overdone.

After a time Ellen was aware of another sound than her and Tracy moaning and sucking tootsie pop, a gaggy kind of slurping sound. It reminded her of a porn she’d seen of women doing blowjobs. She wondered if Mom and Library Guy were still in the room. Briefly Ellen had the sense that it meant something those things being in her head together, and tried to think what it was. But there was Tracy’s mouth against hers like a ripe fruit, there was the center their tongues were vying to reach; and the sole idea she needed or could hold onto was the one that kept telling her lick.