“Mom.”

Not ten minutes. The girls were sitting in the big armchair in the formerly quiet book corner, in a lazy late-afternoon sun. Ellen was at her perennial task of getting Tracy to lower her guard so she could maybe cop a feel. It was working, too. They were in the big armchair, Ellen straddling her girlfriend’s lap and grinding as much as she could dare and being heavy with her tongue the way Tracy liked, and she was about to give. Probably be mad at her afterward, but Ellen didn’t mind. It never lasted. Boys’d wear a girl down, no reason she couldn’t.

It had been working in the bedroom too, where they started, till Joyce came puttering conspicuously around back there and being a certified mood-killer. Her and her now default nudity. So they’d retreated to the living room and here she was again, again just when Tracy was really getting going.

Tracy shook Ellen’s hands away from her. “So much for ‘straightening up’ I guess,” she grumbled. Ellen sighed. She ducked her head behind to look over at the big couch. Joyce was sitting in the corner in front of the TV, blasting away, just from the back of her head you could tell she was oblivious to everything and everyone. She’d put one of her frilly nothings on on the way in.

“Maaam-UH!” Ellen grunted into Tracy’s shoulder. The racket from the tv bumped down a notch. “Weren’t you supposedly in back tidying the bedrooms?”

However Joyce answered, it went to the screen not her. Ellen couldn’t make it out. “Mother would you turn that thing down please I’m trying to talk,” Ellen yelled.

The TV muted, and Joyce craned around in her seat to meet her daughter’s eyes. “I said this one’s girl-girl honey, you oughta like it.” Her expression was all pie-eyed innocence. Behind her a trio of silent anime-costumed camgirls were doing a messy job of lubricating a big dildo with their combined drool.

“I wasn’t commenting about the porn actually, Mother,” Ellen said. She shook her head disbelievingly at Tracy. “But yeah ok, while we’re at it, is this all you ever do anymore? Maybe take some time off, jesus.”

Joyce’s eyes went even wider. “It’s homework honey,” she said. “Daddy sent me a link.”

Daddy, Ellen scoffed to herself. Tracy, wearing a devilish expression, mouthed the word homework at her and made her middle finger into a corkscrew. Ellen groaned. It was bad enough having to listen to Joyce’s “homework” from the bedroom next door every other night. “And there’s literally no place else you can do it,” she snapped. “Right here, right now, right in front of us.”

Joyce blushed and made a small whimper of protest. For the first time a shadow of self-consciousness passed over her face. She watched her hands as if she hadn’t noticed before what they were up to. “He said for me to get out here and wait for him and be in my nightie and edge myself stupid,” she pouted. You could tell she was proud she had her instructions by heart. “I’m bein a good girl.”

“Wait you mean he’s coming? Now? Tonight?” Ellen exchanged a can you believe this shit look with her girlfriend. She threw out her hands in exasperation. “Couldn’t a led with that.”

Joyce’s stricken expression had smoothed and emptied. “He sent me a link,” she said reverently. She kept sneaking glances back at the screen, where the anime girls were play-fighting a game of who-wears-the-strapon. You could almost see her forgetting there was anything else going on. “Useless,” Ellen growled under her breath. A moment later the TV broke out in a renewed chorus of girly-girl squeals, and Joyce was back in her own world.

“Better get ready I guess,” Tracy said, smirking. Ellen, her campaign in tatters, gave up and pushed herself heavily out of the armchair. She kept Tracy interposed between her and the couch on their way out of the room, so she wouldn’t be tempted to gawk at her mom fingering herself. She couldn’t help but hear Joyce’s high-pitched whines though, and how slavishly they echoed the ones from onscreen.

“Is there such a thing as cock-brained?” Tracy asked. “Because she is like, she is the most cock-brained whore on the planet. He had to have fucked her.” It was a running debate.

They’d both gotten a little skeptical of LG after he showed up all of a sudden as her mom’s new boyfriend. And honestly, who knew even now what that was about. All she ever seemed to do was get texts from him. But then later that same week of Indian food night he showed up in the library again after class, he took them back to their alcove, they made out for him, it was like old times! Any reservations they had just melted away.

“Waddaya think?” Tracy asked. She turned this way and that in the mirror, checking out her ass inside a pair of white hot pants so thin and tight you could almost see bush. She was trying to get a good angle on them with her phone. “Those lace panties maybe? or don’t bother?” Ellen didn’t even know how you could fit panties under there.

It blew Ellen away that LG asked about their runway era. Those tragic little shows! Obviously it was just Joyce being a snitch, but he said it was charming, he seemed really genuine about it too. Said it was a shame they’d ever stopped. Got em going like they were fourteen again, babbling about thrift-store finds and looks, all the while they were on that bench climbing into each other’s laps and slapping each other’s ass cheeks and just doing general sexy horseplay for the camera. When Ellen got home that night she brought up some of her old boxes and she’d been rummaging through them odd times ever since. No plan, she just liked pulling out stuff she thought Tracy’d look cute in.

Nothing for her though. Nothing in those boxes had had to fit a girl with a Figure. She’d remembered a very tight sequined miniskirt she could filch from the depths of where Joyce never wore it, but for all that it did nice things for her legs there was nothing she had to pair it with that spoke to her. Ellen shook her head at the sad little pile of loose stuff on her bed and sighed. “None of you are a look,” she scolded them.

As soon as Joyce had said LG was coming, they both instantly knew what they had to do to greet him. Got right to it. That was their telepathy. It was like they had the same thought, it didn’t even need discussin

Tracy turned around to look at her. She’d ditched her bra too, for a backless silver halter top that turned her nipples into mesmerizing, shape-shifting little clouds of reflectance. “Nothing works,” Ellen pouted. She felt like a frump. Tracy made a sad face and reached into one of Ellen’s pulled-out drawers.

“Here.” The clouds shook, and a filmy black something sailed across the room. “Madonna shirt.” A crop top, mesh, not a close mesh. Ellen didn’t remember having it. She shrugged the thing on and went to the mirror.

It didn’t turn her into Madonna but it was a look, kind of. Close enough. Ellen didn’t like having to admit it though. The top sat off the shoulder, and she plucked at it, fussing it this way and that, frowning the whole time. Maybe the bra was wrong. Over by the dresser Tracy mugged at her from a pair of star-shaped sunglasses she’d turned up, but it didn’t get a rise. “What’s the drama?” she said in a mocking singsong.

“Straps, …” Ellen muttered, “I dunno.” She stopped plucking and hung her arms limp. “Well that’s easy,” Tracy sneered. She came up behind Ellen and without a word unhooked her bra.

“Tracy,” Ellen hissed. But as soon as the clasp released she lost all power of movement. “Relax,” Tracy said, “it’s just us.” Ellen followed in numb cooperation as Tracy pulled the straps down and her arms free of them, a doll being undressed. She searched Tracy’s eyes in the mirror but they were a million miles off behind her starlet glasses. The bra fell away from the front and onto the floor. “Disco,” Tracy murmured, sliding her hands across Ellen’s ribs and under the seethrough mesh and cupping them over her bare tits.

She’s not gay, Ellen reminded herself. The rules hadn’t changed. Tracy kneaded indolently at her breasts, alternating hands. They were both just hyped about the dressup. Ellen watched them sway stupidly together in the mirror, like exhausted dance partners. We’re not gay and we’re not in love, she promised Tracy in her head, so she’d never have to take her hands away and they could stay in this limbo forever.

They were lost in the mirror still when they heard a scratching at the door, and Joyce in a breathy, excited little-girl’s voice calling out from the other side Daddy’s home.

Ellen came to on the floor, staring down the hall towards the back of the house. It was dark down there. It was dark in the living room too, but not as completely. She craved the dark. The dark was warmth and concealment. There were fuck noises coming from the dark, and she wanted to be near them, wanted to wrap herself up in the creaks and the moans and let them coax her back to sleep.

She heard her stomach growl, and tried to remember eating. All she could really remember was lights, a mad prismatic glitter of lights; her and Tracy dancing together nonstop in a spotlit crush of bodies and the relentless bassy throb of the club. There hadn’t been any lights. There hadn’t been a club. They hadn’t gone anywhere. Even when they were dancing, even when she utterly believed in the club, she knew it was just her living room. But that only made it more magic. And she still believed in it kind of, like you believed in a dream you hadn’t quite woken up from.

Tracy was in the dark. Finding herself on all fours, crawling back there to find her, Ellen felt like her brain was playing catchup to her body. She had a vague idea that when she found her girlfriend they could wish themselves back in the club again. At the edge of the living room she had to pause for a minute, because her skirt was bunching below her thighs and impeding her. It was the only thing she still had on, other than a pair of fishnets she didn’t remember getting into. On the hardwood they kind of bit at her knees. Once she kicked the skirt off and got onto the hall carpet the going was easier.

Making it down the length of the hall exhausted her though, and beside the door to the darkened master bedroom Ellen turned and collapsed, legs akimbo, back propped against the wall. It was quiet. She wasn’t hearing the fuck noises anymore. Not far away from her someone was panting softly, a repeated guttural huh-huh-huh. By the time she figured out what was making the sound Tracy had left off masturbating and was climbing on top of her. She started humping Ellen’s thigh, panting that same huh-huh-huh into Ellen’s ear. Her short-shorts were soaked. The dampness chafed against Ellen’s skin. She imagined cupping Tracy’s ass to make her go harder but felt too weak to lift her arms from the floor.

Tracy took rough hold of Ellen’s breast and started mauling it. Ellen closed her eyes. She saw Tracy dancing again, the silver tents of her nipples flashing on and off like they were ads for nipples, neon signs repeating lick me. She heard the music going TITS tits TITS tits TITS. Her mom came up to dance. Ellen ripped her top off and they lined up side by side, so LG and the whole club could get a kick out of them bouncing their naked mommy-daughter titties in time together. Rainbow fireflies swarmed through the air, brightening and dimming with the pulse of the music.

Ellen’s nipples itched. She thought about how hot it would be if she had piercings that Tracy could play with. Someone opened the bedroom door, and she sensed a bulk overhead stumbling, or doing a pirouette to avoid stumbling, around her stretched-out legs. She heard LG say “shit” in a sort of neutral way and then a sharp snort of laughter.

The flash hit like a slap. Tracy whinged at the light and buried her face into Ellen’s neck. He moved around to the other side and took another. Ellen still didn’t think to shield her eyes, but at least this one she wasn’t looking straight into.

“Here for the afterparty?” he chuckled. He stepped across Ellen and went back into the bedroom. The TV flipped on, not loud but the suddenness was jolting. A weak, fickle light leaked out into the hall. From the hectic sound of their squeals the anime girls were well into the ass-fucking portion of the program. They’d had the vid looping in the background all the while they were dancing.

LG came back out, a dull occlusion in Ellen’s still blotchy sight. Within the room her mom called out something wordless, a low, animal noise of complaint. He reached down and grabbed Tracy by the hair, pulling her head back to make her look up. Tracy’s mouth hung open and she seemed barely conscious. “Alright, Hollywood, showtime,” he told her. “Get on in there, get naked.” “Okay Daddy,” Tracy said. Too loud, like she was drunk. With a light sideways yank he tossed her off her perch on Ellen’s thigh, she keeled over and as soon as her hands hit the floor she was crawling. The tails of the untied halter top dangled beneath her like braids.

I guess we’re all calling him Daddy, Ellen thought.

He had a coat on, and was patting around it trying to find something. Ellen heard keys jingle. She scooched herself down the wall a bit and got onto her elbows, so her rack would look fuller.

He noticed the movement and glanced down at her. “You like showing off your tits,” he said. Ellen’s tits gave an answering shimmy. “I like showing off my tits Daddy,” she said in a hot whisper. She looked down her torso, surprised to see that her hand had got inside her hose and was busy working her clit. Slut, Ellen said to herself. That made her giggle, and she grinned up at him. “My pussy too, huh Daddy,” she told him, and gasped when her fingers gave her an encouraging pinch.

“Practice makes perfect,” he said absently. He found what he was looking for and pulled his hand out. All Ellen could see in the dim was, it wasn’t the phone, and she felt deflated. She was all set! She was sure she wouldn’t flinch this time. She liked showing off her tits. She wanted to tell him but then he surprised her, launching whatever the thing was on a trajectory down to her belly. It landed right above the hem of her fishnets: a red paper capsule with a white stick on the end. Ellen started to drool.

“All three a yiz now,” he said. “Make sure you lick it all gone.”

She picked up the tootsie pop and rolled the stick between her thumb and her fingers, thinking how it’d be if she unwrapped it and maybe teased her hole with it for a bit before she went in. Get it all pre-smeared with her juice. He’d want pictures of that. She looked up to ask but Daddy had turned away already, and was starting towards the front. Maybe next time, Ellen told herself.

Inside the bedroom Joyce was squealing in counterpoint with the camgirls. Ellen struggled to a sitting position and pitched forward to look in. Just past the threshold, bathed in TV light, Tracy lay on her back on the floor, pawing stuporously at her shorts trying to work them off her ass. Ellen knew she should go help, but for the longest time she stayed as she was, slumped over from the wall, staring at the pop in her hand, listening to the heavy male footfalls recede. Not till she heard the front door shut, and the deadbolt turn, did Ellen remember the candy was a present, and she had to go share.