She wasn’t really naked though.

She had on some gauzy short thing Ellen had never seen before, and no underwear, so you could see practically everything if you wanted to, but technically at least her mother was clothed. For whatever that was worth. Ellen was burning just to know why. What had gotten into her. But Joyce was so matter-of-fact about her undress—so unconscious of it, the way she was carrying herself—that Ellen couldn’t find the words to ask. It would have been like questioning a sleepwalker.

Ellen wondered if she was the one sleepwalking. Tracy sat at the dining table transfixed. Ellen kept her head down, only sneaking the odd sidelong glance, numbly back and forth between the sideboard and table going about the place-setting. From the kitchen Joyce kept up an inane, mostly one-way patter with Tracy about the yearbook committee, and why they both weren’t doing it. Will you ever let up with that, Ellen thought at her. Tracy mumbled what replies she managed to come out with and never took her eyes off Joyce. Walking past on one of her trips Ellen swatted her on the shoulder, trying to break the girl’s focus, but to no effect.

Joyce brought a bowl of rice out. She put in the middle of the table and stepped back, eyeing the arrangement skeptically. “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 doesn’t— Ellen almost opened her mouth to protest, but then the thought hit her, it's not Dad. Tracy 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 set the plate down and trotted over to him, heedless how she was exposed. “Hi Daddy,” she said, all throaty, and literally wrapped herself around him. He clapped a thick hand onto her bare asscheek and squeezed, Joyce squealing her pleasure. It was grotesque.

Ellen made the mistake of catching his eye. Still pawing her mom’s ass, he grinned at her with all his teeth and shot her a big, lewd wink. And it was like something snapped at that point. Ellen felt suddenly, overwhelmingly tired—of everything, him, her mom, makeout practice—the whole stupid setup. Even Tracy. Whatever this was, whatever kind of play it was they were living in, it didn’t matter anymore. She was done.

Tracy had turned away from the scene and was occupied serving herself pilaf. She’s as over it as I am, Ellen thought. She heard her stomach growl. Samosas in the oven, her mom had said, and Ellen grabbed a potholder from the table to go fetch the plate.

When they came into the living room, both girls took places next to one another on the love seat. It took them a second to realize they’d sat exactly the same way, butts over the edge, very prim, knees together in front, hands folded tidily atop. They didn’t dare look at each other. It was all they could do to suppress a fit of giggles.

They hadn’t discussed it or anything. They actually hadn’t said a word to each other this last hour. He didn’t like conversation while he ate, so they’d passed dinner in silence; and after he took Joyce with him out of the dining room the hush lingered, while the girls cleared the table together and doused the candles he’d made Joyce light, for the mood, and bagged up the trash.

Come see me when you’re done he’d said on the way out. Ellen and Tracy immediately exchanged a look and it was like a moment of telepathy. Uh oh, the vice principal wants us. Both of them still in their school clothes. Plus he looked the part, put a desk in front of him you’d scarcely tell the difference. If you ignored that this particular vice principal had a naked whore kneeling at his feet and also the naked whore was Ellen’s mom.

“So were they up to anything?” he asked down at Joyce. “When you went in?”

She batted her eyes at him. “Just sorta languishing,” Joyce sighed. She glanced toward the girls and smirked.  “You could totally tell they’d been getting at it, though.”

Ellen didn’t know why this was so irritating; it’s not like it was any big news to him. Her mom just seemed so smug, thinking she had something on them.

Joyce lolled her head back on the couch and gazed at him from that angle. “Tracy’s blouse was totally undone,” she said, passing a finger down between her breasts.

“Really,” he said, leering. He flicked his eyes over in Tracy’s direction, then beckoned to Joyce to come up into his lap. She fit herself as close against him as she could and Ellen thought, great, more groping, but all he did was rearrange her so she and her breasts were facing out more, towards the girls. The cloth was thin enough Ellen could see how hard and dark her nipples were.

“Top to bottom,” Joyce said. She smiled wickedly at Ellen, a conspirator’s smile. “If I didn’t know any better I’d say our Leenie was tryna cop a feel.”

Ellen’s face burned. He fixed her with a look. “You wanted to feel up your girlfriend’s tits,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

She’d never felt so humiliated. She wanted to cry. She wanted to disappear. She wanted to beg Tracy’s forgiveness while she stroked her breasts.

“Well what are you waiting for?” he asked Tracy. “Whip ‘em out. Top off, bra off. And no covering yourself up. Stay sitting straight.” From the side Ellen could see her friend’s hands start moving.

Ellen felt like she was having an out-of-body experience. “You too, babe,” he said. “See what we’re working with.” And then her own fingers were working. And then her and Tracy were sitting just where they had been, side by side, backs straight, hands folded knees together, exactly like before only topless.

Suddenly it seemed weird to her that they'd even been wearing tops.

He leaned his head in to Joyce and nodded towards Ellen. “Those what yours looked like? back in the day?”

“I was bigger.” Joyce’s expression was completely deadpan, but Ellen saw a sour little curl on her lips. Right, Mom, thanks, Ellen thought. Always number two.

There was something odd about all this, but Ellen couldn’t see any awareness of that in Joyce’s face. She tried to focus as much of her attention as she could to the side, on Tracy’s small, wasp-sting, perfect little breasts as she could, while never being able to move her eyes off her mom. The guy had his hand in the pocket of his jeans, and he seemed to be fishing for something in there. Joyce watched him for a second, then asked brightly, “Hey how’d you know they’d be fooling around with each other?”

“Told em to.” He paused his fidgeting. “Makeout practice. Been at it, week and a half? two weeks?”

“Wait,” she said, “so you met—“ Joyce’s face clouded. He looked at her intently. She glanced dubiously over at her daughter, like she was struggling to put a thought together. “Wait. How long have we been seeing each other?”

He arched his eyebrows. “Four hours now?” he said. “I came to your office to introduce myself, remember?”

“Oh. Right.” Joyce went out of focus for a moment, then she sighed and something in her seemed to melt. Her look at him turned smoky and insinuating. “Feels like I’ve known you forever,” she purred, snuggling back into him and licking his neck.

“I have that effect,” he said. He took his hand back out of his pocket. Whatever he was 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 sprawled her arm behind her catlike in the direction of the side table, and the stretch made her fall out of his lap entirely. She giggled and lay sprawled where she landed, half reclined, legs open, making no move to get up. Ellen wondered if she was drunk, or on drugs or something. She could fully see her mom’s untrimmed bush.

He stretched across her to retrieve the purse himself. Joyce kind of pushed her breasts up at him when he passed, and then she looked back at Ellen with that taunting smile again. “You should make em show you Daddy,” Joyce said. She licked her lips. “See how good they’re practicing for you.”

He’d found what he was looking for, something with a thin stick. He tossed the purse aside. “Great minds,” he said, waggling the thing at Joyce between his fingers. “This is always a hoot.” He tossed the stick in Tracy’s direction.

There wasn’t time for her to be startled; her fingers went up to catch it automatically, the same way they’d gone to her buttons. Ellen saw it was a tootsie pop. Red. Automatically Tracy set to unwrapping it.

“How. Many. Licks?” he intoned, arching his eyebrows at Joyce. She snickered. He turned to the girls. “Alright babies,” he said, “cooperate. No biting. Not the lollipop anyway. Let’s see can you get all the way down to the center.”

As soon as their tongues met they fell into a rhythm. Tracy kept custody of the pop and kept it moving, kept teasing with it. It was slobbery and sticky and sweet and their faces were a mess and the longer they went the more Ellen lost track of herself. Entirely on their own her fingers found their way to Tracy’s nipples. For a moment she wasn’t really sure what she was touching. Then she pinched them and Tracy moaned around the pop into her mouth. They felt delicate and somehow precise to Ellen’s touch, and made her a little sorry for her own grosser ones.

After a time she was aware of a kind of gagging slurping sound, not a sound either her or Tracy were making. It reminded her of a porno she’d seen of women doing blowjobs. She wondered if Mom and Library Guy were still in the room. For a moment Ellen had the sense that it meant something that those things were in her head together, and wondered what, but there was Tracy’s firm tongue pressed against hers, and the center they'd been tasked to reach; and it was too much work to hold on to any idea that wasn’t lick.