Ellen was liking her mom much better now Joyce officially had a boyfriend. She was so much less uptight. Tracy said Joyce was just too cock-brained to remember how to be a bitch. It was hilarious to the girls how she’d become like, basically a nudist overnight. First thing when she came home from work, dip into the bedroom, come out in some nothing-to-the-imagination number Ellen had never seen before. Or take a shower and then just forget to put on anything at all. Like she wasn’t going to run any chance of him coming back and not finding her naked and ready.

Which, her daughter had to admit she looked pretty bangin’ naked. With all the new feelings Ellen had about titties and all. It was the and ready part, and how Joyce so obviously was, that made the girls’ stomachs flip. It was beyond thirsty. You haven’t even seen the dude since we had that takeout dinner, cool down a little, Ellen thought;— Tracy had said something about how pheromones must not work because if they did he’d have been lured back by now.

Privately though, naked Joyce begging to be used was an image Ellen had been finding it harder and harder not to want to get off to. One time it came to her while things were getting kind of hot with Trace, which wasn’t confusing at all. She was sure she ought to feel grossed out, but she couldn’t be, and wondered if that was somehow LG’s doing. Like it wouldn’t have just popped into her head all by itself. She tried to imagine it sometimes, how surreal it’d be, watching her mom actually like sucking the guy off. Kneeling next to him on the couch looking at the top of her head. Maybe it was something he wanted to make happen, and the fantasy was him getting Ellen used to the idea. Maybe it was his way of making her want it.

These were not thoughts Ellen shared with her girlfriend. Tracy was always spying on her to see if she was checking out her mom’s tits or whatever, and she’d needle Ellen mercilessly any time she thought her eyes strayed. Like Tracy was so innocent herself. Ellen didn’t care. It didn’t mean anything. With her clothes off Joyce looked like a hot MILF in a porno; a rack like that you couldn’t not check her out.

At least there were no more worries about Mom discovering makeout practice. They could do it right in the open now if they wanted to: Joyce was in love, Joyce was all for it. She started taking an interest even—dropping little hints to Ellen about loosening up, dressing sexier, being more open with her body,— like what she was really concerned about was that Ellen wasn’t doing enough to get Tracy to fuck her.

And hovering, my god. They’d come out into the front room today because Joyce had decided to clean the bedrooms for some reason and she just would not stop interrupting them. Cooing at them, telling them how cute they were. And not five minutes later here she was puttering around out here, and now she’d turned on the tv.

“Mom.” Ellen held it in as long as she could but she was steaming. The girls were on the loveseat in the reading nook, Joyce in a side chair over by the television, facing partly away. “MOM,” Ellen said, louder and more irritated.

The sound bumped down a couple notches. “What’s up doll,” Joyce said absently. She didn’t look away from the screen.

“You gotta watch that now?” Ellen gave Tracy a look and shook her head.

“It’s my homework,” her mom answered. Her voice got suddenly huskier. “Daddy texted me a link.”

Daddy, Ellen scoffed to herself. Homework was two big-tit bimbos writhing through a loud sloppy sixty-nine. “It’s distracting.”

Joyce craned her head back. “Well honey it’s just dykes.” She had this shit-eating grin on her face. “If anything I think it’d give you some encouragement.”

“Oh my god would you stop being gross!” Ellen yelled.

Whatta you bet she’s over there jacking off, Tracy whispered in her ear. Ellen’s eyes went wide. “MOM!” she shouted, “where are your hands?” Tracy choked back a laugh.

Joyce turned in her seat, looking aghast. “No, babies, really,—“ she raised her hands reflexively—“I wasn’t, I mean I wouldn’t, I just—“

“We’re gonna try on outfits,” Ellen announced, slinging herself out of Tracy’s lap and standing. She reached down to pull her girlfriend up. “And no poking your head in either this time, alright Joyce?”

Homework had reclaimed her mom’s attention already, and she didn’t answer. It was really only a few steps from the nook to the tv area but when the girls passed behind Joyce’s chair she seemed to have completely forgotten about them. Ellen cast her eyes down and caught a glimpse of the hand sneaking its way back between her mother’s bare thighs.

Tonight’s look was disco princess.

That one required spangly things, so they’d been kind of working up to it. Just yesterday they copped these cute rhinestone tiaras from a little odds shop and it was like getting a sign from the universe, and what the universe was saying was Disco Night. Ellen really hoped this was going to be the one LG finally showed up for.

A couple days after he came over for takeout he’d visited the girls at school again. They went back to that same alcove where they’d first chatted together: her and Tracy goofed around, sitting on each others’ laps, sticking their tongues in each others’ mouths, he filmed them for awhile and Tracy actually flashed him her tits, though Ellen was too shy to. No weirdness, just normal friend stuff.

Now they were more relaxed around him it turned out he was really kind of great. Ellen barely even noticed his age. He was interested in them, he wanted to know about their history together. They’d both been thrift-store babies way back in middle school, it was how they first bonded, and he thought that was very cute. He wondered what had changed that they’d stopped and they realized neither of them had any kind of answer. When was the last time they’d even thought about the memory? It made Ellen sad to think how much she’d adored that time with Tracy and how she’d just kind of let it slip right through her fingers.

When she was little—little enough her dad was still in the picture—Ellen used to love playing runway model. It was one of the few things she liked that Joyce was encouraging about. And both girls got very excited now at the thought of hitting the thrift stores like they used to, putting looks together, they could even put on shows: LG said he couldn’t guarantee his schedule but if they did like Tuesday and Friday nights he was sure he’d be able to go to one before too long, and that sealed the deal.

Tracy was rocking a pair of sequined short-shorts so tight she discovered she couldn’t wear panties. Ellen had turned away when she took them off, though she knew Tracy didn’t care. She’d matched them with a silver halter top she wore braless, that was all cling. For a girl who was so sensitive about her small tits everything Tracy picked to wear for their fashion nights was like an advertisement for nipples. Ellen watched them shift in their silver tents and her fingers itched with wanting to squeeze them.

She was dithering about a top. She had on a punky-looking plaid miniskirt that she liked and fishnets but somehow nothing in the disco pile seemed to work with them. Tracy, over in the dresser rummaging, called “Here” and tossed back a filmy dark whatever. Ellen caught the thing in the air.

It was a croptop in a mesh weave, and when Ellen put it on you could see her bra through it, with the straps and the underwire poking out. She made a face. “Doesn’t seem very disco,” she said.

“Like a Madonna shirt,” Tracy said, coming up behind her. “Lose this though.” Her fingers found the bra clasp, and Ellen’s heart skipped when it came apart. She had to remind herself to breathe. She moved only as much as she needed to to let Tracy pull her arms out of the straps and work the bra off of her. When it fell to the floor Tracy wrapped around her from behind and started nuzzling Ellen’s neck.

“It’s a lot of underboob,” Ellen whispered. She didn’t even want to think of how much her nipples were showing through.

Tracy tugged a little at the bottom of the shirt. “It’s just us,” she murmured in Ellen’s ear. And after that they were just kissing, long and slow, Tracy’s hands agonizingly just beneath Ellen’s breasts, and they stayed that way till Joyce—not poking her head in—came scratching at the bedroom door to let them know, in an excited little-girl squeal, that Daddy was on his way.

The living room where the girls were was dim, but not dim enough. Ellen sat on the floor, staring down the hall leading to the back, to the bedrooms. It was dark at that end of the house, and she wanted the dark. There were fuck noises coming from there and she wanted to sit in the dark nearby them and listen.

She heard Tracy behind her making the little panting sounds she made when she was touching herself. They’d been putting on a show, the two of them. Disco Dance Party. It’d been a fun time. Ellen wasn't sure when it had stopped.

There was this laser-light prism thing he had with him that he put on the coffee table. Pretend you’re in the club, he said. Cheesy as hell, but it worked: when he turned it on it was like finding yourself inside an electric snow globe. Ellen still felt there were rainbows in the air around her, just out of sight. Her and Tracy dancing sexy for LG, flirting their tits and their asses at each other, and even in this empty silent living room club was how Ellen remembered it,— a crush of bodies, an insane pulse of beats and lights strobing over them and all eyes watching.

She was fully topless now. She still had on the punky miniskirt but it was annoying her, it was too tight. She got up sluggishly onto her hands and knees to try pulling it down from behind, and it turned into a crawl. Unconsciously Ellen kept going, heading down the hall to the back, shedding the skirt on the way and kicking it loose once it had worked beneath her knees.

When she got outside the master bedroom Ellen collapsed next to the shut door. She was bone tired. She saw Tracy crawling sluggishly after her, head down, hair over her face, the silver halter undone and trailing on the floor. Her tiara was still on. It was quiet; whoever was fucking must have stopped. Tracy came up to straddle Ellen’s thigh and she put her forehead to the wall and buried her face in Ellen’s neck. She seemed barely conscious. She started humping lazily against Ellen’s thigh and you could tell that her short-shorts were soaked.

Ellen remembered having this earnest conversation with him about tits. Tracy’s in particular, and how much time she spent thinking about them. “I feel like I know exactly what it would feel like to touch them.” Staring at her girlfriend’s silver nipples, shouting it over the noise and the rainbow cascade.

Ellen’s hands were cupped over Tracy’s ass. The humping got a touch more serious. The bedroom door opened, and then the next thing Ellen knew LG was above her, doing a kind of pirouette to avoid her outstretched legs.

He snorted with laughter. “Well look who’s showed up for the afterparty,” he said. In the dark he was a bulk, an outline, a pressure within Ellen’s vision. “How’s my starlets then? Everything still disco?”

He had his jacket on, and he was getting something out from one of the pockets. “Thank you for the party, Daddy,” Ellen said. She felt a small tick of surprise when she said it. Guess I’m calling him that too, she thought.

The flash hit like a slap. Tracy’s face was against the wall but she mewled at the light and pressed up against Ellen even tighter. He took a few more before he was done, angling the phone this way and that to get coverage. Ellen kept her eyes down and spread her legs further apart. She hoped he wasn’t disappointed she was still in panties.

He took a couple of steps into the dark bedroom. Ellen heard the TV flip on. It was the same porno Joyce had been watching before. Her mom moaned something unintelligible, her voice a guttural rasp that sounded like pure need.

When he came out again he grabbed Tracy by the hair and pulled her head back so she was looking up at him. Tracy’s mouth hung open. “Hey,” he said, gesturing towards the room, “get in there, get your clothes off.” “Okay Daddy,” Tracy said, slurring it, and she collapsed sideways off of her perch on Ellen’s thigh and went crawling through the doorway.

He had his hand in his jacket again. Ellen heard keys jingle. She propped herself on her elbows so her tits would look bigger. He didn’t take his phone out though, just something small and sticklike that he tossed down onto her belly.

“Gotta share with the other two,” he said. Ellen picked up the tootsie pop, a red one, and started to drool. “Go on in now.”

She pitched forward from the wall and looked past the door. In the light from the TV she saw Tracy on the floor just inside, trying clumsily to work her shorts down. She should go help. But for the longest time Ellen sat there listening to Daddy's steps recede, wondering at each one if he was turning back, and only when she heard the front door close and the lock turn in it did she remember she could move.