I posted about this over at story ideas (http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=706993) and I've finished the first half of the story in which the stepmother attempts to seduce her stepson to steal his inheritance. Just looking for feedback on this working draft under a working title:
Marisol stood in the doorway holding two plates, an apron around her waist, looking like a model housewife. When I say model, I mean Victoria's Secret. No shirt, no pants, just a bra, stockings, and apron.
“Breakfast? I decided to make it myself since the cook is on vacation.”
“Uh, yeah,” I stammered, my throat going dry.
She looked as if she had just come back from those photo shoots she talked about doing before she had married my father. Okay, so when I said model, I actually meant Sears Catalog. That was the big achievement of the last decade of her life. Her other small-time modeling jobs became no-time modeling jobs when she met Dad.
The unnecessarily long table forced her to trek across the room to reach the end I was sitting at. I picked up my glass and drank to make it less obvious that my gaze was not eye-level. She leaned over to put the plate on the table, effectively serving up her cleavage along with a side of eggs and bacon. I sputtered into my water.
“Something wrong?” she asked, still leaning over, looking slightly concerned.
I would have said, “No, but something's very right,” if she weren't my stepmother. I should have said, “Yes, you're half-naked,” if I weren't mesmerized by the sight in front of me.
“No,” I whispered. She took her hand off the plate and turned to walk to her seat. I was actually a little disappointed to find that she had panties on underneath that apron. She untied it and draped it over her seat.
“Sure? You look a little funny or pale or something.” She took a bite of her eggs, twirling her fork in her mouth, almost fellating it. Was this how she ate breakfast? Maybe so. In the two years and change she lived here, we rarely ate a meal together.
“Yeah, I'm fine, Mari, it's just....” I trailed off as her tongue gently fondled a strip of bacon she was pushing into her mouth. To my embarrassment, I felt a little swelling in my pants.
“Oh, silly me. I forgot about this,” she snapped her bra straps and traced her hands down her half-nude body to indicate what she was talking about. “I'm modeling this for a shoot today, and I like to wear what I'm modeling beforehand. It's like practice, you know.”
I nodded and took a bite of the eggs. I suspected her cooking would be rancid considering that she wasn't expected to do anything here, much less operate a stove, but it was just the opposite.
“That's good, I guess. Trying to get back into work again,” I said, a token offering of praise. I started shoveling down the eggs and hash browns, trying to distract myself from what was across the table.
“I hope so. But I dunno about these. Do you think the bra makes my boobs look funny?” Typical Mari, fishing for compliments. She knew damn well she'd make the photographer cream his pants looking like that. She was a trophy wife, after all. If her life had a job description, it would read “Stand around and look pretty.”
I looked up from my plate to reassure her that she was as sexy as she knew she was, but when the words failed to make it from brain to tongue. She was making a spectacle of herself across the table from me, caressing her breasts through the black lace of her bra.
“It just feels like something's off, like it doesn't fit right.” She held her hands beneath the cups and jiggled, making them bounce inside the fabric. I just continued to stare as she reached around her back. Her chest sunk as the clasp opened and she hooked her thumbs through the straps. My erection now pressed into the bottom of the table.
“Maybe if I just readjust this –” The bra was hanging from her outstretched arms, just barely covering the parts it was supposed to hide. She stopped and gave a faint grin. “Oh, how rude of me. You probably don't wanna see your stepmother undressing while you're eating breakfast.”
Maybe if she didn't look like you, Mari. She pulled the undergarment back on and closed the clasp. I cursed silently even though my shame had grown along with the bulge in my pants.
“You think it looks okay, though?” Still fishing.
“Yes, Mari, you and your boobs look fine.” Why had I taken the bait?
---
Honestly, I never cared about Mari before that incident, not as a stepmother, not as a member of the household, not even as an object of lust. Okay, so there were a few exceptions. I had made love to her a number of times in my dreams. But that didn't mean anything – just last week I dreamed about Mrs. Grundy, that old crone of a third grade teacher. Well, dreams can't all be good.
Then there was the end of sophomore year. My friend-with-benefits had gone back across the country for the summer and I was getting restless without her. I sat in my room clicking through pages upon pages of porn, but I had gotten too used to the real thing. Sliding back from my desk and looking out the window, I saw Mari sunbathing by the pool. I slipped on my trunks and headed out to the pool, just so desperate at that moment to see some skin.
There she was, her top undone, her sunglasses perched on her head, and her hair splashed across her pillow. Dad's trophy glittered in the sunlight. Her caramel skin had a natural sheen. Her rear, covered only by a skimpy thong, invited lengthy stares. Leaning on the edge of the pool, stroking myself, I realized what power feminine beauty held. I devoured every inch of her body, distraught by the fact that concentrating on one inch meant I had to ignore all the others. I shot off into the water. My sudden lust for her seemed to leave my body as quickly as my seed had. She had served her purpose. She was back to being a non-entity.
That's what Mari was. That's what all of my family was. My biological mother had divorced my father when I was two and went on some kind of humanitarian mission in Africa, never to be heard from again. The subsequent marriage lasted all of my middle school years. Then there was Mari. I was spending most of my time in college by the time she married Dad and she was spending most of her time God knows where.
Dad was no different. We spent a lot of time together when I was little, but it seemed as if he had grown bored with having a son after a while. Especially when he opened his first restaurant. That's where the money came from. It took off and there were “Kruppke's” in every county worth driving to in this end of the state. After the crash, he was forced to close some of them, but the chain was still nothing to sneeze at.
College widened the rift. He was a businessman through and through. He laughed when I declared an English major. “Didn't you learn that in elementary?” Neither of us cared about it, though. I could tell he was disappointed, but he never pressured me into his business. I just wanted to get through school. Getting to read some decent books and bullshit about them for four years seemed like a pretty good deal.
Then he had been diagnosed with some terminal illness whose name I likely couldn't pronounce. Pulmonary something or other. The doctors told him to quit smoking but he didn't care. Both of us made some attempts to spend more time together, purely out of guilt. I can't imagine that time was very enjoyable for either of us. We had nothing in common anymore and we implicitly decided not to impose too much on each other. Last summer he had asked me to go yachting with him for a few weeks. I didn't relish the idea of sitting around on a boat while he screwed Mari senseless, so I skipped out. I was nothing but happy, though, that he dedicated what would be his last few weeks to making merry.
---
Mari, that's what all this was about in the first place. She was showing me a side of her that was meant for my father, not me. That modeling agency seemed to take to her rather quickly. And they must have been desperate for a lingerie model – she rarely wore an outer layer around the house anymore. Lacy underwear, teddies, corsets, flimsy negligees. Did wearing suggestive clothing take this much “practice”?
Every night brought the same fantasy in different clothing. This morning she came out of the kitchen wearing some gossamer camisole that flirted with complete indecency. I could just make out the silhouettes of her areolae through the fabric. The panties that went with the top revealed that she kept herself well-trimmed.
Like all her other outfits, this one wouldn't survive my little fantasy. It was a simple one, very simple. I would wolf down her breakfast while she harangued me about what I thought of her outfit. Okay, that part was real. But then I would stand up and make sure my tented pants were unavoidably visible. And she would say, “Oh, I didn't realize I was turning you on, Denny. If there's anything I can do to help you out...”
I'd reply by tearing her camisole from her body. I wanted to taste that caramel skin, but I didn't give a damn about savoring it. I would fling the dishes off the table and put Mari in their place, ripping off her panties so I could penetrate her. She'd make that expression of faux shock, as if she hadn't any idea what effects she was having on me. I'd just press on, too aroused for anything resembling foreplay. Completely animalistic rutting. I'd drive into her, harder and harder until I burst. Then I'd remind her to call me Dennis.
I sighed and got up to wipe off my stomach. Unlike the pool incident, my thoughts still centered on her even after I had relieved myself. I couldn't deny any longer the fact that I was lusting after Mari. That week in middle school when I had discovered how to masturbate was probably the last time I had gotten myself off so frequently. I tried to supplant my fantasy with copious amounts of pornography, but I found thinking of her far more satisfying.
No, all I had really admitted to myself was that I was lusting after the idea, the concept of Mari, not Mari herself. Mari didn't matter – what did was that there was a beautiful woman parading herself around the house. My situation would be no different had it been any other woman doing this, even one that looked a tenth as good as she did. Do you recall that famous experiment on the news a while back? They took a bunch of kids and locked them in a room with a marshmallow that they weren't allowed to eat. It was inconceivable that not one of them wasn't imagining how it tasted.
---
Mari was making herself more visible around the house beyond just a change in attire. She was cooking meals, going out less, taking an interest in me. We had done a commendable job ignoring each other since we met. There was that short period after the wedding where she was struck by the novelty of having a stepson and tried to play mother. “It's okay to call me 'mom,' or 'mami,' like I call my mother,” she had said, seemingly unaware she was talking to an eighteen-year-old. Thankfully, that phase ended rather quickly for her. I had no reason to help her insinuate herself into our lives – this was merely a financial arrangement.
Had she become bored without Dad? After two years of avoiding me, she was claiming to make up for lost time, interrogating me about frivolities like my favorite flavor of ice cream. I thought it was rather harmless until this next incident.
I sat in one of the living rooms reading Ham on Rye for the second time. I had already finished it a few years ago, but my 20th century lit professor assigned it and I had no qualms about a second time through.
“Lilly bent over and ran her tongue along Pete's cock.” For a moment, I thought I had gone crazy when a feminine voice had simultaneously spoken the line I was reading. Then a pair of hands grabbed my shoulders. I looked up and saw Mari standing right over me, right behind the couch.
“Ooh, reading smutty books, Denny?”
“No, it's Bukowski. It's for a class.”
She walked around the couch and sat next to me. “Suuure it is.” She smiled and winked at me. However, I felt no compulsion to defend myself. With an excited look in her eyes, she grabbed my shoulder and said: “Hey, wanna watch a movie?”
“Fine,” I sighed. Resistance to her efforts to bond at this point would have been even more painful. She was a natural attention-seeker, which made her all the worse when she actually made an effort at being one.
She flicked through the choices on pay-per-view, trying to figure out what I liked. There was nothing particularly interesting, so I told her to just pick something. As the opening credits rolled, she asked, “Your twenty-first birthday is in a few months, isn't it?”
“Yeah,” I replied, impressed that she knew almost as much about me as my driver's license did.
“Well, you're old enough, I think. I'm making a drink, want one?”
I accepted the offer – anything that would make two hours of a terrible movie and Mari's buddying up easier to bear. She got up and walked out, affording me a few minutes to read my book. When I heard footsteps I threw the book back on the table. She put my rum and coke next to it. The opening credits had flown by and I hadn't even caught the name of the movie.
Before long, comets were raining down everywhere on earth and blowing the hell out of landmarks. Mari was quiet, but she leaned her head against my shoulder, occasionally caressing my arm. Whenever something exploded, she started and squeezed my arm tight, pressing her breasts into my side. I took a gulp of my drink. Strong, but all the better for that.
Halfway through, the focus seemed to shift from the protagonists surviving Armageddon to surviving contrived romantic sub-plots. Well, actually, it was probably the most realistic disaster movie I had seen. Fuck like rabbits, it's the end of the goddamn world.
That's when Mari started her probing. On screen, the lead actress disrobed in preparation for her first sex scene. Mari asked: “Wow, isn't she hot?”
I grunted yes. However, as I drank more, my answers to her questions became more detailed. She interrogated me further – Which one do you like best? What's their best feature? Tits or ass?
I was growing a bit uncomfortable, but she finally moved on to something slightly less sexual. “Say, are you going out with someone now?”
“Yeah, Dina. I go to school with her.” All right, I lied about the marshmallow thing – there were really two of them, and Dina was the second. Mari hadn't just replaced porn as my jerking material, she had also replaced Dina in my fantasies. I felt guilty about that on top of everything else.
“So, have you...” Mari paused and leaned closer to whisper, “fucked her yet?”
“No, we just started going out.” At least now she couldn't ask for details. But it was the truth. Dina and I had gone out once a weekend since the semester started a little over a month ago. She wanted to take it slow and I was fine with that. It felt pleasant, a fresh start.
Going steady was almost nostalgic. In high school, I thought I was in love but had my heart torn to pieces and unceremoniously stomped on. Freshman year of college is when all the girls break up with their high school boyfriends and start “experimenting,” making it a breeding ground for easy one-night stands. I took full advantage of that environment. That was the year Mari moved in, too. It took a little while to get used to having a wet dream walking around the house. But she was a rather unsubtle gold digger. That coupled with the fact that I had easy pickings at college made me indifferent to her, even on the level of pure physical attraction.
“You know, you can talk to me about these things, Denny. I'm a girl too – in fact, it's not so long ago that I was old enough to go to college. I didn't grow up fifty years ago.”
It was impossible to argue that point, however suggestive she made it sound. But I was becoming even more perturbed. She was now cuddling up closer, one arm wrapped around mine, a breast pressing into my side. Her other arm was stroking my hair and the side of my face.
“I know I haven't been there much for you, baby, that's why I'm trying to get to know you better.” She reclined a bit more, seemingly getting a little tired, nuzzling her head against my neck. Her weight forced me to slouch down, allowing her to put her legs on the couch and wrap an arm around my back to hug my waist.
I stared at her laid out half on top of me and thanked god that she was in a tank top and shorts, instead of provocative lingerie. “Instead of” was literally correct in this case – I glanced down at the breast that was not pressed into me – she wasn't wearing a bra. Her nipple pushed against the thin red material of her shirt. The way that she leaned against me pulled the material back against her chest so that it clung completely to the curvature of her breast. It begged for me to play with it. Her hands unclasped, one still holding on to my waist and the other finding its way down my hip to my thigh. The one on my thigh drifted up and down. A lump formed in my throat.
The alcohol had kept me down through Mari's stroking and pillow talk, but now it turned on me. Wrapped around me, Mari looked absolutely mouthwatering. Pressure built in my pants while her hand moved ever closer to my crotch. I struggled against my urges. Staying soft was becoming a battle of attrition as lewd thoughts coursed through my head. I had already been enjoying the feeling of one breast against me – why not enjoy the second one? Would that be so wrong? Maybe if we just started by kissing? Or if I make her hand “accidentally” slip onto my growing hardness?
“I just wanted to tell you I was sorry,” she said. Her eyelids seemed to grow heavier and the smell of booze wafted from her mouth.
That fortunately managed to derail my train of thought. I felt shamed. This all looked rather sexual from my perspective, but maybe it was just an innocent embrace from Mari's. It was the principle of in vino veritas. Perhaps she did have some remorse and the alcohol had brought that out, but she just had a little too much and got touchy-feely without realizing it. And here I was, getting sexually aroused and devising plans to feel her up while she was trying to make an honest apology.
“It's okay, Mari,” I broke the long silence I had maintained since she asked about Dina. I felt relieved. She had probably been waiting to hear that since she had started sucking up to me. Now she had been absolved and all this could end. No, not all of it. Mari still had me captive.
The tension in my pants caused by my now full erection created little creases to run along the crotch and thighs. Her fingertips had caught against one and began to explore it, threatening to cross the boundary from my thigh to the base of my cock. Her head began to lift from my chest. She would no doubt see my arousal if I didn't act fast.
I sat her straight up so that I could hug her, her chin resting on my shoulder. “It's okay, Mari!” I repeated breathlessly.
“I'm so glad, baby,” she replied, rubbing my back. Just in time, I thought, but this solution was only temporary. Her breasts were squished right into my chest. On top of that, her tiny shorts had ridden down enough so that I could see the tops of her cheeks, which were free of cover from panties. I had to get to the bathroom.
“Hate to end the touching moment, but I really have to take a piss,” I said, patting her head and tousling her hair so that it fell into her eyes. I jumped up from the couch, hoping my plan had worked.
Bursting into the nearest bathroom, I shucked my pants and boxers. The second I started stroking, Fantasy Mari returned and I was back on the couch with her. “Oh, Denny! I told you I love you, but not in that way!” she screamed as I made ribbons of her clothes. Her protests were mixed with moans of pleasure as I thrust into her. It hadn't even been a minute, but I was ready to release. “No, Denny, not inside!” yelled Mari. That pushed me over the edge. I lost control and my hips bucked wildly, causing me to miss the bowl and squirt all over the toilet tank. As I wiped the tank down, a little voice inside kept telling me I was an asshole.
---
I made a roundabout from the bathroom to the kitchen, needing a breather. A snack wouldn't hurt either. I passed the liquor cabinet on my way to the fridge and stopped. A snack and a drink, that was what I needed. I filled a glass with ice, poured some scotch into it, then downed the whole thing while I reheated a slice of pizza. Dad usually had the cook or the maid root out my leftovers – “No reason for that when we've got a cook.” Now I got away with sticking whatever I wanted in the fridge.
Pizza needs red pepper. I rooted through the spice rack. Where was the little bugger? Lower, lower, until I hit the bottom of the rack and finally found it next to the –
I performed a double-take in the most literal sense. The pepper sat next to a row of all sorts of herbal aphrodisiacs. I picked a few up and looked. “For increased male libido,” what in the hell? I put the elements together – Mari, lingerie, sucking up to me, cooking food, aphrodisiacs – rather slowly. I'm not so quick on my feet when I'm drunk, all right?
The realization took another few seconds to work its way downward, but it created an instant hard-on when it did. My head flooded with so many questions, and then images of Mari. The only cure was another shot of scotch. I downed it and chucked the pizza, too unsettled to eat. I couldn't deal with this tonight.
I walked back to the living room. The movie was still going somehow. How could all of this have happened in less than two hours?
“Um, I'm not feeling so good. I'm gonna head up to bed,” I announced.
“It's almost over, honey. Why don't you come sit by me?” Mari patted the couch. Now that I had discovered her secret, even this seemingly innocent gesture looked like an invitation into a world of vice.
“No, that's okay, it's almost my bedtime anyway.”
“If you say so,” she said, giving up. She had no choice as I had already started towards the stairs.
---
One thing that made me feel better about all this was knowing that my growing libido was all Mari's fault. Lingerie and aphrodisiacs, her weapons of choice. Fantasy Mari got her own makeover. She would break into my room, drop her negligee, and jump on top of me. “No, this is crazy!” I would yell as she forced herself on me. “Mami needs you!” she would cry, occasionally giving me a little slap if I protested too much.
Well, if that actually happened, I had no accountability, eh? But I sat in bed, wiping myself off from my recent exploits with Fantasy Mari, wondering about what would happen. It was a sticky situation up and down.
On one hand, there were a number of points in favor. One, she had made a good point. She was barely eleven years older than me, not even removed from my own generation. Two, was she even really my guardian in any sense? Her marriage to Dad was the only reason she had come into that role. Now that he was gone, was there any reason for her to keep playing stepmother? I was a legal adult who was about to inherit a princely sum, I didn't need her. Mari and I were practically strangers. Three, she would probably be the most amazing fuck I'd ever experience.
On the other, I thought, I was rationalizing this far too much. The defense made its rebuttal: What about Dina? She's supposed to be a fresh start, you don't want to cheat on her. You still have to live with her for almost two more years until you get your money. Imagine how awkward this situation could become. Finally, why does she want to sleep with you at all? It's rather unlikely to be that she just can't resist your charming smile.
Something was up here, but I wasn't sure I wanted to know what.
---
Time for a change in the plan of attack. New rules: Number one, do not give in until the enemy's motivations are discovered. Number two, stay stone-faced through all assaults. Those are your instructions, soldier, live by them and die by them. I walked downstairs and gritted my teeth. Any act of seduction would be ignored. Attempts at sexiness were not to be recognized. There would not be any surrender. It was resolved – I had to dig up the dirt on Mari before things went any further.
When I reached the dining room, Mari was just marching in with breakfast. Today, she wore a full apron instead of her usual half apron. I wondered why until she walked over to me.
“Perfect timing for breakfast, honey,” she said, putting a plate in front of me while I sat down. She spun around to head back to the kitchen. As she did, I glimpsed the sides of her breasts, bare and pushing the apron outward. And when she walked away, she sashayed, her entire backside covered only by the tie of the apron and a thong that looked to be made only of two interconnected strings. I realized that the plan was going to be tougher to follow than I thought.
She returned from the kitchen with a plateful of fruit for herself. Setting it down on the table, she took a knife and started cutting up an orange. The movement of her arms caused her unrestrained tits to bounce, making her apron billow out with their movement. All I could do was stare. I had forgotten there was food in front of me.
I wanted to grill her about this blatant attempt at seduction. What, is today the butt floss shoot? Wearing a top under that apron would throw off your pose? But I had to keep my mouth shut. I wanted to make her think that I was too afraid to do anything.
When the fruit was all neatly diced, she put the knife down and reached around to her back. No, she wouldn't. The apron ties fell to her sides. She proved me wrong, pulling the neckband from over her head and draping the apron over her chair. I had never seen Mari's breasts in their entirety. A bit of drool dribbled from the corner of my mouth. I didn't even bother trying to hold back, I just let myself go full mast.
I glanced down at my breakfast. What's on the menu for today? Laced eggs, laced sausage, and laced toast no doubt. I was famished – one more day on top of the two-and-a-half weeks I had been fed aphrodisiacs couldn't do much more harm, so I took a few bites. Tomorrow I'd start eating my own food. The two of us ate in silence as my dick cried for attention under the table.
---
After rubbing out a quick one in the bathroom (something that had become a ritual by now), I went back downstairs to get my book. It wasn't on the table. Maybe Mari had put by one of the bookshelves or something. I went to explore one of the shelves upstairs after not finding it downstairs. As I passed by the master bedroom, I decided to do some snooping around.
I don't know what I expected to find in there. Maybe a journal with “My Big Bad Evil Secrets by Marisol Valenzuela-Kruppke” written on the front? I did find my copy of Ham on Rye sitting on her nightstand, though. Aw, how adorable. She was going to try to seduce me with my own taste in literature. Either that, or she actually did think I was reading a porno and wanted it for herself. Nope, it was the former, surprisingly. When I picked up the book, a few pages of Cliff's Notes print-outs fluttered out from its pages.
Book in hand, I looked around for anything that might have held Mari's secrets. Her laptop sat on an end table in one corner of the room. I opened it – of course, password protected. I tried a few simple ones, nothing. I rummaged through a few drawers and the closet for a few minutes. Just clothes, shoes. I looked in my father's empty bureau. In one drawer, there was a dish towel all the way in the back that looked as if something were wrapped in it. I reached in and unfolded the towel. A VHS tape fell out. The thing looked fairly well beaten up. The label read “--perty of Carmen Gonazal--” It had been played so much even the sides of the label were torn off. It was nearly time for class, so I held the tape behind my book and headed for the stairs.
I froze for a moment when I saw Mari walking up the stairs. Still, the only thing keeping her from being bare naked was that little patch of fabric and the few inches of string that held it up. Her chest heaved enticingly each time she made it up a step.
“Just borrowed my book back, Mari.”
“Okay.”
I decided to have a little fun before I left. “So, did you get very far? What did you think?”
“Oh, uh, it's, uh...an interesting take on the, uh, traditional coming of age tale. Yeah, that Harry, uh, Chimpsky guy, quite a character.”
I smiled. I wasn't about to have a book club discussion with a topless model on the stairway, so I just said: “Yeah, time for class, see ya later.”
---
I dusted off an old VCR from the attic and hooked it up to my TV. Time to find out who Carmen Gonzales was, or that she had taped five episodes of Law & Order and thought it was important enough to put her name on it. Nothing but fuzz and distorted images that couldn't be made out. I fast-forwarded through the whole thing. Still nothing. Disappointed, I put the tape and the VCR back.
I had dinner with Dina that night. It was a good way to avoid eating whatever Mari was cooking up. It was also one of the few occasions she had free time on a weeknight. Dina's approach to college life was the exact opposite of my own. She was one of those pretty little things that wanted to change the world and that a joie-de-vivre scolaire, if you will, was the first step toward that goal. She was the embodiment of a valedictorian's commencement speech. And that meant she was in so many campus organizations that her calendar was probably as full as the president's. Ask her how her day went, and she was the type that would make you feel bad about yourself after you walked away, thinking about what a lazy bastard you were. But Dina had the opposite effect on me. Maybe it was a vicarious thing. Even if I didn't care about 4.0s and student senate, those things made her feel accomplished. After hanging out with the jaded sorostitute crowd for so long, someone whose goals included more than drinking and fucking was an exotic attraction.
The car was parked in front of her dorm and I stared at her sitting in the passenger's seat. She reached in for the goodnight kiss. We embraced as our lips touched. Just holding her sent a warmth through my body that I hadn't felt since high school. She was still an attractive girl, though. I could feel the cocktail of aphrodisiacs coursing through my veins, turning that warmth into lust. My tongue shot out and her innocent peck on my lips became a French kiss. She moaned, caught off guard, but accepted me into her mouth. Blood instantaneously rushed into my member, carrying Mari's potions with it.
Both to my surprise and delight, Dina stoked my lust, drawing my tongue all the way into her mouth. Her tongue danced around mine, her mouth seemed to be pulling it ever further in despite the fact that it was as far as it could go. I had never imagined she would, or could, kiss like this. I took this as a signal that she wanted more, sliding my hand from her back around to the hem of her shirt. I slipped my fingertips underneath and lifted, but she slapped my hand away. Our kiss never broke, though, and she moaned into my mouth.
Hoping she was feigning modesty, I made a second attempt. I ran my palm downwards, brushing her crotch for a split second. I felt heat. My hand moved up toward the button of her jeans and popped it open. I poked my fingertips into the waistband and ran them down over the cotton of her panties. Naturally, the heat was even stronger against my hand now. I gave her pussy a rub through the cotton.
She gasped and panted. A second stroke. Then she broke the kiss and said, “No, Dennis. Not here.” But I couldn't help myself and my fingers kept working. “Uhh, Dennis!”
She pulled my hand from her pants. God, so close, and I was so worked up. I grabbed her and kissed her on the neck. She gripped my shoulders and tore me away, shaking me. “Dennis!”
My sense of decency returned to me. Guilt pummeled my mind for that excruciating moment that she stared me down and held me in place by my shoulders. “Oh, god, I'm so sorry, Dina. I just got carried away. I've been, uh, a little pent up recently.”
“No, it's okay, I understand,” she smiled. “It's just-- it's not like I'm a prude, you know. It's just been a while because of that asshole,” that was how she referred to her ex-boyfriend, “and I want everything to go just right.”
I nodded. “Maybe another time,” she said and pecked me on the cheek. She zipped her pants and got out of the car, leaving me alone with my raging erection. I was so close that it felt unfair, but what was I going to say? “Hey, my stepmother's been feeding me some all-natural Viagra and cock teasing me for the last few weeks, can you just give me a handy?”
But I brightened up – Mari had gotten me horny enough so that I had finally stopped worrying about offending Dina and made a move. Now I knew she wanted me, and I had Mari to thank for it. Hurrah for unintended consequences I thought as I sped home.
The swelling still hadn't gone down by the time I got home, so I had to tuck myself up in case Mari was around. I walked through the front hall into the living room to get to the steps. Mari sat on the couch in a frilly pink outfit of just a nightie and panties. My dick gave a jolt at the sight.
“Hey, honey, I missed you today!” she said. “I'm watching a movie, wanna come sit with me?”
No, not this again. I shuffled closer, cautious. She just sat, her hand rubbing the couch like last night. I knew what hid beneath that inviting look. Then I heard the television begin to sing.
Dee de de de de de di dee de de dee...
And here's to you Mrs. Robinson....
Couldn't be, I thought. I couldn't see the television from where I was standing, so I moved closer to Mari. And there was Dustin Hoffman running across the screen.
“Come on, Denny,” Mari implored, rubbing the couch more vigorously.
“Oh no, Mrs. Robinson, oh no!” I yelled, not even realizing what I had called her. I dashed up the stairs, locked my door, disrobed, and flicked off the light. God, she was going to take me right there, wasn't she? She had to be planning that.
I was sweating, my heart racing. I wrapped my hand around my still erect penis. This'll calm me down, I thought. Dina appeared on top of me instead of Mari, to my relief.
“I know you've been waiting for this,” she said and took me in her mouth. I thought too soon – Mari burst through the door in nothing but her apron.
“Baby! How could you do this to me, you cheating bastard?”
“What?! She's my girlfriend!” Mari ignored me and wrenched Dina from my body.
“What are you doing, bitch?” Dina hollered in confusion. The two struggled on the floor, shouting obscenities. Mari's apron fell off. There are two beautiful, naked women wrestling over me on my bedroom floor, what to do? I think most men considered this erotic, but they probably weren't fantasizing their temptress stepmother slapping the shit out their girlfriend. I tried to pull them apart, but I got kicked and clawed.
I was back in my bed, holding my deflated penis. I can't recall a sapphic fantasy ever killing my boner, and so quickly.
---
Thud. Was that a knock at my door? What time was it? Fuck, 4:10? It's too early for this shit. I threw off my sheets, slipped on a pair of boxers, and opened the door.
Just a lamp. It must have fallen over and hit my door. I put it back in its place. I went to my bathroom to take a piss and walked back into the hallway. Just as I was going to go back to my room, I heard something that sounded like grunting. I walked a little farther down the hall. Another low-pitched grunt. It sounded like Marisol's voice, like she was struggling or fighting.
The lamp, the grunting. Was somebody in the house? I ran back to my room and grabbed the nearest blunt object. A table lamp. Hollywood taught me that bats were ideal for this situation, but I never played baseball.
I tip-toed down the hall toward the master bedroom. Then I heard high-pitched squeals mixed in with the grunts. Of course, she's probably banging some guy from her modeling agency in there. I crept forward just to make sure nothing dangerous was happening. The door to the bedroom was open.
“Uh! Oh yeah!” Mari cried. I lowered the lamp and sighed in relief. Curiosity got the best of me and I looked into the room. It was dark but Mari's silhouette was visible in the moonlight. She was alone. One arm jerked up and down while the other rubbed her chest.
This was another thing that I had never had the privilege to see. My member expanded and strained against my boxers. I looked down at the tent and silently scolded it – “You're not helping with this whole plan of staying faithful to Dina.”
My id seemed to say “It's not about what you want, it's about what I want.” All right, I'd throw him a bone and we'd move on. Jerking to Mari jerking wasn't cheating anymore than jerking to her in my fantasies. I slipped my hand into my boxers and told myself, “This is the closest you can get to the real thing.”
It only took a minute or so for my member to coat itself in pre-cum to the point that it felt as if I had poured a bottle of K-Y on the thing. Damn, all that laced food was really having an effect. What Mari had done disturbed me to some degree. I was a young guy, my prick misbehaved enough on its own. Having her in control of my libido, making it flare up on her command, was a scary thought. This situation was proof positive that Mari could have taken me if she jumped on the opportunity.
The moaning stopped and a light flicked on. It was just a tiny lamp on her nightstand, not strong enough to illuminate the room. I moved back just in case, just poking my head around the corner so I could continue spying. With the light on, I could see her in all her glory, making my dick pulsate in my grip.
She lifted up the mattress and reached underneath it. My dick jumped at the sight of her wielding a shiny phallic object. She got back on the bed and spread her legs, teasing her opening with the dildo. Seeing her expression, her jaw slack and her eyelids fluttering, was incredible. One of the most erotic things in the world, for me, is the expression on a woman's face when she orgasms. Just knowing I would see Mari's face in that state soon had me close to cumming.
Then she said something that made my heart skip: “Oh, Denny, it's so big.”
Did she “Denny?” Was she imagining that it was my cock?
She thrust the dildo in. “Yeah, stick it in me, Denny! I need it so bad.” Holy hell, she really did want me. I had to stop stroking to keep myself from blowing my load. I ran through the situation in my head.
Will the attorney for the prosecution please rise and present the new evidence. First part's done, I thought wryly. But here I was, boiling with arousal, right in front of Mari, jerking off to her. And there she was, in the same state and no doubt willing to fuck my brains out. All I had to do was show myself and she'd probably pin me to the bed and ride me 'til sunrise.
“Oh, Denny, fuck me!” Why shouldn't I obey? Maybe I could compromise. I'd get laid first, then figure out what Mari was up to. Dina would never find out. I'd do it just this once and that's it. Just one time.
“Yes! That's it!” she yelled. She was violently penetrating herself with the dildo while fingering her clitoris. Her hips lifted up and she arched her back, then fell down on the bed. She repeated this every half minute or so.
I moved further into the doorway, getting ready to make my approach. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I was genuinely scared. This is wrong, this is so wrong, I kept thinking. Maybe if I just get myself off, I can walk away. But I my body seemed to be moving itself into the bedroom.
She started whispering: “Wanna cum, baby? We'll do it together. I want you to cum in mami's pussy, just shoot everything in her. Ready?” Her hips lifted once again.
Shit, I had missed my chance! I guess that was a good thing. I ducked back into the hall. Fuck, I did want us to cum together. I stuffed my hand back into my boxers and stroked as hard as I could.
“I'm cumming!” she wailed. There it was, what I had been waiting for. Her eyes rolled back and then closed. Her mouth was agape, releasing a sound of pure ecstasy, as her hips writhed around the dildo. I stifled myself as I soaked my boxers. My whole body spasmed and I released wave after wave, some of it starting to drip down my legs already.
“That's it, baby, you were so good,” she said, sitting up. The final spurt of my orgasm had a bit of a kick to it, and I stepped back to keep my balance. Then I heard a clunk. In my excitement, I had knocked over the lamp.
Fuck! I had to tip-toe away as fast as possible. I heard “Huh? Whazzat?” come from behind me. The hall light clicked on. Fortunately, I had made it to my end of the hall near my bathroom.
“Hey, baby. Did you make a noise or something?” she asked. Goddammit, Mari. I chanted in my head “Please, please go back to bed.” I covered the huge stain on the front of my boxers with my hands, hoping I didn't look too ridiculous, and turned around.
“Nope, I was just going to the bathroom.” I said.
“Okay, 'cause I thought I heard something and--”
I felt that string of cum working its way down my leg, out my boxers and toward my knee. Time for the saving throw: “Uh, Mari, kinda awkward. I'm not dressed, you're not dressed.”
“Oh, sorry!” She clapped her hands over her breasts and her bush, as if she had any modesty left to protect. “You're right, honey. I didn't even realize...anyway, 'night.”
---
“Come on, I made this nice breakfast for you. You must be hungry,” said Mari, chopping her fruit.
Silence.
“Go on, eat.”
Reluctantly, I stabbed my fork through the eggs until it made a loud clank against the plate. I scooped up a tiny portion and stuffed it in my mouth, holding it in on top of my tongue and in between my teeth while I pretended to chew.
“So, what were you up to, out so late last night?”
I continued grinding my teeth, ignoring her.
“Hello? Anyone there?”
“With Dina,” I answered, figuring that couldn't give her too much ammunition.
“Ooh, Dina. You never told me about her. Is she nice and pretty?”
Back to teeth grinding. I knew if I answered the next question would be about our sex life.
“What's going on with you? Why don't you talk?”
Mari stepped back from the cutting board and walked over to stand behind me. Her hands clamped around my shoulders, massaging them with force.
“Come on, you can talk to me, baby. Is something wrong? Something must be wrong,” she said, rubbing her thumbs against my back. “Is it me? Is it Dina?”
She leaned down and sit her head on my shoulder, her breasts pressing into my back. “Just talk to me. I don't understand why you can't do that. Just tell me what's wrong.”
Her hands crept over my chest and massaged it. Mari was overdressed today, wearing her full apron over lacy black panties and a matching garter and set of stockings. Having to watch her walk around in that had already got me started, and now she was groping me and rubbing herself against me. I had to slouch down to hide my growing problem under the table.
She kept repeating herself, she just wouldn't let up until I said something. God, I just couldn't take this anymore. My plan was put to rest.
“You're trying to seduce me,” I bellowed and slammed my fists on the table.
Mari jumped back and gasped. “Baby, is that what this is all about? You...you think I'm trying to seduce you?”
I sat, stoic, not even turning to face her.
Finally, she said, “Look at me, we need to talk.” When I didn't respond, she pulled my chair out and turned me around. At least my nerves had calmed the swelling downstairs. “Now why would you think something completely crazy like that?”
I guess it was time to let everything come out. “Okay, first of all, the reason that lamp was by your door was because I thought someone broke in last night and I was gonna smash his face in with it. Then I caught you, uh, pleasing yourself in the bedroom. And you said stuff like “Fuck me, Denny!” and “Cum in mami's pussy!”
Mari's hands rose to her face and covered her mouth. She blushed. “This is so embarrassing, baby. I didn't know you saw that.” She paused. “Okay, so there is this guy I've been seeing recently and, I guess you can tell, I really like him. His name is Danny. I said Danny, not Denny. And I said Mari, like my name, mah-ree-sol. Not mami. Just one letter difference, honey. Look, I'll show you.”
She walked over to the table, picked up her cell phone, and dialed a number. She came back to me and showed me the screen. “Now calling...Danny.”
“No, you don't--”
“No, we're gonna call him and get this all straightened out.” She pushed the phone to her ear. “Hey, Danny, yeah hi. I just wanted you to talk to my stepson for a second. Yeah, you'll see, here he is.”
She pressed the phone against my ear. I said, “No, really, you--”
“Hello?”
“Yeah, hello.”
“Is this, uh, whats-your-name, Donny?”
“Denny.”
“Yeah, this is Danny. You wanted to talk to me about something?”
“No, there's just been a big misunderstanding here, sir. Nothing really.”
“Uh, all right then. Maybe I'll stop by soon for dinner or something.”
“Yeah, sure. 'Kay, bye.”
“See ya.” He hung up.
Mari closed the phone. “But...but, wait. What about all the lingerie and the aphrodisiacs?”
“Oh, you saw those. Funny story. Danny has a couple of dogs and he wanted me to keep them for a while he moves to a different house. He's trying to get them to breed so he sent over all those pills to try to help out the little guy. He said to try everything. I don't think most of 'em are doing any good, but whatever works.”
“Dogs? But there are no--”
“Yeah, Danny dropped them off this morning. Look here's Terry.” Mari made a kissing sound with her mouth and said “C'mere.” A Scottish terrier appeared in the doorway and ran toward Mari. I was silent, stunned by the whole thing.
“Oh, you thought I was...you thought I was putting that stuff in your food?” She laughed. “That's pretty crazy, pretty funny too. And, honey, I told you about the lingerie. That's what the photographers wanted me to do. When I did shoots before I moved in here, I used to live in my own apartment. I always walked around in what I was going to wear that day, just habit. I just keep forgetting that you're around the house – I don't even realize what I'm wearing when I do it. I understand that I've been wearing some pretty racy stuff, but if it makes you uncomfortable, if anything I do makes make you uncomfortable, just tell me and I'll fix it.”
It was my turn to blush. There was...a reasonable explanation for everything? That was it? This whole incident wrapped up like sitcom episode. One of those ones where the main character overhears all the wrong words and thinks his friends are conspiring to kill him. It was a major embarrassment, no doubt, but still a huge relief.
I apologized over and over, but Mari just hugged me and said, “It's okay, Denny,” and laughed.
---
Marisol stood in the doorway holding two plates, an apron around her waist, looking like a model housewife. When I say model, I mean Victoria's Secret. No shirt, no pants, just a bra, stockings, and apron.
“Breakfast? I decided to make it myself since the cook is on vacation.”
“Uh, yeah,” I stammered, my throat going dry.
She looked as if she had just come back from those photo shoots she talked about doing before she had married my father. Okay, so when I said model, I actually meant Sears Catalog. That was the big achievement of the last decade of her life. Her other small-time modeling jobs became no-time modeling jobs when she met Dad.
The unnecessarily long table forced her to trek across the room to reach the end I was sitting at. I picked up my glass and drank to make it less obvious that my gaze was not eye-level. She leaned over to put the plate on the table, effectively serving up her cleavage along with a side of eggs and bacon. I sputtered into my water.
“Something wrong?” she asked, still leaning over, looking slightly concerned.
I would have said, “No, but something's very right,” if she weren't my stepmother. I should have said, “Yes, you're half-naked,” if I weren't mesmerized by the sight in front of me.
“No,” I whispered. She took her hand off the plate and turned to walk to her seat. I was actually a little disappointed to find that she had panties on underneath that apron. She untied it and draped it over her seat.
“Sure? You look a little funny or pale or something.” She took a bite of her eggs, twirling her fork in her mouth, almost fellating it. Was this how she ate breakfast? Maybe so. In the two years and change she lived here, we rarely ate a meal together.
“Yeah, I'm fine, Mari, it's just....” I trailed off as her tongue gently fondled a strip of bacon she was pushing into her mouth. To my embarrassment, I felt a little swelling in my pants.
“Oh, silly me. I forgot about this,” she snapped her bra straps and traced her hands down her half-nude body to indicate what she was talking about. “I'm modeling this for a shoot today, and I like to wear what I'm modeling beforehand. It's like practice, you know.”
I nodded and took a bite of the eggs. I suspected her cooking would be rancid considering that she wasn't expected to do anything here, much less operate a stove, but it was just the opposite.
“That's good, I guess. Trying to get back into work again,” I said, a token offering of praise. I started shoveling down the eggs and hash browns, trying to distract myself from what was across the table.
“I hope so. But I dunno about these. Do you think the bra makes my boobs look funny?” Typical Mari, fishing for compliments. She knew damn well she'd make the photographer cream his pants looking like that. She was a trophy wife, after all. If her life had a job description, it would read “Stand around and look pretty.”
I looked up from my plate to reassure her that she was as sexy as she knew she was, but when the words failed to make it from brain to tongue. She was making a spectacle of herself across the table from me, caressing her breasts through the black lace of her bra.
“It just feels like something's off, like it doesn't fit right.” She held her hands beneath the cups and jiggled, making them bounce inside the fabric. I just continued to stare as she reached around her back. Her chest sunk as the clasp opened and she hooked her thumbs through the straps. My erection now pressed into the bottom of the table.
“Maybe if I just readjust this –” The bra was hanging from her outstretched arms, just barely covering the parts it was supposed to hide. She stopped and gave a faint grin. “Oh, how rude of me. You probably don't wanna see your stepmother undressing while you're eating breakfast.”
Maybe if she didn't look like you, Mari. She pulled the undergarment back on and closed the clasp. I cursed silently even though my shame had grown along with the bulge in my pants.
“You think it looks okay, though?” Still fishing.
“Yes, Mari, you and your boobs look fine.” Why had I taken the bait?
---
Honestly, I never cared about Mari before that incident, not as a stepmother, not as a member of the household, not even as an object of lust. Okay, so there were a few exceptions. I had made love to her a number of times in my dreams. But that didn't mean anything – just last week I dreamed about Mrs. Grundy, that old crone of a third grade teacher. Well, dreams can't all be good.
Then there was the end of sophomore year. My friend-with-benefits had gone back across the country for the summer and I was getting restless without her. I sat in my room clicking through pages upon pages of porn, but I had gotten too used to the real thing. Sliding back from my desk and looking out the window, I saw Mari sunbathing by the pool. I slipped on my trunks and headed out to the pool, just so desperate at that moment to see some skin.
There she was, her top undone, her sunglasses perched on her head, and her hair splashed across her pillow. Dad's trophy glittered in the sunlight. Her caramel skin had a natural sheen. Her rear, covered only by a skimpy thong, invited lengthy stares. Leaning on the edge of the pool, stroking myself, I realized what power feminine beauty held. I devoured every inch of her body, distraught by the fact that concentrating on one inch meant I had to ignore all the others. I shot off into the water. My sudden lust for her seemed to leave my body as quickly as my seed had. She had served her purpose. She was back to being a non-entity.
That's what Mari was. That's what all of my family was. My biological mother had divorced my father when I was two and went on some kind of humanitarian mission in Africa, never to be heard from again. The subsequent marriage lasted all of my middle school years. Then there was Mari. I was spending most of my time in college by the time she married Dad and she was spending most of her time God knows where.
Dad was no different. We spent a lot of time together when I was little, but it seemed as if he had grown bored with having a son after a while. Especially when he opened his first restaurant. That's where the money came from. It took off and there were “Kruppke's” in every county worth driving to in this end of the state. After the crash, he was forced to close some of them, but the chain was still nothing to sneeze at.
College widened the rift. He was a businessman through and through. He laughed when I declared an English major. “Didn't you learn that in elementary?” Neither of us cared about it, though. I could tell he was disappointed, but he never pressured me into his business. I just wanted to get through school. Getting to read some decent books and bullshit about them for four years seemed like a pretty good deal.
Then he had been diagnosed with some terminal illness whose name I likely couldn't pronounce. Pulmonary something or other. The doctors told him to quit smoking but he didn't care. Both of us made some attempts to spend more time together, purely out of guilt. I can't imagine that time was very enjoyable for either of us. We had nothing in common anymore and we implicitly decided not to impose too much on each other. Last summer he had asked me to go yachting with him for a few weeks. I didn't relish the idea of sitting around on a boat while he screwed Mari senseless, so I skipped out. I was nothing but happy, though, that he dedicated what would be his last few weeks to making merry.
---
Mari, that's what all this was about in the first place. She was showing me a side of her that was meant for my father, not me. That modeling agency seemed to take to her rather quickly. And they must have been desperate for a lingerie model – she rarely wore an outer layer around the house anymore. Lacy underwear, teddies, corsets, flimsy negligees. Did wearing suggestive clothing take this much “practice”?
Every night brought the same fantasy in different clothing. This morning she came out of the kitchen wearing some gossamer camisole that flirted with complete indecency. I could just make out the silhouettes of her areolae through the fabric. The panties that went with the top revealed that she kept herself well-trimmed.
Like all her other outfits, this one wouldn't survive my little fantasy. It was a simple one, very simple. I would wolf down her breakfast while she harangued me about what I thought of her outfit. Okay, that part was real. But then I would stand up and make sure my tented pants were unavoidably visible. And she would say, “Oh, I didn't realize I was turning you on, Denny. If there's anything I can do to help you out...”
I'd reply by tearing her camisole from her body. I wanted to taste that caramel skin, but I didn't give a damn about savoring it. I would fling the dishes off the table and put Mari in their place, ripping off her panties so I could penetrate her. She'd make that expression of faux shock, as if she hadn't any idea what effects she was having on me. I'd just press on, too aroused for anything resembling foreplay. Completely animalistic rutting. I'd drive into her, harder and harder until I burst. Then I'd remind her to call me Dennis.
I sighed and got up to wipe off my stomach. Unlike the pool incident, my thoughts still centered on her even after I had relieved myself. I couldn't deny any longer the fact that I was lusting after Mari. That week in middle school when I had discovered how to masturbate was probably the last time I had gotten myself off so frequently. I tried to supplant my fantasy with copious amounts of pornography, but I found thinking of her far more satisfying.
No, all I had really admitted to myself was that I was lusting after the idea, the concept of Mari, not Mari herself. Mari didn't matter – what did was that there was a beautiful woman parading herself around the house. My situation would be no different had it been any other woman doing this, even one that looked a tenth as good as she did. Do you recall that famous experiment on the news a while back? They took a bunch of kids and locked them in a room with a marshmallow that they weren't allowed to eat. It was inconceivable that not one of them wasn't imagining how it tasted.
---
Mari was making herself more visible around the house beyond just a change in attire. She was cooking meals, going out less, taking an interest in me. We had done a commendable job ignoring each other since we met. There was that short period after the wedding where she was struck by the novelty of having a stepson and tried to play mother. “It's okay to call me 'mom,' or 'mami,' like I call my mother,” she had said, seemingly unaware she was talking to an eighteen-year-old. Thankfully, that phase ended rather quickly for her. I had no reason to help her insinuate herself into our lives – this was merely a financial arrangement.
Had she become bored without Dad? After two years of avoiding me, she was claiming to make up for lost time, interrogating me about frivolities like my favorite flavor of ice cream. I thought it was rather harmless until this next incident.
I sat in one of the living rooms reading Ham on Rye for the second time. I had already finished it a few years ago, but my 20th century lit professor assigned it and I had no qualms about a second time through.
“Lilly bent over and ran her tongue along Pete's cock.” For a moment, I thought I had gone crazy when a feminine voice had simultaneously spoken the line I was reading. Then a pair of hands grabbed my shoulders. I looked up and saw Mari standing right over me, right behind the couch.
“Ooh, reading smutty books, Denny?”
“No, it's Bukowski. It's for a class.”
She walked around the couch and sat next to me. “Suuure it is.” She smiled and winked at me. However, I felt no compulsion to defend myself. With an excited look in her eyes, she grabbed my shoulder and said: “Hey, wanna watch a movie?”
“Fine,” I sighed. Resistance to her efforts to bond at this point would have been even more painful. She was a natural attention-seeker, which made her all the worse when she actually made an effort at being one.
She flicked through the choices on pay-per-view, trying to figure out what I liked. There was nothing particularly interesting, so I told her to just pick something. As the opening credits rolled, she asked, “Your twenty-first birthday is in a few months, isn't it?”
“Yeah,” I replied, impressed that she knew almost as much about me as my driver's license did.
“Well, you're old enough, I think. I'm making a drink, want one?”
I accepted the offer – anything that would make two hours of a terrible movie and Mari's buddying up easier to bear. She got up and walked out, affording me a few minutes to read my book. When I heard footsteps I threw the book back on the table. She put my rum and coke next to it. The opening credits had flown by and I hadn't even caught the name of the movie.
Before long, comets were raining down everywhere on earth and blowing the hell out of landmarks. Mari was quiet, but she leaned her head against my shoulder, occasionally caressing my arm. Whenever something exploded, she started and squeezed my arm tight, pressing her breasts into my side. I took a gulp of my drink. Strong, but all the better for that.
Halfway through, the focus seemed to shift from the protagonists surviving Armageddon to surviving contrived romantic sub-plots. Well, actually, it was probably the most realistic disaster movie I had seen. Fuck like rabbits, it's the end of the goddamn world.
That's when Mari started her probing. On screen, the lead actress disrobed in preparation for her first sex scene. Mari asked: “Wow, isn't she hot?”
I grunted yes. However, as I drank more, my answers to her questions became more detailed. She interrogated me further – Which one do you like best? What's their best feature? Tits or ass?
I was growing a bit uncomfortable, but she finally moved on to something slightly less sexual. “Say, are you going out with someone now?”
“Yeah, Dina. I go to school with her.” All right, I lied about the marshmallow thing – there were really two of them, and Dina was the second. Mari hadn't just replaced porn as my jerking material, she had also replaced Dina in my fantasies. I felt guilty about that on top of everything else.
“So, have you...” Mari paused and leaned closer to whisper, “fucked her yet?”
“No, we just started going out.” At least now she couldn't ask for details. But it was the truth. Dina and I had gone out once a weekend since the semester started a little over a month ago. She wanted to take it slow and I was fine with that. It felt pleasant, a fresh start.
Going steady was almost nostalgic. In high school, I thought I was in love but had my heart torn to pieces and unceremoniously stomped on. Freshman year of college is when all the girls break up with their high school boyfriends and start “experimenting,” making it a breeding ground for easy one-night stands. I took full advantage of that environment. That was the year Mari moved in, too. It took a little while to get used to having a wet dream walking around the house. But she was a rather unsubtle gold digger. That coupled with the fact that I had easy pickings at college made me indifferent to her, even on the level of pure physical attraction.
“You know, you can talk to me about these things, Denny. I'm a girl too – in fact, it's not so long ago that I was old enough to go to college. I didn't grow up fifty years ago.”
It was impossible to argue that point, however suggestive she made it sound. But I was becoming even more perturbed. She was now cuddling up closer, one arm wrapped around mine, a breast pressing into my side. Her other arm was stroking my hair and the side of my face.
“I know I haven't been there much for you, baby, that's why I'm trying to get to know you better.” She reclined a bit more, seemingly getting a little tired, nuzzling her head against my neck. Her weight forced me to slouch down, allowing her to put her legs on the couch and wrap an arm around my back to hug my waist.
I stared at her laid out half on top of me and thanked god that she was in a tank top and shorts, instead of provocative lingerie. “Instead of” was literally correct in this case – I glanced down at the breast that was not pressed into me – she wasn't wearing a bra. Her nipple pushed against the thin red material of her shirt. The way that she leaned against me pulled the material back against her chest so that it clung completely to the curvature of her breast. It begged for me to play with it. Her hands unclasped, one still holding on to my waist and the other finding its way down my hip to my thigh. The one on my thigh drifted up and down. A lump formed in my throat.
The alcohol had kept me down through Mari's stroking and pillow talk, but now it turned on me. Wrapped around me, Mari looked absolutely mouthwatering. Pressure built in my pants while her hand moved ever closer to my crotch. I struggled against my urges. Staying soft was becoming a battle of attrition as lewd thoughts coursed through my head. I had already been enjoying the feeling of one breast against me – why not enjoy the second one? Would that be so wrong? Maybe if we just started by kissing? Or if I make her hand “accidentally” slip onto my growing hardness?
“I just wanted to tell you I was sorry,” she said. Her eyelids seemed to grow heavier and the smell of booze wafted from her mouth.
That fortunately managed to derail my train of thought. I felt shamed. This all looked rather sexual from my perspective, but maybe it was just an innocent embrace from Mari's. It was the principle of in vino veritas. Perhaps she did have some remorse and the alcohol had brought that out, but she just had a little too much and got touchy-feely without realizing it. And here I was, getting sexually aroused and devising plans to feel her up while she was trying to make an honest apology.
“It's okay, Mari,” I broke the long silence I had maintained since she asked about Dina. I felt relieved. She had probably been waiting to hear that since she had started sucking up to me. Now she had been absolved and all this could end. No, not all of it. Mari still had me captive.
The tension in my pants caused by my now full erection created little creases to run along the crotch and thighs. Her fingertips had caught against one and began to explore it, threatening to cross the boundary from my thigh to the base of my cock. Her head began to lift from my chest. She would no doubt see my arousal if I didn't act fast.
I sat her straight up so that I could hug her, her chin resting on my shoulder. “It's okay, Mari!” I repeated breathlessly.
“I'm so glad, baby,” she replied, rubbing my back. Just in time, I thought, but this solution was only temporary. Her breasts were squished right into my chest. On top of that, her tiny shorts had ridden down enough so that I could see the tops of her cheeks, which were free of cover from panties. I had to get to the bathroom.
“Hate to end the touching moment, but I really have to take a piss,” I said, patting her head and tousling her hair so that it fell into her eyes. I jumped up from the couch, hoping my plan had worked.
Bursting into the nearest bathroom, I shucked my pants and boxers. The second I started stroking, Fantasy Mari returned and I was back on the couch with her. “Oh, Denny! I told you I love you, but not in that way!” she screamed as I made ribbons of her clothes. Her protests were mixed with moans of pleasure as I thrust into her. It hadn't even been a minute, but I was ready to release. “No, Denny, not inside!” yelled Mari. That pushed me over the edge. I lost control and my hips bucked wildly, causing me to miss the bowl and squirt all over the toilet tank. As I wiped the tank down, a little voice inside kept telling me I was an asshole.
---
I made a roundabout from the bathroom to the kitchen, needing a breather. A snack wouldn't hurt either. I passed the liquor cabinet on my way to the fridge and stopped. A snack and a drink, that was what I needed. I filled a glass with ice, poured some scotch into it, then downed the whole thing while I reheated a slice of pizza. Dad usually had the cook or the maid root out my leftovers – “No reason for that when we've got a cook.” Now I got away with sticking whatever I wanted in the fridge.
Pizza needs red pepper. I rooted through the spice rack. Where was the little bugger? Lower, lower, until I hit the bottom of the rack and finally found it next to the –
I performed a double-take in the most literal sense. The pepper sat next to a row of all sorts of herbal aphrodisiacs. I picked a few up and looked. “For increased male libido,” what in the hell? I put the elements together – Mari, lingerie, sucking up to me, cooking food, aphrodisiacs – rather slowly. I'm not so quick on my feet when I'm drunk, all right?
The realization took another few seconds to work its way downward, but it created an instant hard-on when it did. My head flooded with so many questions, and then images of Mari. The only cure was another shot of scotch. I downed it and chucked the pizza, too unsettled to eat. I couldn't deal with this tonight.
I walked back to the living room. The movie was still going somehow. How could all of this have happened in less than two hours?
“Um, I'm not feeling so good. I'm gonna head up to bed,” I announced.
“It's almost over, honey. Why don't you come sit by me?” Mari patted the couch. Now that I had discovered her secret, even this seemingly innocent gesture looked like an invitation into a world of vice.
“No, that's okay, it's almost my bedtime anyway.”
“If you say so,” she said, giving up. She had no choice as I had already started towards the stairs.
---
One thing that made me feel better about all this was knowing that my growing libido was all Mari's fault. Lingerie and aphrodisiacs, her weapons of choice. Fantasy Mari got her own makeover. She would break into my room, drop her negligee, and jump on top of me. “No, this is crazy!” I would yell as she forced herself on me. “Mami needs you!” she would cry, occasionally giving me a little slap if I protested too much.
Well, if that actually happened, I had no accountability, eh? But I sat in bed, wiping myself off from my recent exploits with Fantasy Mari, wondering about what would happen. It was a sticky situation up and down.
On one hand, there were a number of points in favor. One, she had made a good point. She was barely eleven years older than me, not even removed from my own generation. Two, was she even really my guardian in any sense? Her marriage to Dad was the only reason she had come into that role. Now that he was gone, was there any reason for her to keep playing stepmother? I was a legal adult who was about to inherit a princely sum, I didn't need her. Mari and I were practically strangers. Three, she would probably be the most amazing fuck I'd ever experience.
On the other, I thought, I was rationalizing this far too much. The defense made its rebuttal: What about Dina? She's supposed to be a fresh start, you don't want to cheat on her. You still have to live with her for almost two more years until you get your money. Imagine how awkward this situation could become. Finally, why does she want to sleep with you at all? It's rather unlikely to be that she just can't resist your charming smile.
Something was up here, but I wasn't sure I wanted to know what.
---
Time for a change in the plan of attack. New rules: Number one, do not give in until the enemy's motivations are discovered. Number two, stay stone-faced through all assaults. Those are your instructions, soldier, live by them and die by them. I walked downstairs and gritted my teeth. Any act of seduction would be ignored. Attempts at sexiness were not to be recognized. There would not be any surrender. It was resolved – I had to dig up the dirt on Mari before things went any further.
When I reached the dining room, Mari was just marching in with breakfast. Today, she wore a full apron instead of her usual half apron. I wondered why until she walked over to me.
“Perfect timing for breakfast, honey,” she said, putting a plate in front of me while I sat down. She spun around to head back to the kitchen. As she did, I glimpsed the sides of her breasts, bare and pushing the apron outward. And when she walked away, she sashayed, her entire backside covered only by the tie of the apron and a thong that looked to be made only of two interconnected strings. I realized that the plan was going to be tougher to follow than I thought.
She returned from the kitchen with a plateful of fruit for herself. Setting it down on the table, she took a knife and started cutting up an orange. The movement of her arms caused her unrestrained tits to bounce, making her apron billow out with their movement. All I could do was stare. I had forgotten there was food in front of me.
I wanted to grill her about this blatant attempt at seduction. What, is today the butt floss shoot? Wearing a top under that apron would throw off your pose? But I had to keep my mouth shut. I wanted to make her think that I was too afraid to do anything.
When the fruit was all neatly diced, she put the knife down and reached around to her back. No, she wouldn't. The apron ties fell to her sides. She proved me wrong, pulling the neckband from over her head and draping the apron over her chair. I had never seen Mari's breasts in their entirety. A bit of drool dribbled from the corner of my mouth. I didn't even bother trying to hold back, I just let myself go full mast.
I glanced down at my breakfast. What's on the menu for today? Laced eggs, laced sausage, and laced toast no doubt. I was famished – one more day on top of the two-and-a-half weeks I had been fed aphrodisiacs couldn't do much more harm, so I took a few bites. Tomorrow I'd start eating my own food. The two of us ate in silence as my dick cried for attention under the table.
---
After rubbing out a quick one in the bathroom (something that had become a ritual by now), I went back downstairs to get my book. It wasn't on the table. Maybe Mari had put by one of the bookshelves or something. I went to explore one of the shelves upstairs after not finding it downstairs. As I passed by the master bedroom, I decided to do some snooping around.
I don't know what I expected to find in there. Maybe a journal with “My Big Bad Evil Secrets by Marisol Valenzuela-Kruppke” written on the front? I did find my copy of Ham on Rye sitting on her nightstand, though. Aw, how adorable. She was going to try to seduce me with my own taste in literature. Either that, or she actually did think I was reading a porno and wanted it for herself. Nope, it was the former, surprisingly. When I picked up the book, a few pages of Cliff's Notes print-outs fluttered out from its pages.
Book in hand, I looked around for anything that might have held Mari's secrets. Her laptop sat on an end table in one corner of the room. I opened it – of course, password protected. I tried a few simple ones, nothing. I rummaged through a few drawers and the closet for a few minutes. Just clothes, shoes. I looked in my father's empty bureau. In one drawer, there was a dish towel all the way in the back that looked as if something were wrapped in it. I reached in and unfolded the towel. A VHS tape fell out. The thing looked fairly well beaten up. The label read “--perty of Carmen Gonazal--” It had been played so much even the sides of the label were torn off. It was nearly time for class, so I held the tape behind my book and headed for the stairs.
I froze for a moment when I saw Mari walking up the stairs. Still, the only thing keeping her from being bare naked was that little patch of fabric and the few inches of string that held it up. Her chest heaved enticingly each time she made it up a step.
“Just borrowed my book back, Mari.”
“Okay.”
I decided to have a little fun before I left. “So, did you get very far? What did you think?”
“Oh, uh, it's, uh...an interesting take on the, uh, traditional coming of age tale. Yeah, that Harry, uh, Chimpsky guy, quite a character.”
I smiled. I wasn't about to have a book club discussion with a topless model on the stairway, so I just said: “Yeah, time for class, see ya later.”
---
I dusted off an old VCR from the attic and hooked it up to my TV. Time to find out who Carmen Gonzales was, or that she had taped five episodes of Law & Order and thought it was important enough to put her name on it. Nothing but fuzz and distorted images that couldn't be made out. I fast-forwarded through the whole thing. Still nothing. Disappointed, I put the tape and the VCR back.
I had dinner with Dina that night. It was a good way to avoid eating whatever Mari was cooking up. It was also one of the few occasions she had free time on a weeknight. Dina's approach to college life was the exact opposite of my own. She was one of those pretty little things that wanted to change the world and that a joie-de-vivre scolaire, if you will, was the first step toward that goal. She was the embodiment of a valedictorian's commencement speech. And that meant she was in so many campus organizations that her calendar was probably as full as the president's. Ask her how her day went, and she was the type that would make you feel bad about yourself after you walked away, thinking about what a lazy bastard you were. But Dina had the opposite effect on me. Maybe it was a vicarious thing. Even if I didn't care about 4.0s and student senate, those things made her feel accomplished. After hanging out with the jaded sorostitute crowd for so long, someone whose goals included more than drinking and fucking was an exotic attraction.
The car was parked in front of her dorm and I stared at her sitting in the passenger's seat. She reached in for the goodnight kiss. We embraced as our lips touched. Just holding her sent a warmth through my body that I hadn't felt since high school. She was still an attractive girl, though. I could feel the cocktail of aphrodisiacs coursing through my veins, turning that warmth into lust. My tongue shot out and her innocent peck on my lips became a French kiss. She moaned, caught off guard, but accepted me into her mouth. Blood instantaneously rushed into my member, carrying Mari's potions with it.
Both to my surprise and delight, Dina stoked my lust, drawing my tongue all the way into her mouth. Her tongue danced around mine, her mouth seemed to be pulling it ever further in despite the fact that it was as far as it could go. I had never imagined she would, or could, kiss like this. I took this as a signal that she wanted more, sliding my hand from her back around to the hem of her shirt. I slipped my fingertips underneath and lifted, but she slapped my hand away. Our kiss never broke, though, and she moaned into my mouth.
Hoping she was feigning modesty, I made a second attempt. I ran my palm downwards, brushing her crotch for a split second. I felt heat. My hand moved up toward the button of her jeans and popped it open. I poked my fingertips into the waistband and ran them down over the cotton of her panties. Naturally, the heat was even stronger against my hand now. I gave her pussy a rub through the cotton.
She gasped and panted. A second stroke. Then she broke the kiss and said, “No, Dennis. Not here.” But I couldn't help myself and my fingers kept working. “Uhh, Dennis!”
She pulled my hand from her pants. God, so close, and I was so worked up. I grabbed her and kissed her on the neck. She gripped my shoulders and tore me away, shaking me. “Dennis!”
My sense of decency returned to me. Guilt pummeled my mind for that excruciating moment that she stared me down and held me in place by my shoulders. “Oh, god, I'm so sorry, Dina. I just got carried away. I've been, uh, a little pent up recently.”
“No, it's okay, I understand,” she smiled. “It's just-- it's not like I'm a prude, you know. It's just been a while because of that asshole,” that was how she referred to her ex-boyfriend, “and I want everything to go just right.”
I nodded. “Maybe another time,” she said and pecked me on the cheek. She zipped her pants and got out of the car, leaving me alone with my raging erection. I was so close that it felt unfair, but what was I going to say? “Hey, my stepmother's been feeding me some all-natural Viagra and cock teasing me for the last few weeks, can you just give me a handy?”
But I brightened up – Mari had gotten me horny enough so that I had finally stopped worrying about offending Dina and made a move. Now I knew she wanted me, and I had Mari to thank for it. Hurrah for unintended consequences I thought as I sped home.
The swelling still hadn't gone down by the time I got home, so I had to tuck myself up in case Mari was around. I walked through the front hall into the living room to get to the steps. Mari sat on the couch in a frilly pink outfit of just a nightie and panties. My dick gave a jolt at the sight.
“Hey, honey, I missed you today!” she said. “I'm watching a movie, wanna come sit with me?”
No, not this again. I shuffled closer, cautious. She just sat, her hand rubbing the couch like last night. I knew what hid beneath that inviting look. Then I heard the television begin to sing.
Dee de de de de de di dee de de dee...
And here's to you Mrs. Robinson....
Couldn't be, I thought. I couldn't see the television from where I was standing, so I moved closer to Mari. And there was Dustin Hoffman running across the screen.
“Come on, Denny,” Mari implored, rubbing the couch more vigorously.
“Oh no, Mrs. Robinson, oh no!” I yelled, not even realizing what I had called her. I dashed up the stairs, locked my door, disrobed, and flicked off the light. God, she was going to take me right there, wasn't she? She had to be planning that.
I was sweating, my heart racing. I wrapped my hand around my still erect penis. This'll calm me down, I thought. Dina appeared on top of me instead of Mari, to my relief.
“I know you've been waiting for this,” she said and took me in her mouth. I thought too soon – Mari burst through the door in nothing but her apron.
“Baby! How could you do this to me, you cheating bastard?”
“What?! She's my girlfriend!” Mari ignored me and wrenched Dina from my body.
“What are you doing, bitch?” Dina hollered in confusion. The two struggled on the floor, shouting obscenities. Mari's apron fell off. There are two beautiful, naked women wrestling over me on my bedroom floor, what to do? I think most men considered this erotic, but they probably weren't fantasizing their temptress stepmother slapping the shit out their girlfriend. I tried to pull them apart, but I got kicked and clawed.
I was back in my bed, holding my deflated penis. I can't recall a sapphic fantasy ever killing my boner, and so quickly.
---
Thud. Was that a knock at my door? What time was it? Fuck, 4:10? It's too early for this shit. I threw off my sheets, slipped on a pair of boxers, and opened the door.
Just a lamp. It must have fallen over and hit my door. I put it back in its place. I went to my bathroom to take a piss and walked back into the hallway. Just as I was going to go back to my room, I heard something that sounded like grunting. I walked a little farther down the hall. Another low-pitched grunt. It sounded like Marisol's voice, like she was struggling or fighting.
The lamp, the grunting. Was somebody in the house? I ran back to my room and grabbed the nearest blunt object. A table lamp. Hollywood taught me that bats were ideal for this situation, but I never played baseball.
I tip-toed down the hall toward the master bedroom. Then I heard high-pitched squeals mixed in with the grunts. Of course, she's probably banging some guy from her modeling agency in there. I crept forward just to make sure nothing dangerous was happening. The door to the bedroom was open.
“Uh! Oh yeah!” Mari cried. I lowered the lamp and sighed in relief. Curiosity got the best of me and I looked into the room. It was dark but Mari's silhouette was visible in the moonlight. She was alone. One arm jerked up and down while the other rubbed her chest.
This was another thing that I had never had the privilege to see. My member expanded and strained against my boxers. I looked down at the tent and silently scolded it – “You're not helping with this whole plan of staying faithful to Dina.”
My id seemed to say “It's not about what you want, it's about what I want.” All right, I'd throw him a bone and we'd move on. Jerking to Mari jerking wasn't cheating anymore than jerking to her in my fantasies. I slipped my hand into my boxers and told myself, “This is the closest you can get to the real thing.”
It only took a minute or so for my member to coat itself in pre-cum to the point that it felt as if I had poured a bottle of K-Y on the thing. Damn, all that laced food was really having an effect. What Mari had done disturbed me to some degree. I was a young guy, my prick misbehaved enough on its own. Having her in control of my libido, making it flare up on her command, was a scary thought. This situation was proof positive that Mari could have taken me if she jumped on the opportunity.
The moaning stopped and a light flicked on. It was just a tiny lamp on her nightstand, not strong enough to illuminate the room. I moved back just in case, just poking my head around the corner so I could continue spying. With the light on, I could see her in all her glory, making my dick pulsate in my grip.
She lifted up the mattress and reached underneath it. My dick jumped at the sight of her wielding a shiny phallic object. She got back on the bed and spread her legs, teasing her opening with the dildo. Seeing her expression, her jaw slack and her eyelids fluttering, was incredible. One of the most erotic things in the world, for me, is the expression on a woman's face when she orgasms. Just knowing I would see Mari's face in that state soon had me close to cumming.
Then she said something that made my heart skip: “Oh, Denny, it's so big.”
Did she “Denny?” Was she imagining that it was my cock?
She thrust the dildo in. “Yeah, stick it in me, Denny! I need it so bad.” Holy hell, she really did want me. I had to stop stroking to keep myself from blowing my load. I ran through the situation in my head.
Will the attorney for the prosecution please rise and present the new evidence. First part's done, I thought wryly. But here I was, boiling with arousal, right in front of Mari, jerking off to her. And there she was, in the same state and no doubt willing to fuck my brains out. All I had to do was show myself and she'd probably pin me to the bed and ride me 'til sunrise.
“Oh, Denny, fuck me!” Why shouldn't I obey? Maybe I could compromise. I'd get laid first, then figure out what Mari was up to. Dina would never find out. I'd do it just this once and that's it. Just one time.
“Yes! That's it!” she yelled. She was violently penetrating herself with the dildo while fingering her clitoris. Her hips lifted up and she arched her back, then fell down on the bed. She repeated this every half minute or so.
I moved further into the doorway, getting ready to make my approach. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I was genuinely scared. This is wrong, this is so wrong, I kept thinking. Maybe if I just get myself off, I can walk away. But I my body seemed to be moving itself into the bedroom.
She started whispering: “Wanna cum, baby? We'll do it together. I want you to cum in mami's pussy, just shoot everything in her. Ready?” Her hips lifted once again.
Shit, I had missed my chance! I guess that was a good thing. I ducked back into the hall. Fuck, I did want us to cum together. I stuffed my hand back into my boxers and stroked as hard as I could.
“I'm cumming!” she wailed. There it was, what I had been waiting for. Her eyes rolled back and then closed. Her mouth was agape, releasing a sound of pure ecstasy, as her hips writhed around the dildo. I stifled myself as I soaked my boxers. My whole body spasmed and I released wave after wave, some of it starting to drip down my legs already.
“That's it, baby, you were so good,” she said, sitting up. The final spurt of my orgasm had a bit of a kick to it, and I stepped back to keep my balance. Then I heard a clunk. In my excitement, I had knocked over the lamp.
Fuck! I had to tip-toe away as fast as possible. I heard “Huh? Whazzat?” come from behind me. The hall light clicked on. Fortunately, I had made it to my end of the hall near my bathroom.
“Hey, baby. Did you make a noise or something?” she asked. Goddammit, Mari. I chanted in my head “Please, please go back to bed.” I covered the huge stain on the front of my boxers with my hands, hoping I didn't look too ridiculous, and turned around.
“Nope, I was just going to the bathroom.” I said.
“Okay, 'cause I thought I heard something and--”
I felt that string of cum working its way down my leg, out my boxers and toward my knee. Time for the saving throw: “Uh, Mari, kinda awkward. I'm not dressed, you're not dressed.”
“Oh, sorry!” She clapped her hands over her breasts and her bush, as if she had any modesty left to protect. “You're right, honey. I didn't even realize...anyway, 'night.”
---
“Come on, I made this nice breakfast for you. You must be hungry,” said Mari, chopping her fruit.
Silence.
“Go on, eat.”
Reluctantly, I stabbed my fork through the eggs until it made a loud clank against the plate. I scooped up a tiny portion and stuffed it in my mouth, holding it in on top of my tongue and in between my teeth while I pretended to chew.
“So, what were you up to, out so late last night?”
I continued grinding my teeth, ignoring her.
“Hello? Anyone there?”
“With Dina,” I answered, figuring that couldn't give her too much ammunition.
“Ooh, Dina. You never told me about her. Is she nice and pretty?”
Back to teeth grinding. I knew if I answered the next question would be about our sex life.
“What's going on with you? Why don't you talk?”
Mari stepped back from the cutting board and walked over to stand behind me. Her hands clamped around my shoulders, massaging them with force.
“Come on, you can talk to me, baby. Is something wrong? Something must be wrong,” she said, rubbing her thumbs against my back. “Is it me? Is it Dina?”
She leaned down and sit her head on my shoulder, her breasts pressing into my back. “Just talk to me. I don't understand why you can't do that. Just tell me what's wrong.”
Her hands crept over my chest and massaged it. Mari was overdressed today, wearing her full apron over lacy black panties and a matching garter and set of stockings. Having to watch her walk around in that had already got me started, and now she was groping me and rubbing herself against me. I had to slouch down to hide my growing problem under the table.
She kept repeating herself, she just wouldn't let up until I said something. God, I just couldn't take this anymore. My plan was put to rest.
“You're trying to seduce me,” I bellowed and slammed my fists on the table.
Mari jumped back and gasped. “Baby, is that what this is all about? You...you think I'm trying to seduce you?”
I sat, stoic, not even turning to face her.
Finally, she said, “Look at me, we need to talk.” When I didn't respond, she pulled my chair out and turned me around. At least my nerves had calmed the swelling downstairs. “Now why would you think something completely crazy like that?”
I guess it was time to let everything come out. “Okay, first of all, the reason that lamp was by your door was because I thought someone broke in last night and I was gonna smash his face in with it. Then I caught you, uh, pleasing yourself in the bedroom. And you said stuff like “Fuck me, Denny!” and “Cum in mami's pussy!”
Mari's hands rose to her face and covered her mouth. She blushed. “This is so embarrassing, baby. I didn't know you saw that.” She paused. “Okay, so there is this guy I've been seeing recently and, I guess you can tell, I really like him. His name is Danny. I said Danny, not Denny. And I said Mari, like my name, mah-ree-sol. Not mami. Just one letter difference, honey. Look, I'll show you.”
She walked over to the table, picked up her cell phone, and dialed a number. She came back to me and showed me the screen. “Now calling...Danny.”
“No, you don't--”
“No, we're gonna call him and get this all straightened out.” She pushed the phone to her ear. “Hey, Danny, yeah hi. I just wanted you to talk to my stepson for a second. Yeah, you'll see, here he is.”
She pressed the phone against my ear. I said, “No, really, you--”
“Hello?”
“Yeah, hello.”
“Is this, uh, whats-your-name, Donny?”
“Denny.”
“Yeah, this is Danny. You wanted to talk to me about something?”
“No, there's just been a big misunderstanding here, sir. Nothing really.”
“Uh, all right then. Maybe I'll stop by soon for dinner or something.”
“Yeah, sure. 'Kay, bye.”
“See ya.” He hung up.
Mari closed the phone. “But...but, wait. What about all the lingerie and the aphrodisiacs?”
“Oh, you saw those. Funny story. Danny has a couple of dogs and he wanted me to keep them for a while he moves to a different house. He's trying to get them to breed so he sent over all those pills to try to help out the little guy. He said to try everything. I don't think most of 'em are doing any good, but whatever works.”
“Dogs? But there are no--”
“Yeah, Danny dropped them off this morning. Look here's Terry.” Mari made a kissing sound with her mouth and said “C'mere.” A Scottish terrier appeared in the doorway and ran toward Mari. I was silent, stunned by the whole thing.
“Oh, you thought I was...you thought I was putting that stuff in your food?” She laughed. “That's pretty crazy, pretty funny too. And, honey, I told you about the lingerie. That's what the photographers wanted me to do. When I did shoots before I moved in here, I used to live in my own apartment. I always walked around in what I was going to wear that day, just habit. I just keep forgetting that you're around the house – I don't even realize what I'm wearing when I do it. I understand that I've been wearing some pretty racy stuff, but if it makes you uncomfortable, if anything I do makes make you uncomfortable, just tell me and I'll fix it.”
It was my turn to blush. There was...a reasonable explanation for everything? That was it? This whole incident wrapped up like sitcom episode. One of those ones where the main character overhears all the wrong words and thinks his friends are conspiring to kill him. It was a major embarrassment, no doubt, but still a huge relief.
I apologized over and over, but Mari just hugged me and said, “It's okay, Denny,” and laughed.
---
