“Ride’ll be here before long, Mrs M.”

She was on the couch in the living room in the grey dawn. She’d been sitting there since she woke up. Snow in the forecast. Might have slept there, for all she remembered. The house was chilly and quiet. In the dull pervading hush you could feel the promise of weather.

“I just wanted to let you know how much I’ve appreciated you and Hal’s hospitality.”

She knew this girl. Gwineth’s friend from school. The tall girl. “That’s very gracious of you, thank you, dear,” she said. “We’ve so enjoyed having you.”

Mrs M gazed down at herself, down her bare legs, stretched out in front of her and crossed at the ankle. She was naked. In the dimness her skin looked startlingly pale. I should have put something on, she told herself. She wasn’t chilly though, and felt no interest in getting up.

Gwin’s friend propped herself against the arm of the big club chair in the corner and turned on the standing lamp next to it. She smiled. “There’s something especially relaxing about going nude in your own home, don’t you think?”

“That’s very true,” Mrs M said earnestly. She was glad the girl understood. She smiled back and uncrossed her ankles. “I’m just more comfortable being nude when I’m at home. It makes me feel so open and accepting.”

The girl slung her backpack off her shoulder and onto the chair seat. She was a gangly plain stick-figure girl with no fashion sense, but a good friend for Gwin to have made nonetheless. A role model. More mature than Gwin, worldly, more the intellectual type. Her dull, unruly hair caught the light in a frazzled nimbus and whelmed the rest of her face into shadow. Something in Mrs M quailed at the vision: a woman with a head of flame looming in the corner like some figure out of myth, a harbinger, a fate.

A sound of movement at the top of the stairs woke Mrs M back up. Her first thought was Hal was stirring, but when the light came up on the landing she saw it was Gwineth. Early for her. But today was the day, Mrs M remembered dismally: break was officially over. They had to push out soon to get a jump on the storm.

Where’d it all go? Only just got there, now her baby was going away again. It didn’t seem fair. Aint that life, her mother used to say, long to look forward, short to pass. Mrs M felt a sharp pang settle under her heart, and turned her head to watch.

Gwineth descended wearing a schoolgirl-slut costume that looked like she belonged to Stripper U: clingy white uniform blouse barely holding itself buttoned against the strain of her full breasts, a pleated micro-tartan that teased her slim bare thighs swelling over ribbon-gathered dark stockings. She slunk down on heavy black patent-leather platforms, hovering in the air over every drop as if it was on the shoe to decide to fall. With one hand she barely skimmed the stair rail, while the other kept her skirt lifted in front, flashing the garish red of her low-cut panties. The blouse shifted and puckered at every step over a pair of big rings in her nipples.

She had a dog collar around her neck. That was new. Mrs M pinched herself inside of her thigh and reminded herself she’d reformed, she didn’t fuss about her daughter’s business anymore. The collar had a short length of chain clipped to it; Gwinnie held the leather strap at the end insouciantly between her teeth. Her face under a dark cloud of mascara and drawn-out eyeliner was sulky and vacant. She seemed scarcely conscious the leash was there.

Gwin maintained her gait and her expression as she turned into the front room, as if in her mind she hadn’t left the staircase. She paused at the threshold, eyes on nothing, swaying a little in the high shoes like she was dangling off an invisible string.

“What do you think, Mrs M? Ask me, the collar makes the whole look.”

Nothing but supportive, Mrs M told herself. “You look suuuper slutty in your new collar Gwinnie,” she gushed.

She cringed a little at herself, because Gwineth could be scathing if she thought her mom was trying to suck up to her; but the slut paid her no mind. At the first sound of her friend’s voice her whole being seemed to shift, she homed in visibly on her as if by some internal radar. Nothing in her posture or her affect changed, but she was present now, she vibrated with a kind of suppressed eagerness.

“Not too over the top then? with the leash and all? Maybe we put ‘WHORE’ on the collar in rhinestones.”

Times certainly have changed, Mrs M thought complacently. We can be whores now if we feel like. She winked at the girl. “What’s college for if not to find yourself?”

“Exactly.” She nodded, made a little cough, and that seemed to be what Gwin was waiting for: in an eyeblink she went from all still to all in motion, she poured herself into the room, slouchy, louche, pussy-forward; a parody streetwalker’s vamp choreographed to some raucous burlesque only she could hear: except it wasn’t parody. It was tribute. Devotion.

Her little girl was in love. She’d found her One. It had been obvious to Mrs M from the start. They’d shied away so far from any kind of heart-to-heart about it, and certainly Mrs M would never press; still a mother knew.

The girl stretched her hand out low, palm up. Gwin bent forward from the waist and opened her mouth and dropped the leash in. She rose back up elaborately, as if hoisting herself by the hips, eking out the moment of finally meeting her friend’s eyes. Her mouth trembled. “Hi Lily,” she breathed, in a voice ragged with surrender.

Liliane. It had been right on the tip of her tongue. Liliane who called her Mrs M, and she called her Miss Lily. A harmless flirty thing they’d picked up with one another. The name might have seemed a little droll but it suited her, such a polite, proper girl as Lily was. Classy, from good people. Back-east people. Slutbait like her daughter could use some of that in her life.

Miss Lily glanced over at her. “Did I tell you she didn’t like me when we met?” She had a pleasant, sunny grin on her face. “Not so long ago. She was actually kind of mean to me,— briefly. Now look at ya,” she said softly. She gave Gwin the back of her leash hand to nuzzle.

Mrs M remembered a dream. Evening, the lamp on over the club chair like it was now, the girls piled in together in it, Gwineth naked in Lily’s lap. Hal and her, both naked themselves, facing them on opposite ends of the couch. The dream felt old, from another era, less a dream than a kind of virtual, unlived past. There was a lull in the conversation, and somebody piped up and said time to play family cum-off. Lily they made judge, so she wouldn’t feel excluded. Hal, so pathetic, he lost right away. Mrs M focused on trying to get Gwinnie to cum. Kept up this cheesy filthy patter the whole time, whatever came to mind, go on grind your pussy in her lap you hot bitch, god you need to come for her so bad sort of thing, and the only problem was it was working too well: when Gwin started mindlessly repeating whatever she was saying back to her, Mrs M got dangerously close to the edge herself.

The dream cut off before the finish. When Mrs M sought out Lily afterward—it seemed terribly impolite dropping her daughter’s friend into a sex dream like that, she felt she needed to make a clean breast—college girl as she was of course Lily started explaining to her how the dream wasn’t what it looked like at all, it wasn’t actually even a sex dream: according to psychology she was afraid of losing Gwin to womanhood or dykedom or something, or her unconscious was. The sex was a metaphor. Everything in college was a metaphor. Secretly Mrs M thought if she had a fear of losing anyone it was probably Lily, who bossed her around all over the place and liked being called “Miss” and felt more like a daughter almost than her own daughter.

Languishing in the morning chill, waiting dully to be left again, Mrs M watched the girls bond and lapsed into nostalgia for the dream orgasm she and Gwin never got to share.

Lily unclipped the chain from Gwineth’s collar and draped it across an armrest. She gazed down at the girl, stroking little circles on her forehead with her fingertips. “There’s a few minutes left,” she said after a moment, in a gentle tone. She gestured toward the sofa. “Whyn’t you go cuddle with Mommy.”

Gwineth, pouting still, slithered into the narrow space between Mrs M and the couch end and curled herself up in it. She sighed dramatically. She slung a stockinged leg across Mommy’s lap and buried her face against Mommy’s shoulder. “She’s a little sad to be leaving,” Lily explained. Mrs M put her cheek to the top of Gwin’s head and inhaled the warm scent of her hair. “Thought we could do something about that. Go on tell Mommy how much you’re going to miss her, doll.”

When Gwin raised her head her eyes were shining, and for the first time since she’d come downstairs Mrs M saw recognition in them. Saw her own Gwinnie. “I’ll miss you Mommy,” the girl murmured, her voice faltering, and raised her lips to her mother’s lips and kissed her.

Mrs M felt her own eyes moisten. “Miss you more, sweetie,” she whimpered, and kissed her back. This kiss was more lingering, and they broke it only reluctantly, just to the point their noses and foreheads still touched. Mrs M closed her eyes, breathed with her daughter in rhythm. She tried to think of all the things she wanted to say to her, any of the things; and despairing of her goodbye kissed her again, and then again, their tongues meeting, and after that all Mrs M cared about was that they’d never have to stop.

There was some commotion above on the landing. Gwinnie startled, and Mrs M pulled at her face with her hands to keep their mouths together. The girl shifted in her seat, ending up with her leg trapped between Mommy’s thighs. The kissing turned deep and insistent. Mrs M clawed at the soft bulge of flesh over the top of her daughter’s stockings while Gwin fondled her outstretched tongue between her lips like it was a little cock. Some small incoherent part of her felt awkward about what the two of them were doing; pushing through the objection made the goodbye just that much sweeter.

The front door opened, and a breath of cold outside air drifted past. Mrs M, Gwinnie’s weight pressing her into the couch, felt perilously close to the moment she’d find herself humping her naked pussy against her daughter’s leg. A couple of heavy thuds sounded on the stairs, and a male voice swearing under its breath, and she realized that was Hal lugging the girls’ bags down. Of course without a word to say to either of them. She hoped he was wearing his back brace at least.

The door shut again just as Gwin’s hand found her mother’s breast. Mrs M’s eyes came open at the touch and she saw Liliane standing a few feet off, taking video of them with her phone. Gwin gave her nipple a rough twist and Mrs M whined and whipped her head around.

“Whatcha doin there Mrs M?” Lily asked. “Guys havin fun?”

“Cuddling,” Mrs M bleated. The question disjointed her. She felt guilty, like she’d been caught out in something, and couldn’t think what. Gwinnie set to work torturing her mother’s ear in her teeth, then she couldn’t think at all. She wondered if she was having another dream. “My whore daughter’s cuddling with me.”

Miss Lily lowered the screen a little and winked at her. “It’s nice when mommies and daughters cuddle together,” she said, nodding.

Mrs M picked up the nod. “It’s so very nice and comforting,” she sniffed. Her voice quivered with the effort to shore up her composure.

“Most natural thing in the world,” Lily said soothingly. She crossed to the couch and climbed up onto it on her knees next to Mrs M, filming now from over her head.

“It’s the most natural thing in the world,” Mrs M wailed into the lens. Her face was porcelain and fragile. Lily awwwed down at her and brushed a tear off her cheek, and at the touch the older woman  cracked and gave the struggle up and broke down in sobs.

Lily shook her head. “Shoulda had you in mascara for this,” she mused to her screen. “Still. Prime content.”

The front door opened again, and as quickly closed. Gwinnie put her mouth around her mother’s ear and dug her fingernails into her tit and Mrs M made a sound between a gasp and a hiccup. “Okay slut,” Miss Lily said, swatting Gwin’s ass cheek. “Time to go. Give Mommy her goodbye present.”

Gwineth glared up at Liliane from under her brows, a fierce but utterly compliant look, while she snuck a hand up beneath her skirt and moved her panties aside. “Wait a sec,” Lily told her, shifting herself and changing the angle of the phone.

Mrs M could feel it on her thigh when her daughter begin pushing her fingers into herself, rolling her hips to adjust for them; she bit her lip and cooed when they got where they were going and fixed Mommy with a wicked, teasing smile. She watched Mrs M watch her fuck her hand, a few deep slow strokes, just to show off what a wet and ready whore she was. The girl made a cute, exaggerated squeak drawing the hand out again. In a baby voice she said “Open wide, Mommy,” and there was nothing in Mrs M that could keep her from doing as Gwinnie said.

Her lips closed over her present, and she sucked. She heard a woman groan, a sound from deep in the body,— a soul groan. She wondered who it could have come from while the world went dark around her daughter’s musk.

Hal entered the living room wearing one of his silly chef’s aprons, carrying a tv tray. He’d been clattering around out there in the kitchen a while now, ever since she’d come to on the couch. Seeing her there he paused, hugging the tray to his chest. “Oh hey!” he said, “you’re up.” He set the tray down at the other end from her and popped the legs in place.

“I, uh, I made myself some eggs,” he said, gesturing behind him, “but if you want …”

She was resting sprawled out on her back in her corner of the couch, head against the seat cushion. She didn’t move or say anything, just closed her eyes and lolled her head slowly back and forth in a no.

“Ohhhkay then,” Hal said. He retreated towards the kitchen.

Gray morning. Snow in the forecast. It was hard to tell what time it was. I should’ve told him coffee, she thought, but hadn’t the energy to raise her voice. Never mind. Later.

Hal came back and clapped down a plate, utensils and a mug, all in a single clatter. “Girls got off okay,” he said, sliding in and rattling things some more. He flipped on the set, looking for the weather channel. “Hope they can stay ahead of the snow.”

She didn’t want to hear about the snow. She’d woken up horny and unfulfilled, like after a sex dream, and the emptiness between her legs made her want to weep. She wondered if it was worth trying to get herself off. She stroked along her thigh with her fingertips, gazing aside towards the whited-out front window, waiting for the touch to blossom into someone else’s, a sexy young girl’s maybe. A sexy girl with big tits who liked to climb on top of older women and smother them and ravish their pussies.

Hal was eyeing her sidelong. “You chilly at all like that?” he asked.

She shrugged, and kept stroking. Under his apron Hal was as naked as she was. “You?” she asked in return.

“Me? Nuh-uh.” He popped a piece of bacon in his mouth and plucked at the front of his apron a couple of times, to indicate it character as a garment. “Toasty,” he said confidently.

Listlessly she traced around the outside of her pussy lips. It was getting her nowhere. You gotta go or I do for this to work, she thought at Hal. If only she wasn’t so inert right now.

Dissatisfied with the weather channel, Hal picked up the remote again. “Oh hey’d I tell ya?” he said. “Miss Lily worked with me on the, ah, the streaming thing, you know? Off the phones? Helped me get it goin.” He flipped the tv input. “Yeah, so we can do that now.”

His phone dinged. “Well lookit there!” Hal grabbed it with a pleased expression and held the screen up briefly for his wife to see. “Speak of the devil,” he said. He held the phone a little away from him, at his reading distance, and squinted at the message in concentration.

“It’s a link,” he said. “I think maybe it’s, uh, whaddaya call a ‘live’ stream? Maybe? Haven’t got the hang a this yet.” He made a few cautious, frowning taps, then his face cleared. “There ya go!” Another minute of intent staring and then he was holding the phone ceremonially aloft, pointed at the tv, and when he mashed his thumb down a video image flashed and stuttered to life on the 50-inch screen.

“You know they usually make people subscribe for this kinda thing. Content, whaddayacall.” Hal reached behind him and undid the bottom strings of his apron. “Pay good money too, I bet. But you know what Lily says? She says anytime she sends us anything to watch like this, any of her content, for us it’s free.” He put his hands up under his apron and maneuvered the tv tray to one side with his foot. Mrs M could see he was already at least half hard. “Free gratis.” He started working his right hand gently up and down, the apron tenting and collapsing over it. “Nice girl, that Lily. Respectful.”

An almost dead ringer for Gwinnie, if Gwinnie had been a gothed-out fuck doll, rode alone in the back seat of a limo, the sky behind her winter-slate. She wore nothing but a thick black dog collar and dark thigh-high stockings with pink bows on top, and she was working mechanically to stuff a painfully too-large dildo inside her, moaning at every millimeter’s thrust, her big pierced tits shuddering. She looked lost. There was no pleasure in her face, no awareness, nothing but discomfort and compulsion. A female hand reached out from behind the camera and tapped her on the knee, and the brunette propped her foot up on the seat next to her to open her pussy a bit more. The hand came back into frame with a thing of lube, and squirted it all around the girl’s swollen, cherry-red labia.

“Real nice,” gasped Mrs M. She was drenched. She slid a couple fingers inside, deep and easy; she could feel the wave starting to build in the ebb and flow of the limo slut’s moans. Good thing Hal hadn’t called a cum-off, she thought, she’d never have made it. “Real nice girl.”