[Author's note: Cassie was preparing for a romantic evening with her husband Damian, but he arrived home unexpectedly and he wasn't alone. Hiding in the walk-in wardrobe, she found herself watching Lily take Cassie's place pleasuring her husband]
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COPING MECHANISM
The soft ping of her phone bought Cassie back to reality. Startled, she opened her eyes to find herself still curled up among her dresses in the walk-in wardrobe, wearing nothing but her prettiest lingerie. She blinked, wondering where her phone was, and how long she'd been asleep.
Rolling onto her hands and knees, she felt a clammy dampness between her legs from where she'd soaked through the lace and suddenly, the events hit her: a tidal wave of raw emotion that had her gasping on her knees in the dark. The look on her husband's face as he penetrated the blonde stranger, the way the muscles of his bare buttocks had clenched powerfully as he erupted inside her, on their bed, in their house, with his own wife peeking through the slats of the wardrobe door.
The phone pinged again. She located it, placed on one of the shelves as she had stripped off to dress herself in the lingerie. The lingerie she had intended as a raunchy surprise for her husband tonight when he got home from work, she thought to herself, bitterly. She tucked a loose strand of her dyed-blonde hair behind her ear and sat up, catching the distinct scent of sex on her fingers. It triggered more memories, of how she'd buried her fingers inside herself so desperately, overpowered by a frantic need for orgasm as she watched her husband satisfy his new lover.
She reached up for her phone, seeing two messages from Billie asking where she was. Cassie focused, finally registering the time and seized up in panic. She had missed school pick-up: the twins would be waiting at the gates. But Billie was letting her know she had them, and not to worry. Cassie stood quickly, messaging that she was five minutes away, and pulled on the first thing she could find, a long cotton maxi dress hanging behind her. She kicked off her high heels and bolted out of the wardrobe and down the stairs.
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Billie waved as she spotted Cassie approaching, turning from her conversation with a couple of the other mothers. Behind her, she could see her sons climbing one of the trees with three or four other kids in the little park opposite the school gates.
"Hi," Cassie blurted once she was within speaking distance, "Sorry, I got held up."
"All good. The kids were all keen to hang out anyway."
Billie was taller than Cassie, but willowy, her neat, long brunette hair twisted up into a practical bun and stuffed today under a cap. She turned to the park and raised a finger, pointing downwards, face stern. One of the children, a girl, froze in place and then gradually began to climb down to the ground, making a face to Billie as she did so.
"She's got no concept of gravity," Billie tutted, "Just like her mother."
Cassie forced a smile, still a little out of breath from her race to the school gates.
"Apple doesn't fall far from the tree," Billie continued, turning now to Cassie with a wry smile, "On either side of that particular equation."
"I'm really sorry I'm late."
"Really, don't stress. We all got stuff to do, right? Any time you aren't gonna make it, just ping me," she laughed, "We're all in this together."
Cassie nodded, her eyes on her boys as they ran around the bottom of the tree pretending to shoot each other with sticks. Billie had turned back to her conversation with the other mothers, leaving Cassie standing on the edge of their little ring. She turned towards them, listening in but not offering up anything herself, feeling the adrenaline surge of racing to school slipping away, leaving her with a hollow feeling.
Cassie shifted slightly and felt the cotton fabric of her dress brush against the sheer nylon mesh of her stockings. Her hand rested casually on her thigh, but beneath her fingers she could feel the little hard button of her suspender belt clip hooked into her stocking top. Subconsciously, her fingertip traced around the tiny bump as she listened to the other women talk.
She tried to follow the conversation, but however hard she tried to concentrate, she found herself disassociating, drifting back to what had just happened to her. Cassie felt the gulf between herself and the other mothers as they talked about school parent council in their active wear and summer dresses, while she was terribly conscious of standing there with nothing but her dress to cover the sheer black lace and nylon of her sexy lingerie, still clammy from where she'd moistened it as she'd pleasured herself, watching her husband cheat on her. She wished now that she'd taken the extra minute to change, but she had been so hell-bent on getting out of the door. It was partly to collect her kids, but also partly, she knew, a desperate need to flee the scene.
That feeling between her legs, the overpowering urge to touch herself, what she'd done to herself as she watched them fuck. What the hell was that? Who the hell was she? Cassie tried to rein it in, take back control.
"So, are you, as well?"
One of the other women was looking at her expectantly.
"Uh, sorry. I wasn't...."
"Going to the parent teacher meeting on Tuesday?"
Cassie nodded, forcing herself to focus. "Sure."
Tuesday. Next Tuesday. Would Damian do it again, another lunchtime rendezvous with... what was her name? He'd said it. Lily. Yes, he'd called it out while they made love. Lily. She was the one her husband had brought home. Through the jumbled mess of her thoughts, Cassie locked onto this information. Damian was bringing Lily home at lunchtime to have sex in their house, on the bed Cassie shared with the man she loved.
She kept going back to it, but there was something wrong. The thoughts just seemed to slip away, she couldn't make them stick. There was a woman in sex-stained lingerie with a broken marriage standing next to mothers arranging their calendars. She felt naked and alone, separate from her body and her friends.
"Look, I gotta go," she mumbled, meeting Billie's eyes briefly, "Thanks for looking after the boys."
Billie smiled. "Any time."