As Victoria Richmond goes back into her house, her mind is still whirring. What with the kids being so damned difficult these days, Joe’s job worries and now Father Brian’s odd comments after mass, it’s a wonder she’s thinking straight at all.

But now, now that mass is finished and Joe has taken the kids for their Sunday morning kick about in the park, she finally has a tiny precious moment to her herself.

Forty-five minutes, to be precise.

The house is neat and tidy. Nothing to do there. Lunch was prepared earlier, with just the finishing touches needed. That can wait until Joe gets back. So nothing to do, then. Nothing that needs doing, anyway. Nothing that has to be done.

There was something Father Brian mentioned in his sermon that intrigued Victoria. He had been trying, in his usual not entirely successful way, to tie in a news story about a woman in Texas with one of St Paul’s more obscure letters, to the Galatians. It was an interesting point, and as forty-five minutes certainly isn’t enough time to start on a new watercolour or get to work in the rose beds, then a little internet research might fill the time nicely. Joe hates sitting in front of the damn computer screen, but for Victoria it’s such a rare opportunity that it feels like a window to tranquility rather than a cold, electric slave driver.

She boots up the laptop, her mind still replaying Father Brian’s comments. What could he have meant? Surely no-one’s been criticizing her work on the spring fair committee? Not after last year’s success? Victoria feels the dark red stain of anger rising, and quickly focuses on the laptop to distract herself from such thoughts.

She types a few of the key words from Father Brian’s sermon into the search engine box. As a seemingly random list of results appears on the screen, Victoria sighs. Is she the only person in the world who can’t google? You can ask Ethan any question, and in 0.27 seconds he has the answer. And he’s only nine.

Thinking back once again to Father Brian’s comments, Victoria clicks on the link that seems, vaguely, to match what she might be looking for. As the new page loads, her mind slips back briefly to fifteen years ago and the short philosophy course she took at college. Was it Plato who asked, if we are looking for something new how can we ever know that we’ve found it?

If he was born today, Victoria thinks, Plato would probably be a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. She smiles to herself. See? Sitting at the laptop for forty-five minutes is a good thing to do.

Victoria is so pleased with her private joke that she is only half-reading the piece on the screen. It is only when she is several paragraphs in and the words “cock” and “pussy” leap out at her that she realises she isn’t reading Father Brian’s story at all. Not at all.

She slams the laptop shut. Oh goodness. Once again there is something hot and fiery welling up, only this time it isn’t just anger.

Victoria stands up, walks to the sink, and pours herself a glass of water. How could they put a story like that on the web, without any kind of warning? How could they? It isn’t right that she should be looking for a news story and she comes across pornography. Words, not pictures, but pornography all the same.

She looks at her watch. Great, only thirty minutes until Joe gets back. She walks back to the laptop, and as she opens it up again the expression Pandora’s Box springs into her mind. Goddam those ancient Greeks, did they think of everything?

Unavoidably the story is still there. How on earth didn’t Victoria realise it was pornographic? Well, she realises now, it didn’t exactly scream filth from the very first word. In fact the first couple of paragraphs are subtle, almost lyrical. Only the reference to “Jennifer’s deep painful need” might have alerted Victoria, and could quite easily have been a reference to a woman from Austin losing all her money through a gambling addiction.

Anyway, that’s it. Mystery solved, time to shut the browser down. Victoria clicks “x” and looks at her watch again. Twenty-five minutes. Now what to do?

Apart from making cup cakes, which she hasn’t done in three or four years, there are few things in Victoria’s life that can be satisfactorily finished in twenty-five minutes. Now that the offending article is off the screen, a little more silent reflection on the situation seems a good way to spend the time until anything better comes to mind.

So the story was not obviously filth, which was a surprise. Victoria has no direct experience of pornography – written, photographic or otherwise – but from all the cultural references she has seen she would have expected it to advertise itself in big flashing fleshy letters.

And the characters, Jennifer and Mike. She would have expected them, even in a story, to be lurid and obscene. Surely the Jennifer who was imagining…doing that…to Mike should have been described as blonde, tanned, with impossibly big boobs? Instead there was nothing, no physical description whatsoever. “Jennifer” could be anyone you want her to be. Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Lopez…Jennifer Dean. Ha! Yeah, that would be right. Jennifer Dean. Despite her sweet-as-honey smile and girly giggle, you just know Jennifer Dean isn’t apple pie at all. Amazing more people don’t see through her. In fact it’s probably Jennifer Dean that has been saying stuff to Father Brian. Despite all the committees and being first in line for the sacrament, there seems something wholly bad about Jennifer Dean.

In fact, thinks Victoria, as all the recent events coalesce in her mind, it is entirely realistic to imagine Jennifer Dean thinking thoughts like the Jennifer in the story, doing stuff like that with Mike. Forget about all those cutesy home-knitted turtlenecks she always wears, Jennifer would probably love to be down on her knees and…

Victoria stops. Her mind is on fire. It is not just that she is being nasty about a fellow parishioner. Or even that she is putting someone she sees every day into the starring role of a pornographic story. No, it’s how good it feels. Partly it feels good to be nasty, to get your own back in the safety of your own mind on people who you know in your heart of hearts aren’t what they make themselves out to be. But more than that, oh my, it feels good to think of Jennifer Dean doing that, kneeling on the floor in front of a man called Mike, kneeling, the dirty horny bitch, taking a man in her mouth like that. She probably loves being used.

All the apathy and confusion has gone now. Victoria’s mind is clearer than ever, racing with this one simple thought. She eases her dress up to her waist, and checks her watch again. Fifteen minutes. Plenty of time.

Victoria doesn’t do this often. Almost never, in fact. More than anything, she has never found “pleasuring” herself to actually be that pleasurable. There have been too many other thoughts playing, too many worries about things, and an ever present sense of guilt to make it a real release. Anyway there has always been such a gnawing sense straight afterwards of having strayed that whatever rare inspiration for masturbation there may have been was rarely worth the aftermath.

But now it is different. It seems so damned sexy just to think of this one woman Victoria knows, this one prissy, bitchy, pretty, sexy woman kneeling in front of a man. Heck, she doesn’t even have to take off her clothes. No, scratch that. Victoria shifts the mental image so that Jennifer lifts up that damned cutesy turtleneck to reveal those full rounded breasts that she seems so keen for you to be aware of. That’s it, Jennifer kneeling in front of a man with her turtleneck rucked up above her breasts, her nipples pointing hard as she takes Mike into her mouth.

Victoria slips a hand inside her panties. She is wet, very wet. That in itself is unusual. She considers, briefly, bringing the story back up on the screen again, but then rejects the idea. No words, however subtle, could create anything as exciting as the mental tableau Victoria has created. As the man pushes himself in and out of Jennifer’s mouth, basically fucking it, Jennifer slides a hand down the front of her own jeans, wet and excited to let Mike treat her mouth as a hole for his selfish satisfaction.

Victoria discovers that there is none of her usual awkward fumbling about her masturbation. Her fingers seem to know exactly what is needed as they tease around her lips and engorged clitoris. It is as if the years have slipped away and she is exploring her body for the first time, only this time all the doubts and the worries have been magicked away by the absolute eroticism of her thoughts.

As she feels her body slowly building to what she knows will be an unthinkably overwhelming orgasm, Victoria knows that in her mind she will imagine Mike ejaculating his semen into Jennifer’s mouth.

Suddenly Victoria hears key scraping at the front door, and the sound of Joe and the kids. She slams the laptop shut, pulls down her skirt, and stands, trying desperately to compose herself. She looks at her watch. They are five minutes early. Her excitement evaporates into anger, and despair.

As they come through the door, Victoria struggles to raise a smile. “Hey guys, how are you doing? What brings you home early?”

They look blank. Early? Since when was there a time estimate for the park?

+++

As the day wears on, Victoria realises how little time she ever has to herself. Not for even two minutes is there the chance to finish off what she has started. For, once she has got over the shock of nearly being discovered, she realises that the need between her legs is still there, and, if anything, even greater.

She doesn’t want to make lunch, she doesn’t want to clean the dishes, she doesn’t want to do anything other than go somewhere private, put her hand between her legs and have an orgasm imagining Jennifer Dean sucking Mike’s cock. Her frustration has given her thoughts a harder edge, as if all the interruptions and the lack of privacy entitle her to be obscene.

Even in bed it is impossible. She lies awake waiting for Joe to doze off, and when he finally does her hand slips down between her legs and she strokes herself. But Joe is a light sleeper and she knows that her orgasm, when it comes, will be enough to wake the neighbourhood, let alone the man only inches away from her.

So she sleeps only fitfully, her mind always full of the thoughts of Jennifer and Mike. Inevitably the fantasy develops. Jennifer is on her back, with Mike fucking her hard. Jennifer on all fours, offering herself like a bitch, her full titties swinging every time Mike pushes his cock into her vagina. Jennifer wrapping her boobs around Mike’s cock until he spurts his semen all over her chin and neck. Oh yes, it seems there are all kinds of bad ideas Victoria has unknowingly picked up from somewhere.

At the school gates it is even worse. Jennifer Dean is there, chatting, gossiping, wearing – oh god – a turtleneck. Part of Victoria just wants to ignore her, pretend she isn’t there, but part of her is intoxicated at the thought of actually talking to someone she has been imagining so luridly.

Her decision is made anyway when Jennifer calls out to her. As Victoria walks over she knows she is blushing furiously, and it takes all her effort not to look at Jennifer’s breasts and remember the fantasy from only a few hours before of seeing them covered in Mike’s semen.

“Hey, Victoria, help me out here.” Jennifer’s voice is as irritatingly sing-song as ever, but standing here Victoria realises that there is nothing bad about being next to Jennifer, that it is utterly delicious to be so close to Jennifer that Victoria can smell her skin, all the time knowing that her panties are soaked wet through at the idea of Jennifer Dean the dirty fucking slut. “I need a partner for tennis tomorrow, doubles. You play, right?”

Victoria nods, dumb.

“So do you fancy helping me out?”

Victoria nods again. “Sure.”

“Great. Listen, the contractors messed up the work on the clubhouse, still not finished, what do you say we meet up beforehand my place, we can get changed together and talk tactics. ‘Kay?”

“Okay.”

+++

Victoria is due at work in forty-five minutes. There are two piles of unwashed laundry in the utility. It doesn’t matter.

She lies, completely naked, on the bed, her legs spread wide apart. Her nipples are stiff and hard, poking at the ceiling. The fingers on Victoria’s right hand are delicately teasing her clitoris, while three of the fingers on the left push brutally in and out of her cunt.

In her mind, Mike is gone. It is just Victoria, and Jennifer. They are in Jennifer’s bedroom, talking tennis, and undressing. Victoria is showing her body to Jennifer, and Jennifer is showing her body to Victoria. It seems so natural for Victoria to take off her bra, and feel Jennifer’s eyes eat up the sight of her bare breasts. To watch Jennifer pull down her panties, exposing her neatly trimmed bush of pubic hair, and for Jennifer not to mind that Victoria is staring at her naked crotch, and Jennifer is actually opening her legs slightly so that Victoria can see the engorged lips of Jennifer’s pussy. For Victoria to drop her panties and invite Jennifer’s attention, desire more than anything for Jennifer to look at her pussy, for Jennifer Dean to get wet because Victoria is showing her pussy to her.

As she feels her orgasm build, Victoria remembers the scent of Jennifer’s skin, the curve of her breasts, and then her mind fills with softly kissing Jennifer’s breasts, sucking her nipples, and licking her wet sweet pussy. And Victoria cums, a sweaty writhing slut, splayed on her bed dreaming of tasting another woman’s cunt.

As she lies there, recovering, acutely aware she is late for work and the kids have no clean clothes for school, she has a quiet, almost funny moment of revelation. Plato was wrong. The Greeks didn’t know everything. Sometimes you absolutely know when you’ve found what you’re looking for.Walking up the path to Jennifer Dean’s front door, past the neatly tended rose beds and the immaculate lawn, Victoria clenches and unclenches her hand around the handle of her sports bag. Right now, that slim faux-leather strap is about the only thing between Victoria and losing it completely. It’s only nine in the morning, but she is perspiring freely.

Victoria dropped the kids off just ten minutes ago, but that gave enough time for her mind to burn through a scarily diverse array of emotions. She is nervous, and excited, and horny, and, last but by no means least, disgusted with herself. She has allowed an innocent invitation to tennis doubles to turn into something of tremendous significance. This is not, she reminds herself for the hundredth time, the way to behave. You don’t take thirty seconds of inadvertently reading a pornographic story and turn it into a prolonged fantasy about another school mom and fellow worshipper at St Francis. Sure, Jennifer is a fake, a pretty pretty faux-demure PT who probably plans every flirtatious eye-flicker and boob-swell with the experienced eye of a well-practised slut. But even that can’t make it forgivable for Victoria to throw away a lifetime’s respect for faith and morality. Can it?

Victoria takes a deep breath, ready to knock on the door, but before she has the chance Jennifer has opened it. “Hey,” Jennifer beams, her teeth an infuriatingly dazzling white. “I saw you pull up. Just got back myself. Busy busy busy, huh?” However erotic Victoria’s thoughts about Jennifer have been over the last forty-eight hours, there’s no escaping the fact that Jennifer’s manner is grating in the extreme.

As Victoria steps inside there is the delicious smell of cakes in the oven. “Been baking? she asks stupidly.

“Cupcakes.” Jennifer doesn’t treat the question as stupid. Then again it’s probably the sort of thing that her life revolves around. “Put ’em in before I dropped the kids off. For the cake stall.” Of course, perfect Jennifer Dean organises her life so well that she can bake cakes while taking her kids to school and playing tennis. “Mustn’t forget to take them out before we go!” she chirps. Little chance of that, Victoria reflects sourly. “So, you got your gear, yeah? I’ll show you the way.”

Walking up the stairs Jennifer burbles inanely about the incompetence of the contractors who have failed to finish the work on the club changing rooms on schedule. Victoria hears none of it. Jennifer is wearing loose-fitting beige slacks, and as Victoria follows her up the stairs all she can see is Jennifer’s ass: rounded, pert, sweet, and perfect, of course. Victoria is sufficiently mesmerised to realise there is no panty-line. Oh God, is Jennifer wearing a thong? That would figure, that would totally figure, she’s the kind of woman to wear sexy underwear for the school run. She probably wears a thong to church, a special one, just for God. Victoria swallows, her mouth dry.

Jennifer leads Victoria into what is obviously the master bedroom. Her tennis kit is lying ready on the bed, as white as Jennifer’s teeth, smartly laundered. Victoria thinks of the tired t-shirt in her bag, the one she normally jogs in. “You okay in here?” Jennifer asks. “I mean, you can use Brad’s room if you want, ‘though it’s pretty stinky.” Victoria doubts that anything in Jennifer’s house has even a whiff of stinkiness, but that isn’t the main thought on her mind.

God, she’d wanted to change with Jennifer. It had been the one thought that kept coming back into her mind, no matter how hard she’d tried to push it away. But now, now that she is actually here, with it actually about to happen, she feels terribly scared. It was one thing to imagine how erotic it would be to get undressed with Jennifer Dean: a terrible thing, yes, but really just her brain cells shooting wicked little ideas around her imagination. But to actually choose to be here, to actually stand in a room and watch Jennifer undress, that is a step towards something unquestionably wrong.

“You okay, hon?” Jennifer asks. She’s already slipping off her shoes.

“Sure,” Victoria replies. “I’m just a little frazzled right now.”

“I know, gets pretty tough sometimes, huh?” says Jennifer, but her tone is unconcerned, her expression of sympathy as insincere as everything else about her.

“I’m fine, really.” Jennifer is unbuttoning her slacks, it’s now or never. “And I’ll be fine in here, thanks.” Victoria puts her sports bag on the floor.

+++

The next few minutes pass in a daze. But the images burn themselves into Victoria’s mind with an intensity that she thinks will last forever. She tries, she tries so hard to focus on her own changing, but it is impossible.

Almost the moment Victoria’s bag hits the carpet, Jennifer has dropped her slacks to the floor. She is, indeed, wearing a thong, bronze in colour, delicate lace trim along the top. But it is not, really, the thong that catches Victoria’s attention, it is the ass that the thong so beautifully complements. Jennifer’s ass is just as firm and lovely as Victoria had imagined, her two butt cheeks creamy white. Victoria thinks that perhaps it isn’t so wrong to admire so perfect a body, but she knows that her thoughts are full of more than simple admiration.

Then Jennifer is lifting her pale blue blouse off over her head, dropping it carelessly on the floor with the slacks. Before Victoria has time, however, even to imagine that Jennifer is an untidy person, Jennifer bends down to pick the discarded clothing up. The image is breath-taking: the lean tanned back; the bronze thong fitting neatly around the waist with that one strip of wicked material diving down, briefly visible before it loses itself between the twin white orbs of Jennifer’s ass, an ass now even more gorgeous from being bent over; and finally those fit slim legs. Without even realising she is doing it, Victoria licks her lips.

In some ways the image is so perfect that it is enough. Victoria could, if it were remotely possible, leave the room, never see Jennifer again, and she would have something that could fuel the most perfect fantasies. But not even slutty Jennifer plays tennis in a thong and a fine bra, so there is more.