I poured Lee's lager into his empty glass from the kitchen table, crushed the can and put it in the recycling, muttering to myself the whole time about how ridiculous the situation was and how ungrateful everyone was being. Then I snatched up Oscar's juice glass and marched back to the living room, opening my mouth to give them all another lecture about taking me for granted, when one of the sofa cushions came flying out of nowhere and smacked into me, sending me staggering and slopping the contents of both glasses all down my front.
"What in the living fuck is going on?" I screamed, looking in disbelief at the mixture of sticky yellow orange juice and sticky yellow lager soaking into my black work blouse.
"Sorry, Mum," Oscar said, jumping up to grab a wet cloth.
"Here, sit down and put your feet up," Lee said, making room for me on the sofa.
"Let me get you a drink," Ella said, smiling at me and coming over to give me a hug.
For about half a second, I fantasised that I had a family like that.
"Goooooooal!" Lee yelled, punching the air, his outstretched arm making it clear it was him who had thrown the cushion, and his delighted expression also made it clear he hadn't even noticed where it had gone.
Oscar just pointed at me dripping wet and began laughing, collapsing sideways on the sofa and dripping bolognese onto the cushion as he howled with mirth.
Ella screamed something incoherent at the top of her voice, just to join in.
"I have had enough!" I screeched at them, slamming the two spilt glasses down onto the coffee table.
"Just won two hundred and fifty, sweetheart-" Lee began, but I fixed him with a look of white hot fury.
"I don't care about your stupid fucking bet, look at what you've done!" I shouted, pointing at my soaked shirt.
"You're overreacting, it'll be fine in the machine," Lee said, dismissively, as Oscar continued laughing his head off.
"Are you going to put it there?"
"Eh?"
"Are you going to put it in the machine?" My hands were shaking.
"Well, no, that's your job, sweetheart, you know I haven't got time with work and-"
"Yes I bloody well know about your fucking work," I shouted, right in his face. "I'm going to bed, you can sort the kids out."
"Honestly, it's really- Listen, Holly, you're just being unreasonable, it's two hundred and fifty-"
I slammed the door and stormed upstairs, stamping on every step of the staircase, then threw open the bedroom door and slammed it behind me too. I hated myself for losing my temper and I hated getting angry in front of the kids, but just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, Lee had to go and do something completely ridiculous. Throwing a cushion around was something that even Oscar and Ella had grown out of, and they were fourteen and twelve, for goodness' sake. I switched on the light and examined the sticky mess that my blouse had become, unbuttoning it quickly and peeling it off, trying not to think about it. Miraculously my bra was dry, but then to my horror when I looked in the dressing table mirror I realised that some of my curly ginger hair, probably my favourite feature even if I did have some grey at the roots, was darkened with liquid and had stuck together in a rapidly drying sugary clump.
A full shower including hair wash would take me the best part of an hour and I put my head in my hands, fighting off sobs. Why did this have to happen to me? Why was every night like this? Why were there still two weeks of the school summer holidays left? Why did it have to be me who was laid off from my decent customer manager job which meant I had to take the awful, shitty call centre work-from-home job that paid half as much and shredded my nerves every day? Why did Lee drink too much and bet on stupid football matches and then piss all his winnings away every fucking time?
Despairing, I looked at the photo on the wall beside the bed. It was from our wedding, fifteen years ago, Lee looking handsome and trim, laughing naturally at a joke his best man had told, while I sat beside him, looking a lot more than fifteen years younger, holding his hand and beaming, the happiest day of my life. Where did that man go? Why had turning forty turned my life into this shitty mess?
Pull it together, Holly, I told myself. Complaining wouldn't get me clean. I could shower, calm down, get into comfy pyjamas, go down and apologise to the kids, help them clean up and salvage something from the evening. And anyway, sitting around in my bra with the bedroom curtains wide open and the light on wasn't the best idea if I wanted to keep on the right side of the neighbours.
Then I saw him. Our house, on the corner of the cul-de-sac, didn't quite face square-on to the next door neighbour's, so from this bedroom you could see a corner of their bedroom and vice-versa. That was the corner my dressing table was in, close to the window to get the best light in the mornings for doing my makeup. And over the summer while he was home from university, our neighbour's son, Connor, used the corner of his bedroom for his gaming chair. That's where he was sitting at that very moment, controller in hand, looking at me.
In an instant he was looking away, back at his TV or whatever he was playing games on, but I knew he'd been looking. What had he seen? I'd been parading around in my bra for a few minutes: had he seen all of it? Or just the last few seconds? My back was partly turned, anyway, so he couldn't see much more than the side of my bra. And in any case, my plain black work bra wasn't setting anyone's pulse racing. I'd worn more revealing bikinis in public, so this was hardly a striptease.
But there was still... something. A flutter of excitement. He'd been looking at me. I was just in my bra and he'd been looking at me. Me. Holly Alderman, middle-aged mum who lived next door. It was flattering. I didn't think I was past it by any means; I still looked good in tight jeans and being blessed with big tits made the classic hourglass figure easier to achieve. And my hair, in my experience, helped to draw the male gaze too.
I smiled to myself in the mirror, but then checked myself. Maybe he wasn't really looking, but he just noticed me there and looked away because he didn't like what he saw? It was definitely possible. When I discreetly looked back in his direction, he was glued to the game again. Perhaps I imagined his gaze on me and he was just looking at something else out of the window. Regardless, I was still sitting here, hair sticky, wearing no shirt with the curtains open. There was only one way to know for certain, a voice in the back of my head said.
Reaching behind my back, I unhooked my bra. My heart was racing now and my mouth was dry, but once my mind was made up, I never hesitated. The bra strap slackened as the tension went, and I held my arms in front of me, letting the shoulder straps slide down, and I put the bra on my dressing table. God, it felt good to take it off after the day I'd had. I reached up and grabbed my boobs, lifting them up, feeling the relief in my back muscles.
Then I stood up and turned to face the window. I didn't look directly at him, but from the corner of my eye I saw Connor react, his head turning away from the screen, hands still pressing buttons. I walked across the room to the other side, where the curtain was, my tits out on display, bouncing gently against my chest as I took each light footstep. Connor was looking at me. I could see it. I risked a look: his eyes were on my chest, no doubt about it. He
was
looking. I felt my face getting hot as I took hold of the curtain and began to draw it, moving back the way I'd come, pretending I hadn't noticed him. Then I reached over for the second curtain, pulled it, and closed them completely, hiding me from view.
My heart was beating so hard I was sure my whole body was being shaken by it. My hands felt sweaty and my nipples were achingly hard. Fuck, I hadn't realised how aroused that had made me. How could something that had taken no more than five seconds turn me on so much?
Heavily, I sat down on the corner of the bed. The room was dark now, the curtains keeping the light out, and I could hear the faint drone of the TV downstairs. Surreptitiously I slid my hand down inside my work trousers and felt inside my knickers. I was wet. I felt a powerful rush of arousal go through me. Exposing my tits to Connor had made me wet.
I resolutely unfastened my trousers and pushed them onto the floor, spreading my thighs and rubbing my clit, my hand inside my knickers. I'd shown the neighbours' son my tits, deliberately. I'd taken off my bra for him. He'd seen my big pink areolas, the freckles that extended down my cleavage, he'd seen how big they were and how heavy and how the left one was somehow slightly rounder than the right. Oh fuck, he'd seen my tits. I rubbed myself fast, realising that all of my anger and frustration had suddenly turned into this intense arousal, adrenaline surging through me. I'd done something naughty. Something
slutty
