Mrs. Barnes wiped away the haze from the fogged over mirror in front of her. With a much clearer image of herself to work with now, she continued the chore of vigorously rubbing the bath towel she held against the shower soaked streaks of hair on the left side of her head.
Wrapping the towel around the back of her shoulders, she finally abandoned the dew filled atmosphere of the bathroom and retreated to her bedroom across the hallway. She cut her eyes over towards the digital clock on the nightstand. It was closing in fast on six thirty post meridian and she began to wonder if her husband and the boys were done with their task out in the garage. He, along with her son and a small rabble of some of the less than corrigible students that he lorded over at Strokerville High, had been charged with relocating a portion of the science fair decorations from the gymnasium to the confines of their spacious garage.
When Mrs. Barnes stepped into her walk-in closet she let the towel that she had wrapped around her body fall to the floor and replaced it with an emerald green satin robe that hung down to the middle of her thighs. Lifting the towel that she had draped around her shoulders, she once again took up her attempts to dry her dark brown mane as she knelt down to collect the towel she dropped.
In doing so she spotted a rectangular strip of plastic nestled in the crevasses amidst a pile of her husband's grit coated running shoes. Her puzzlement was only momentary as she suddenly recognized what it was that she was looking at. After taking up the towel she reached over and pried the object from its nest of rubber soles and laces. It had been quite awhile since she'd seen the likes of such a thing. Turning the cassette tape over, Mrs. Barnes read the title of this selection that originated from the confines of the adult section of the Strokerville Video Plus and gently cringed.
She continued to remain aware of the fact that her husband often indulged in such viewing practices, but it had been some time since she herself had been offered join him in a screening. The mere sight of the tape she held flashed her mind back various uncomfortable occasions when her bedroom was illuminated by nothing else besides the flickering light of a television screen and the melodic moans and grunts emanating from the actors on the screen filled the silence between her and her spouse.
Mrs. Barnes was never sure how she was expected to respond during such instances. After a while the entire situation became much too awkward to continue and Mr. Barnes' fetish faded into the background of their bedroom life. There was a stretch of time when Mrs. Barnes wondered if her husband ever had any serious qualms about the sexual nature of their relationship. True, she was never really that adventurous in their exploits, and her mister was always the one who initiated things between them, but outside of his sporadic grumblings over the infrequency of their trysts and her constant reluctance to try any of the many kinks and carnalities that he came up with she never heard a peep out of him.
Mrs. Barnes walked over to a small storage bin on her husband's side of the closet, pulled open the top drawer, and dropped the tape inside.
The sound of a ringing phone drew her out of the closet and over to the nightstand beside her bed. Oddly enough, she picked it up to the sound of her husband's voice. He apprised her of the lingering matters taking place on the campus that required his attention as well as alerted her to the fact that he'd dropped their son off at a friend's home so there wouldn't be any rush for her to get dinner started.
Still rustling her hair with the towel she held, Mrs. Barnes walked out of her bedroom and moved off down the hallway. She wrapped the towel around the back of her neck as she stepped out of the corridor. When she reached the living room she found it strange to be greeted by the likes of Aaron, Dennis, and Jake, loafing about on her furniture.
"You boys get all finished up?" she politely inquired as she continued to move through the living room on her way to the kitchen.
"Yes, Mrs. Barnes," Aaron answered her.
When she made it into the kitchen Mrs. Barnes turned her eyes toward the sink that was filled to capacity with dishes that needed to be washed. She'd went about her daily routine of completing various chores around the house just like always, but as she stood underneath the showerhead washing herself she continued to be nagged by the thought that there was something she'd forgotten. Mystery solved.
It didn't matter. According to her husband she had plenty of time to get the kitchen cleared and prepped for dinner. After breathing out a quiet sigh at the mess she returned to the living room and had a seat on the couch.
"What are you boys watching?" Mrs. Barnes asked the trio, expecting that that may have been the reason for their lingering presence in her home.
"Not sure," Dennis replied from his position on the floor in front of the couch across the room on Mrs. Barnes' right hand side. He tilted a large glass filled with a cherry red fluid up to his lips and drank deep. "Just some movie," he said, pulling the rim of the glass away from his mouth.
"Are you guys waiting on a ride?" she said.
"Jake's car is parked out front," Aaron answered her. He was sitting on the couch next to Dennis' left shoulder. Jake had taken up residence in the loveseat on the other side of the room from his two companions. "We can clear out of here if we're in your way."
"That's okay," Mrs. Barnes replied, not wanting to seem rude. She figured that they'd most likely be heading on their way shortly regardless. Glancing around the room, she noticed that they were all consuming heaping glassfuls of a similar beverage. "What are you drinking?" she asked them, not recognizing the refreshment from the stock that she had on hand in her refrigerator.
Aaron turned to face her. Alternating his glance between her eyes and the glass that he held, he finally spoke up, saying, "Uhm...It's just some punch, Mrs. Barnes. Would you like a taste?"
"Sure," she replied.
Mrs. Barnes emptied the contents of the tall glass and sat it down on top of the coffee table in front of her. This would make for the third refill that she had drained after initially receiving her first glassful of the concoction that Aaron had offered her. Not being able to detect the ratio of alcohol to volume content due to the sweetness of the beverage that she guzzle down, Mrs. Barnes slowly began to understand why the boys had decided continue to convene at this locale.
It took a short while for the effects of the elixir to hit her, but when they did Mrs. Barnes was overwhelmed by a sudden rush of euphoria and lightheadedness.
"Mrs. Barnes, are you alright?" Aaron said over the quiet chuckles of his cohorts as he looked over in her direction and watched her chin slump down to her chest before she quickly pulled her head back up.
"Peachy keen," she said before letting slip a soft bout of giggles. "Just a little tired, that's all." More giggles.