Sometimes in life, you truly are the last to know. Spread eagle and stripped of more than just her clothing, Maria Lombardi's hands were cuffed to the shower curtain rod above in a clear and complete show of surrender to her 19 year old lover. She'd been in that position for nearly a half hour, but even though her arms were admittedly burning as they dangled limply above her head, the rush of euphoria sweeping through the rest of her body and soul made the discomfort more than worth it. So dazed and consumed by her current plight, Maria had no clue how long the boy's mother had been standing in the doorway, looking on with visceral reproach.
She'd made her way over to Shirley Dixon's apartment to meet up with Caleb 20 minutes after Shirley had left for work. Having called into the office sick herself, Maria knew they would have the place to themselves all day. When Caleb had made the hand-cuff suggestion a few days earlier, Maria found it nearly impossible to focus on anything else. Now that they were alone, the utter sense of submissive bliss that came when she allowed Caleb to string her up in the same bathroom where he first seduced her unleashed a lust so vile and potent that Maria could barely even stand still as her young stud waited to pounce.
Caleb had made the wait grueling once he'd locked the cuffs to the rod, making several trips through the apartment, smoking a few cigarettes, even calling several of his friends as she swayed there with her back to the bathroom door, desperate for release. What those friends must have thought when Caleb snapped off a series of pictures of Maria with her back turned and sent them, even clicking an especially lurid but poignant one between her outstretched thighs just to show his friends, in vivid detail, just how aroused she was.
If she was good, Caleb had told her, he might even invite a couple of those guys over to finish her off once he was done.
The energy Maria expended trying to maintain any sense of normalcy since she'd initiated the affair with Caleb had been draining. Working everyday with Shirley, trying to keep her poker face, knowing full well the implications if their indiscretions ever saw the light of day took a toll. The sneaking around undoubtedly added to the taboo of what they were doing. Whether it was a look they may have gotten from a motel clerk when she and Caleb checked into a room a few towns over, or the naughty tingle she got each time she made a clandestine meeting to pick him up, when Maria was finally alone with Caleb, all that pressure she'd put on herself 'to keep the secret' bled away in a blinding rush of sexual fury.
Maria thought she'd crossed every 'T' and dotted every 'I' along the way to keep those two distinct worlds she'd created from ever muddying the other. Any concern she had about anything had drifted away that fateful morning in the Dixon bathroom. Naked and handcuffed to the rod, Caleb was in total control. Once he finally quit his teasing and penetrated her from behind, Maria could finally let go and lose herself in the whirlpool of her own wanton depravity. On and on Caleb fucked her in that vulnerable position for nearly a half hour, pulling back each time he made her cum to grab a drink or take a few drags of his cigarette, allowing his seed to continue boiling inside his loins until he was good and ready to fire it inside her.
The third time Caleb pulled back, Maria hung there with her back turned, feeling as if the barometric pressure inside the room had suddenly changed.
"Hurry up Caleb... please... finish me off," Maria cried with weakened but very real desperation.
While she could still feel his presence perched behind her, Maria gradually sensed something was wrong when he didn't come back with a snarky remark or a good, hard smack to her pale, fleshy ass.
As difficult as it was given her shackled state, Maria craned her head around and saw Shirley Dixon standing in the doorway.
"... oh... no... ," Maria's voice trailed away like parched wind when she saw her best friend staring back.
The metal of her cuffs scraping against the rod the only sound in the ultra cramped space, Maria turned her head back towards the shower stall and bowed it in defeat.
"You must be delirious Maria... this can't be happening... its just your imagination... ," she tried convincing herself, but before she could turn again and confirm her aimless denial, Shirley's voice, dry and measured, brought goosebumps to Maria's shoulders and back.
"Caleb... go to your room," she heard Shirley tell her son.
Listening to the cadence of Caleb's heavy breathing behind her, half from the excursion of what he'd been doing to her, and half certainly from the shock he too must be feeling, Maria burned even more when she heard his footsteps trailing towards the door. Before he could pass his mother and disappear down the hall to his room, Shirley Dixon stopped Caleb in mid stride.
"Where the keys?" Shirley asked.
"Over there on the sink," Maria heard Caleb reply with the sheepish tone a son would telling his mother the car keys he borrowed without permission were on the kitchen counter.
"Thank God... hurry up," Maria wanted to cry when she heard Shirley pick them up, but she sensed it was still best to keep her words to a minimum.
Tilting her gaze backwards, purposefully keeping it low and away from Shirley's morbid stare, Maria's face went blank when she watched Shirley tuck the tiny set of keys into the back pocket of her navy blue slacks.
Her shins quivering against the edge of the tub, Maria's primal instinct was to kick her feet backwards to defend herself when she felt Shirley's full focus settle upon her.
"This isn't what it looks like... ," Maria wanted to beg but stopped herself, knowing it would only infuriate Shirley further if she tried pretending it was anything other than exactly how it appeared.
Now Maria could hear Shirley's footsteps shuffling across the floor, but unlike Caleb's, these were headed directly towards her.
As much as Maria dreaded hearing Shirley's voice, the silence hanging between them was crushing.
"Please say something," Maria croaked before she could stop herself, shivering as she hung there as her friend's exhales slithered across the left side of her neck.
"I don't really think there's anything for me to say," Shirley replied with taciturn succinctness. "All this pretty much speaks for itself."
"What do you have to say?" Shirley drew in a deep breath and asked.
"I'm sorry," was the first phrase to pop into Maria's mind, but she couldn't quite bring herself to say it.
"Probably isn't a good time to lie," she told herself, knowing deep down in the haunted depths of her soul, the only thing she was sorry for was that she got caught.
"I love him," was the next thing Maria contemplated blurting, but that would have been a lie as well. Whatever it was she and Caleb shared over the previous few months, it wasn't love.
"... I just couldn't help it Shirley... it just... it just happened," the words finally left Maria's throat like a dislodged logs.
"With my son," Shirley gathered herself before giving an indignant hiss.
Maria simply shook her head and went limp as Shirley's disgust vibrated down her spine, knowing exactly how she'd feel if she discovered a trusted confidante had crossed that line with one of her children.
Twisting her hands in the cuffs to keep them from falling asleep, Maria patted her feet on the slick floor as the heat of Shirley's glare radiated through her pores.
"When did it start?" Shirley finally asked.
"... last summer... ," Maria sighed dryly, balling her hands into fists then flexing her fingers trying to get feeling back into them.
"It was one night we... I mean... you and I came home from a bar... Caleb came home in the middle of the night... we sort of... it just kind of... ," Maria grasped for verbal straws, waiting for Shirley to interject.
Instead, Shirley simply took a step back and watched as her friend wallowed in her juices.
"So you're saying you and him... did it in my house... while I was sleeping right down the hall?" Shirley folded her arms and scolded with clear derision.
Remembering back to that fateful night, and how she'd stolen more than a few peeks into the mirror to make sure Shirley's bedroom door remained closed, all Maria could do was nod her head in admission.
Once again, a thick silence coagulated between the two.
"Don't be mad at him," Maria eventually blurted out. "I was the one who should have stopped things Shirley... it was all me."
"Oh girl... Caleb's a big boy... don't worry... I'll deal with him. Right now this is between us," Shirley eased up behind her friend and whispered cryptically.
If possible, Maria felt like she might melt into a puddle right then and there on the bathroom floor.
"Probably the only way you'll ever get out of these cuffs," that same inner voice she'd grown painfully accustomed to mocked.
So engrossed in her own self pity, it took a few seconds for Maria to recognize the sound of Shirley unlooping her belt behind her.
"What... are... you... doing?" she wanted to moan, but her tongue wouldn't cooperate.
