A soft click stirred Anna from a deep sleep. Turning her head slowly she opened her eyes slightly, noticing the soft glow from the street lights outside the window. Everything seemed normal. It must have been nothing.
Closing her eyes again she rolled over to go back to sleep, only to realise that she couldn't. Her arms were stuck somehow above her head and something was resting across her waist, something heavy.
Trying again her eyes snapped open when she felt a hand clamp over her mouth. She didn't even have a moment to scream before a voice, a woman's voice, said quietly, "Shhhh... it's only me."
Anna stared in astonishment, making out the face of her friend Nathalie who was sat straddling Anna. She tried to speak but nothing came out through the hand over her mouth.
"You promise to talk quietly I'll take my hand away, ok?" Anna nodded. "Promise?" Anna nodded again.
With Nathalie's hand gone, Anna whispered, "What the hell is going on?"
She saw Nathalie smile in the semi-light. "I saw how you were looking at me tonight over dinner..."
"I don't know what you mean," replied Anna. Except that she did. She really did. As her husband had been droning on yet again about another boring story about his work, she'd been looking at Nathalie, her mind drifting, mentally undressing her, imagining doing things to her just like she had imagined again and again since that one night that her and Nathalie had spent together nearly 25 years before.
"Yes, you do."
Anna just lay there in silence, not trusting any words that might come out of her mouth. This was her fantasy coming true, she should be thrilled. But her husband, the man that she'd been married to for 15 years, that she'd promised to be faithful to regardless of how annoying he'd become, lay asleep next door. She was conflicted.
"I'm going to do something that I should have done long, long ago..."
"What?"
"This..." Nathalie leaned down to kiss Anna on the lips gently, teasingly. Anna stayed still, not daring to reciprocate, though she had a powerful urge to return the kiss. Nathalie, sensing the reluctance, instead planted gentle kisses on her lips, on her face, then moved down to her neck.
"Stop..." whispered Anna. "We can't do this. And please uncuff me," she added, looking up to see handcuffs on her wrists keeping them pinned to the bedframe.
"Not yet... and why not?" whispered Nathalie before resuming kissing Anna's neck.
"Because...", replied Anna. "Because my husband is asleep in the room next door. Because my kids could hear us. Because we're both 45 not 20 any more. Many reasons..."
Nathalie sat back up and shrugged. "The amount your husband drank he's out for the count."
"That's still not a reason."
"Hmmm... let's see, shall we," replied Nathalie as she reached her right hand down to touch Anna's left breast through her pyjamas. "Let's just see."
Nathalie fell silent for a minute as she focused on Anna's nipple through the thin cotton. Anna felt it hardening, and felt her body start to respond to the stimulation. Not just a little but a lot.
Memories came flooding back to Anna, of that night 25 years before with Nathalie, back at university, before work, before family, before marriage. Back when the two of them had been single and keen to experiment. A one-off... but a wild one-off that she'd often wished, in her deepest, most secret fantasies, had been more. It seemed like Nathalie maybe felt the same.
"I don't think you're minding this," teased Nathalie. "Do you want me to stop?" Anna said nothing. "Let me check something else..." continued Nathalie.
While her right hand continued to touch and tease Anna's nipple, pinching it lightly through the fabric, Nathalie reached her left hand behind her, down under the waistband of Anna's pyjama trousers and between Anna's legs.