"Hello?" Kristen poked her head through the back door. She wasn't trespassing; this was their neighbors' house, and she'd been here a lot. She still felt a little nervous about walking across their yard and up to their house on her own.
Nobody answered. Nobody home? That was strange - Linda should be home. She usually was, at this time, and had told Kristen to come over.
"Hello!" She raised her voice a little. Still no answer. But the door was open and Linda had told her to just come on in, if it was. Kristen wrinkled her nose and stepped inside.
She had been here a lot, and made her way to the kitchen to start with. Linda usually prepared dinner for Doug, her husband, and would probably be there. Kristen suppressed a twinge of jealousy.
They seemed to have such a nice marriage, Linda and Doug. Even though Doug worked a lot, like Kristen's husband, he was much more attentive to Linda than Kevin ever was. Perhaps it helped that Linda seemed much happier about not having a real job than Kristen did...
Kristen worked in a store, morning shifts. She'd gotten home just under an hour ago, and had taken a shower, changed, and gone straight over here. The empty house was starting to get a bit oppressive. She should be happy, she supposed, that Kevin was so laser-focused on his career. At first, he'd wanted to buy a house in one of the really fancy areas.
Kristen thought she would have died from boredom there, in a place where people had real, actual servants. They'd moved here, instead, into a quite normal, middle-class-looking area, and put the money they'd saved aside for Kevin's future investment fund.
The area didn't really matter much to him -- he was barely home - but it had made all the difference in the world for her. Here, she could meet people, normal people, who had normal jobs. More or less.
Linda worked in a store too, of sorts. It was a fake store, being paid for by Doug and the other women's husbands. It didn't make any money and didn't have to; it was just there to give Linda and the other bored wives something do to. On some days, they didn't even bother to go there.
Despite that difference - and it was a fundamental one, Kristen felt - she got along well with Linda, and really liked her. Doug was even more well-paid than Kevin, but the easy money hadn't gotten to Linda's head. She was kind, funny, helpful and pretty down-to-earth. Kristen liked her, a lot. It sometimes felt like hanging out with a slightly older, wiser sister.
When Kristen poked her head around the door frame and peeked into the kitchen, she stopped, her head jerking back. Linda was in the kitchen alright, but... not dressed like an older sister. In fact, she was hardly dressed at all. She was wearing lingerie, and over that, an apron. And heels, five- or six-inch heels that Kristen wouldn't have been able to take a step in.
"Linda?" Kristen said, timidly. Linda didn't respond. She didn't react at all. She was standing beside the kitchen sink, staring at something on the wall. Or, maybe, at nothing at all. The look on her face was really unsettling. She looked vacant.
Kristen hesitated, unsure if she should go back home or not. What was this? Were they playing some kind of game? But the door had been open, and the golf bag had been leaning against the wall in just that angle Linda used to signal,
I'm home, come on in
.
She'd never seen anything like it. Linda didn't even seem to see her. She was standing absolutely still, breathing calmly, her chest rising and falling slowly. Her eyes didn't move, either. They were calmly inspecting something, on the wall or in the air. They looked glassy. Frozen.
Kristen stepped into the kitchen, swallowing. This was spooky, she thought. It didn't get less spooky when she saw the stuff on the counter top. Linda had clearly started preparing dinner - there was a cutting board, knives, a bowl with something in it. Kristen looked more closely at Linda, and almost wished she hadn't.
Linda was standing at attention. Stiff, straight-backed attention, with her arms rigid down her sides. She was wearing a necklace as well, a big, green emerald-studded necklace that Doug had given her on their anniversary.
It had to be some kind of weird game. Linda had never, not once, let slip that they were into this kind of thing, but - you never really knew people all that well, did you. They wouldn't have told her about this, would they.
Kristen laughed nervously. She tried to imagine telling people about her and Kevin's kinky sex games. It didn't work. Not least because they didn't do any kinky sex games. They barely had sex at all.
Kristen found herself staring at the necklace, and shook her head to pull herself together. Linda still hadn't shown the slightest reaction, and so it was time to leave. She was obviously intruding on something.
Right then, she heard steps in the hallway behind her. She turned, and saw Doug, dressed in his usual, impeccable black suit, walking up towards her and smiling.
"Hi Kristen!" he said. "Linda told me you were coming over for dinner."
"Uh," Kristen said, too stunned to reply. He was acting completely normally. As if... as if his wife wasn't standing three meters away and staring blankly at nothing.
"She's preparing something extra nice today, she told me." Doug went past her, into the kitchen. He went up to his wife, pausing briefly and obviously looking her over, and then kissed her on the cheek. He took the necklace and lifted it over her head. Then he murmured something into Linda's ear and snapped his finger.
Kristen's hand flew to her mouth and she took a step back as Linda's face came back to life. Her mouth moved, and then broke into a smile as she blinked and then glanced around the room. She smiled at her husband, and then, even more widely, at Kristen.
"Hi Kris! I didn't hear you coming! How's your day?" Linda turned around and began preparing dinner. No, continued preparing dinner. Doug reached out and gently squeezed her ass. She giggled and swatted his hand away.
