Katherine stood in the foyer of her house and listened to the echo of her voice soak into the surrounding darkness. The entire house smelled like the coconut bubble bath that Samantha used and it disagreed violently with the cheap beer sloshing around in Katherine's stomach. Stifling a burp with one hand over her stomach trying to keep its contents in place, Katherine called into the house again.
"Kids! You up?"
When there was no answer, Katherine shuffled out of her shoes and onto the soft carpet, letting the cool caress of it on her bare feet bring her down from a terrible night. She unbuckled her belt, sighing when the pressure on her belly was released, and pulled off her jeans. Tugging them down to the floor, she wondered why she'd put them on in the first place.
The trip to the bar had been a spur of the moment thing. She was trying to prove to herself that she could get any guy wanted. Her husband thought he was trading up when he started banging his "social media coordinator", a twenty-something teenager with no skills, a made-up job, and plastic tits.
As the tears came back, she wondered if he intended to let it slip. He didn't have the integrity or the guts to tell her he was having an affair. Putting the girl as the background picture on his phone was intentional and keeping the pictures he'd taken of her on the same roll as family photos and their own date night pictures had to be so that he would get caught.
She didn't give him the satisfaction though. She didn't make a scene, just politely asked to be taken home where she pulled on some jeans and went down to the bar next to the community college to pick up one of the young boys that would whistle at her when she drove past in the BMW. She wasn't going to get mad, she was going to get even.
She hadn't been there fifteen minutes before she heard some girls asking each other whose mom she was. Not a single guy approached her, but some looked on with disgust and pity. After a few of the beta males that had struck out with the local girls started looking in her direction, Katherine got herself out of there. She wasn't going to end up with one of the townie guys that even the townie girls didn't want.
So, her husband could get himself an internet model to suck his cock under his desk during lunch hour, while she couldn't even get a drunk college kid to hit on her in a dive bar. This despite the fact that her husband had the hairline and body of a middle manager and she did Pilates and Kegels with the ass to prove it.
She looked at herself in the front window. The dim light behind her framed her silhouette against the pre-dawn darkness outside. She had an ample figure that the little black dress showed off and a mane of dirty blonde hair that glowed a little even in the faint light reflected against the glass.
She admired her hair and her figure. While not a "Hollywood Blonde" like her daughter, the streaks of rust and brown in her hair gave it depth and character. She always thought that hair that was all one color looked unnatural.
She sighed and started up the stairs. The darkness was comfortable now that she'd adjusted to it. The smell of Samantha's coconut body wash was so thick it was like choking on it. The whole upstairs smelled like her.
At the top of the stairs, she could see a thin line of light under Sam's door. She'd fallen asleep with the light on again. She was moving towards the door to open it and turn off the light when a massive shape lunged at her from the darkness. She screamed and fell backwards, almost over the banister and down the staircase when the shape grabbed her and kept her from a serious fall.
"What the fuck!"
"I'm so sorry," Mike said. He held her close against him, close enough to smell the sweat on his neck and shoulders. She began to sag to the floor in his arms before she realized that she wasn't using her legs to hold herself up.
"You scared the hell out of me," Katherine said, taking another deep breath at the nape of Mike's neck as she got her feet back under her.
"I'm sorry, I didn't realize it was you."
"Yeah," Katherine said, thinking back on how she shouted into the darkness before sneaking up the stairs in complete silence. "I'm sorry for scaring the hell out of you too."
"What do you mean?"
"That's why you're so sweaty."
"Oh," Mike chuckled, "Yeah, that's not a fun way to wake up."
"Oh shit," Katherine said with one hand over her eyes. "It's like three in the morning isn't it?"
"Yeah," Mike said, staring back into the darkness of his room. "Nearly four."
"I should get to bed," Katherine said, struggling to her feet. The alcohol had settled in finally and the ground swam under her.
"You okay Katherine?"
"Yeah Mike I...I'm gonna need your help."
"Start a pot of coffee?"
"What, no! I need you to...pick me up."
"Sorry?"
"I can't stand up, I'm drunk. I need...I need you to carry me to my bed."
Mike seemed to consider this for a moment. The light was starting to hurt her eyes and Katherine couldn't look at him, just listen to his breathing and soak in his smell while she held her hand over her eyes. Suddenly, she felt two strong hands under her, one on her ass before sliding under her knee and the other across her back before she was lifted against Mike's chest in a strong embrace.