Samantha's room was too pink.
Katherine sat stiffly on the bed and Mike sat next to her, neither speaking or looking at one another. It was different when she was being forced. She could let loose, tell herself that she was only doing what she had to, what her daughter forced her to do. Downstairs, she could tell herself that Sam hadn't given her a choice. That her daughter was a wolf in sheep's clothing who only pretended to be sweet and bubbly.
"This room is too fucking pink," she said, jumping at the sound of her own voice as she thought she'd only been speaking in her head.
"What," Mike said.
"Nothing," Katherine sighed.
"I think so too," Mike said.
"About what," Kat asked. She didn't want to actually know the answer, but the silence had been too much and she was eager to fill her head with anything other than her own thoughts.
"It doesn't really suit her does it?"
Katherine only grunted and wished for silence again. Surrounded by her daughters teddy bears, and childhood toys, she felt worse than defeated, she felt tricked and lied to. Different shades of pink ranging from hot to bubblegum made her feel stupid. Up until the moment Sam pushed play on that video, she thought that this was who Samantha was. Her little girl.
"No," Kat responded. "I thought it did but no."
"Yeah she's uh," Mike struggled for his next word before waving his hand dismissively at the room and finishing with, "She's something else."
Unable to keep staring at the pink rug on the floor at her feet or the pink walls covered with snapshots of Sam and her friends as they'd grown up over the years, Kat turned and looked at Mike. Under the too bright lights of Sam's too pink room, she could see all of him clearly for perhaps the first time.
The night she made the mistake that started all of this, he was just heat and presence. What she took from him that night she needed. Downstairs with Samantha humiliating her, she was giving him what she wanted to give him. When she was under the table, with her head bobbing between his thighs and his cock swollen and twitching in her mouth, she was taking from him what she needed.
A slight smile creased her lips. She swallowed what she needed.
In those moments, there was only one part of him that mattered and that was all he was to her. Looking at him now, she tried to read him. She wondered what he felt about her, what he thought about her after all of this. Kat wondered what it meant that she didn't really care what he thought about her, or what Sam thought of her.
"So how was I?" Kat leaned back on her elbows and looked Mike up and down.
"I'm sorry?"
"No you're not," Kat said. It wasn't an accusation, just the truth. Mike wasn't being forced to do anything. His face couldn't be seen in the video and even if anyone recognized him, no one would care. Only her reputation would be destroyed.
"What do you mean?"
"You enjoyed it," she said flatly. No teasing or shame, just acceptance. She sounded as if she were stating the weather.
"Didn't you," Mike said back.
Kat stared at Mike for several moments, unsure of how to answer. She was still processing how she felt about any of this. She'd been telling herself that she had no choice for so long that she'd never asked herself whether or not she was enjoying this. Simply asking the question instead of raging at the injustice of her situation felt like she'd surrendered to it. Something inside her begged to fight back and struggle.
"I was very drunk the first time."
"And the second."
"The second time was all about you," Kat said with a smile that was a little too genuine. She turned away, more embarrassed by the blush that spread across her face than where her face had been twenty minutes ago.
"So, what are you saying?"
Kat stood and turned to Mike who was still sitting on the bed. Placing her hand on his chest, she pushed him back onto the bed and straddled him. As she bent her face toward his, mouth open and breath shallow, he mumbled a final protest.
"We don't have to."
Kat was smiling when she kissed him, their tongues darting and exploring one another's mouth. His hands explored, touching cautiously at first before grabbing her like he owned her. She whimpered softly as he crumpled the damp cotton of her t-shirt in his hands and her nipples stiffened immediately. She groaned as he toyed with them until they ached, begging to be free.
Kat was pulling her shirt off a moment before Mike grabbed it and they both pulled it over her head. His hands went immediately to the clasp of her bra, it was beige and accented with a little embroidery around the cups. He struggled with the hooks, as Kat expected him to, but he was able to get it undone just as she started reaching around to do it for him.