I came into the den and Auggie was sitting on the couch, scrolling through pictures on his phone. He startled when I touched his shoulder.

“It’s just me,” I said. I sat down in my robe and nightie, feeling like the snake in my dream. “Lift your legs up, please.” I pulled the oversized ottoman to the edge of the couch so we could stretch out, and I spread a blanket over our legs. “Comfy?”

Auggie was still scrolling through pictures of Kirsten.

“Put the phone away,” I said. “No screens after seven. You know the house rules.”

Auggie turned the phone off and tossed it to the end of the ottoman. “I remember seeing you and your husband watching TV late.”

“You caught me breaking the rules?”

“A few times.”

“Well, alcohol was probably involved. The rules fall by the wayside when I’m tipsy.”

“You’re saying if we knock a few back, we can watch a movie?”

He was staring at my lips.

“Hell, if we have enough drinks, we can make a movie,” I said. I immediately regretted the joke. “I’m sorry. That was in poor taste.”

“What do you have to drink?”

I got up, went to the liquor cabinet and punched in the code. “I’ll fix you my new favorite. You’ll like it.” I prepared the cocktail in a shaker, poured the elixir into two rocks glasses, and came back to the couch.

“Cheers,” said Auggie, and lightly touched his glass to mine.

I drank and watched his eyes widen as his brain lit up with sugar and booze.

“This tastes like candy,” he said. “What’s in it?”

“One and a half shots of whiskey and one and a half of butterscotch schnapps. It’s dangerous.”

Auggie finished his drink and licked his lips.

“You’re supposed to sip it,” I said.

“Can I have another one?”

“All right,” I said. “But you have to slow down.”

“I promise,” he said, crossing his heart with crossed fingers.

I handed him the drink. He took a minuscule sip, staring at me.

“Good boy,” I said. “Now, what movie are we going to watch?”

“You should hide my phone. I don’t wanna text a bunch of nonsense to You Know Who.” He took another sip. “Ki’s trying to get comfortable in a new place. She doesn’t need me holding her back.”

“I doubt she’ll have trouble making friends in college.” I took his phone and locked it away in the liquor cabinet. I caught him swallowing the last of his drink. “Hey, I’m serious about taking it easy with those. You’ll be on the floor or have your head in the toilet.”

When I got under the blanket, my toes touched his. I could feel my pulse in my fingertips.

“How about we don’t watch a movie?” said Auggie. “We don’t talk about Ki. Or college. Or toilets. Or being on the floor.”

“What do you want to do?”

He cleared his throat and started laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“I’m thinking about all the guys in the world waiting for you to upload your newest video, and here I am, some dumb kid, having drinks and sharing a blanket with you.”

I licked the liquor off my lips. “All it takes is a few bad videos and my followers will disappear in a heartbeat.”

“Shut up. You’d have to wear a hazmat suit and scream at the top of your lungs about nuclear bombs and God, to lose viewers.”

“I don’t know. People are fickle. It’s hard to keep their attention.”

“Paula,” said Auggie. “I’m not talking about people, I’m talking about men. It’s a pretty simple equation: your cheekbones, lips, long neck, sexy shoulders, flat stomach, divided by their thousands of eyes, equals views and subscriptions. Period.”

“If you’re such a pro at this, why don’t you have a horde of followers?”

“Men watch your videos because they want to—well, you know. And women watch them because they want to be the kind of woman who makes thousands of men drool. Filming a video like yours is different for men.”

“How would you know?”

“It’s just a fact of life. I don’t make up the rules.”

“I think you’re afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Putting yourself out there.”

“No one would watch a video of me running on a treadmill.”

“How much you wanna bet?”

“Nothing.”

“I’ll bet you a thousand dollars, if you film the same video as I did today, you’ll get five thousand views in a week.”

“I don’t have a thousand dollars. I don’t have fifty dollars.”

“Fine. I’ll bet you... five full-body massages. All that’ll cost is time and elbow grease. And God knows you have plenty of that.” I squeezed his forearm and imagined his hands on my body; then my hands on his.

“I don’t have a channel to put a video on.”

“Give me a break. That takes twenty minutes to set up. Just admit you’re afraid and I’ll leave you alone.”

The consternation disappeared from Auggie’s face. “Twenty and it’s a deal.”

“Twenty dollars?”

“Twenty massages.”

I held out my hand. “Deal.” We shook on it.

Auggie looked into his empty glass. “What time do you want to start tomorrow?”

“No, babe,” I said and finished my drink. “We’re going to film tonight. While our creative juices are flowing.”

88888

I changed into fresh gym clothes. Nothing makes me feel sexier.

“For this to work,” I said, “you have to follow my direction to the T.”

“Of course.”

“Put these on,” I said and thrust a pair of navy blue briefs at him.

“Where’d you get these?”

I turned on the filming lights. “Inessa was doing laundry and I told her to gather clothes from your room.”

Auggie stood there holding his underwear. He took a drink of his cocktail.

“I had Inessa dry them on high heat, so they’ll be nice and tight. Let’s get a move on. We’re burning daylight.”

I set up the camera as Auggie changed. He tapped my shoulder, and I was more than pleased with the way his package bulged.

“If I’d known I was going to be doing this,” Auggie said, “I would’ve worn a Speedo this summer.”

“Trust me, they won’t be looking at your tan lines,” I said and removed the camera from the tripod.

Augustine pulled his underwear down. “Did you want to get stills of me first or just skip right to the scene?”

“Stills? I was...” 

Auggie backed me down and removed his underwear. “Narrative in porn is a serious waste of time if you ask me.”

I dropped the camera as my ass plopped onto the weight bench.

“If we’re going to break the law,” Auggie said, “we should do at least one rehearsal.”

Augustine held the back of my head as I took him into my mouth. The young man was completely erect and seeping precum.

Standing, I slipped my gym shorts off, spun on my heel and rested my palms on the weight bench, face to face with my stain from earlier.

Augustine slapped my ass, drew the head of his swollen cock through my womanly fluids, and lubricated my anus with them.

This was a long time coming. I was about to see what Auggie was made of.

“Fucking hell,” he said, using his thumbs to pry my cheeks apart.

“Calm down. It’ll open up to you,” I said. “Be patient.”

With some spit and perseverance, my asshole eventually acquiesced to his eagerness. He leaned forward and grabbed onto my tits for leverage, snorting, fucking me like a Percheron stud. I contorted my body to keep his drunken thrusts inside. A seam in my sports bra tore. The liquor and endorphins whorled in my frontal cortex and I felt like a war general, astonished at the efficacy of my battalion’s cannon fire.

A rope of spunk shot between my legs, skimming my bald cunt, splattering the bench.

Augustine sat me down, atop our improvisational work of art, and got on his kness. He buried his face between my legs and flicked and prodded my bud with his tongue. I ran my fingers through his hair, trying to stay in the moment like my therapist had taught me.

88888

I fumbled for the remote to close my bedroom curtains. It was twenty after eight and my stomach and brain were pissed at me for drinking whiskey. Augustine was asleep, on his side. His back muscles appeared chiseled in the dim light. I shut my eyes against surges of seasickness. I rolled over, slowly. A bottle of water and a red gummy were on my nightstand, like milk and cookies for Santa. I took a drink of the water, chewed the gummy, drank more water, and nestled my head into the pillow.

It was half past eleven when I woke up alone. My stomach had settled, but I was still foggy.

I showered, brushed my teeth, and did my makeup. Still a little high from the gummy, snippets of last night were popping into my mind.

Walking downstairs, I heard the swish of Inessa’s flats on the hardwood.

“Good morning, Paula,” said Inessa. “How are you feeling, this morning?”

“Fine,” I said. “Do I smell coffee?” I went into the kitchen.

“I heard the shower upstairs and turned the machine on, right away.”

“You’re a Godsend, Inessa.” She must have found the drink glasses from last night and left me the gummy and the water, too. “Have you seen Augustine?”

“He’s outside,” she said, “talking to Anya.”

I went to the island, grabbed an orange from the fruit bowl, and dug my fingernails into its rind. It was very sunny outside and Anya and Augustine were lounging at a table on the patio. Anya looked happy and healthy.

“Shouldn’t Anya be heading back to college?” I asked.

“In a few days. Four, to be exact. Which is our problem. My brother-in-law came to town last night and he is staying at our house.”

“The one who drinks?”

“Yes.” Inessa rested her forearms on the counter and clasped her hands. “I would never ask you if this wasn’t an emergency, but...”

“Sure, Anya can stay here.” I bit into an orange wedge and a drop dripped onto my chin.

Inessa bowed her head. “Thank you, so much. This is such...”

“She can sleep in Kirsten’s room.”

“Oh,” said Inessa. “Of course.”

“Does she have a preference?”

“Even if she did, it wouldn’t matter,” Inessa said. “I’ll change the sheets.”

I dabbed my chin with a paper towel, threw away the orange peel and the rest of the orange, and washed my hands.

When I opened the sliding glass door, I noticed a black bikini top slung over once of the cast iron patio chairs and a towel from the pool house draped on another.

“Good morning, Sleepy,” said Augustine. “You’re gonna let a million bugs into the house.”

I shut the screen, turned back and put my hand on Anya’s shoulder. “Hey, sweetie, I told your mom it’s cool if you stay here.”

“Oh—Paula!” said Anya. She got up and hugged me. “That’s a huge relief. You’re literally saving me hundreds of dollars. I wouldn’t have this problem if my school started when all the other schools do. But what am I going to do?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’ve got you.”

Anya excused herself to use the bathroom. I shut the door behind her and sat at the table.

“Hi,” I said. “How’re you feeling?”

“Like a dick.”

“Why?” I asked.

Auggie slumped in his chair. “I get really aggressive when I drink, because of the anxiety meds I’m on. It turns me into a different person. I want you to know I’m sorry about what happened last night.”

“I’m not.” I slumped in my chair, mimicking Auggie’s posture. The tabletop was made of glass. I pulled my short silk skirt up and watched his eyes lock onto my freshly shaved pussy.

“Come on, Paula,” Auggie said as if I had him in a headlock.

“I thought I was Mrs. C? Or is that who I am around cute little girls like Anya?”

“Little girl?” Auggie said. “She’s almost twenty.”

Auggie crossed his legs in a figure-four lock and arranged his shorts to obscure his conspicuous excitement. When I heard the patio door slide open, I let my skirt drift back down my thighs and I stood up.

“I’ll leave you kids alone. Anya, it’s so good to see you.” I kissed her on both cheeks. “Maybe in a little bit we can figure out where we’re eating dinner tonight.”

“You don’t have to do that,” said Anya.

“Cooking is a hassle and I’m tired of ordering in, so that only leaves one option.”

“If you insist,” said Anya. “When Augustine and I get back from lunch, we’ll put our heads together.”

“You’re going to lunch?” I asked. “Where at?”

“A taco truck downtown. Do you want to come?”

“You two go ahead. I’ll have a nice, quiet lunch here.”

88888

I ate half a turkey sandwich and lay on the couch in the den.

My phone buzzed and it was Kirsten.

“Hey, babe,” I said. “I heard you were out partying last night.”

“Partying is for children and divorcees. I was networking.”

“Right.”

“How are things there? Auggie hasn’t texted me since yesterday afternoon.”

I remembered his phone was in the liquor cabinet. “Things are good. Quiet. Anya is staying here for a couple of days.” I got up, punched in the code, and opened the door. The phone was gone.

“Anya’s the best. Now, there’s a girl who knows how to network.”

“What do you mean?”

The call dropped. When I called her back, it went straight to voicemail.

How did Auggie get into the liquor cabinet?

I texted Auggie: How’d you get your phone back?

Magic, he replied.

Did you and Anya go swimming this morning?

I sat on the edge and stuck my feet in.

Did she strip down to her Victoria’s Secret and jump in?

No, I found one of Ki’s old bikinis in the pool house. Is that OK?

I’m just wondering how she fit into it.

Well, it was pretty tight on Ki and Anya ain’t exactly flat-chested.

What else isn’t she, exactly?

Idk what’s the opposite of stunning?

The lemon scones at the mean bean, I said.

LOL ur funny. And dead on.

Do you think Anya is the kind of girl who takes her shirt off when you’re making out with her but leaves her bra on to give you the thrill/responsibility of unhooking it so you can suck on her soft tits?

Isn’t it a little early for this kind of talk?

If she sees that you’re hard I can only imagine she’ll take that as a compliment. Or an invitation.

Gotta go. I’ll see you soon.

Tossing my phone onto the ottoman, I closed my eyes and imagined Augustine taking Anya into a gas station bathroom, flipping the deadbolt, and getting her naked except for her tennis shoes. I wondered. Would she turn around, spread her legs and lean forward, holding onto the hand dryer for dear life as eight inches of pulsing muscle burrowed into her, yearning to spray its payload?

“Oh, shit,” I said, out loud, remembering that I forgot to set a reminder for my therapy appointment.