The latest message from Rachel came like a splash of cold water, after a brief exchange of bland messages about Lauren's progress in locating other women who'd been duped by Martin Heath. It woke her up, and awoke things in her.

A little more careful digging had turned up another potential victim of his affections, one who had gone to jail for her troubles, and she'd just finished exchanging messages about that, and had almost settled in to enjoy the rest of a rare Saturday off, when this message came from Rachel:

OMG my mom visited and I told her about our lezzo experience when we were 13.

It was so unexpected that Lauren stood still, just reading it over and over again, very aware that her children were in the living room playing, and Joe was in the backyard mowing the lawn.

The first surprise was that Rachel's mom had visited; Lauren knew their relationship was strained. What really blew her away, though, was that Rachel had told her about that night.

The word she used to describe it... they'd never given it a name when it had happened, but her word brought back memories of high school, the boys calling, "Lez be friends!"

Rachel was the only girl she'd ever touched or wanted to touch that way. Well, to be fair, it also wouldn't take much effort to wonder what Sunny's wife was like in bed, she was quite luscious and a lovely person to boot. Still, she'd never considered herself a lesbian; even bi was a bit of a stretch, since Joe had been her main obsession since she was barely an adolescent. She'd never considered labelling her sexuality. People came into her life, and something about them made her fall for them, male or female, and that was all that ever mattered to her. It had been that way with Joe, and with Rachel, and though conceivably it could happen again, it hadn't yet, and she didn't think it could ever happen with the intensity of those two; she just didn't have the time or energy for it.

After the surprise came pleasure at the realization that Rachel remembered it too, that it had lasted in her memory all this time.

So, how did she respond to this? She had to ask herself why Rachel had told her this; she hadn't had to. Maybe as a warning in case her mom told Lauren's mom? Lauren's mom wouldn't have cared; she and Dad always said love was love, and their own marriage was an example of not being afraid to pursue it regardless of what people thought. Maybe Rachel was afraid it would get back to Joe?

She had to put her at ease on that account too.

First she sent a shocked face emoji, just to joke with her. Then she looked around, to make sure the kids weren't close by, and typed:

No biggie. I told Joe a long time ago, one night while I was riding him like a bucking bronco. It made him so turned on he exploded prematurely.

She waited, biting her lower lip, wondering how Rachel would respond. It was reckless, maybe too much information for a woman with whom she'd just reunited.

Then Rachel responded.

Holy shit you made me wet telling me that. Are you looking for a repeat of that night or something?

Lauren's eyes widened, and she felt heat in her throat and down below. Rachel was into it. Even after all these years she still felt the same way. She yelled, "Kids, I have to go to the bathroom! If you need anything go to Dad!"

She fled to the downstairs bathroom off the rec room. She locked herself inside. She took a deep, shaky breath to calm down, unzipped her jeans and pulled them down. Then she typed:

Are you touching yourself now?

The response came quickly. Yes. Are you?

Now she was. One hand held her phone, thumb dexterously typing a message, while the other felt beneath her panties.

Yes. Locked in my bathroom banging myself like a teenager.

Rachel responded right away. Oh, fuck! Keep going!

She wanted a story. She'd mentioned a repeat of that night. If Lauren remembered correctly, they'd rubbed each other off while she'd described, in scandalous detail for a thirteen year old, how she'd wanted to grab Joe's erect cock and do things with it, because she'd been so fascinated by it after feeling it harden against her the first time she'd hugged him. Why not let her know how she'd made out with that?

He really is as big as I imagined. Bigger. He fills me so much I feel him in my throat. I have to be on top or he'll tear me in two.

Rachel appeared to enjoy that description, because she typed: I just came.

Lauren finished off, picturing Rachel's body clenching in on itself as she climaxed, shuddering like fifty thousand volts were flowing through her. She typed: Me too. Had to bite a towel to keep from screaming and scaring the little ones. But you're not getting a three-way with us, sorry. I'm a mom, now. I'm deleting these texts so the kids won't see them if they grab my phone.

Rachel typed: Don't tell me you don't have any dick and tit pics on your phone.

Lauren smirked and shook her head. No fucking way. If Rachel knew what it was like being a mom... so she just finished by typing: LOL! TTYL.

Rachel didn't respond after that. Lauren presumed that was enough for her. It had been more than enough for Lauren. She'd never sexted before, not even with Joe; he would have found it unseemly and worried about the kids finding stray messages, especially pictures. To be safe, she deleted the thread, but, Lord Almighty, she couldn't stop the thrill running through her veins at the thought that Rachel still thought of her that way, was still aroused by the thought of her, with Joe or without, it made no difference.

She put the towel, which she'd indeed bitten, back on its bar, buttoned her jeans, cleaned herself up, washed her face with cold water to cool down, and left the bathroom. When she went back upstairs she found the kids exactly where she'd left them, zoned out in front of the TV. Joe was still outside, working up a sweat mowing the lawn. 

She wondered if the kids would stay hypnotized long enough not to notice that Mommy and Daddy had gone upstairs and fucked in the shower, because all she wanted to do right now was exactly as she'd described to Rachel: grab her sweaty man, get him under the shower spray, lather him up, with her puff and her own soapy body, and do all kinds of things only Mommies and Daddies did. It had been a while since she'd felt this horny, because, although she and Joe had always had a fabulous sex life, they'd been together many years, and had grown accustomed to each other's rhythms, likes and dislikes, and there hadn't been anything new in their repertoire in a long time.

This one little text exchange with her old friend had done more to invigorate her sex life than buying lingerie or role-playing. This was something she was going to have to explore more deeply, and she hoped Rachel would be a willing participant in that exploration...

"Mom, when's dinner? We're hungry!" Naomi said.

Nothing cooled the ardour like the immediate needs of children. Lauren sighed. Oh well, maybe she could hold on to this until later tonight, when the kids were asleep.

She discovered a better idea not long after that, and by accident. 

She was in her office, trawling through the laptop of another cheating spouse, and the many different flavours of porn in his Internet history. This was usually a boring task, the content so predictable, it was either big jugs or submissive Asians or anal or black cocks, for some reason (latent homosexual/dominant-submissive tendencies?). 

This time, though, she happened to notice a lot of the footage looked homemade, with a webcam. Real people having real sex, and seeming to enjoy it more because they were actually in relationships. She sampled a few of them, just to see if they contained the cheating spouse in flagrante delicto (that would have been stupid, posting to a porn site, but she'd seen stupider). They didn't, but she found herself getting turned on by them, this abandon they displayed by baring it all and being intimate for an audience of potentially millions. She would never do that with Joe; their careers and reputations were too important to them to have videos of them being discovered by the wrong people, and what would they ever tell the kids?

Still, though, she couldn't stop thinking about it, and when she discovered that the cheating spouse also had Skype on his laptop, it gave Lauren the idea that she could in fact have an audience of one.

Her first show for Rachel was a smashing success, and it surprised her how well she was able to perform knowing she was being watched on the other side of a black screen. In fact, she'd never been so aroused as when she'd thought Rachel was fondling herself while watching Joe fuck her, and she knew Joe had responded to it too; later he'd remarked at his luck that all these years and two kids later he still had an energetic and athletic lover.

It was good, and maybe she could try it again, as long as Joe never twigged that he was on camera.

And yet... she still didn't think it was going to be enough. It was one thing to be naked for Rachel on the other side of a screen.

It was another to be naked with her, no screen between them.

But how was that ever going to happen? And how could she live with herself if it did? Because she loved Joe with all her heart, and even though Rachel was a woman, it was still cheating.

That was just one bridge too far.

Wasn't it?

In the first novel I described these scenes through Rachel's point of view, and they were shocking for being unexpected. Here, they're seen from Lauren's perspective and not so out of the blue. If you liked what you just read, hit the "Vote" button and send it up the ranks, and leave a comment. To see how Lauren deals with the morning's chaos in the present day, click on "Continue reading."