Chapter Four

Courtney couldn’t remember the last time she felt so relaxed.

Pampered. That was the phrase. That was what salons were for. A sanctuary where women could leave their worldly woes at the door and partake in a little sisterhood while getting a pedicure...

Celine was very good. lathering the floral scented shampoo into her caramel hair and working it down to the roots. The smell was of lavender with a hint of honeysuckle. Terribly relaxing when paired with the gentle spa music and the warm wrapping of the large cutting cape. Courtney almost felt swaddled in the blanket of pink fabric. Soft as dander against the exposed skin of her arms and neck.

Her eyelids were heavy as ship’s anchors as she let all her stress and trouble evaporate like rain puddles after a summer sun shower.

Violet was making some odd, mewling noises not far away but Courtney couldn’t muster the strength or concern to turn her attention in that direction. They didn’t sound like unhappy noises and her daughter made similar satisfied moans sometimes when eating chocolate cake.

“It must be hard, working to support the two of you all by yourself.” Celine hummed, rubbing small circles into her brow. “Forgive my forwardness, but you are such a fetching woman, Madame. Despite your age, it would take you little effort to turn a suitable man’s head.”

Despite her age? Turn a man’s head?

There was a lot to unpack there for one innocuous comment.

Courtney was certainly aware of her advancing years but tried her best to take care of herself. She could probably find more time to hit the second-hand treadmill tucked into the corner of her cluttered home office and treat breakfast as more than a glorified coffee break… but why was the onus on her to catch a man’s eye?

Besides, most of the age-appropriate males she met in her line of work were already married men searching for a new family home, or cashed up undesirables like that pig Jack Shefield. An overinflated ego who owned the biggest car dealership on the Magic Mile and kept calling her “Babe” while shopping for one of the gaudy McMansions in the new developments on Frederick’s affluent north side.

She wanted to gag at the very notion but Celine’s massaging fingertips were turning her knotted neck muscles to quivering jelly. Courtney shuddered instead, and it wasn’t in revulsion.

“Don’t… need… man.” She managed to slur through languorous lips. Simply uttering those three little words felt like a monumental achievement.

“Of course not, Madame. Pardonne-moi, I misspoke my meaning.” The raven-haired stylist demurred quietly. “It was my intention to convey that a lady as fierce and independent as your lovely self would have no compunctions against taking the initiative in matters of the heart.”

That was nice. Celine was nice. Courtney was a fierce and independent woman just like she said. Matters of the heart, those words resonated with the single mother though. At what point had she set aside her love life–and all the emotional baggage attached–only to forget to pick it back up again?

Being self-employed, maintaining the image of professional success, and being a good mother. Those things had consumed her best years like a grinding millstone of societal expectation.

To what end?

Certainly not for the glitz and glamor of the property market. Never mind selling exclusive, high-end locales like New York or Los Angeles, Courtney was struggling like hell to sell Frederick, fucking Maryland.

Violet though… her beloved daughter was the priceless pearl in the muddy mollusk that Courtney’s life had become. A shiny jewel grown from a kernel of grit and determination to be proud of.

Proud of the faint yips and muted moans coming from the head-strong girl’s chair beside her as an undeniably handsome young man was doing god-knew-what with Violet’s wet tangle of hair.

A loud retort of two hands clapped hard together shocked Courtney out of her half-dozing state.

“Enough!” Monsieur Claude had reemerged from his back room and met her reflected gaze in the wall-length mirror . “Rinse and move them to the blower station. I shall put the finishing touches on my earlier two canvases before moving on to begin my newest masterpiece.”

Eyelids still fluttering with drowsy bliss, Courtney rolled her head to a side to view the previously unmoving figures lodged beneath the polished hood of the hair dryers.

The nameless pair were squirming now, unseen limbs shifting fitfully beneath their pastel-coloured drapes. Painted lips gasping as their legs opened and closed like butterfly wings, bunching the shin length cloth between their rocking knees.

Somehow Courtney had forgotten they were even there...

Violet luxuriated in the sensation of the metallic cone thrumming around her ditzy skull. There was just something about the sound… the term je ne sais quoi came to mind. Whatever that meant. Probably just a clinging remnant of her hastily crammed french from the night before.

It wasn’t important…

In fact, a lot of silly subjects and ideas were quickly sinking down her checklist of priorities under the dragging weight of their previous import while others were buoyed up in a cloud of happy iridescent bubbles.

French was down, that hadn’t gotten her anywhere anyway, and along with it was book learning, boring college classes, and worrying about her future career prospects.

Those weren’t any fun and bummed her out. Too much yucky anxiety.

On the other hand; feeling fine, having a good time and looking great were on the rise. Boys too. Boys especially were on the up and up. Boys like Adam with his deep voice, hard muscles and rough manly touch that made her skin tingle were jet-setting to the tippy top in no uncertain manner.

He had all but carried her from the stylist chair in his big, strong arms and piled her damp mess of thick platinum tresses atop her head before lowering the buzzing dome down over Violet’s half-lidded eyes with a conspiratorial wink. The first thrilling crack in his overly polite yet hunky shell.

She was getting to him after all.

There had been sooo~ much of her hair too. Violet had generally kept hers cut for functionality and ease of maintenance. Anything longer took ages to dry after showering and she could wrangle a lot out of comparatively little.

Ponytails for day to day, maybe with a playful runaway strand or face-framing bangs for added effect. Loosely tousled, sexy-messy for the lingering looks that turned the boy’s cheeks scarlet at the community swimming pool and left them stuck in at least waist deep water for the sake of public decency.

Especially when she wore that stringy little two-piece number her mom didn’t know she had purchased last summer and stretched her budding young body out just so on one of the sun lounges.

Violet let out a hot little moan at the memory.

Everything about her felt heated. From the warm air whirling about the heavy mass of wavy hair stacked atop her simmering skull, to the magma dripping from her feminine core. Her skin was on fire and she was certain the molten moistness gathering between her grinding thighs was drenching the denim crotch of her painted on skinny jeans..

“Oh Adam…”

Violet wasn’t sure if the sultry words had escaped her lips or simply arrived at her ears of their own volition. The sweet, soothing panpipe music still filled the background just as the seductive smell of honeysuckle and lavender shampoo still pervaded her olfactory, being baked into her malleable mind by the oven heat of the hair drying station.

It was a captivating scent, ironing out the worry wrinkles of her plastinated brain until Violet’s thoughts were as smooth and sleek as rich satin sheets.

She could touch herself a little couldn’t she? Over the denim of her skinny jeans, nothing too lewd. Just for a second. The large cutting cape tented her from throat to knees, nobody would notice. Like a quick little diddle under the bed sheets.

Slowly, so slowly, Violet let her dainty hands glide over her slender thighs. Even that feather-light stroke felt charged. Electric. Sending up sparks which shocked her juicy nethers.

Her barely eighteen year old pussy thrummed in time with the shiny dryer bonnet encasing her mind. Except where the sound itself was calming, the sensation it ignited was outright provocative.

“Oh Adam, yes…”

There they were again. The lust-laden words she badly wanted to whisper but hadn’t. Violet couldn’t see much with the chrome hood obstructing her vision. Couldn’t lift it from her head with her small hands trapped in the vice-grip of clenching thighs. Fingers pressing hard into the drill cotton. Pushing the stitched center seam against the cleft of her dewy folds.

A quiet grunting noise filtered through the hypnotic hum of the dryer vents. Low-pitched and gruff. His grunts. From the only HE dominating Violet’s streamlined thoughts.

Her fingers dug into the stubborn denim, swirling tight circles and crushing her throbbing pearl. A gasp escaped her breathy lips, sweeter than any song, as ecstatic lightning danced along singing nerve endings.

“Oh Adam!”

Thanks for reading my latest chapter. If you want to help support my writing or read advanced chapters, please consider buying me a coffee. Cheers and happy reading!