Helen offers to show the book.

Helen stood up slowly, her eyes still locked in her mother's gaze. "Oh, Adam was just being silly," she said a little meekly. "We tried to read a little bit of the book, and yes, we did read one or two spells, but nothing actually happened. It's a nice looking book though." Helen began to sound more confident in what she was saying as she finished and hoped her mother would believe her. As much as she would like her mum to share in the discovery of a legitimate spell book, Helen also wanted to have it for herself. At least for a while.

"Oh," said Susannah softening her glare, "that's a shame."

"It is very pretty though," Helen said moving to leave the dining room. "I'll go upstairs and bring it down so you can see it." Almost at a run, Helen left the room, her black maxi skirt swishing as she went.

Adam couldn't help but look on in confusion as he heard his girlfriend jogging up the stairs. It was apparent that Helen wanted to keep the powers of the book a secret from Susannah; she had covered for his mention of doing another spell after all. Why was she going to bring the book down and risk revealing what it could actually do?

Susannah was similarly perplexed by how her daughter was behaving. She had accepted that Adam had been joking about trying another spell, but was now questioning this. Helen was acting erratically which was a telltale sign that she had something to hide. Susannah looked over at Adam and tried to read his expression. He was the picture of puzzlement, but that was nothing new.

"What is she doing?" Susannah asked with a frown.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Adam said, smiling anxiously.

They both sat there in awkward silence for a minute or two before Adam offered to go check on Helen. As he reached the foot of the stairs, he heard a yelp from Susannah back in the dining room. Instinctively, Adam returned to the dining room to ensure his girlfriend's mother was okay.

As he re-entered the room he could see that Susannah looked a little flustered. "Are you alright?" Adam asked with a raised eyebrow. "It sounded like you might have hurt yourself or something."

"Oh no, I'm fine," Susannah said with an unusual smile, "just a nasty hiccup."

"Ok then," Adam said, turning to leave again.

"Where are you going?" Susannah said almost urgently.

"To check on Helen. I just told you before you hiccuped."

"Oh yeah, of course. Silly me," Susannah chuckled, still sounding in a tiz. "Well I'm sure she's fine, why don't you just wait here with me?"

Adam shrugged and sat back down next to Susannah, but quickly regretted his decision. The silence was deafening as they sat at the table, waiting for Helen to return. Adam scoured his mind for something, anything, to say to start a conversation. As he struggled to think, he became acutely aware that Susannah was looking at him strangely. Out of the corner of his eye, Adam could have sworn his girlfriend's mother was eying him up. Not wanting to make things anymore awkward, he said nothing, wishing Helen would hurry up.

"Would you like me to give you a hand job?" Susannah asked nonchalantly.

Adam's eyes widened. She couldn't have just said that to him, surely not? He turned to face his "mother-in-law", with a bemused expression. The steady, smouldering gaze she gave him suggested his ears weren't deceiving him.

"What? No!" he spluttered.

"That's a shame." Susannah sighed. Then, suddenly, she laid a hand on Adam's thigh.

"I... Susannah, ah, I don't think you should do this..." Adam's voice faltered when her hand slid up and onto the bulge his rapidly hardening cock was making in his jeans.

Adam was stunned that Susannah had laid a hand between his thighs and was now caressing the length of his penis with long, red fingernails.

"I know you're enjoying this, Adam, or your cock wouldn't be so damned hard."

Paralysed by the situation, Adam found himself allowing Susannah to continue stroking the outline of his manhood. On the one hand, he couldn't deny that he was enjoying it and had fantasised about this very situation a hundred times at least. However, on the other hand, what if Helen came downstairs and caught them. Worse still he was cheating on Helen, whether he initiated things or not.