Her Mother

Vivien Harmon. Her mother.

Soft mouth. Long fingers. The way her mother’s nightgown clung when she came out of the shower, skin still damp, the faint outline of her nipples visible through the thin fabric. The gentle curve of her breasts. The quiet strength in her hands when she brushed Violet’s hair back from her face without thinking.

Violet’s fingers moved faster. She imagined those same hands between her legs instead—her mother’s fingers sliding through her wetness, parting her, pressing inside. The way Vivien would look at her while she did it, eyes dark and knowing. How she would kiss her slow at first, then deeper, tasting her. How she would lower her head and put her mouth on Violet’s cunt, tongue tracing the same path her fingers were taking now. How Violet would come on her mother’s tongue, thighs shaking, hands buried in her mother’s hair.

She hated her father for this. For the affair. For dragging them across the country to this rotting house in Los Angeles like a fresh start could fix what he broke. For making her mother quieter. Sadder. For putting that tight, distant look in Vivien’s eyes that never used to be there.

But here, alone, fingers buried in herself, it wasn’t him she wanted.

It was her.

Violet came hard, thighs locking, a broken little gasp trapped behind her teeth. Her fingers kept moving through the aftershocks, milking it, until she was too sensitive and had to stop.

She lay there afterward, chest rising and falling, the house settling around her like it approved.

She was starting to like it here. The creaks. The shadows. The way the walls seemed to keep secrets. She would never say that out loud to her parents - especially not to him. But alone in the dark, fingers still slick, the thought of her mother’s mouth still vivid behind her eyes, she didn’t have to pretend.