A Deal

"I was a sinner, my dear. I won't bore you with the details. As much as I loved your father, there were certain needs of mine he couldn't take care of—and his military career kept him away from home so much of the time. I did my best to support him—wanted him to excel, just as I wanted the best for you and your sister." She sipped from the glass. "But I also had my own needs."

Lois stared at her, about to say something, but her mother seemed almost to read her thoughts.

"Oh no, not sex darling, not really. My pussy was always reserved for your father. No it was heroin, and a particularly nasty little gambling habit. I needed the excitement you see, and shooting up between my toes...well, when you're a woman alone in a house, nothing else to do...but it got out of hand. You may say there as a slide downhill...I was using more, and borrowing money for my habit, and at the card tables. It reached a point where I was making...concessions. I told you that I always kept my pussy for your father, and that's true, but in other ways...well...what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him. That's what I thought."

Lois mechanically reached for the pitcher, brain trying to process all of this. The problem was...she couldn't outright deny it. She had come home, sometimes, to find her mother down for a "nap" that lasted for hours...or smiling in a blissful haze...she never wore open-toed shoes, ever. Even around the house she was always in socks and slippers. She couldn't ever remember seeing her mother's bare feet.

"And in a moment of weakness I...was in a **** place. It was all going to fall apart. The **** was eating at me, I owed too much money to too many people, and one of them wanted me to do...things I swore I would never do." Ella licked her lips. "That's when she appeared."

"Who?" Lois set her freshly-drained glass on the table, still feeling the salty goo on her lips.

"A devil. She called herself Blaze. Laid out all my troubles before me...including a few I hadn't know about. Venereal disease, that was one I hadn't thought about. All the way my addictions were catching up with me...and she offered me a way out."

"At what price?" Lois stared hard at her.

"She gave me a choice," Ella stared into her glass. "My soul, or...my first born child."

Lois leaned over the table, bare breasts brushing the top. "Mom, what have you done?"

Ella looked up, tears in her eyes. "I promised her..."