Delivery

All characters are over eighteen years old.

DELIVERY

The rain outside had been falling all that day. It was a misty, free-falling type that seemed more annoying than useful. The sun only broke through the clouds for seconds at a time. Catherine's plans for home and yard cleaning while her husband was at work were put on hold. The persistent and light drizzle was to blame for the lack of progress in the gardens. Instead of making no progress whatsoever, she decided the house needed a deeper cleaning than her usual vacuuming and tidying up.

She stood in the doorway to her bedroom to establish a plan of attack for cleaning the mess her husband often left. She had changed into a sleeveless white t-shirt with the same-colored sports bra. She enjoyed letting her breasts hang free most of the time, but they were large and would swing like heavy pendulums as she was on her knees cleaning. She was a small woman so the 34D's that hung on her chest were big for her frame.

Her hair was naturally blonde, but artificially darkened by her own preference. She kept it tied up most days unless she was out on a date with her husband. He liked to show her off and felt her long hair was particularly attractive. She had on loose-fitting sweat shorts and remained barefoot that day as she cleaned. When she needed to dump trash or otherwise go outside, she kept a pair of crocs at the door for easy on and off action.

Once her plan was formulated, she put it into motion. She checked every pocket of every garment to ensure they were free of pens, business cards or loose items that might damage the machine or clothes in the wash. She had left behind a single piece in her room thinking it might be too much for the machine. Once she loaded everything else, she determined it would be fine and went to get it.

When she arrived back in the room to snatch it up, she instinctively checked the pockets. From one of them, she pulled out a crumpled pair of panties. She looked at them, then the garment she pulled them from. She didn't recognize the panties at all and laughed out loud at the situation.

"Well, they're not mine," she said before the gravity of the situation hit her.

She let out a frustrated sigh.

"Fucking seriously?" she said with a hint of laughter.

She stared at them long and hard. She studied them to ensure they weren't hers from any time in her past. She aggressively searched them for any reason she could find to believe they were a pair she had once wore. She even tried to settle on him having stolen a new pair she bought, but the worn fabric on them quickly stole that idea.

She slowly walked downstairs and sat at the large oak table. She laid the panties on the table in front of her and chuckled to herself again. She fiddled with them, turning them around, upside down and inside out. Each time she rearranged them, she hoped memory would explain their presence in her husband's clothes.

"This can't be real," she told herself.

She spent a significant amount of time convincing herself that perhaps they were hers and she had forgotten. Questions were presented and all possible answers rejected. They were not hers. They were in his suit pocket. He was cheating on her.

She had traversed a range of emotions that day. When her husband arrived home, a final emotion took hold. The tips of her fingers were tapping the surface of the table in repetitive order as she waited for his arrival in the kitchen. When he finally decided to grace her with his presence, the panties on the table failed to garner his attention as he walked past his wife to the fridge.

"So, you're just going to walk right on by this," she said with a finger angrily pointing at the undergarment, "without acknowledging me or perhaps the panties I found in one of your suit pockets?"

The door of the fridge closed. She watched him move back to the table and look down onto the panties as he drank from the carton of milk.

"You didn't find those in my suit!" he said without so much a convincing tone.

"I did, actually and you know what? It's not that you're out fucking some random bitch behind my back," she said before violently shoving the chair behind her as she stood up. "It's that you fucking left these," she added, picking the panties up from the table and shoving them in his face, "in your fucking suite pocket like we live in some cliché of a movie. Like, what the actual fuck, Bill?"

His eyes shifted between the underwear and her eyes. Back and forth he looked while searching for something to say.

"Don't bother thinking up any lies or excuses. I hope that pussy was worth it, Bill. I hope it was worth it."

She threw the panties at his face and began to storm out when she stopped and turned.

"Was it worth it, Bill?" she asked.

Her tone was calm and collected. She needed answers.

"Was the bitch's cunt that tempting that you were willing to throw all this away?"

Deep down, Bill was impressed with her word choice. He'd expected a more medical or scientific description of the mysterious woman's lady parts. She waited for him to answer. They stared at each other. She waited for him to offer some kind of excuse as to why he went outside their marriage for some random pussy to fuck. She intended to hold her ground until he answered but a thought came to her.

"You're still fucking her, aren't you?" she asked.

She walked toward him and narrowed her eyes.

"Is that what it is? Who is it, Bill? Is it Betsy?" she asked.

Betsy was his partner at the firm. They shared a young secretary named Holly Patterson. Catherine named his partner first in hopes that at least he wasn't going full cliché and was fucking the nubile and clueless young secretary.

She continued barraging him with questions without receiving a single answer. She wanted to know what was happening. She needed answers if there was any hope of her being to regain control of her life that was then spinning out of control. She stared; hopeful he was mere seconds away from telling her everything she needed to know until something happened that hadn't even crossed her mind.

He picked up the milk carton and took a drink.

In her head, she asked him if he seriously didn't give two fucks about the situation. In the reality of the kitchen, she slapped the carton away from his mouth. The carton hit the window above the sink before resting behind the faucet. Milk splattered everywhere. Bill made no effort to move, dodge her hand or even react to her violent response to the situation.

"I'm going to my mother's. If you want to salvage the life we built then you'll first come clean about whose panties those are, how you got them and why you kept them. Then, you're going to bring that bitch to me so she can apologize to my face for wrecking our home. If I find reason after that to forgive you, then maybe I'll come back."

She waited in vain for an answer. When she had waited enough, she turned and walked out without another word said. She knew her husband was not a man of many words, but his refusal to at least continue denying what she seemed obvious to her confirmed for her that he had a side chick.

She retrieved a bag from the closet in her room and threw it on the bed. She stepped out of the casual outfit she had on. She changed into lightweight pants knowing her distaste for wet jeans and a different, sleeved T-shirt. She put her phone in her pocket and stormed back to the kitchen on the way to her car.

"If I find out you fucked that heifer in our house, you're going to find yourself living with that skank!" she said as she angrily grabbed the keys from the hook in the mud room and stormed off toward her car.

Her anger clouded her mind and made her take leave of common courtesy. She never warned her mother of her pending arrival that night and her intense focus on her thoughts diverted her attention from the road. She suddenly arrived at her mother's house without a single memory of anything that took place during her journey. She shook it off and angrily exited her vehicle. She looked around and noted a car parked at the curb she didn't recognize. She took it for a neighbor's car and walked to the door. She used the key her mother gave her years before to open the door and let herself in.

"Mom!" she announced as she walked in. Anger still consumed her as she yanked her bag through the door like a misbehaved child after having been punished.

She heard the muffled sounds of hushed words and frantic movements. She furled her eyebrows in confusion and slowly made her way to the back of the house. Her mother appeared suddenly from around the corner.

"Catherine! What are you doing here?" she asked.

Catherine was still adjusting her clothes and straightening her hair when she continued her line of questions.

"Why didn't you call or text me? I have a guy friend here and was," she started as she paused to look back at her bedroom before looking back at her daughter, "kind of in the middle of something," she finished with a wink.

"Of course, you're doing that. I came here after catching my husband cheating on me to find you fucking some rando out of nowhere," she said feeling defeated.

Her mother casually waved her hand is dismissal of her daughter's accusation.

"He's not a rando, Catherine! He's the pizza guy I've been banging for a while now."

Catherine's mouth remained agape in disbelief.

"The pizza guy," she said slowly. "The pizza guy you've been banging! Mom! That's the kind of thing that made dad leave you!"

Catherine was getting angrier with each passing moment. Her mother was never shy about telling her daughter why her father left.

***

Denise was married to a devout Christian at a young age. There was a lot in common between them except for a major issue his parents took issue with. She was not religious and didn't attend church. At the time of their marriage, she figured it would be a great way to bring children into the world. They would see both sides of the playing field and make their own choices without having one school of thought shoved down their throats.

What she didn't count on was the sex life that being in a religious relationship would bring. In her case, it was what it didn't bring. They had conceived their daughter and that event signaled the end of their active sex life. After some discussion, she calmly accepted his position on the subject and never brought it up again. She wasn't the type to give up easily on a passion of her such as sex, but she gave in to him in lieu of arguing against his religion.

She could never understand how he could have sex with her to make children but not for any other reason.

He just tolerated me, she often told herself when thinking about how he could fuck her for that reason but no others.

It wasn't long after that she took up having sex with people she would either never see again or never be in a position where it would happen again. It never stopped, not even when her husband caught her in the act. Catherine was already grown and out on her own when it happened. Denise's husband walked in the house from work close to his normal time and found his wife bouncing up and down on the lap of a package delivery man. Her pants were off, panties still wrapped around her ankles and her shirt was still on. Her husband observed the scene for a moment before slamming the door shut.

Denise stood up calmly while the delivery man cautiously shifted his eyes between her and her newly arrived husband. Nobody said a word as the man slowly crept around her husband and ran out the door. He even opened the door and closed it after his wife's lover departed. He stared at his wife, and she stared out the window. Neither said a word for several minutes. He finally told her what was on his mind.

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. I have to assume this is not the first time. That said, any step I would ask you to take to heal this breach would probably fail. Is that a fair assumption?" he asked calmly.

She waited a few moments then turned her head. There was nothing she could bring herself to say. She knew he was right, but she wasn't ashamed of her actions. She knew he wasn't being a wimp by not fighting for her. He would never change his position on sex, and neither would she. She still felt like a child who got caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

She nodded.

His lips curled into a position of reluctant acceptance of the situation.

"I'll get my things another day," he said before walking out.

She never saw him again. She came home one day to find everything he cared about, except her had been taken. She later learned his mother had come to get his things. She knew she had broken him and did not have a harsh word inside her for how he went about everything. She wandered slowly through the house looking to see what he requested his mother to bring back to him. He could have taken everything, and she would not have blamed him.

What struck her was what he left for her on the table. It was one of their first purchases as husband and wife. On it, his ring, the pictures he had of them in his wallet and a short letter.

"May you find what you've been missing out of because of me."

Had it been written by anyone else, she would have laughed. She would have framed it and hung it in on the front door. Instead, she nearly cried as she gathered the items up, put them in an envelope and stuffed it in her dresser. That night, however, she called for delivery and fucked the unpleasant emotions away.

***

"Your father left because neither of us would change our views regarding human sexuality. I don't know about him, but I can promise you I still have not changed. You know this about me, Catherine. When the young man leaves, come and sit with me and tell me what happened, okay?"

Catherine sighed in acceptance and walked away toward the living room. She looked around and recalled many childhood memories. Each object in the room seemed to have a memory attached to it. Her eyes continued to scan the room until she came to the opening that was shared between the entrance of the house, the hallway, and the living room. Her mother's hand was planted against the wall Catherine could see her mother's breasts swaying back and forth. She could see the man's hands on her mother's hips and the lighted portion of his torso moving back and forth.

She felt a different way than expected.

"At lease she's letting him finish," she thought, rolling her eyes.

She crossed her legs and waited for her mother to arrive and sit next to her. Denise walked in, still buttoning her shirt. She didn't bother to put pants on. The young man casually walked out without acknowledging Catherine and she was fine with not having to engage her mother's booty call.

As Denise sat down, she was reminded how much her daughter inherited her looks but little else.

"Now, tell me what happened," she told her daughter.

Catherine put aside the awkward feelings she experienced and told her mother everything she knew about what happened.

"...and he just stood there and didn't say a word?"

"Infuriating, isn't it? No apology, nothing!" Catherine responded.

They talked over every detail and her mother asked questions to help derive a reason behind why the panties were in her husband's suite. No question's answer revealed information that would either exonerate Catherine's husband or convict him. He alone had the answers and Catherine was not ready to go home and confront him again.

"Would you like to stay with me for a while?" her mother asked.

Catherine said she would appreciate it and offered to pay for however long she needed.

"Help out with a couple utilities and the grocery bill. The house would be here whether you lived here or not. Speaking of groceries, are you hungry? I'll throw something together for us."

Catherine smirked and asked, "Didn't the pizza boy bring you food?"

"Yeah," Denise said as she turned the corner into the kitchen, "it was a sausage pizza without the dough, sauce or cheese." There was a pause before she added, "...with extra sausage!"

They both chuckled. Denise ate the pizza that the young man brought with him. Catherine opted to eat something that didn't remind her of her mother having sex pretty much right in front of her.

***

Over the next several days, they both went about their lives. Catherine tried to piece together the reasons her husband went astray. No question she had resulted in an answer that logically explained his behavior. She resisted efforts to contact her husband and ask him the questions directly, but she knew she was still too angry to handle any response from him like a rational adult.

Denise was starting to feel the impact of her daughter being in the space where she relieved her sexual needs. It had been more time between encounters than she was used to. She could have snuck someone in her bed, but she often avoided typical coital spaces as they reminded her too much of her ex-husband. She wanted to get the situation between her Catherine and her husband resolved but wanted to give Catherine time to work through things herself.

That weekend, mother and daughter were on the subject of infidelity when it came time for dinner.

"What is there to eat?" she asked her mother.

Denise was leaning into the fridge searching for a meal for two. She sighed loudly and closed the door.

"We should probably have gone shopping today," she admitted.

Catherine stood and told her mother she was going to see what was in the pantry.

Denise chuckled lightly and asked out loud, "We could always order pizza!"

"Mother!" Catherine said as she stomped back into the kitchen. "Having sex with some pizza boy is not going to make me feel better about my husband cheating on me!"

"Okay, well, you eat the pizza and I'll eat the sausage," her mother replied seriously.

Catherine couldn't help but laugh. She repeated her concerns, though.

"Mom, I understand I'm intruding into your lifestyle by showing up here unexpectedly. If you want to do that, just take him to your room and close the door. Try not to be loud, either."

Denise hesitated to explain why she didn't want to do that. Catherine took note.

"What is it, Mom?"

"I know your thoughts on love and sex and religion and all that. I don't want to bring someone into the house for that purpose while you're here in this situation, but if I did..." she said, fidgeting with the silverware on the table. "...would you be highly offended if it was a girl this time?"

Catherine's body involuntarily shivered in response to her mother's words. Her mind freely imagined a lesbian scenario taking place between her mother and some young thing who was still trying to find her way in the world. She felt her body responding in a way that felt unusual. If it were only that response, she would call her body a traitor and swear it was betraying her. All she could think about was her mother's face between the milky-white thighs of some barely legal hussy.

"A girl?" Catherine responded. "When did that start?"

Denise sat next to her daughter.

"One of the pizza boys brought her with him one time. She was new at the parlor, and he knew she liked women. After some talking, he discovered her affinity for older women."

"Okay?" Catherine prodded.

"Well, all three of us had sex that night. Now, I can summon one or both of them depending on what I order."

"Obviously sausage for him. What about her?" Catherine asked curiously.

"Beef," Denise responded quickly.

Catherine's brow furled in confusion.

"You know," she said as her hand made a waving motion between her legs, "roast beef?"

Catherine shook her head a single time in confusion. She replayed what just transpired in her head and began to cackle with laughter to the point she nearly choked. Denise joined her in laughter, and they spent minutes mimicking Denise's joke and howling out loud. After a while, her mother took on a serious tone and asked again.