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This was her time. Running had become Charlene's escape from life many years ago when a friend had suggested fitness as a means to vent stress. No matter what was going on in her world, the road had always been there. Its black surface had always stared up at her with no judgment and no opinions. Some people drank and others smoked. Others had even more self destructive habits that they validated as their way to escape life and find a moments peace. Charlene ran. Her quick pace rounded her through miles of interconnected housing developments. The houses around her, white and silent went by in a steady blur of peripheral vision as she focused ahead. Her mind was quiet and her heart steady. Her toned legs confidently beat the toes of her tennis shoes into the thin crunch of thin snow beneath them. Her red hair trailed behind her as she glided forward. She rarely tied it up when she ran, favoring instead to let the wind catch it and cool her head. Despite the whipping arctic wind in the air, Charlene's exposed skin glistened in the late morning sunlight, heavy with all the grimy saturation a good workout had to offer. She slowed to a walk, as she approached her home again, breathing in heavily the icy air around her as she cocked her wrist upward and stared at the heart monitor to evaluate her rapid pulse. She groaned in spite of herself. It had been a Christmas gift from David the previous year, and now it had become a reminder that when she opened her front door he wouldn't be home and as yet, things remained far less resolved than she would have liked. The escape was over. She looked back at the road and silently thanked it for the hour of relief it had once again given her.
Charlene's porch was a treacherous sheet of ice under her feet as she dug her house key out of her windbreaker and slid it into the deadbolt. Silently, she made a mental note to salt the porch as she eagerly pushed the door open and collapsed her back against it once inside to shut out the chill which had already begun to sap the energy from her as the heat of her body dwindled. Not sooner than she had crossed the foyer and into the kitchen and no later than she had freed one arm from her jacket came the familiar chime of her phone, distant though it was in the next room and buried in the clutter of her handbag. Charlene hoped to find her son's name as a text or even a missed call, but she knew it wasn't realistic. By then David was close to being on a mountainside with Phil, flying moronically down a black diamond on a ridged piece of fiberglass. Clumsily, she dug her hand into the purse until it found her phone and she tapped the screen as she patted her forehead dry with a kitchen towel.
"Good lord!" Charlene exclaimed aloud as her eyes widened to absorb the sight of multiple texts and no less than a dozen missed calls, all bearing Samantha's name beside them. Unwillingly, Charlene tapped open the texts to read them.
"Hello?" She chimed merrily as if to make light of an onslaught of incoming frustration.
"Hello my ass! Where have you been? I've called you a hundred times!" Samantha replied with an exasperated tone. If words could take form and reach through the phone, Charlene felt certain she would be on the floor with Samantha's hands at her throat.
"I noticed. I went out for a run." She replied. Her friend let out a noticeably lengthy huff of air that crackled in Charlene's receiver.
"My understanding of how you can do that when it's negative ten degrees outside aside, you can't drop a bomb like that on me and then just... not be there!" Samantha scolded.
"I'm sorry I..." Charlene began.
"Yeah yeah yeah..." Samantha interrupted, obviously in no mood to dwell on it further. "Now what do you mean did it?"
Charlene's voice stalled out in her throat. It was as though the next words that were going to come from her mouth weren't supposed to belong to her. Swallowing hard to compose herself she finally broke the pause.
"I... David and I... we made love last night." She replied so quietly she expected her friend to ask her to speak up and repeat herself. The air on the other end of the phone however was uncomfortably silent for several seconds.
"I'm coming over." Samantha answered at last.
"Sam I just got back in; I need a shower and..." Charlene began. It was true, but she had to admit the excuse she was trying to formulate was a distant second to her lack of desire to get into the gritty details she was certain Samantha would demand before she had provided herself ample time enough to sort them out for herself.
"Leave your door unlocked. I'm already getting in my car." Samantha replied in dismissal. True to her words, Charlene vaguely swore she heard the sound of an engine turning over in the background before the line curtly went dead. Charlene took the phone from her ear and scanned her eyes across the 'call ended' status screen that had appeared. With a wary eye, she stared up the street through the living room window, almost certain to see Samantha's red Mitsubishi Eclipse tearing towards her house with a contrail of scattered snow and burnt rubber trailing behind it in close pursuit.
Deciding that she would deal with Samantha when that time came, Charlene turned on her heals and walked back upstairs to the bathroom. The sink top and mirror were still damp with the heat of David's shower. Charlene kicked her shoes off as she pulled the nozzle against the tile wall. The shower head spattered with complaint as it forced hot water through the cold pipes in the walls before unleashing its torrent. Undressing, Charlene ignored the bathroom mirror and any opportunity to see her sinful side stare back at her.
The water sizzled against her flesh as she stepped into the tub and pulled the curtain closed after her. The temperature was hotter than she preferred. It was David's usual custom to boil his skin from his bones when he bathed. Charlene had grown accustomed over the years to adjusting the temperature down a bit before stepping in after he had occupied the bathroom first. With everything on her mind however, she had simply forgotten this time and quickly reached down to turn the chrome dial before she cooked like a lobster. Once she was more comfortable, she reached towards her lavender body wash but paused as her hand stilled in front of David's blue and black bottle of Axe Phoenix. Not knowing why, she grabbed it instead and squeezed a liberal amount onto her bath sponge. The entire room filled with her son's scent as she ran the soap over her skin slowly, closing her eyes and selfishly envisioning him against her. The aroma triggered torrid images of his mouth along her body and the feel of him harshly penetrating her. Her mind drifted into the dangerous place it had come from again as she imagined him pulling her down to his waiting gorgeous body laying in the bathtub; his erect cock sinking up into her as she straddled him and the hot water cascading down her back. Charlene's legs trembled unsteadily at the thought.
"It's going to be a long damn week." She whispered to herself.
Opening her eyes, she shook the fantasy off like a cold chill and proceeded to finish washing off as quickly as possible. Grabbing her hair in her fingers, she rounded it under her nose and decided that there was no need to wash it and turned towards the showerhead to rinse the sponge clean of the musky masculine soap before shutting the water off altogether and stepping out into the steamy haze of the bathroom. After patting her plush towel over her skin, she wrapped it around her slender body and then pulled her hair back into a pony tail with a brown scrunchie she kept by the sink and walked back down the hall into her bedroom and opened the door to her spacious walk-in closet.
"Feel better?" A voice chimed unexpectedly from behind her. Charlene's heart leapt into her throat as she jumped nearly a foot into the air. Whipping around so fast the towel spread open and nearly fell from her body, she stared at her bed where Samantha lay on her side smiling at her.
"Jesus Christ, Sam!" Charlene groaned as she placed her hand against her chest to quell her racing heart from breaking through the skin. "I didn't see you there. You scared the crap out of me." She whispered and regarded her friend with an unkind look. Samantha simply beamed back at her. It was at that moment that Charlene took notice of the pile of linen next to her bed and saw that her best friend was lying on a bare mattress.
"Did you strip my bed for me?" Charlene asked a little befuddled. Samantha laughed and looked around her.
"Three out of four pillows on the floor, the mattress sheet hanging on by a corner, the rest all crumpled up and erratic in the bottom corner of the bed; sweetie I'd say you did a good enough job stripping it yourself." She chided with a playful grin. Charlene again regarded her friend with a less than pleasant countenance as she shook her head and pulled the haphazard towel off of her moist skin to return to her closet for a change of clothes. She wasn't sure why but she felt awkwardly certain that Samantha was staring at her harder now that she was naked.
"So was there something wrong with the couch downstairs?" Charlene complained aloud, evidently still flustered by the shock of her friends intrusion into her bedroom as she tugged a sweater over her head.
"Scene of the crime; how could a girl resist?" Samantha explained as she ran her hand over the mattress like she was touching a luxurious fur rug.
"Thank you." Charlene turned and scolded. "As if I don't feel enough like a horrible person, let's just get a criminal shot in there." She added before turning to her dresser to fish out a pair of comfortable jeans.
"Oh please. You know I didn't mean it like that. It's a figure of speech." Samantha justified.
"It was a shitty choice of words is what it was Sam." Charlene replied without an upward glance as she stepped her feet one after the other into the pants and tugged them over her shapely hips.
"You know, if you are planning on anyone else coming over today you might want to spray some Febreze in here. I could smell your room from the base of the stairs Char." Samantha went on, oblivious to Charlene's disgruntled reactions. Her friend pretended to ignore her as she dug through another drawer for socks. "... Smells like a whorehouse." Samantha added jokingly, causing Charlene to whip her head in her direction with a ferocious stare that silenced and stilled Sam's playful taunts and demeanor.
"Why did I text you again?" Charlene asked rhetorically. Samantha popped off the bed and walked over to her, wrapping her arms around Charlene's body and pulling her into a tight hug.
"Because you need a friend and I'm just being an ass. I'm sorry. I'm just a little excited to hear about this and I'm being sarcastic." She answered before letting Charlene go. Her attitude had noticeably changed back to something less obnoxious.
"No I'm sorry." Charlene sighed. "I'm just... I don't know what I am Sam." Charlene rubbed her forehead in her hands before looking back up at her friends with a weak smile. "You want some coffee?" She suggested, trying to see if it was possible to take the mood of the conversation in a different direction.
"I brought wine." Sam piped up with a smile.
"Sam, it's 11:30 in the morning." Charlene observed after glancing at her alarm clock. Her heart sank in her chest. "Stupid clock. Thanks to you I'm alone for a week." She thought and smiled at her own silliness to blame a clock for the fact that it would be seven whole days until she could reach some measure of understanding with David or at least some measure of closure depending on the direction their decisions lead them. Samantha grabbed her by the wrist and began pulling her out into the hall.
"Fine. You talk and I'll drink." She stated flatly, leading Charlene down the stairs and into her living room where she tossed her haphazardly onto the couch and crashed beside her. "Crap! Wine! Sorry my head's in a million places right now." She scoffed as she bounced off the couch and crossed the room to her obscenely large purse and produced a bottle of merlot that despite the handbags size, Charlene found it odd that it should fit inside. "Glasses?" Sam asked while making her way into the kitchen. Charlene shook her head in amusement.
"Top left, lush." She replied without looking up. A minute later Samantha came bounding back into the living room with the uncorked bottle and two wine glasses.
"Brought you one too in case you change your mind." Her voice rang as she got comfortable in the corner of the sofa. Charlene simply shook her head in the negative but Samantha hardly noticed as she was already pouring a generous helping for herself. After sipping down a quarter of the glass in a single attempt, she finally set it down on Charlene's oak coffee table and stared back with her full attention.
"So..." Sam began.
"Yeah..." Charlene sighed, her eyes drifting to the floor that had no more ability to judge her than the road before and yet she still felt like there may have been some way that everything in the house had eyes to what she had done. "If these walls could talk, I'd be in jail." She thought to herself.
"Oh come on!" Samantha urged impatiently with a rousing shake against Charlene's thigh. "You can't not tell me what happened." Her voice was nearly whining.
"I told you already. I did it." Charlene answered, knowing full well her companion would in no way be satisfied to leave it at that. She looked up from the rug at Samantha's annoyed face. "What? What am I supposed to say? I fucked my own son, I'm a terrible mother and an even worse person and, and..." Her voice trailed off. She might have begun to cry again if her eyes hadn't already had enough recent exercise.
"Did it go... badly?" Sam asked, leaning in with genuine concern on her face. Charlene couldn't help it; the explosion of laughter that erupted from her lips was hearty and almost maniacal. Sam crooked an eyebrow up at her hysterical friend in bewilderment, but allowed Charlene to purge the distressed emotion in whatever manner she needed to until she calmed down again.
"Badly..." She repeated. "It was the most incredible thing I have ever experienced." She confessed in a faint whisper and then returned her eyes to the floor. Charlene nearly expected Sam's arms to come flying around her again and a torrent of personal questions and demands for all the slimy details to ensue. Samantha however remained quite still with a noticeable measure of attempted control and simply looked back at her friend so calmly Charlene felt like she was lying on a psychiatrist's sofa.
"Do you want to talk about it?" She finally asked before grasping her wine glass again and taking another copious swallow.
"I wouldn't know how to start." Charlene confessed. Once again the memories of her actions came back to her vividly only now they were a jumble; out of order and one piling into the other in a heap of crazed emotional distress.
"Just, start at the beginning. How it stared... and go from there if you want to. I'll just listen." She promised. Her voice felt comforting. Charlene situated herself more comfortably on the sofa facing Samantha and began to recall the events of the previous day as she remembered them. Her friend sat attentively next to her, staying quiet as promised. Charlene felt if hard to look her in the eye as she described making love to David; the passion despite the shame. The overwhelming fulfillment coupled with the turmoil of her ethics. Despite the tingling intensity of her recollections, the blend of sin and perfect contentment still battled for dominance inside her. Not until she had finished filling Sam in on the events that ended the night before did she take a break in the tale long enough for her confidant to feel comfortable interjecting.
"And... what? All that happened and this morning he just left you to go skiing?" Samantha asked. Her voice sounded irritated as though she was supporting Charlene in some unsaid disapproval that David would throw his mother a 'hit it and quit it'.
"Snowboarding." She corrected before shaking her head. "And no... actually I'm not finished." She added to the wide eyed disbelief of Samantha who sat back in her place on the couch and prepared herself for the story to continue. Taking a deep breath, Charlene went on to explain what had taken place after she awakened next to David; how she had been unable to control her impulses and what it had lead to as well as the justifiable cause of David's abrupt departure. This time Samantha's calmness steadily dissolved into obvious excitement. She fidgeted in place as though bursting to interrupt but remained, much to Charlene's relief, quiet and attentive as she let her finish.
"So you see... it's not like he just bailed on me." Charlene defended David. "He'd been planning this trip for a while and..."
Samantha held a hand up in dismissal, having taken a new stance on David's vanishing act than her previous assumption. Charlene sat quietly, awaiting a more outrageous reaction from her friend. Samantha simply grabbed the bottle of wine and filled both glasses and handed one to Charlene despite her earlier refusal.
"Here's to the two of you." She stated happily as she tapped her glass against Charlene's and tossed more merlot down her throat before setting hers down on the table again. "I am so jealous I can't begin." She beamed.
"Sam seriously." Charlene chided, setting her glass down on the table without any interest. "You're acting like a just told you I was engaged. I don't even know if this is going to continue. It shouldn't right? It can't!"
"Why not?" Sam asked. "Who knows? I mean aside from me of course and it's not like I would ever tell anyone." She added. Her voice had returned to some of its earlier giddiness.
"It's insane!" Charlene shouted outrageously. "Forgetting the moral reasons if I can for a moment, what can I possibly hope to expect from this in the future. David is 18 years old. He's going to college soon; obviously he'll eventually meet someone..." She rambled.
"Oh so that's what this is about." Samantha interrupted. "You are afraid of being replaced."
"What? No! I'm simply saying that even if I could come to a point where my guilt wasn't in the way anymore sooner or later..."
"Hang on right there." Samantha interrupted again. "What's stopping you?"
"What do you mean?" Charlene replied, taken out of her rant in confusion.
"What's stopping you from coming to that point? The one where your guilt isn't in the way anymore." Sam asked.
"David and I haven't talked and..." Charlene tried to explain.
"Exactly. You two haven't talked. And you need to talk to each other before you can make all these assumptions and conclusions Char. Otherwise, David is going to come home in seven days and you will have worked yourself up into such a frenzy asking yourself these questions that you have no answers to and you will have already made the decision to end a wonderful thing without him and he's going to resent you for that." Samantha cautioned with a stern tone. Charlene sat blankly looking at her friend who had just made a surprising amount of sense.
