Prodigal Daughter

"Yes, well," Maura sat down at one end of the couch and patted the cushion beside her. Lee, though looking uncertain, followed her lead and sat by her side, and she put her free arm around him. "That, Lee, is why your parents' friends recommended me. It didn't work this time, and that's why I live here now instead of up the hill with you. But I certainly consider you a success story. I've already said how proud of you I am!"

"Thanks," Lee said. "But what's that got to do with you prancing around naked up there?"

Maura burst into laughter. "God, it sounds so absurd, doesn't it? Well, really, it is absurd. But it's a living, or was until this fall. Lee, I've created a fairly bizarre career for myself, and it does involve just what you heard. But of course there's more to it than just that. Lee, people encourage their friends to hire me -- as a housekeeper or a tutor or both -- because they're concerned for their friends. Their marriage is on the rocks, or they're having trouble communicating with one another, or they just need help spicing up their life together, but they're not up to asking for help. And I help, without them knowing at first that's what I'm doing."

"You help by stripping for them?"

"Well, maybe I should tell you how it started, Lee."

Her first employers, the Wallaces, had a McMansion just off the beach near San Diego. They were rather less stuffy than the Morrisons but no less unhappy. Maura had discovered as much early on in her time as a live-in domestic helper and tutor for Mrs. Wallace, who was from Argentina and still learning to speak English. Maura hadn't been hired to do anything sexier than teach and clean; but it hadn't taken long at all to see that Mrs. Wallace was somewhat spoiled and Mr. Wallace was rather chauvinistic, and neither one much good at communicating about it all.

There was one thing Mr. Wallace was quite good at, and that was finding himself in the right place at the right time to see Maura going to and from the shower, or the outdoor pool on her afternoons off. She knew what he wanted, of course, and for years she had often imagined giving a dirty old man just that, simply to see how the dog reacted when he finally caught the car. One morning in the shower, she decided to go ahead and give it to Mr. Wallace. When she was done washing up, Maura patted herself dry, dried and brushed her hair, hung her towel on the rod, and emerged from the bathroom stark naked for the walk back to her room. "Good morning, Mr. Wallace," she said with the same smile and intonation she'd have used while fully clothed, and she was rewarded with the silly man's jaw dropping as he gawked at her breasts and bush.

That could have been the end of it, of course; and Maura had expected to be fired the moment she got her jeans and top on. Instead she'd opened her bedroom door Mr. Wallace grinning at her and asking if she could talk Mrs. Wallace into doing that.

"Well, gee, I could try," she had said. "But I think she'd rather you gave it a try than to have me do it."

"She doesn't want to see me naked! I'm just Mister Moneybags to her!"

"That's not what I see when she looks at you, Mr. Wallace. She looks to me like a woman craving intimacy but who doesn't know how to ask for it. Most of us don't, you know, since we get called sluts growing up if we like sex. Believe me, I know."

"How did you learn, then, Maura?"

"I decided I didn't care who thought I was a slut."

Her free-spirited prank had worked its magic on the Wallaces, if only because Mr. Wallace was probably hoping for another free look at Maura's body. Whatever his motivation, in any case, he had taken her suggestion that very afternoon, ambling out to the pool with nothing on for an afternoon skinnydip, surprising and delighting his wife when she'd looked up from the text Maura was helping her with. Maura had looked on shamelessly at his oddly endearing nudity while Mrs. Wallace had jumped up to join him in the pool, where he charmed her with his newfound voice, keeping it PG-rated until Maura had excused herself and gone inside.

She never knew what had happened next, but she did know that when Mrs. Wallace had arrived for breakfast and morning lessons the next day, she had thanked Maura and hugged her so fiercely it was a struggle to breathe. By the time she parted ways with the Wallaces six months later, the two of them had fallen as madly in love as they should have before they were married; and naked afternoons at the pool were commonplace for all three of them and the occasional guest.

"I know it sounds crazy, Lee, but it was a wonderful experience, helping these people get in touch with themselves and one another, and helping them get really intimate for the first time," Maura reflected now.

"But why did you leave if it was so wonderful?"

"They didn't need my help anymore, but they knew another couple who did. That's how I've found new jobs ever since. I give a couple the help they need, and when I'm done with them there's someone else they know with the same problem, and so on."

"So that's how you ended up here? Mom and Dad could use a little of that all right."

"Yes, well, I thought so too," Maura said. "But nothing works every time, especially not something as outlandish as what I do. Believe me, Lee, I never imagined this would be my career! And it is a little weird that first time, making a point of being seen naked by someone I barely know. Embarrassing, too. But so rewarding!"

"Until now," Lee sighed.

"Including now!" Maura corrected. "Lee, it didn't work out with your parents, but I'm awfully glad to have gotten to know you." She touched his knee. "And to have been here for you tonight. It was going to be a lonely evening, and I wasn't looking forward to going to the party!"

"Lonely?" Lee asked. "The way you looked when you opened the door, I thought you must have been awfully happy in here."

Maura dissolved into laughs. "Lee, did you peep in on me at the window?! It's okay if you did, really, I just want to know!"

"No! I would never do that! I just meant you seemed happy! The fire was going, the radio was on, and you had this nice, quiet place to yourself...oh, God, Maura, did I interrupt you...?"

"Yes, but it's perfectly fine, Lee, honest." Maura kissed his cheek. "You see, your mother's right about that, too. I'm a woman who enjoys a good time, and I'm used to people like her hating me for it. My own mother thought the same of me when I was your age, as a matter of fact."

Lee looked satisfied with that explanation. "I don't hate anyone for that," he promised. "I just have one more question. I don't need to know what my parents thought of...you, naked." He laughed at his own struggle to get the words out. "But how on earth did you avoid getting fired? I can't believe Mom only made you move down the hill."

"Well, Lee, I don't do that right away in any job!" Maura told him. "I take my time and get the lay of the land within the family and try to identify what the problem is. This time, I was pretty sure both your parents had simply stopped trying to communicate with one another."

"Too right!" Lee interjected.

"So I've seen. In any event, that took me some time to be sure of, and by the time I was, well, we had already started working on your lessons, and you were already improving a lot. So when your mother called me on the carpet for my indecent exposure, she said, 'I would put you on the next bus out of town, but you're a miracle worker with Lee and I won't throw that away.' Then she told me I was to move down here immediately, but I could still come teach you during the day, provided I always kept my clothes on in your presence." She laughed at the last bit.

"Well, that's too bad, isn't it?" Lee joked.

"It was only appropriate," Maura said. "Was. But Lee, you're not here tonight as my student, are you?"

"True enough!" Lee agreed. "So I guess I'm allowed to see you less than fully clothed?"

"You already are seeing me that way." Maura grinned and pointed at her panties on the hearth. Enjoying Lee's appreciative gawking at them and then at her, she explained, "They were wet. I took them off to dry."

"Maura!" Lee threw his head back and laughed, and then turned and kissed her. He aimed for her cheek, but she saw to it that he met her lips instead. She felt him flinch a tiny bit, but just as quickly he followed her lead and his mouth opened to meet hers. Without another word, he once again slid his arms around her and held tightly as their tongues wrestled playfully. Maura expected him to lose no time at all in grabbing at her breasts, but to her surprise he kept his hands on her back. He rubbed it gently up and down, again and again as they kissed, further stoking her desire for him to be a little more playful, yet enjoying the impromptu massage all the same. Not caring to push him too far too fast, she kept to his back and sides as well, though she longed to graze his chest with both hands and work her way downward.

The light petting went on for a few minutes, in a leisurely way Maura hadn't experienced in far too long, and she found it all delightful...but it also made her feel ravenous for more -- after all, Lee's arrival had interrupted her on the edge of an orgasm. Sensing he was up for more as well, Maura got up and sat on Lee's lap, straddling and facing him. His face was an endearing combination of joy and longing as she untucked his shirt and he leaned in a bit to enable her to pull it up over his head. She got both it and his t-shirt off in one tug, and saw just what she had always suspected: that her modest, unassuming student had a beautiful broad chest. She could only hope he would find her body half as beautiful as she found his...but given the way he was looking at her, that seemed all but certain.

His chest was as sensitive as it was gorgeous, she discovered, for he gasped and sighed in deep appreciation as she rubbed him up and down with both hands. "Oh, Lee, that's so comforting," she cooed.

"For me too!" he replied in a husky whisper.

As Maura was coming to feel almost frustrated in her longing, she began to seriously consider ordering Lee to be more adventurous in his touching already. That proved unnecessary, though, as with a sly grin and a glance over her shoulder at the hearth, he slid one hand under her skirt. Maura felt a jolting thrill in her pussy even before he touched it, but a far more satisfying one when she finally did feel his fingers dancing through her curls and grazing her vulva ever so lightly. "Oooh! Lee! You don't need lessons in this, do you?!" She wiggled in pleasure and unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his jeans, hoping he would help her off with her dress soon. Her drafty little abode was hot now, and not only due to the fire.

Once she had his pants unzipped, he fulfilled her wish. As Maura held her arms up to let him pull the dress over her head, she wondered briefly if he was a virgin. Probably not, she concluded, for he was much too good at foreplay to be inexperienced -- something he demonstrated once again by caressing both of her breasts deliciously through her bra, no sign at all of the squeezing too hard that was the hallmark of a man's first time. The lovely little tease also obviously could tell how badly she wanted to be out of her bra, the only thing she was still wearing; she could tell by his coy grin as he fingered the satin reverently but otherwise left it undisturbed.

Giving in to the sweet frustration for the moment, Maura decided she didn't care in the least if she were his first or not. There was little time for her to wonder about such trivialities anyway, as now that Lee could see her bush as well as feel it, his full attention returned down below. And with that attention came her favorite loss of control as she felt his middle finger easing its way inside. "Ohh! Yes!" She gripped his shoulder.

"So warm," Lee marveled in a near-whisper. "Feels beautiful."

"Wish you could feel how beautiful it is for me!" Maura managed to say between appreciative moans. Now with both hands clutching his shoulders, she gazed into his eyes and rocked back and forth as he swirled his finger about inside her. Having nearly come on her own before, she didn't take long at all to do so now. But when her joyful screeches made Lee slow down, she snapped, "Don't stop!" and, to his credit, he didn't. As he resumed whipping her up into another frenzy, Maura remembered her own unfinished business. She grazed her fingers down his chest and belly, meandering to her heart's content around and across his nipples several times before finally getting down to business. She had to stretch the waistband of his boxers to its very limit to free his hard cock, but the lovely sight of that first globule of precum glistening in the colorful light was ever so worth it.

"Oh God! Oh my God, Maura!" soon she had him singing in beautiful ragged harmony with her own response as she spread the wetness gently about his tip and rubbed all around it. "God, so good!" he grunted.

"And this will be even better!" she promised, at long last patting his hand to let him know he could give it a rest. With her other hand she gestured for him to turn aside and lie back, and presently she had him nestled beneath her on the couch and clutched inside her. Looking from the Christmas tree straight ahead and the lonely night outside to his adoring face beneath her on the couch and the glow of the twinkling lights before them and the fire behind them, Maura was absolutely elated. "Merry Christmas, Lee," she whispered as she went to town on him just as energetically as ever.

"Merry...Christmas...Maura!" She had him so wrapped up in their delicious rhythm that he could manage only one word between gasps. Maura herself was not at all sure she could have managed even that as she savored the beautiful jolts.

There were no more words except a few more "gonna come!"s from her for the next several minutes, but plenty of noise from them both before he came with a jolt and she plopped down atop him with a triumphant kiss. The afterglow lasted longer than Maura had normally known it to, but little wonder of that. She was stroking his hair and admiring the fire when it occurred to her, and her laugh burst their bubble in the nicest way it could have been burst. "Oh, dear..." she chuckled.

"What's up?" Lee asked.

"The funniest thing, Lee. When I first got home and got the fire going, well, you know what I was up to, and I was tempted to take all my clothes off, but I felt I just had to go join you at the party, so I kept them all on except my panties --"

"You always could've put them back on," Lee interrupted.

Maura shook her head. "Lee, you're a wonderful young man, but you are a young man. Which means there are certain things about women you still probably don't know. And one of those is, taking your bra off means you're in for the night. I knew if I took it off, I'd never have the willpower to put it back on and go back out in that cold. That's why I didn't undress."

All at once, Lee understood. "But here we are, definitely not going outside again tonight, plus we just made love, and you're still wearing your bra! Poor thing!"

Maura got up off the couch and presented her back to him. "Would you please release me?"

"And how!" He pushed his jeans the rest of the way down and kicked them off, and then at long last set Maura free for the night.

"You men will never know what a pleasure that is!" Maura declared, turning around to kiss him again and welcome his hands on her finally-bare breasts.

"Probably, but this is certainly a pleasure too," Lee said. Maura nodded and let him play with them until he dropped his hands, enjoying every precious stroke along the way.

He didn't keep his hands to himself for long. Maura suggested a bath before bed, and wasn't at all surprised to find most of his soapy attention focused on her breasts. "Keep it up, dear, they can never be too clean!" she reassured him at one point.

Lee rewarded her with another of his laughs. "Tell me honestly, Maura, have you ever had a Christmas like this before?"

"I sure wish I could tell you they were all so merry when you're grown up and on your own," Maura said. "But the answer is never! Mostly it's been one boring party after another with my family or the folks I'm working for at the time. To think how close that came to happening again!"

"Aw, too bad, but I kind of figured," Lee admitted. "I was hoping this might be something to look forward to, in college and after."

"Oh, but it is!" Maura said. She wanted to take his hands in hers, but on further reflection she preferred to let him continue washing her breasts. "Life is a great adventure if you let it be, Lee. Don't ever forget that. And don't let your parents make you feel guilty for living your life like an adventure! I never have."

"And are you happy that it landed you here with me on Christmas?"

"Elated, Lee! But you knew that!"

"Thank you. Yes, of course I did." He looked out the bathroom door into the bedroom, in the direction of his parents' house. "I wonder if Mom and Dad are happy at all up there at the party?"

Maura stood up to draw his attention to her body. "They probably are. But would you rather be there, or here?"

She was rewarded with the grin returning to Lee's face as he stood up as well and handed her a towel.

The queen-size brass bed took up most of the guest-cottage bedroom. "This was my parents' bed until I was about ten," Lee said as they stepped out of the bathroom, still patting Maura dry as he said it. "That was in our old house. It wasn't much bigger than this cottage."

Maura turned on the bedside lamp and turned to look at Lee. "Do you think they were happier then?" she asked.

"That's how I remember it at least," Lee said. "How did you know?"

"You and I have a lot in common, that's all," Maura said. Briefly she returned to the bathroom to hang up the towels, and Lee sat on the still-made bed and lay back. "I think that's how I came to be so good at this job -- I know the type all too well. You probably don't want to hear more than that about my own family, trust me."

Lee was listening, but his mind was wandering as he gazed expectantly at the bathroom door. He curled up on the bed in anticipation, which melted into pure bliss when Maura reappeared in the doorway. She saw it right away, and with an almost-shy smile she asked, "What is it, Lee?" Rather suspecting that she knew just what "it" was, she stood hands-on-hips in the doorway and welcomed his adoring gaze at her body.

"I'm sorry, Maura," he said. "It's just...so beautiful, and for this, people call you a slut?"

"It's a very unfair world, Lee. You'll be a lot happier in this life if you choose not to give a damn what other people think of you. And thank you. Believe me, Lee, tonight you made me feel beautiful."

Lee sat up and stretched out his legs, revealing that he was hard again. "Want to feel even more beautiful?" he asked.

"And how!" Maura stepped toward the bed.

"Wait, just one thing," Lee said. The way you looked just now, leaving the bathroom, is that how you looked to my parents? Or was it more of a swaggering, hey look at me approach?"

Maura stepped back into the doorway. "Well, first of all, Lee, to people like your parents, any nudity at all is going to look swaggering. But in any event, the way I always do that is to carry myself just like I would if I were fully clothed." She strode out past the bed, enjoying Lee's adoring gaze every step of the way. "Just like this...'Oh, good morning, Mrs. Morrison.' Knowing, of course, that I was going to shock her just by being comfortable with my body."

"God, what a shame everyone can't be like that." Lee sat up against the brass headboard, taking his cock in his hand and flicking gently at it while Maura pranced about.