What We Say in the Dark Ch. 01

[Author's note: Cassie featured as Aidan's confidante in Oxygen Games. This story runs parallel to that, but can be read as a standalone piece. Damian, her husband, first appeared in The Monogamists Ch. 04., and Lily (The Monogamists, The Devil and the Sea) is back too, which, knowing Lily, can only mean one thing: a world of hurt for someone]

---

THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE WORLD

For Cassidy Hayes, the end of the world was a Tuesday.

She herded the twins through the school gates, handing Charlie his backpack because he had refused to carry it. He was still complaining as she kissed him goodbye.

"You're only walking for five minutes. I could have carried both," his brother teased, as Cassie cringed to hear her own words coming out of the mouth of her six-year-old son.

"Samuel," Cassie chided, giving her other son the special stern-mother look before kissing him too.

She smoothed the tight material of her exercise leggings with her hands and then folded her arms, letting out a long, slow breath. They were getting to that age where everything was a fight; old enough to start deciding for themselves but still too young to make the right decisions.

"Twins," said a smooth female voice behind her, "I hear they're handing out medals."

Tia came up behind her, her daughter in tow. She bent down to kiss her child softly on the cheek.

"Have fun today, Olly," she purred, stroking her daughter's cheek.

Cassie watched Olivia wave back to her mother before skipping through the gates.

"You make it look so easy," Cassie complained.

Tia stretched like a cat, her long dark hair falling around her elegant shoulders, her delicate lips flashing a quick smile at Cassie. She was a head taller, with dark golden skin and honey-brown eyes, slim, in a full-length black dress.

"Oh, but I only have one," Tia replied, the cadence of her words betraying the fact that English was her second language, a hint at her birthplace in a small coastal town in the south of Brazil, a long, long way away from these school gates.

"I wish I had. Sometimes. I mean, stopped at one," Cassie replied, suddenly flustered again like she often got when talking to this woman. "I mean, you can't choose not to have twins, but, um...."

"Look at it this way," Tia continued, glossing smoothly over Cassie's awkwardness, "At least you're done now. We're still... um... negotiating on one more."

Tia's lovely eyes sparkled as she mouthed the word 'negotiating', implying much more. Cassie's imagination conjured up the image of her friend lying naked on the bed while her husband's strong hands caressed her slim, lithe body. Her hand settled lightly on Cassie's shoulder.

"We're all having coffee at ten, why don't you come along?" she said.

"I can't, Tuesday is mother-daughter day. I'm going to be spending it talking about gardening, or dogs, or neighbours, or something."

"Sounds lovely."

Tia smiled again, showing perfect white teeth, before turning away and walking back to the line of parked cars. Cassie watched her go, her graceful posture, the way her slender body swayed beneath the dark fabric of her dress. Leaning against the car was her husband, a tall, rugged man in jeans and an old t-shirt, bare arms like tree-trunks. Cassie watched him wrap those arms around his wife, watched her tilt her head back to look at him, waiting for a kiss.

Cassie turned away, feeling something stirring inside her, but the image of his lips meeting hers seemed to be burned into her brain. Tia didn't care that her husband was kissing her tenderly in public, but Cassie cared that she had wanted to watch. As she admitted it to herself, it made her tingle inside to see the two of them sharing that intimate moment.

Her phone rang. She checked the caller and saw a picture of her mother's face on the screen.

"Hi, what's up?"

"Hi hon. You haven't left yet, have you?"

"Uh, no. Be on my way in five minutes though."

Her parents lived about a quarter of an hour's walk away. Cassie tried to walk everywhere, and it was easy enough. She'd grown up in the neighbourhood, moving back to put her own children through the school she'd gone to as a child, to be near her parents for support and babysitting with the twins. It felt like she'd come full circle, back to where she began.

"Good," her mother continued. "Look, the stylist had a cancellation. Do you mind if we...?"

"No, that's fine. You go. I know he's a nightmare to get into."

"Thank you, let's maybe do Thursday instead?"

"Sure. Love you."

"Love you too."

The phone went silent, and Cassie found herself standing at the school gates on her own. She turned, but Tia had already left. No matter: Cassie could always call her later to find out where all the mothers were gathering for coffee.

Cassie looked around, suddenly feeling lost and adrift with her Tuesday plans cancelled. Thursday was out because she would be working: she had a counselling session booked with a new client, a woman referred to her through one of the mothers at school. Suddenly the thought of sitting through a stranger's relationship problems for an hour seemed very appealing compared to lunch with her mother. She would probably be complaining about her neighbour most of the time, or Cassie's father. Maybe it was going to be a counselling session either way.

Just through the school gates she could see the caretaker's shed and the memory came back to her from well over twenty years ago, of Billy Hargraves taking her by the hand into the secluded area between the shed and the school fence.

He'd been quite rational about it: he didn't have sisters and Cassie, being an only child, didn't have any brothers. If she wanted to see boy bits, or he wanted to see girl bits, there was only one way that was going to happen. Cassie remembered the terror and the thrill. She'd insisted that Billy went first, feeling like a master negotiator at the age of eight. He's undone his school shorts and pushed them down only as far as his knees, then repeated the process nervously with his underwear.

Billy had counted to ten, letting Cassie stare, then hurriedly pulled his clothes back up. She'd nearly backed out, but eventually had the nerve to raise her dress and pull down her knickers, counting to ten in a soft voice as her gaze fixed on Billy's face, watching the boy staring at the space between her legs.

Cassie shivered, recalling the feeling it had given her, the ghost of a thrill she could explain only decades later, as a grown woman, the way her body had riveted Billy to the spot and captured his devoted attention, the empowerment. She blinked, running her hand though her hair, pulling her thoughts back to the present. She turned for home.

Cassie spent the morning on chores, stripping the twins' beds and sorting through the washing. Ten o'clock came and went, but something stopped Cassie from calling to organise coffee. Tia's kiss, the way that her husband's hands had settled on her hips as her body had angled close to his, still stuck in her mind, an itch that she needed to scratch.

She put in the last load of washing and stepped back from the machine. Yes, she had an itch. Her husband hadn't scratched it in over a week; maybe she should do something about that.

Cassie climbed the stairs to the master bedroom and began to peel off her activewear, feeling a faint flush building inside her. She pulled off her top and unhitched her bra, rubbing her fingers across the skin of the underside of her breasts, relishing the sensation of freeing her body from the constraint of the tight clothing. She turns to appraise herself in the full-length mirror set into the walk-in wardrobe, dropping her discarded clothing into the washing hamper. She wouldn't be needing that for the rest of the day.

Looking back at her was a familiar figure. Late thirties with shoulder-length hair, dyed blonde and styled by the same person who did her mother. She turned her head slightly for a better look. Good cheekbones, blue eyes, soft lips. Good looking, though not Tia-level, still able to turn heads in a crowd if she and her husband were out at one of his work functions with Cassie all made up in that little black cocktail dress and three-inch heels to give her the necessary extra kick of height.

Her breasts were average-sized, thick nipples from breastfeeding, but otherwise much the same as when she'd been in her twenties. Lower now, though, not quite as pert and firm as when she'd stripped for her now-husband that very first time on the beach ten years ago. She stood sideways, her hand exploring the curve of her abdomen, seeing the result that carrying twins had on her body; then down to her legs, her best feature: shapely and strong from the running she was doing, from the walking everywhere, the first steps towards maybe one day getting back in trim. Cassie stood up on her tiptoes, watching her toned calves form into shapely curves, just like when she wore the high heels.

Cassie turned front-on, meeting her own gaze in the reflection. A thirty-something woman stared back at face, then down past her breasts to the dark, trim patch of hair between her legs, the tingle that had been running through her all morning. Her fingers toyed with the tight curls of her pubic hair. No, she resolved: save it for tonight.

She walked over to her dressing table, opened a drawer and rifled through it for what she needed. At the back, hopefully far enough away from the inquisitive fingers of six-year-olds, she found what she was looking for and pulled out a soft bundle wrapped in tissue paper. She set it down on top of the drawers and opened it.

Cassie's excitement spiked looking at the lingerie, her little surprise for her husband: a black lace bustier with matching g-string, suspender straps dangling down from the intricately-patterned top with tiny black bows over the fasteners. Folded up neatly beneath: a pair of thigh-high sheer stockings. Her fingers caressed the soft fabric, feeling the friction of the material against her skin. This sensation was enough in itself to send a delicious little shiver through her, as she envisioned standing in front of her husband later tonight, dressed like his own hot, personal lingerie model.

Cassie began to imagine how the night would unfold as she began to slip the stockings over her legs, tugging up the black, translucent fabric, feeling the sensation of the sleek material against her silky, shaven legs. This was all he would see when he came home, a plain ankle-length dress with just the hint of the black stockings underneath. She would be sitting on a stool at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, feeding the boys. He would come in and she would cross her legs, hitching up her hem until her noticed her shapely legs enveloped in the stockings. Cassie felt her crotch warming as she pictured herself: demure, the perfect mother, but showing her husband a tantalising glimpse of the wanton harlot lurking beneath. She ran a hand over her stockings, smoothing out the wrinkles, making sure the tops sat neatly on the soft skin of her upper thighs. She reached for the bustier and leaned forward to cup her breasts with the lacy garment before pulling it tightly around her.

After the boys were fed, she would fix her husband with a smouldering look and slowly hitch the hem of her dress up until she revealed her stocking top, tracing her finger along the suspender strap, just enough to get his full attention. Cassie began to feed the hooks of the bustier into the loops behind her back, enclosing her breasts and her torso in the black lace, feeling its tightness against her body and enjoying the way the bustier pushed and shaped her into full-breasted cleavage.

She fingered the dangling straps and began to attach them to her stockings, one by one, taking her time to make sure they were absolutely straight. Eventually, she was satisfied and she picked up the g-string, running the material across her palm, feeling the abrasion of the lace against her fingers. Cassie looped the garment over one foot and then the other, pulling it up her stocking-clad legs until the dark triangle of fabric nestled snugly over her crotch. She traced a finger along the waistband and then down the back to settle the thin strap of the back of the g-string between the cheeks of her bottom. She opened the louvred door to the walk-in wardrobe, threading her fingers between the horizontal slats, and stepped inside, hunting for her black leather heels.

At last, Cassie stood in the middle of her bedroom, taking in the reflection in the mirror. This was how her husband was going to see her tonight, once she'd put the boys to bed, standing in front of him in her finest lingerie. She'd do her make up: soft red lips, smoky eyeshadow to offset her bright blue eyes, blonde hair falling loose to her shoulders, her body on display for him. Cassie felt herself yearning for it already: that first touch of his hand on her body. She felt herself begin to moisten, contemplating the prospect.

No, that wouldn't help, she scolded herself. The idea of being in the lingerie was exciting her powerfully, but she realised that she'd committed herself to spending the rest of the day like this. She'd be running errands, standing around at school pick up, cooking the family dinner, all the while knowing her body was wrapped in the outrageously sexy lingerie concealed under her dress. Cassie caressed herself, luxuriating in the way she'd dressed herself up. The rest of the day was going to be hell.

Cassie heard the front door open.

"Hello? Cassie?"

A deep male voice: her husband. Cassie froze, startled by the unexpected intrusion: he should be at work. Why had he come home?

"Cass! Hey, are you here?"

Quickly, she scouted the room, then looked down at herself in her underwear. Her excitement peaked, flushed by an adrenaline surge. Sure. No need to wait for tonight. She decided not to answer, picking up a lipstick tube and beginning to apply it to her lips. No time for anything else.

She heard movement downstairs, and the front door close.

"Anyone home?" he called out again.

Cassie pressed her lips together, pouting in the mirror and fussing with her hair. No time to brush. She pushed her breasts together in the bustier and straightened up her stocking tops one last time, preparing to walk out onto the landing and descend the stairs to greet her man.

"No-one home."

Cassie stopped, body frozen in shock, rendered completely immobile by the words. A female voice. It felt like her chest was being squeezed and she gasped, suddenly unable to catch her breath, the sound of her blood rushing in her ears. Shock. Panic.

Somewhere on the edge of her consciousness, she registered the sounds of feet on the wooden floor downstairs: the heavy padding of her husband's shoes accompanied by something else: the click of heels. The footfalls changed, became muffled and something inside her head began to force its way through her overwhelming fight-or-flight response, the chill realisation that they were coming up the stairs.

Cassie's mind raced, a strange metallic taste in her mouth as she wheeled around. The wardrobe was her only option: she dashed towards it, closing the louvred door behind her, bracing her shaking hands against the door frame. She felt dizzy, hyperventilating, her mind reeling. She'd chosen flight instead of fight and had trapped herself in the darkness of the walk-in wardrobe, peering out like a caged animal through the horizontal slats, unable to do anything now but wait.

When it came, the shock of the sound twisted her guts: the bedroom door opening. Cassie waited in agonised silence, willing her body into frozen immobility, standing in her high heels, feeling vulnerable and completely exposed. A shape passed in front of her suddenly, and she nearly gasped in fright.

Her husband circled the room before sitting himself down on the foot of the bed, unaware of his semi-naked wife hidden just a couple of metres away watching through the door slats. A second figure came into view but Cassie could only see her from behind: slim, willowy in a short business skirt and blouse, with long, straight blonde hair reaching down her back. She looked like a doll. Cassie stared at the intruder, taking in the way her toned, shapely legs ran down to a pair of high heels at least as tall as the ones Cassie was wearing in the wardrobe.

"Well, Damian," the woman purred, "Seems we're home alone."

She slinked over to him, taking his head in her hands and stroking his ear with her thumb, a casually intimate gesture that chilled Cassie to the core.

In response, Damian's hands seized her bottom, squeezing her cheeks through the tight material of her skirt. She giggled sexily.

"We don't have long," the woman said, "I have a meeting straight after lunch. Do you think you could fit me in?"

Cassie watched in horror as her partner of ten years leaned forward to kiss the woman's waist. His hand stroked her rear until his fingers found the zip of her skirt and began to pull it down. He raised his hands to the waistband and began to tease the tight material down over the woman's perfect backside, revealing the tiny strip of a black lace g-string gripped between the sculpted curve of the woman's buttocks.

Cassie became self-conscious, unable to look away as her husband's finger slid under the strip, pulling it tighter, making the strip dig into the cleft between her cheeks. Cassie was wearing something very similar, and she was acutely aware of her pussy lips pressed up against the triangle of black lace between her legs. But the woman in front of her did it better, standing before Damian now in just her blouse and her g-string, her perfect behind on full display. Cassie watched as her husband leaned forward again until his face was level with the woman's crotch, hidden from Cassie's view by the blonde's lithe body.

She heard the woman giggle and realised that Damian was planting kisses between her legs, teasing as his lips moved over the fabric, the only evidence being the way his strong hands gripped her thighs to pin her in place while her body squirmed in his grip. She giggled again and this time Damian's fingers snared the waist of her g-string and pulled it down the long, shapely legs where it joined the little pile of clothing jumbled around her high heels.

"Strip for me," her husband said.

The woman paused and then raised her hands to her blouse. Cassie watched, breathlessly, her lips clamped shut in an effort to stifle the sound, as the sexy, young intruder into her bedroom undid her blouse and dropped it to the floor. She paused again, for effect, showing her matching black bra to the man sitting in front of her, before reaching around her back to unhook the strap and remove it too.

Carefully, she stepped back, out of the pile of discarded clothing, and began to do a slow twirl. Cassie could see her husband's face now, his eyes locked on the soft curves of the young woman's body as she showed herself to him, wearing nothing now but her high heels as Damian gawped at her. Cassie, too, was staring at her through the slats.

Unencumbered by clothing, the woman seemed to come alive, twirling again as she wrapped her arms behind her head. She looked younger than Cassie by ten years, her pert, firm breasts sitting high on her chest, her sleek, flat stomach unburdened by children, her hips slim and shapely. Just for a moment, the woman looked up and Cassie was staring into fathomless green eyes set in a delicate, beautiful face. The stranger was staring straight at her.

Cassie's chest clenched, suddenly overwhelmed with the fear that somehow this perfect, sexy, naked interloper had caught her watching through the slats, that she was about to be revealed to her husband as she cowered silently in the dark. Damian would look from the naked, glowing body of his younger lover to the older body of his wife trying to make an effort in her prettiest lingerie. Cassie suddenly felt hopeless, unworthy, and even foolish to have dressed herself up like she had, imagining she could hope to compete.