The noise I heard made me lift my eyes from the foreshortened shape of her body, heavily distorted by my position. Christine lay sideways on her bed, her head in the direction of the door, and I was kneeling on the floor, my mouth feasting on her womanhood. The low moans she uttered with an occasional twist of her head, the way her hands sometimes brushed my hair but were distraught by the twirl that my tongue and fingers were causing in her mind, the feeling of her firm thighs felt by my ears, all these things give me a sheer sense of power unmatched by anything else that I can do. But as I glanced towards her face and, above the heaving figure of her breasts, I saw her mother by the door, I froze.

“Don't stop,” Christine moaned. Her mother grinned, but I was too worried to understand exactly why; whether a little envy and jealousy, or the memory of her youth, or the understanding of what her daughter was feeling like, or the naughtiness of catching her daughter and her boyfriend in flagrant. She just lifted her finger to her mouth, in the classic gesture of silence, turned around and left, while her daughter, looking at me and thinking that I was searching her eyes instead of regarding her own mother, just ten feet away, pulled my head against her body and moaned that she was close.

Her mother pretended to arrive twenty minutes later. I don't know if she thought that twenty minutes was all that we would need, or if she was tired of waiting, or if she just decided that it was her house and she could do as she pleased. After Christine had come, I told her that we would resume our activities later. She accepted it, though not understanding how I could pass up the offer of sex.

Her mother wasn't mad; she smiled at us, Christine leaning against me as we watched some television. “Hi,” she said. There was a glint in her eye that I could not miss. As soon as I could, I went to talk to her.

She was at the office, a small room that was used as a mixture of library and workplace, both by her and her husband. I did not know what to say, so I may have been standing up for a few seconds, inert, searching for the words that were not coming. At last she glanced up from the paper she was writing on, looking at me over the reading glasses that balanced at the tip of her nose.

“Raymond.”

“I... uh...”

“Yes?” She held her gaze, pretending to be serious but clearly amused by the situation.

“You know I saw you.”

“Yes. I saw you too.”

“I didn't hear you arriving.”

“That's your excuse?”

I stuttered, looking for an answer. Shit, that was no excuse. Mercifully, she continued.

“You know, Raymond, I'm not mad. I was a little surprised to catch you two, of course, but... I'm too modern to be mad. She seemed to be... enjoying.”

Enjoying? Christine started screaming at the top of her lungs just a minute after her mother appeared, while I blushed and wondered if she was still in the house, listening to the “Fuck, I'm coming, fuck me, don't stop” that would have turned me on so much in other circumstances.

“I shouldn't have looked, but at first I didn't realized that her moans were... well, moans. I thought she might be asleep, dreaming, I don't know.”

“I'm sorry, I should've stopped.”

“No. It'd have been horrible. She'd have wanted to know why, and would have seen me, and everything would be... you know. It's better this way. It's I who... shouldn't have lingered.” How long was she there? When I looked she was already there, her mouth slightly agape, then the smile. “But... I guess you understand. We both understand, right?”

I nodded.

“Good.” We stood there, for a long moment, looking at each other, until she finally broke the spell. “I have a few things to do.” I nodded again, and turned to leave. As I walked out of the room, I heard her voice again. “She's lucky to have you,” she said.

“She's lucky to have you too.”

“She doesn't think so,” she said, sadly.

“She does. She just doesn't say so.”

Then she smiled, a bright smile. I don't know if it was for Christine, for me, or for what I had said. But she lifted her finger to her mouth again, and this time I smiled too.