Leo had Maude exactly where he wanted her.
She was sitting sideways across his lap on the couch, her ginger hair a mess, her lipstick smudged at one corner. One strap of her sundress had slipped halfway down her shoulder at some point in the last ten minutes. She was also half barefoot. One of the sandals had come off during their make out session. Her free hand was still in his hair. The other one nervously gripped the phone that was currently on call with her husband.
She had answered. She had said 'Hi, honey'. Her voice had cracked on the 'H'.
Ned was already talking.
"Hey there, Maudie! Just wanted to give my best gal a quick howdy-doody check-in! Sorry about runnin' out of the house so dang early this morning, hon, you would not believe the kind of morning I'm having down here."
Leo watched Maude's face.
Her eyes were wide and wet. Her breasts were rising and falling. She was trying very hard to look like a wife taking a call from her husband and not like a wife who had, thirty seconds earlier, had another man's tongue in her mouth.
Leo's hand was still on her inner thigh. He hadn't moved it when the phone rang.
But now that Ned was talking, he started to slide it up.
Slow. An inch at a time. He made sure to keep watching her face.
There was an electric feeling inside of Leo. There was a difference between Marge and Maude. Although Marge was also married, she was not as devout and committed to her religion as Maude was. For Maude, his actions were double taboo.
Every inch his hand climbed was an inch the good Christian wife of Ned Flanders could not come back from. He could feel himself getting harder in his jeans the higher his fingers crawled.
"It's — it's okay, Neddy," Maude managed. "What's going on?"
"Well, picture this. I open up at nine on the dot, like always, and I've barely flipped the sign over when in walks Mrs. Glick — you know Agnes, from over on Highland —"
As Maude felt Leo's fingers creep up her body, she brought her hand down from Leo's hair and clamped down around the phone like it would anchor her to the planet. Her thighs, just on reflex, pressed together.
Leo felt his hand get trapped there. Pinned between the softness of her thighs, two inches from the seam of her panties that were under her sundress. Her skin there was hot, hotter than anywhere else he'd touched her, and slightly damp from the sweat of her own body closing around him.
He didn't push. Leo kept his hand where it was and enjoyed her reactions.
"— and she's looking for one of those left-handed corkscrews for her nephew's wedding present. So I'm walking her over to the housewares wall, and wouldn'tcha know it, the whole southpaw scissors display just goes — foosh — right over onto the floor!"
Leo brought his other hand up off her hip. He hooked two fingers under the bunched pink fabric at her waist, where the poorly done knot had already ridden half the skirt up. He tugged. The bow gave up without a fight and the whole skirt slid up over her thighs and hip in one easy motion, the fabric gathering at her waist. And just like that the whole front of her lap was nothing but the pink of her thighs and a small triangle of modest white cotton underwear.
The view hit him harder than he'd expected. Her thighs were fuller and softer than he'd guessed, pressed together tight with her panties cutting a neat line right up the middle. The skin of her inner thighs was so pale the small blue veins were visible under it. A tiny, almost invisible stretch mark ran low on the inside of one leg.
Maude's thighs, almost on their own, loosened by a quarter inch. Not much. But it was a quarter inch more than she'd meant to give him.
Leo's trapped hand slid up the last inch to reach his target.
"Four hundred pairs of scissors, Maudie. Four. Hundred. And Agnes, bless her heart, she steps right onto a pair, and her hip goes one way and her pocketbook goes the other, and I had to call the ambulance and everything."
Leo's target, the underwear, was plain white cotton with a modest waistband. High cut across the hip. The kind of underwear a woman put on in the morning to go to church and then forgot about for the rest of the day. The kind of underwear a good Christian wife wore under a pink sundress on a Monday.
What was not expected from a good Christian woman was how soaked it was.
The small triangle of cotton between her legs was a deeper color than the rest of the fabric, darkened all the way through in a rough oval that followed the shape of her pussy. Their make-out had done that. Leo hadn't even touched her yet, and she'd already ruined her underwear on his couch. He could see the outline of her through the wetness. The soft swell of her mound, the faint indentation of her slit pressed up against the inside of the fabric, a small dark smear where her wetness had started to bleed through the most.
He laid two fingers flat against the damp spot. He didn't rub. Not yet. He just pressed.
The cotton gave under his fingertips with a small wet give. His cock throbbed. He felt heat through the fabric, he felt the slick slide of her against the back of the wet cotton, he felt the faint twitch of her body when his fingers found the exact place she was trying not to let him find.
Maude's breath hitched audibly into the phone.
For Maude, the touch landed like a line crossed. Having fingers pressing in on the one spot through her panties, with her dress up around her waist in somebody else's living room, all while her husband's voice was in her ear. A small rolling wave of heat climbed up from between her legs to her chest to her face, and she realized with a pang of horror that her body was welcoming it.
"— Maudie? Hon? You sound a little … you sound out of breath there, sweetie. You feelin' okay? You're not comin' down with somethin', are ya? There's a flu going around, you know."
Maude squeezed her eyes shut. Her second hand that had been dropped to double hold her phone had quickly reached back up into Leo's hair and tightened into fist.
"I just got in from the garden, Neddy, I was — I was carrying the laundry basket up the stairs when you called, sorry —"
'Not only was the trip to the doctor a secret,' Leo thought, 'but apparently, so is the fact that she's over here right now.'
He started moving his fingers.
Slow circles over her clit through the soaked cotton. Two fingertips, light pressure, the pad of his thumb resting warm higher up against the top of her panties. The wet fabric made a very soft sound under his fingers, a sound that in the quiet of the living room was much louder than it had any right to be. Every small circle pushed the damp cotton up against the hard little bead of her clit and dragged it back down, and he could feel her getting more slippery with each pass, the fabric going from wet to drenched.
"Oh, jeepers! You sit yourself down, honey! Have a glass of water! You work yourself too hard, you know that?"
Maude's hips gave a single involuntary tilt upward into his hand before she caught them.
She didn't mean to do it. She felt her own body moving before her brain could decide, and by the time she clamped down it had already happened. A deep hot shame formed in her chest at the same time as a deeper, hotter pulse formed lower down. The worst part was how good it felt when she pressed up into him. The second worst part was that she wanted to do it again.
"I will, I will." Her voice was breathy. "Keep — keep telling me about the umbrellas."
"So here's the thing, Maudie. I'm gonna have to redo the whole floor plan today. The whole thing. I cannot have another customer slippin' on a southpaw display. I'm thinkin' I'll move the seasonal Lefty-Brella umbrellas over to where the can openers are now, and bring the can openers up to the front register, and then the scissors can go in that little nook by the window where nobody can knock 'em over. Whaddya think, hon?"
Leo shifted his mouth to the side of her neck.
He kissed her there once, soft, just under the ear. Then again, an inch down. Then worked his way slow down the side of her neck. He let his lips linger. He let her feel the warm drag of his mouth against her soft skin. And when he thought he'd given her enough kisses on the side of her neck, he bit it. Just gently. Just enough to make her flinch.
Her head tilted to give him more of it, her ear coming to rest against the side of his jaw. Her perfume was strongest here.
His free hand, the one that had pulled her dress up, came up. He slid it into the loose top of her sundress on the side that had been riding crooked all morning, the side where her bra had been failing its job since the second she'd walked in. He palmed the whole weight of her naked boob, his thumb finding the stiff point of her nipple on the first try.
Her breast was a revelation. Heavier than he'd expected for a woman her size, the soft full weight of it filling his whole hand and then some, the skin smooth under his palm. The nipple itself was stiff and fat and long between his thumb and the side of his finger, the areola wide and puffy around it.
He brushed it. Slow. Back and forth.
Maude made a sound in the back of her throat she absolutely could not afford to make into Ned's ear.
"That —" Maude's voice broke. "Nnrgh — that sounds smart, Neddy."
Ned, somewhere across town, did not notice.
"Well, the umbrellas are the thing, see, because they're the seasonal item, and seasonal goes by the front, that's just retail one-oh-one."
Leo's fingers on her clit sped up by the smallest increment. The wet cotton sounds got a little louder, a little slicker, the faint wet rhythm of it now audible even over Ned's voice on the phone. Maude's hips started rolling in small rhythmic motions, the side of her hip dragging forward and back across the hard ridge of his cock through his jeans every time she pushed up into his fingers.
Every grind rolled her hip harder against the outline of his cock. She had to know what she was doing to it. She couldn't not know. She was sitting right on top of his lap with nothing between them but one layer of cotton underwear and one layer of denim, and the more his fingers worked her the more her hip pressed down and across him, like her body was chasing both ends at the same time.
"Oh! And I almost forgot —"
Maude's whole body twitched.
"— Connie's gonna keep the boys till about five today. She's takin' 'em to the park and then for ice cream. Maybe take a nap! You sound like you could use one."
"Mm — mm-hm. I might — I might do that."
"I love you, sweetie, I'll be home around six-thirty."
A small kissing noise came through the phone.
Maude's mouth opened against Leo's neck. She was shaking. Her hand was in Leo's hair and was pulling at it without knowing she was, small helpless tugs every time his fingers made her hips buck.
"I love you too, Ne— nggrhh—."
She hung up before the rest of her moan made it down the line.
The line clicked dead.
The phone fell out of Maude's hand onto the cushion of the couch to the side.
Leo didn't stop.
His fingers kept going on her clit through the soaked cotton. His other hand stayed on her breast. His mouth stayed on her neck. She was flushed deep pink from her chest all the way up into her ears, panting open-mouthed against the side of his throat, her free hand back in his hair and her hips rolling in small helpless motions into his palm. The whole front of her panties was now so wet it was almost transparent, the pinkness of what was underneath was visible through the stretched cotton. She was so wet there was a small shining trail of wetness running down into the crease of her thigh.
'She's close.'
She was. He could feel it in the way her thighs were shaking against his wrist, in the little longer sharp inhales in her breathing, in the way every third or fourth roll of her hips was now a downright hump. The pad of his middle finger slipped a little further down on each circle now, past her clit, tracing along the soaked slit through the cotton, and the sound her body made under the fabric when he did was wet and unmistakable.
He worked her like that for another minute. Got her right to the edge of it. Got her to the point where her breath was starting to come out in small broken 'ah' sounds she was no longer trying to hide. Her back arched a little off his chest.
Leo's gaze dropped past her shoulder to her feet. The bare one had come up off the rug entirely, the small pale foot flexed tight, the high arch of it stretched, the pink-painted toes spread wide and curling in on nothing. The other foot, still in the half-buckled sandal, was doing the same. Her toes curled so hard the worn leather strap creaked once and then gave with a small audible snap, the broken sandal hanging off the end of her foot by a thread. Both sets of toes were trembling, the pretty pink polish catching the light through the window every time her hips bucked. They were small feet for a woman of her shape, dainty and well-kept, often kept hidden from the world.
She was about to come.
She was about to come on another man's fingers, on his couch, in his house, with her husband's voice still ringing in her ear, and there was nothing left in her that could stop it.
"Oh God — oh God —"
Her whole body seized.
Her thighs clamped down on his wrist with strength, locking his hand right where it was. Her back arched off his chest, her shoulders pressed back into him, her head tipping all the way back against his shoulder with her mouth open and her eyes squeezed shut. The hand in his hair pulled at the roots so hard it stung. A noise came out of her, it was high and broken, and her hips started bucking up into his palm in fast, jerky little waves, three or four hard pulses against the heel of his hand, then a longer one, then a small shudder that ran all the way down to her curling toes.
He could feel every body convulsion through the soaked cotton. Her clit jumping under his fingers in a fast tight rhythm. Her thighs shaking around his trapped wrist in long aftershocks. A fresh wet warmth spread through the fabric and onto his palm.
Then her back gave out and she collapsed against his chest, panting, every muscle gone soft, her cheek hot against the side of his neck.
She was completely silent for five seconds.
Just breathing. Eyes open, unfocused, staring at nothing. One small final twitch ran through her thigh against his wrist and then she was still.
Leo, very gently, did not move his hand. He let it stay where it was, warm and unmoving against the soaked front of her panties. He just held her and let her come down.
In her head, Maude Flanders was not coming down.
'What — what was that?'
Whatever had just happened to her, she had no name for. Her legs were still trembling. Her chest was heaving. The space between her thighs was throbbing in time with her own heartbeat, and every throb was sending a small bright echo of pleasure up her spine that she did not understand and did not have any way to stop.
She had been a married woman for twelve years. She had two children. She knew what sex was. She had performed her duty as a wife with Ned more times than she could count, in their bed, with the lights off, under the covers, both of them in nightclothes. That was what Scripture asked of her, and she had done it, and she had carried the boys and given Ned a family. That was what the marriage bed was for. To be fruitful. To multiply. To become one flesh.
This was not that.
There had never been this with Ned. There had never been her own body taking her by the throat and shaking her like a doll. The only thing she knew in bed was gratitude for Ned's gentleness and a quiet hope that this would be the time God blessed them with another baby.
The shame came down on her all at once. A hot wave of it, from her face to her chest.
Then her free hand came down out of his hair.
"Oh God. Oh God."
She was off his lap before he could say anything.
She scrambled off him with her dress half down on one side and her bra cup pushed sideways and her underwear soaked and her hair completely wrecked. She stood in the middle of the rug with her back to him, both hands pressed over her face, breathing like she'd been running.
Leo sat on the couch, one hand still damp from her, his cock painfully hard in his jeans, and watched the back of her shoulders shake.
"Maude."
"I have to —" She fixed the strap of her halter back over her shoulder, hands shaking. She tugged the cup of her bra back into place with a small, desperate motion. She pulled her dress down over her thighs. She didn't turn around.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize."
"I have to go, Leo."
Leo stood up.
"Okay. Come on. Come into the kitchen first, let me send you with something to eat. You haven't eaten today, have you?"
She hadn't. And despite seeming very desperate to leave a moment ago, she let herself be led.
…
He walked her into the kitchen with a hand on the small of her back, talking gently the whole way, like nothing had just happened.
"There's some banana bread, and I have some of those almonds I think you like, let me find you a little bag."
Maude trailed after him on legs that weren't quite under her command, smoothing the front of her sundress over and over with her free hand. Every step reminded her that her panties were completely ruined underneath, the soaked cotton cold against her now, clinging to her with every movement, reminding her of her actions.
He opened the cabinet for the foil. He turned to the counter.
He saw it a half-second before Maude's eyes drifted up to follow his.
Not on the kitchen island where he'd made the tea, but on the side counter by the back window, ten feet from where Maude was standing.
Leo cursed himself. He had brought Manjula a cup of chai that morning. At some point he'd carried the mug down and set it on that side counter, planning to rinse it later, but had forgotten at some point. What was worse there was a sari hanging on the chair in front of it.
Maude had sat at enough lunches with Manjula to recognize the exact drape of silk Manjula wore. That particular pink, with that particular gold border, was the set Manjula constantly wore. Maude would know it the second her eyes landed on it.
'Manjula. Manjula.'
Maude's eyes were tracking up.
Leo moved.
He stepped between her line of sight and the side counter in one smooth motion, opened the foil drawer with his hip to draw her gaze sideways toward him, and reached behind his back blindly for the mug. He caught the handle on the second try, swung it down into the cabinet below, and in the same motion used his hip to close the drawer. The sari was harder. He had to actually step across, pull it down off the chair back in one fast sweep, and stuff the whole armful of silk into the cabinet on top of the mug. He did it in one motion, nudged the cabinet door shut with his knee, and turned back to her with a smile.
"Banana bread and almonds," he said brightly. "Two-second cleanup, sorry, I didn't get to all my dishes this morning."
Her eyes had not made it. He'd caught her in time. Her brain was three rooms behind her body still anyway.
"It's — it's fine, Leo —"
He kept his shoulder turned to block her line of sight to the side counter, packed the foil around half a loaf of banana bread and a handful of almonds in record time, and walked her backwards toward the foyer with the packet in one hand and a casual arm around her shoulders.
"Here. Eat something on the way home. Drink some water."
"I'm so sorry."
"For what."
"For — for —" She couldn't say it.
"You came here because you needed to talk to someone. We talked. I am going to find you those passages. You're going to come back tomorrow and we are going to keep working through this. That's what happened. Okay?"
She looked up at him.
She did not mention the kiss. She did not mention the second kiss. She did not mention his hands or his mouth or the phone call. She did not mention any of it.
What she said, in a small, grateful voice, was:
"I really feel like I can rely on you, Leo. To help me find the answer to all this. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't responded to my message today."
"You can rely on me. Anytime, Maude. I mean that."
He opened the door for her.
She stepped out onto the porch and turned to look at him one more time, the knot of her sundress strap catching the sun, the foil packet with snacks pressed to her chest with both hands.
"Tomorrow," she said.
"Tomorrow."
He watched her walk down the path in her one half-buckled sandal, slow and a little unsteady, the other foot bare against the warm afternoon concrete. The little pink heel lifted clean off the ground with each step, the toes curling slightly away from the rough surface. The broken sandal was tucked under her arm against the foil packet.
Leo scanned the street. One in the afternoon on a Monday was not the empty stretch a lot of people assumed it was. But right now the street was mercifully empty and Maude's driveway was only thirty feet from his own front walk. She'd make it.
He watched her until she was in her own driveway and through her own front door before he closed his.
He locked it. He leaned his back against it. He exhaled.
He looked down at his hand. His two fingers were still shiny with her. He brought them up to his face, looked at them for a second, and then slowly sucked them clean. She tasted faintly sweet.
His cock was still painfully hard in his jeans. Maude had come all over his fingers and his palm and the front of his couch cushion, and he had not touched himself once. Maude's body grinding against his lap, her mouth against his, her tits in his hand, her panties soaking through onto his thigh, and the whole time he'd been riding the edge of it in his jeans without any relief. He needed relief.
He looked at his phone on the kitchen counter, face-down where he'd left it that morning.
He went over and turned it over.
A notification from Marge.
Leo looked at it for a long second before he opened it. Then he tapped it.
He read it once.
He set the phone back down on the counter, face-up this time, and looked up at the ceiling. At the soundproofed room above him. At Manjula, who had stayed exactly where he'd told her to stay all morning, and had no idea what had just happened on the couch below her.
He turned off the kitchen light and went upstairs.
...
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[A/N]: Okay back to 2k words in the next chapter.