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"Oh God..." What little voice I could muster was a quivering whimper. "Oh Nikki..."

I knew she was smarter than science when she put two exceedingly wet fingertips against my lips. Her lavender-painted fingernails glistened in the overhanging light. Those thickset twinned fingers paused at my kiss-shaped expression for just a moment, then Nikki sleekly pushed their length into my dirty little mouth. She only wanted to keep me quiet, stifle my groans, knowing full well that my husband and kids were safely tucked up below us both. She knew that if they knew she was out of here. My being the more 'adult' of our sinful pair should've made me cognizant of that -- and I was -- but Eliza was in charge now, and Eliza didn't care about anything else when Nikki was lapping at her sex...

I sucked hard upon her cute fingers the second they forced their way into my mouth, curled my lips around their collective width and slathered them with my saliva. My tongue snaked across and around and between them as though it had a ravenous will of its own, causing my beautiful Nikki to moan a little herself.

"Mmm," she crooned. Nikki didn't have to moderate her own passionate rumblings because they were readily muffled by my trembling thighs.

One can only imagine how we might of looked together there, spread lengthways across three puddles of cotton blankets, but for me I felt an errant synergy, the two of us together grinding the pleasure out of each other's bodies. Nikki knew how to work me and it wasn't my intention to stop her. Far from it.

Eliza was too drunk on this girl to stop.

Her sultry tongue blanketed my vaginal opening while two of Nikki's other fingers spread me raw. A firm series of slow licks crawled all the way up to my clit and made me shake rhythmically. Each lingual thrash sent tremors up my spine so delicious I thought I might faint. Nikki didn't falter an inch whilst licking me -- and her experience in these sultry matters really started to shine through.

At first she took me slow. Nikki's expert tongue came up and down the aperture to my flowing womanhood, vertical strokes, each one paced and careful. From time to time her thick eyelashes would flutter up to spot my inevitable reaction. I'd look back at her with a pleading hunger, I wanted her to continue but at the same time just felt this... desperation to grab her and kiss her and hold her and make her more mine. It was frustrating to the point of torture.

Delightful sexual torture.

And when she knew I wanted more she licked me that much harder, that much quicker, like a kitten lapping up her cream, causing me to quake and groan her name into the acoustics. My arched feet rumpled the blankets beneath us as my toes clenched, taking little bundles of fabric between them. With both my sweater and bra gone, tossed somewhere over by John's old knitting kit, I was free to paw at and molest my breasts; flood myself with even more pleasure by caressing them. The kneading was so fluid you'd think I was on auto-pilot, the rusty nipple of either mammary erect as all hell. My nipples were so stiff you could chip your tooth biting them. All the while I was privy to a wonderful show; Nikki's mop of chestnut hair bobbing between my creamy hips.

I knew she'd kiss me after this with her hot puckered lips all smeared in naughty juices, but that thought only made me more horny, all the more giddy with delightful prospects.

Eventually the pleasure Nikki was giving me became so intense that I couldn't focus on sucking her chunky, girlish fingers any longer. Defiance became capitulation as the walls keeping me from my orgasm were at last broken down. The world devolved into what I could only describe as a lurid cornucopia of tremendous sensations, fireworks and moaning. As my body convulsed I was only vaguely aware of Nikki pulling her fingers out my mouth and slapping her whole hand around it, smothering capricious screams as my hips greedily rode her face into bliss.

Then I suppose I must've blanked out for a few seconds because the next thing I knew, I was tasting myself, my discharge, on her kiss. Nikki sighed when I took her by the cheeks and kissed her back, letting her know how dearly I appreciated that. There are few things in life more intense than sampling the zest of your sexual juices on someone else's lips.

In time the world became animate again, I remembered where I was, and my thoughts caught up with the speed of my breaths. My spent body collapsed upon the puddle of blankets beneath us while Nikki straddled me at the hips.

There was light-bulb high up above us, swinging from the rafters, switched on earlier. It gave the whole attic a dim golden glow. With that illumination I was able to appreciate just how beautiful Nikki looked at that moment. She was topless, utterly naked from the waist up and her small youthful breasts stood proud and prominent. Nikki was aglow with a thick sheen of sweat that glistened off her milky skin. Syrupy rivulets of my come dripped down her heart-shaped cheek. Thin strands of hair clung to her wet forehead.

I admired her nose stud again. It looked so cute right now.

"I can't tell you how you make me feel." My voice was still a laboured whisper.

She smiled. Of pride or embarrassment, I couldn't tell.

Then, for a good two minutes or so, Nikki and I just sort of... stared at each other. Two whole minutes may not seem like much but when you occupy that time with something tense or intense, two minutes can feel like an eon. Although I couldn't really be sure about Nikki, I'm sure we were trying to figure each other out because I know I wondered hard about her.

How did she feel about me?

I knew how I felt about her. I was besotted with her. Things hadn't progressed in such a way that I'd abandon my family for her, but there was something about Nikki that set a fire in me. There was a patch of land in my sexual existence that was like crusted earth, the parched soil begging for nourishment; and Nikki was the heavenly downpour sent to quench its thirst.

Before I met her, neither the girls I bought nor the husband I had were able to satisfy this hungry daemon in me. Nikki did. That was clear now. Nikki fulfilled me, poured daylight into the nocturne, made me feel like a woman again. I hold no illusions about how shallow this might seem to others but that's what Nikki did. In everything I knew of her and in everything she did to me she was perfection. All my urges were telling me to bathe myself in that perfection and cherish its vicarious bounty while I could.

But how did she feel about me?

There was no point in kidding myself about this scenario. Surely I was just a convenience to her? She knew that while I wasn't exactly rich I had a fair amount of money, she knew I had feelings for her (nowhere near love but deeper than a crush) and she knew where I lived. Whatever trouble Nikki was in, I was well placed to help her, thus here she was.

As I gazed into her jewel green eyes I could only imagine what was going through her mind.

But did it matter?

This was a temporary thing. Tomorrow morning she'd be gone. Out of my life. Forever. If I was as intelligent as I presumed to be, maybe I'd be more relieved at that. I'd think about the two wonderful kids I had downstairs sleeping like babies. How terribly it would wreck their lives if John got wind of any of this...? Yet as I looked into Nikki's hypnotic eyes I just didn't stumble into that logic. All I saw right now was her and goddamnit she made me feel good. Better than I'd felt in a long time.

Despite that... I had enough sense to recognize that I couldn't lie here and cinematically admire the nudity of a nineteen-year-old hooker all night. I wasn't even supposed to be in the attic with her.

I was worried that she might get a little hungry during the night so I snuck out of bed about half an hour ago and whipped up a cheese & tomato sandwich with an accompanying glass of apple juice. Then when I came up here with her snack I found Nikki kicking back with the nature book I lent her. It wasn't mine, it was Kyle's, something about the wildlife of the Galapagos Islands. Apparently my wayward nymph took a shine to it.

She ate, we talked a little, then somehow she ended up eating me.

The weight at my waist depressed as Nikki climbed off of me, in silence. Her clothes lay in pile just next to us. In equal silence I watched her re-clip her lace bra and thread her arms through the sleeves of her black tank top. Her many necklaces rattled with her every gesture.

That was my cue to get dressed too.

I found my bra, my sweater and my skirt (I wore panties up here too but I couldn't find them) but it wasn't until busied myself fitting on my house slippers that Nikki finally said something.

"Thanks."

It took my by surprise. "Huh?"

"For letting me stay here tonight," she clarified. Her smile was modest. "And, you know, for the sandwich. I'm really grateful."

"...You're welcome."

Another smile, then she returned to her sleeping bag. Nikki didn't get inside but sat on top. Her hand reached for the Galapagos Islands book. Odd. Shouldn't she be getting some rest? I checked my watch. It was just three minutes shy of midnight. Then again what the hell happened to my formerly analytical wit? She was a hooker. Didn't their business depend on these owl-like sleeping habits? Come on, Elizabeth. You know that. Don't let mind-numbing sex numb your mind.

"So..." I waffled. "...What are your plans after this?"

Nikki paused a moment. "I... uh, I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"No."

"What about where you were living before?" I asked. "What's the deal on that?"

For the briefest second her doe eyes flicked to mine... then even quicker back to the pages of my son's book. "I can't go back there."

"Why not?"

I didn't ask that not realizing it might clue me in to what was going on with Nikki behind the scenes. In only two days we'd slept together on three separate occasions and yet I still knew less about her than I did when I first saw her. I wanted to know so much more about her... to expand the Polaroid my mind had snapped of her... even if she was out of my life this time tomorrow. Judging by Nikki's defensive glare she wasn't willing to divulge that nugget of information though.

So I changed the subject. "...Okay then. Do you have any plans about... where you're going to stay? Do you have a friend to crash with?"

"I'm not staying here. I'm gonna try my luck in Greenwich."

Greenwich? From here that was a cross-state journey. "Can you afford that?"

"Of course I can't."

I blinked. "You don't have any money?"

"No."

"Then how are getting to Greenwich?"

I could tell she was getting frustrated with all my questions. "I'll hitchhike, okay?"

...Okay, now she was sounding patently ridiculous. Hitchhiking? This wasn't the nineteen-fucking-sixties. Thumbing your way across the state was absurd in both risk and reliability. Even if you could find someone brave enough and generous enough to take you some place, you had no idea what that person was like. For all Nikki knew she'd be jumping into the car of some demented axe-wielding serial killer.

"Do you think that's safe?"

Nikki smirked derisively. "Any safer than hooking?"

...

...She had me on that one.

I just couldn't work her out. Clearly she knew how fucked up her situation was yet she was so damn nonchalant about it. It didn't make any sense. Why was Nikki so okay with circumstances this unfair? I still sensed fragility in her, that hadn't changed, but the way she approached everything in that quietly self-assured manner of hers.... it added another layer to her already mysterious persona. Nikki was the one person in my life I didn't understand.

My train of thought was broken when she closed the book with a slap. Nikki looked at me with a smile I could only define as false then opened up the puffy fold of my dusty old sleeping bag. "...Thank you for the snack, Elizabeth, but I don't want to keep you. Your husband might get worried if, you know... he doesn't find you with him."

She was right. I knew she was right. By reminding me of John she was thinking more of her own needs than she was of mine... I knew that too. I was the same way, just as selfish and self-involved... the only difference was that Nikki was thinking of her livelihood while I was just cheating on my husband behind his oblivious back.

None of that made Nikki less right. John would be concerned if he woke up without me at his side. It was the kind of love you resent when you're unable to return it. I had to go.

For a moment though I stood there not knowing if I was supposed to kiss Nikki goodbye or something. In the end I thought better of it, said a quick "Goodnight, Nikki" then went for the attic door.

My arts in sneaking into bed were legendary. Quiet as a mouse it only took a few seconds to jog down my second flight of stairs, down the corridor, through my bedroom door (ever so slightly ajar) and out of my clothes into the maroon nightgown draped over our ottoman. John snoozed in the blue and the black of the moonlight, none the wiser. I would've liked to have had a shower first to get the smell of sex off my skin, but that definitely would've woken someone so I settled for sprinkling myself in perfume. Then I crawled back into bed with him. Worked the sheets around my torso. Prayed that Nikki didn't make any noise up there. To her credit though, Nikki was extremely quiet. No one heard a peep out of the attic all evening.

With that knowledge keeping me cool I tried to sleep.

Yet twenty-six minutes later I was still trying.

I did all the shit you do when you can't sleep. I counted sheep, mentally recited lyrics, tried to blank my mind... but nothing worked. Not a thing. I couldn't sleep. And I couldn't sleep because I was thinking. A custodial engineer called 'intellect' motivated by a work ethic called 'lust', dusted the cogs of my mind, squirted some oil in the joints, and gave the system a good kicking.

The idea came to me in a sort of haze. I wasn't aware of it. I wasn't aware of trying to come up with a solution... at least not until I recognized one. Once the idea was there it refused to be shaken. I just lay there tossing and turning next to John, arguing with myself that it was a crazy idea and that Nikki would never go for it... but eventually my overactive brain gave way to the urges of my loins...

They were contradicting each other less and less these days.

Silence amplified my sigh as I climbed out of the bed again, grabbed my cell phone from the coffee table and before I knew it I was outside calling Sean's number. Please be awake...

He was.

"Sean," I whispered. "I need a favour."

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