It was a dream, of that Marge had little doubt.
But she couldn't remember lying down and drifting to sleep. The faint hope that the real world existed outside the bubble of this vivid experience kept her from crying as her sister released her into the arms of her host. The dream came to a jarring end as he pressed his lips to hers.
She awoke, still in her dress, glaring up into the ceiling of the guest room. Her heart was racing and she felt tears drying on her cheeks.
Getting up from bed, she showered before changing back into her green dress.
As she stepped out onto the back patio, Leigh emerged from the pool, an absurdly small bikini almost forcing Marge back the way she came.
"Leigh..."
"Marge, " Leigh swept the wet locks of her hair away from her eyes and sighed, "That's no way for a rookie to dress for her first job."
"Rookie?" Marge's head pivoted above her shoulders with befuddlement.
"Last night you asked if you could have some pictures taken."
"I what?"
"You don't recall your conversation with your husband about being a model?"
"I- I-" Marge felt her heart sink, then it throb madly at her feet.
"It was your idea, and Hef was very surprised to hear it from your own lips."
"I asked Hef? In person?"
"You don't remember?"
"No."
Leigh tried to dam any sign of her jubilation, but her eyes still narrowed with scheming, "He didn't think it would be appropriate but you asked him to take the pictures."
Marge's eyes drifted to the reflective surface of the pool, light skimming the trembling skin of the water. In the mirror of the basin's chlorine treated contents she could see everyone's reflection but her own.
She felt hollow at the thought. But she wasn't invisible at all, in fact, she was quite the opposite.
Unclenching her gaze from the water she searched frantically for a seat to sit in. As she sank into the cushion, Leigh leaned over her, a consoling almost matronly stature about her as she spoke, "Marge, destiny brought you here to find me. But I think before you leave you owe it to your husband to show your host just how much we are alike."
Approaching the door to one of the mansion's studio rooms, Marge felt she owed an apology to her husband for this treachery, she felt guilty and dissolute for giving in.
Yet as the door opened, she felt even more reprehensible at the thought of Hugh, whom she'd hassled into this.
Appearing at the corner of the room, something about the way he carried himself across the room made him seem blameless in all of this. She didn't feel she owed Homer anything in that moment, in fact, she partly blamed him for her mistreatment of her host.
She tried so hard to humor her husband, to play along, that she'd overstepped her welcome, perhaps overstayed her welcome.
As she moved to the center of the room, there was nothing but silence, the lack of words making the space seem enormous and the distance between them vast.
Watching him adjust the mechanisms behind the the lens of the camera he only occasionally looked up and even then it felt unsettling somehow that he was willing to gaze into her eyes, but refused to acknowledge she still donned the silk robe concealing her.
It seemed he was doing this under protest. The affection she was certain she'd seen in his eyes before was gone.
"What's wrong?" she finally said.
She watched him try to restrain some deeper brimming emotion as he spoke "I'm not entirely certain you should be doing this, Marge. To your husband, I mean."
Marge felt conflicted over his words. As though her conscience was speaking through him. And now, to console him, she'd have to convince him to do what a less honorable man would do without hesitation.
Marge felt guilt but even more so self-loathing as she forced out the words condemning her "He would want this. In fact... last night I told him where I was and that I was thinking of leaving. He told I'd regret it if I left without hearing from you what my chances were."
Hef's eyes moved to the floor, to wander along its length as he contemplated over her words. She was obviously lying, but his curiosity as to why was outweighed by his determination to see what was beneath the robe.
"The opinion of a man your husband has never met means that much to him?" he asked.
"No. But it does to me." Marge replied.
His back was turned to her, his eyes facing the front lens of the camera, her bashful eyes reflected back to him in the curved glass, her innocence, her naivete so captivating to him.
Slowly he turned toward her. Marge felt a chill move down her spine. As he moved closer his confident green eyes took on a calming glow, dim jasmine ambers where his eyes had earlier been.
Though the thought of her husband never left her mind, Marge felt she owed this man something greater than her obligations to Homer.
A considerable sacrifice would have to be made if she ever expected the guilt she was feeling to ebb.
She watched him clench his lips together, squeeze until the pink slit of his mouth turned white with the strain.
Slowly her fingers crept to the sash tying the robe around her waist. His eyes willing her now, as they had before, he turned his body away again, confident of her ability to follow through once the task was set into motion. The sound of the rustling silk of her robe as it pooled at her feet allowed a smile to pass the disguise of grief on his face. With his back to Marge his lips curled into a confident little sneer.
Turning back he moved his hands to the buttons controlling the servos of the camera. His eyes followed the canon-like length of the camera's stacked lenses before noticing Marge, the robe at her feet, her legs crossed, her hands shielding her breasts from his expectant gaze, he felt even more captivated by her modesty. If anything, it only furthered her attractiveness.
"Is it okay, if we take the pictures like this?" a part of her still wanted to draw the line somewhere, otherwise she was displacing her husband to make her host happy.
"That's... fine." he said, reluctantly returning to behind the camera.
He snapped a few pictures, not bothering to give Marge any instructions.
She could see the fleeting interest in his eyes, but she wasn't going to discard the last of her dignity to make amends with this man.
After five or six shots, he turned from the camera back to her. She quivered a bit as he moved beside her.
As the two shuffled together, Leigh watched from the open slit in the door. She could see Marge's weariness, her eyes never quite meeting his and her hands shaking where they hovered as he finally stood behind her.
She watched him get into position as she raised the small remote control for the camera. Watching the preluding ritual they'd practiced the previous night, Leigh felt her heart race with anticipation.
She watched his hands lift, reaching for Marge's small wrists, the words between them incomprehensible next to the deafening suspense of the moment.
"For this next shot, if you could move your arms slightly..." his hands deft from concentration, gripped her wrists and lifted her hands away from her breasts as Leigh's thumb drummed down on the remote.
In an instant the camera was flashing and Marge was gasping in shock. Her eyes dovetailed from the camera to her unshielded bosom, then back to her host, his head hovering over her shoulder. Her chest heaved, but her mind was at a loss for how to interpret what she was experiencing.
As her eyes turned, pleading as they stared back into Hef's, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers.
In a moment she was back outside and her prayers were being answered. A deep and longing kiss pressed her back against his body. At her sides she felt her arms resting, not resisting.
For all his treachery, she felt no one else was left in the world to protect her but him. She could feel as his lips pressed to her the infatuation and desire consuming him. Excited but still timid from the strobing flash of the camera she reached down and pulled his hands up to her breasts, their warm grip enveloping them, her lips pulled from his when he only thought to knead them.
She heard herself gasp before his lips reasserted themselves upon hers.
Deep down her mind was a draining well of regrets. She thought of Homer. She felt regret. But her partner's hands were forging cracks in walls, allowing her guilt to ebb away under the pressure. Doing her best to bury herself in thoughts of her family, of the apprehension she'd once had, of her integrity, she felt her hands claw at the sides of her host. She was pulling him closer, though he already was bearing down upon her, she wanted him closer than hands on skin.
One hand on her hip was indication enough that he was getting the message. As it wormed its way between her thighs she thrust her rear against him.
"Yes..." she beckoned him with every part of their lips.
She felt his hand travel up her legs to their axis. The heat in her body was following along with the trajectory of his hand.
Pulling her across the room, she slowly turned her body to face him. Dipping lower on her body, his kisses became lighter as they grazed a trail down her neck and over her breasts, teasing her before she was laid across his bed.
Leaning over her, she could feel both the cold of his silhouette and the heat of his body.
With his tantalizing lips still crawling lower Marge bit her lip. Her effort to distract the defiant voice of her conscience nearly drew blood. But she managed to still it, to suffocate the rebellious screams as her cohort in adultery neared the axis of her hips.
The sigh of his captivation pulled her attention up to face him, her eyes seeing past his eyes wide at the fetching vision before him, to the camera and the clicking shutter behind the glass, the mechanism opening and closing like the valves of a pounding heart. Watching the shutter open and close she could feel her own heartbeat, in sync with the twitching mechanism.
Faster and faster it thudded inside her, her eyes seeing the reflection of her host bent over her, his head between her legs.
She watched, both detached from her own body, and yet captivated by its closeness to this persevering force, as he slipped his hands beneath her buttocks and lifted the groove of her sex to his opening mouth.
The surreal sensation of the man's mouth closing around her pressed her back against the mattress.
He wasted little time before probing to taste what before only her husband had known of her. Though uneasy at feeling the muscle of his tongue pressed into her, she began to part her legs further and lift her groin higher. Furrowing through her recesses, Marge began to roll what of her body still remained on the bed back and forth, restless from the pungent sensations.
Hef watched with rising anticipation as Marge became utterly undone by the machinations of his tongue.
With every break in the coalescing melody of sensations, she could hear him speak.
"Beautiful ... sexy... Marge Simpson..."
She'd almost forgotten who she was until she heard her own name. Though in his voice the name conveyed a history of a different woman, an image unlike the one she'd seen in mirrors.
She could only coo with fondness, lost beneath the crashing waves, each collision of sensation and regret sent her tumbling over.
The deep clench of her body's total resignation to her partner sent her back, flat against the bed.
He knelt over her as her legs collapsed and she laid limp beneath him, her face twisted in an accomplished little smirk.
She was barely awake, but heard his words as she wallowed in the last of the dimming pleasure.
"What now Marge?" he smiled.