The first touch of his tongue to hers was electric, every time. He was on her as soon as they got in the front door and she didn't think she would ever get bored of Alfie's kisses. The man set her on fire and she was helpless in the face of him. She let him walk her backwards, stopping to pull off coats, hats, gloves, shoes, all of it littered in a long trail and they made it to the hallway before he pushed her up against the wall and wrapped her legs around his hips.

His trousers were unbuttoned, but that was all, his shirt only half unbuttoned, and she was still wearing her shirtwaist, her long sleeves buttoned at the wrist but pushed up to expose her breasts. Her skirt was bunched up around her waist uncomfortably, but still, he was grinding up against her and the friction was in the perfect spot, and holy fuck, he was going to make her come before he even got his kit off. He was kissing her and kissing her and she was pretty sure she was sliding down the wall but who the fuck cared when his hard cock was thrusting up against her like that.

Mabel moaned, long and loud, just like Alfie liked but would never admit. Which, of course, was when they heard a loud throat-clearing behind them.

"Ahem!"

They both froze.

"Ach, no, dunna mind me, dears. I'm sure you jus' forgot I work 'ere. During the day. When you're supposed to be gone."

Alfie grimaced and used his broad back to shield Mabel as she quickly unclasped her ankles and slid to the floor, hastily adjusting her clothing and fairly sure her face would ignite into actual flames at any moment.

"Rowena," Alfie began, then cleared his throat and started again, speaking over his shoulder. "You can actually have the rest of the day off. Please. Thank you," he stammered, and Mabel would have chuckled at his obvious discomfort if she hadn't been completely mortified and fervently praying the ground would open up around her, her face buried in Alfie's shirt so she wouldn't have to meet Rowena's disapproving eye.

"Ooch! Ken I? Well, I thank ye, kind sir," and Mabel didn't need to see her to know she was scowling.

Alfie nodded benevolently, although he still hadn't turned to face her, his arms caging Mabel and hopefully blocking her from sight.

"Yer mother called."

They both froze again and it took Mabel a few seconds to realise Rowena was talking to her.

"Wait, my mother?" she asked, peering around Alfie and meeting her gaze for the first time. Her eyes flicked back and forth between Alfie and the annoyed housekeeper. Then her heart started hammering in her chest for the third time in as many minutes for as many different reasons.

"Well, it can't be mine, love," Alfie said gently.

Mabel frowned a little at that but asked Rowena in a panicky voice, "My mother called here? How did she know I was here?"

"I dinna ken she knew, just lookin'. She knows who your boss is, yes?"

"Oh," Mabel said stupidly, then scooted out from under Alfie's arm. She heard him sigh as she firmly avoided Rowena's gaze and spent a few shameful moments retrieving her scattered articles of clothing before ducking into the bathroom to finish re-dressing.

When she emerged, Rowena was still there, fists on her ample hips and a bitter twist to her lips. Alfie was nowhere to be seen, but his quickly growing puppy was sitting outside his closed bedroom door, tongue out and ready to play the instant it budged. She completely ignored Mabel and Mabel bit back her own sigh.

"What did you tell her," Mabel asked, "please?" as politely as she could while she set about gathering her coat and hat.

"I told her to try your apartment, o'course," Rowena grumbled. "Gave her the number."

Mabel froze again, her arms in the process of pinning her hat in place in front of the mirror in the front entryway. "But there's no one there but my..." Mabel stopped, the horror dawning on her, "landlord." She scrambled to gather her things. "Oh, bollocks, who knows what he told her?" she said to herself and let herself out the front door. "Oh, um, bye," she added as an afterthought to Rowena, but didn't stop for her reply, just started walking quickly toward her apartment.

Thankfully it wasn't a long walk, and her feet knew the way. Her brain was on overload, trying to figure out what to say to her mother about why she hadn't called, or written, or come to visit, or given her the damn telephone number for her apartment building. The truth was easy: she was never home. The reason for the truth was less easy: she spent as much available time with Alfie as possible, and now that there was Peaches to take care of, she was at his house even when he wasn't available. When she reached her dark and dusty apartment, she sighed and tried to mentally prepare for a meeting with her landlord. The older gentleman was extremely awkward, and every conversation revolved around whether or not she had cats up there because cats could destroy an apartment faster than *insert random metaphor she'd never heard before*, all the while he directed the conversation at her breasts.

"Mr Waterhouse?" she called at the bottom of the stairs, and his thinning grey haired head appeared from the "office" he used, and she wasn't entirely sure he didn't live in.

"Ah! Miss Ziemann!" he addressed her chest and she sighed, then immediately regretted doing so when his eyes widened. "What can I do for you?"

"I was told that maybe I received a call while I was out?"

"Hmm?" he dragged his eyes up, "Oh, yes!" He returned to his office to grab a piece of paper, then proceeded to tell her every single thing he'd written on it, time of call, number called from, length of call, etc, while she shifted from foot to foot, eager to get away.

"It was your mother, lovely woman. She just wanted to check up on you, see how things were going, of course." He chuckled and she gave him a weak smile, trying to turn towards the stairs. "I told her that you're not around much anymore, gone at all hours."

She paused, one foot on the step and her smile felt frozen in place.

"She said she's excited for her visit! Will she be staying with you?" he asked nosily. "She doesn't have cats, does she?"

"No," she answered distractedly, "no cats."

"Good, because cats can mess up an apartment faster than spit in a pig's eye. Constantly," he dropped to a whisper, "urinating on everything." He made a face.

"Yes," she said, already climbing the stairs, "thank you, Mr Waterhouse, for the message."

"Oh, no trouble, no trouble at all!" he addressed her backside, and she skittered into her room, locking her door behind her.

'Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,' she thought, close to panicking as she paced her barren apartment. It looked very un-lived-in, now that she stopped to notice. Half her wardrobe had migrated to Alfie's, there wasn't a scrap of food in the house, and she didn't even have anything to clean her bloody teeth. She grumbled, cursed mentally and aloud, and spent the next hour scrubbing the dust out of the mostly empty apartment. It was hot, dirty work, and she thought longingly of the bathtub at Alfie's (taps!) before washing up as best she could and heading to the telephone in the hall that was used by the whole apartment complex.

"Mother! Hello, how are you? It's me. Mabel. Yeah. Do you have a lot of people that call you 'Mother' that I don't know about? No, of course not, I'm sorry. Yes, I know it has been a while since I called. Yes, or wrote. Yes, or visited."

At this point, Mr Waterhouse wasn't even pretending to not be listening, leaning out of his office doorway in his rolling chair.

"Well, I've been busy, of course." There was a long pause while she waited for her mother to run out of steam on the other end. "He said that? Well, that's just silly, Mother, where would I be? Of course I'm not calling him a liar, Mother. Well, I do spend a lot of time at the...at work," she amended, glancing at Mr Waterhouse and hurriedly changed the subject.

"So I understand you're planning a visit! That's...exciting. So, just a day or two? A...a month?! Wait, Mother...no, wait. A month!? No, that actually will not work. Because I have a job, I cannot entertain you for a whole...Fine, I apologise. HOST you. No, Mother...Mother, please. Please be reasonable. NO. It's not a possibility, please stop pushing. Fine, yes, ok, fine. Fine. A week. Yes, I can do a week. NO, NOT NEXT WEEK! Because I have to hire a new foreman, and there's interviews to prepare and the Tuesday shipments keep coming in late and...you know what? It doesn't matter why it won't work, it just will not work. Well, tell Daddy to speak with his job and reschedule. Tell them it's because those dates don't work anymore, and unfortunately, we need to reschedule. MUM."

She sighed and leant her head against the wall a little harder than necessary, the thump feeling visceral and grounding.

"Nothing, I just have a headache. No, I am eating. Yes, I am also getting enough sleep. Well, goodness, I don't know, maybe I'm wearing my hair too tight. Yes, I'll look into that." Thump. "No, I'm not being smart with you." Thump. She stopped another sigh just in time. "How about next month, Mother? Yes, that would be much better for me. Ok, we will have to work out exact days later. Right, now you have my phone number, so I'm sure I'll be hearing from you. No, still not being smart with you. Of course, Mother. I love you, too. Right. Goodbye."

Thump, thump, thump. Siiiiigh.