Saturday, October 4th, 1958
9:45 a.m.

"Door!" RIndy shouted.

"You've got perfectly good legs!" Carol yelled back from the kitchen.

Rindy toddled over to the front door and opened it. There was Abby, arms filled with bags and bottles as always with every visit to the apartment.

"Hi there, Rindy."

"Hi, Aunt Abby."

"How's it going? Staying in trouble?"

"As much trouble as you can get into at a Quaker school."

"That's my girl." Abby put down a bottle of vermouth on the side table and looked around. "Where's your mom?"

"Which one? The blonde or the brunette?"

Abby let out a hearty laugh and dropped two of the bags in her arms. "The hot blonde." Rindy giggled and pointed toward the kitchen. "Thanks." Glancing back over to the table, she picked up the vermouth and headed toward the kitchen.

As Abby swung open the door to the kitchen, she saw Carol washing up some dishes and putting away cereal boxes from breakfast. Carol looked over her shoulder to see Abby standing there with a bottle of liquor: Abby's trademark calling card. She would have given her a hug, but with soapy hands it wasn't possible. Abby leaned over her shoulder and kissed one cheek. "You excited about the weekend?"

"Can't wait. It feels like forever since Therese and I have had some time to ourselves." Carol returned her focus to the dishes and put the finishing touches on rinsing what was in the basin. "We've been so busy and with RIndy, new school year, and lessons, and everything. Therese needs me to herself for a bit."

Abby scoured the room the Moka Express coffee maker Carol had brought back from Italy during her trip with Therese trip four years earlier and filled the base with fresh water. "You know, one of the only reasons I come over here is - "

" - is because you like to bring the ladies you pick up in the Village here when we're away?"

"No." Carol turned around with eyebrows raised. "Yes, but that's not the point. I like your coffee maker. You're the only people I know who like real fucking coffee."

"Why, thank you, Abby."

"When you go to Europe in the summer, you better be bringing one of these back for me."

"Don't they sell them down in the Lower East Side somewhere? At one of those import shops?"

"Probably, but it's not the same as making you haul it in a trunk across the ocean after having picked it out yourself."

Carol smiled, finishing with the dishes and now looking for the extra-finely ground coffee for the coffee maker. "Have you given any thought to moving into the city or at least getting an apartment here?"

Abby pulled her cigarettes from her pocket and tapped one out of the packet. She offered one to Carol, who declined as she was still scurrying around the kitchen. "I have, I'll have you know."

"And?"

"I was planning to talk with your super today, in fact."

"Well, then." Carol spooned a couple tablespoons into the coffee maker, tightly packed it down, then screwed the top to the base before placing it on the stove.

"I like this location, and maybe it's what I need now. Living in the city, away from suburbia."

"It's taken you long enough to come to that realization."

"Everything is here, you, friends - real friends, mind you - the bars."

"Aren't your real friends here in New York the bars?"

"You're impossible. My 'real friends' are here. 'The bars' are here. I think I need to be here. That house is getting lonely, especially without you being close by."

"Abby, I haven't lived there in six years." Carol noticed that she didn't have an ashtray. With Rindy around, she and Therese had tried not to leave ashtrays throughout the apartment, but simply take them out as needed. From the kitchen cupboard, Carol pulled out a clean ashtray and gave it to her.

"Yeah, well, it just hit me the other day when I was driving through the Lincoln Tunnel."

"That is where you have all your best ideas - "

"Mommy?" Rindy shouted from the living room.

"Excuse me." Carol got up from the table and sauntered over to the kitchen door to see the cause of the yelling. She swung it open to peer out and see what was happening. "What is it, Rindy?"

"Have you seen my green sweater? I really want to wear it out with Aunt Abby."

Carol always thought that she would grow annoyed by the mundane questions and interruptions from her daughter, but it wasn't possible for her to be upset. She would be happy for any interruption from her any day, just knowing that she was there with them. She also surmised that Rindy must have picked up the misplacement of clothes from Therese, who always seemed to be looking for her shirt or a sock that was lost. "No, sweetheart, I haven't seen it. You ask your mom?"

"Ahh." RIndy started running toward her mothers' bedroom, shouting, "Mom?"

Carol turned her attention back into the kitchen and Abby; the coffee she had set on the stove was beginning to percolate. She pulled the coffee off the burner when done and poured it into a teacup, the smallest cup she could find.

Abby took a sip as soon as she added a couple spoons of sugar to the drink. "You make the best fucking coffee, Carol."

Carol laughed, amazed that something as boring as a well-made cup of coffee could bring out such happiness in her friend. "Thank you. I'm pleased you like my 'fucking coffee' as you put it." Carol looked around the kitchen for a final time, double checking that everything was put away and tidied. "What time are you and Rindy going to the pictures?"

Abby looked at her watch. "In about forty-five minutes," she said, "so someone better hurry on up!" She shouted in the direction of Rindy.

There was a faint, "I'm hurrying!" coming from Rindy's room. Abby laughed, realizing that Carol's daughter must have inherited a touch of the lateness gene from her.

"So… what are you two doing?"

Carol squinted her eyes and grinned at Abby. "Wouldn't you like to know."

"Oh, geez, Carol."

"What?"

"You two, honestly."

"Aunt Abby, I'm ready." Rindy came bounding into the kitchen, wearing that green sweater she had been looking for and a plaid skirt, before Carol could go into any further detail. "Mom says hi, Aunt Abby. She's still getting ready in the other room."

"Yeah, I bet she is."

"Abby!"

"We're going, we're going. Come on, you. Got your bag?"

"Yup, all set."

Rindy and Abby each gave Carol a hug and a kiss, then made their way to the entryway. "Call if you need anything." Carol assured her.

"Yeah, we're not calling you." Abby replied as she opened the front door. "Have fun. Do things I wouldn't do - or don't do."

"Have fun! See you tomorrow evening!" Carol gave a little wave toward them both and then locked the door behind them once they were both out of the apartment.

Once the door was shut and locked, Carol turned and silently stood at the door, taking a deep breath to absorb the quiet. She breathed in and out, slowly, with eyes shut, as she composed herself. It was so nice to have a moment's peace. She immediately thought of putting a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the apartment door, but remembered that wasn't necessary in their own home, as tempting as that was.

Carol removed her heels, leaving them by the front door, and began to walk toward the bedroom. As she moved, she started to undo the tiny buttons along the neckline of her top and loosened it enough that it would be easy to remove once she reached the room, at least easy enough for Therese to probably take off in one swoop.

Once in their room, Carol heard the water from the shower in the adjacent bath, but decided not to go in. She left Therese in the quiet of her shower, perhaps because she would also want that if roles were reversed. They had the whole weekend together, just the two of them in the apartment. Fluffing her pillows, Carol sat down on the bed and reached into the drawer of the bedside table for the book she had been reading. Lost in her book, she didn't heard Therese turn off the shower.

Therese emerged from the bathroom, towel wrapped around her, surprised as to Carol's presence in their bed, sitting up and reading. She noticed that the bedroom door was ajar, very nearly shut, but not quite. "Have Abby and Rindy left?"

"Mmm hmm." Carol hummed without looking up from her book.

"In that case… " Therese let her towel drop and practically jumped onto Carol's lap before Carol even had a chance to put her book on the nightstand. "I want you right now and want to hear you fucking scream when you come."

She barely had a moment to comprehend what was happening, but the sound of Therese's take-charge voice and brazen approach made her weak. Carol slumped in her position on the bed and wrapped her arms around Therese's hips as soon as she straddled her. She might have tried to dry off a bit more; small pools of dampness started to form on the fabric of Carol's skirt, but Carol quickly stopped caring the moment Therese bit down on the side of her neck and then inched her hand up her legs, beneath the hemline of her skirt. Therese should have realized something was amiss when there no stockings and no garters for her hands to encounter as they usually did. "Oh really?" Therese asked as her hand slid past nothing but wetness without the interference of any fabric.

"Hmmm, I figured I needed to be presentable for only an hour or so." Carol kissed her, pulling Therese's face to hers and swiping her tongue across Therese's lips and tasting her clean, soapy skin.

"Take off your skirt."

"A little help?" Therese moved off Carol's lap and reached to undo the zipper at her lower back. Carol lifted her hips off the bed and slid the skirt down her legs, assisted by Therese's downward tugging as well. Therese flung the garment as far from the bed as she could, ending up crumpled in the doorway of the bathroom. As soon as the skirt was gone, she placed her hands on Carol's sweater, noticing the buttons already undone, and pulled it up over her head, forcing Carol's arms to stand up straight as Therese removed it. Much like the nothing she wore under her skirt, there was nothing further to remove from beneath Carol's sweater, which made Therese's morning all the easier.

"Better?" offered Therese and she settled her naked form against Carol. The moment their naked bodies touched one another, they both shuddered. Carol remained quiet as they touched, her breathing increased and was deeper, more noticeable as she let her hands wander to Therese's backside to pull her closer. Therese, on the other hand, was just loud. She let out a noticeable shriek as they touched and Carol pulled her in.

That was the moment Carol realized how much Therese needed time with her alone in the apartment. It wasn't necessarily Therese who wanted to hear Carol scream when she came, it was Therese who wanted to belt out at the top of her lungs the moment Carol's tongue or fingers would curl just right or apply the right amount of pressure where needed. Carol might have been absolutely aching with need, but it was Therese who really needed the release. She could feel the trail of cooling slick against her thigh, certain it wasn't her own, but Therese's from rocking herself up and down Carol's leg.

"Therese, stop." Carol stilled Therese's hips. "We have all weekend, just you and me. All right?"

"It's just… "

"I know. I have you." Carol turned her over on the bed, pressing her against the mattress, kissing all along her collarbone and neck, making Therese pant and moan in the neediest way imaginable. Carol was certain she had only ever heard that level of need from her (and so vocally for that matter) the first time they had made love.

Therese looked up without saying a word and kissed her, staying like that for as long as she could handle. Carol kept one hand around the back of Therese's neck and the other now cupped and played with the weight and feel of Therese's breast in the palm of her hand. She loved touching Therese's breasts; there was a similarity to her own, but the weight and shape was inherently and pleasantly different as she skimmed her hand over them.

She trailed one hand down the middle of Therese's body, from her breasts, up to her sternum then down to the juncture of her thighs, letting her fingers pad along for a longer period of time between her legs. "Sweetheart, you're so wet." As soon as Carol felt how aroused and how on edge Therese truly was, she placed her formerly wandering hand back onto Therese's breast and let it rest there as she observed her.

Without too much difficulty, Carol didn't have to try and remember how she felt when she was Therese's age, how her body had reacted to being touched. Had she ever felt like that at her age? She was never that wet when Harge had touched her, she had never felt as though she body would burst if she didn't have the attention of his mouth. Well, not that she ever had that anyways.

Only when she had been alone and well before Rindy, that Carol had even come close to feeling that way. She remembered wanting so badly to be caressed and kissed absolutely everywhere, but she never seemed to have the vocabulary to tell Harge what she actually wanted. A lady never expressed those desires, or so she was taught to believe. She never thought he would understand how a woman could want all that.

So when she had that time to herself, just before bed, she would wipe the makeup from her face, forego the pajamas, climb into the middle of the bed, pick up a book, and read. Just read, naked, in a space lit only by a small bedside lamp, covers pulled up under her chin, and let her mind wander. It usually took only half an hour or so for Carol to be completely distracted from her reading, letting her left hand drift below the blanket and tease. She knew what felt good, what felt right. Taunting until she had no choice but to press her legs together and apart to pacify the building pressure; her thighs becoming coated with a slickness that was only there when she was alone.

And every time she was by herself, comfortable in bed, she could finally let go. All with her own thoughts and steadfast knowledge of exactly what she liked. It was always with her head thrown back against the pillow, back arched, and hand making just enough tiny circles to float into a relaxing sleep after one or two orgasms.

There was a brief pang of guilt as Carol felt intense jealousy toward Therese for a moment. Therese would never feel the way Carol had at her age, she'd never need to mask her desires, she'd never have to "just get through" sex. It was never just sex either, perhaps those times on the kitchen counter in the middle of summer, definitely, but that wasn't their typical routine of things. Therese was so unabashed in her want and so eager to pleasure Carol sexually. In return, Carol always wanted Therese to experience the most intense love and affection because Therese should never feel as she felt during those ten years of marriage.

She wondered, how fortunate was Therese to never have to know how that felt?

Carol began to kiss her way down Therese's body, stopping at her abdomen. She lifted her head, staring at Therese who moaned loudly as Carol moved to look up and her breast grazed her increasingly sensitive clitoris. "You will never know how incredibly lucky you are, Therese."