Lighthouse Flames: Her Best Friend's Mother

I still can’t believe I’m writing this down, but if I don’t get it out of my head I’ll crawl out of my skin. I’m Tamara, twenty-two, and I’ve been wet for my best friend Jenna’s mother for years. Carmen. Forty-eight, widowed, all quiet confidence and long dark hair she pins up like she doesn’t know it makes every man—and at least one girl—stare. She lives in that white lighthouse on the cliff, the kind of place that looks romantic until a nor’easter starts chewing at the windows and you realize how completely alone you are.

Jenna had begged me to keep her mom company while she was off on some internship across the country. A whole week. Just Carmen and me and the endless gray Atlantic. I packed like I wasn’t planning to spend every night with my hand between my legs thinking about the way Carmen’s sweater stretched across her full breasts when she reached for coffee mugs.

The first three days were pure torture dressed up as polite friendship. She’d walk around barefoot in soft linen pants that sat low on her hips, a thin tank top, no bra, nipples faintly visible when the ocean wind slipped through the old windows. I’d catch myself staring at the soft fold of her stomach, the curve of her ass when she bent to stoke the wood stove, and then she’d turn and smile that calm, knowing smile and ask if I wanted more tea. I’d stammer yes and press my thighs together under the table hard enough to bruise.

We both pretended the air wasn’t thick with it. She’d touch my shoulder longer than necessary when she passed behind my chair. I’d “accidentally” brush my chest against her arm reaching for a dish towel. At night I’d lie in the narrow guest bed upstairs listening to the foghorn and the rain and the creak of her moving around below, and I’d slide two fingers into my soaked cunt and bite the pillow so I wouldn’t moan her name out loud.

Then the real storm hit.

It was past midnight. Wind screaming around the tower, rain sideways against the glass. I couldn’t sleep. I pulled on an oversized shirt—nothing underneath—and padded down the spiral stairs barefoot, thinking I’d make cocoa, thinking I’d just check that the shutters were latched. The lighthouse keeper’s bedroom door was ajar. Soft amber light spilled out. And I heard her.

A low, broken moan. Then my name. “Tamara… fuck, Tamara…”

I froze on the cold stone step. Heart slamming so hard I was sure she’d hear it over the storm. I should have turned around. I should have gone back upstairs and jerked off in miserable silence like every other night. Instead I stepped closer, silent as the thick rug would let me, and looked.

Carmen was on her back in the middle of the big iron-frame bed, the covers kicked down to her ankles. She was naked. Completely. That beautiful older body I’d only ever imagined—full heavy breasts with dark nipples tight and wet from her own mouth, soft belly, the neat dark triangle between her spread thighs. One hand cupped her left breast, pinching; the other was buried between her legs, two fingers working in slow filthy circles over her clit while she rocked her hips. Her eyes were closed, lips parted, and she kept whispering my name like a prayer she was ashamed of.

“Tamara… need that tight little pussy… been wanting it so long…”