Chapter 7

“Again?” Mary arched an eyebrow as Sophie’s fingers twitched under the hem of Hannah’s skirt—the third time in twenty minutes. The car hummed along the highway, sunlight flickering through the trees in erratic bursts. Hannah bit her lip hard enough to leave marks, thighs pressing together under the denim fabric. Mary could see the exact moment Sophie twisted her wrist just so—Hannah’s breath hitched, her fingers digging into the seat leather.

Mary’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel as the realization hit her—not like a revelation, but like admitting she’d been savoring the taste of poison for hours. The pendant’s warmth pulsed against her collarbone in agreement, sending twin threads of heat spiraling down her spine. It wasn’t that she was starting to love the power. She already did. The way Hannah’s pupils blew wide when Mary murmured “hold it,” the way Sophie’s shoulders tensed with competitive hunger whenever Mary demonstrated some new trick with the pendant’s magic. The control was intoxicating, yes, but the feelings—the electric jolt of Hannah’s third orgasm yesterday, muffled against Sophie’s palm in the library stacks; the way Mary had made Mrs. Calloway’s hands shake when she “accidentally” brushed against her at parent-teacher conferences—that was the undescribable part.

Mary watched Sophie’s knuckles flex under Hannah’s skirt through the rearview mirror, her own breath hitching when Hannah muffled a whimper against the seatbelt strap. The pendant thrummed against Mary’s collarbone in time with Sophie’s fingers—slow, deliberate strokes that had Hannah’s knees trembling apart. Not yet, Mary thought, catching Sophie’s smirk in the reflection. The little shit was enjoying this too much. Hannah’s hips jerked, her thighs straining to stay still as Sophie slowed her fingers to a maddening crawl.

The car door clicked shut behind Hannah with a sound like a lock engaging. She turned before her feet even touched the driveway pavement, catching Sophie’s wrist with trembling fingers. The kiss was messy—too fast, too desperate—her lips catching the corner of Sophie’s mouth before sliding home with a hunger that made her own stomach clench. “Thank you, Mistress,” Hannah breathed against Sophie’s smirk, the words syrupy and thick, the way Mary had taught her to say them. Sophie’s thumb swiped across Hannah’s lower lip, coming away glistening.

Hannah ran up the sidewalk barefoot, her flip-flops abandoned somewhere in Sophie’s backseat—probably tangled with the lace panties Mary had torn off her two hours ago. The asphalt burned underfoot, but the sting barely registered over the ache between her thighs, the phantom pressure of Sophie’s fingers still curling inside her. The car idled at the curb, windows tinted just dark enough that Hannah couldn’t see Mary’s smirk or the way Sophie was undoubtedly licking her fingers clean. Then the sedan purred away, leaving Hannah standing there with the headphones dangling from her fist like a snare.

She hugged her mother too tightly, burying her face in the lavender-scented crook of her neck to hide the flush creeping up her cheeks. Mrs. Calloway’s hands settled warm on Hannah’s back—one between her shoulder blades, the other just above the waistband of her shorts where Sophie’s nails had left crescent bruises. “Did you have a good time?” Her mother’s voice was all soft concern, the same tone she used when Hannah came home crying after middle school dances.

“It was great,” Hannah lied, pressing the sleek headphones case into her mother’s hands with fingers that still smelled like Sophie’s perfume. “Got one for you and Liv too.” The gift felt flimsy as an excuse—too clean, too normal against the memory of Sophie’s teeth on her inner thigh in the Apple Store bathroom.

Jennifer Calloway adjusted the headphones with a contented sigh, the leather-bound novel propped against her knees catching the amber glow of her bedside lamp. The soft strains of Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” floated through the earbuds—a gift from Hannah, she remembered with a twinge of maternal warmth. Outside the girls’ bedroom doors, the house settled into its nighttime rhythms: the hum of the refrigerator, the occasional creak of floorboards. Normal sounds. Safe sounds.

What Jennifer didn’t hear—couldn’t hear—was the whisper-thread of something else woven between the piano notes. A rhythmic pulse, slower than a heartbeat, that made her eyelids flutter when it dipped into the lower registers. The pendant around Mary’s neck had hummed with particular intensity when Hannah handed her mother the sleek black case earlier that evening, its surface catching the light like a wink.

Jennifer shifted against the headboard, the novel slipping slightly in her lap as a peculiar heat pooled low in her belly. The sensation was absurd—she was reading The Goldfinch, for God’s sake, not some tawdry romance. Yet her thighs pressed together of their own accord, the cotton of her pajama shorts growing damp where they brushed her skin. She frowned, adjusting the headphones again as if the problem might be technical. But the Debussy piece continued its gentle ebb and flow, unchanged except for that strange thrumming undercurrent she couldn’t quite place—like someone had layered the distant purr of an idling engine beneath the piano notes.

Jennifer’s eyelids grew heavy, the Debussy piece looping lazily through her skull as sleep pulled her under. The headphones—so carefully designed for noise cancellation—did nothing to mute the new frequency threading through the music. It pulsed now, a slow, wet rhythm that synced with her heartbeat, her breath, the flutter of her pulse between her thighs. Behind closed lids, colors swirled—amber, like Mary’s pendant; violet, like Sophie’s bruising grip on Hannah’s hips last Thursday against the locker bank.

Dreams shouldn’t smell, Jennifer thought distantly, but the scent of Hannah’s shampoo—coconut and vanilla—twined with something darker, muskier. or the bergamot-and-salt tang of Mary’s perfume when she’d leaned too close at the PTA meeting. The images came unbidden: Jennifer’s lips parting.

Jennifer’s fingers twitched against the paperback’s spine as the dream unfolded with terrifying clarity—Hannah sprawled across their kitchen island, legs splayed wide, Sophie’s mouth glistening between her thighs. The pendant around Mary’s neck pulsed like a live thing, casting amber shadows that licked up Hannah’s trembling stomach. Worst of all—most shameful of all—Jennifer wasn’t watching from the doorway. She was kneeling between her daughter’s thighs, Sophie’s braid wrapped around her fist like a leash, Mary’s laughter vibrating through her ribs as she— Jennifer woke with a gasp, her thighs slick, the paperback sprawled face-down on the rug where it had slipped from her fingers. The headphones still clung to her ears, Debussy’s Clair de Lune replaced by the tinny silence of a drained battery. She yanked them off like they’d burned her, the memory of the dream—God, not a dream, a nightmare—licking up her spine like a struck match. The digital clock blinked 7:17 AM in damning red.

The bacon spat grease onto Jennifer’s wrist—a sharp sting that barely registered over the phantom pressure of Mary’s fingers from last night’s dream. She flipped the strips with mechanical precision, the fork trembling slightly in her grip. Behind her, the kitchen door swung open with a creak that made her shoulders tense.

“Morning,” Hannah mumbled, padding across the tile in oversized socks—Sophie’s, probably, judging by the neon green stripes. The sight of her daughter’s sleep-rumpled hair, the way her oversized sleep shirt slipped off one shoulder, sent an inexplicable pang through Jennifer’s chest. Too much skin. Too much like the dream.

Hannah reached past her for the orange juice, the sleeve of her shirt riding up to reveal a crescent-shaped bruise on her inner elbow. Jennifer’s breath caught. “You okay?” Hannah paused mid-pour, her brow furrowing as she caught her mother’s stare.

Before Jennifer could fabricate an answer, the door banged open again—Monica, all tousled bedhead and smug grin, her tank top riding up to expose the dip of her hipbones. “Someone burned the bacon,” she announced, plucking a strip from the plate with her fingers. Jennifer watched, transfixed, as Sophie’s tongue darted out to catch a drip of grease at the corner of her mouth.

The kitchen door swung open again, this time with the force of a twelve-year-old hurricane. Liv barreled in, her pajama pants covered in glow-in-the-dark constellations, one strap of her tank top slipping down a shoulder still tan from summer camp. “I smelled bacon!” she announced, launching herself onto the counter stool with the grace of a baby giraffe. Her bare feet swung wildly, nearly kicking Jennifer’s thigh as she reached for the orange juice carton Hannah had just set down.

Liv’s elbow knocked over the salt shaker, sending it spinning across the table like a tiny, chaotic top. “Oops,” she chirped, not even attempting to catch it, her attention already skipping to the stack of pancakes Hannah was sliding onto plates. Jennifer watched the grains scatter across the woodgrain—tiny white constellations against the dark finish—and for a bizarre moment, they reminded her of the freckles dusted across Mary’s collarbone in last night’s dream.

The front door slammed like a gunshot, rattling the family photos lining the hallway. Jennifer barely had time to register the blur of her husband’s navy suit before he was upon them—a whirlwind of aftershave and airline tickets, his briefcase clipping the edge of the fruit bowl as he lunged for the coffee pot. “Six-thirty flight to Denver,” Greg barked around a scalding sip, his free hand already digging through the pantry for his protein bars. “Connecting through Dallas—Christ, where’s my—”

Liv’s giggle cut through the chaos as she dangled Greg’s forgotten laptop bag from one finger, swinging it just out of reach. “You’re worse than Hannah when she’s late for curfew,” she teased, hopping backward as her father made a half-hearted grab for it. Jennifer watched her husband’s gaze flick over Liv’s bare shoulder where the tank top strap had slipped—a fraction too long, a beat too slow—before he chucked her under the chin with a forced chuckle.

Greg’s kiss landed somewhere between Jennifer’s cheek and the corner of her mouth—dry, perfunctory, the same peck he’d given her every business trip for seventeen years. But this time, his lips lingered half a second too long, his breath hitching almost imperceptibly as Jennifer turned her face away.

Sophie’s pencil rolled off her desk and clattered to the floor just as Mrs. Archambeault leaned over to pick up the attendance sheet. The scent of jasmine and something darker—black coffee, maybe—wafted over Sophie’s desk as the teacher’s hair brushed her shoulder. Sophie froze. As Mrs. Archambeault’s fingers—manicured, but not overly so—closed around the fallen pencil.Sophie was looking straight dow the top of the young teacher and Sophie was mesmerized.

Sophie’s phone buzzed against her thigh halfway through lunch—Mom’s name flashing across the screen with the insistence of a tapping fingernail. She answered with her mouth full of cafeteria tater tots, the grease making the phone slippery against her ear. “Mmhmm?”

“You’re chewing,” Mary’s voice crackled through the line, equal parts amused and exasperated. The background noise of her office—the clack of heels, the murmur of meetings—filtered through as Sophie swallowed. “Tell me about Hannah.”

Sophie’s toes curled under the cafeteria table as Mrs. Archambeault leaned across her to grab a napkin—close enough that Sophie could count the individual eyelashes framing those hazel eyes. The teacher’s blouse gaped slightly at the neckline, revealing the delicate chain of a pendant nestled between her collarbones. Not amber like Mary’s, but silver. Sophie wondered if it would vibrate against her tongue if she—

“Come over after school,” Hannah blurted out by the lockers, her fingers tightening around the strap of her backpack until the nylon dug into her palm. The words tasted like a dare—like the time she’d jumped off the quarry cliffs last summer, that split second of freefall before the water swallowed her whole. Sophie’s smirk curled slow as smoke, her nail tracing the hinge of Hannah’s jaw where Mary’s teeth had left a fading bruise last night.

The doorbell rang with the cheerful chime of a children’s song—ridiculously innocent for what was about to happen. Hannah fumbled with the lock, her fingers still slick from where Sophie had sucked orange juice off them in the car. The scent of lavender laundry detergent hit her first, then the warmer notes of her mother’s vanilla hand cream as the door swung open.

Hannah’s bedroom door clicked shut with the quiet finality of a tomb sealing. Outside, afternoon light slanted through the oak leaves outside her window, dappling the trigonometry textbook spread across her comforter in shifting gold patterns. Sophie flopped onto the bed beside her with the careless grace of a predator lounging in sunlight, one knee brushing Hannah’s thigh through the thin fabric of her pajama shorts.

Hannah’s pencil hovered over her trig homework, the equation blurring as Sophie’s fingertips traced idle circles along the inside of her thigh—slow, teasing strokes that made the numbers swim. She opened her mouth to protest, but Sophie seized the moment, leaning in to plunge her tongue deep into Hannah’s mouth with a hungry precision that left no room for hesitation. The taste of salt and strawberry lip balm flooded Hannah’s senses as Sophie’s fingers curled possessively around the back of her neck, holding her in place while her other hand slid higher beneath the frayed hem of Hannah’s shorts.

Hannah surrendered almost immediately as her cunt flooded Sophie’s hand—a hot, slick pulse that darkened the fabric of her shorts where Sophie’s fingers drove deeper. The trigonometry textbook slid to the floor with a thud, forgotten as Sophie twisted her wrist, curling those wicked fingers just there while her thumb pressed ruthless circles against Hannah’s clit.

Hannah’s orgasm built like a storm surge—fast, inevitable, pulling her under with a force that left her toes curling into the sheets. Sophie swallowed her scream with a kiss that tasted of triumph and orange juice, her tongue pressing deep as Hannah’s thighs clamped around her wrist. The vibrations rattled through Hannah’s teeth, muffled against Sophie’s lips, her body arching off the bed in a taut bowstring of pleasure.

Sophie’s lips trailed downward with agonizing leisure, each kiss leaving Hannah’s skin prickling with anticipation. The scrape of teeth over a peaked nipple made Hannah gasp, her fingers twisting in Sophie’s hair—half pushing her away, half pulling her closer. “Mom could—oh God—come in any second,” Hannah whimpered, arching off the bed as Sophie’s tongue swirled around the stiffened bud. The house was too quiet; every creak of floorboards sounded like footsteps approaching.