Martin Bishop opened the door to his apartment, glad to finally be home. It had been a long week for the twenty-five year old photographer, having had three major projects to complete. Now he was looking forward to a quiet night at home.

The door hadn't even fully closed behind him when a tall, long-haired redhead, appeared from the kitchen. With a warm smile on her face, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. The press of her body against his was enough to make all the problems of his day simply fade away.

"I missed you too, babe," Martin said as his wife of four years finally released him.

Jennifer Benson had first met Martin Bishop during their freshman year of high school. It had hardly been love at first sight; which in the long run turned out to be a good thing because it gave them time to become friends long before they became lovers. When they finally tied the knot, two days after her twenty-first birthday, they had a relationship built on a much stronger foundation than simply physical attraction. That was not to say that there hadn't been any of that involved as well. Both had been popular in school and neither came to the marriage bed inexperienced.

"Dinner's almost ready," Jennifer said as she turned and headed back to the kitchen. "The mail is over on the table."

Martin took a few moments to watch the five foot, six redhead walk away. If anything, she looked even better than the day he had married her. Only when she was totally out of sight did he turn to the small table in their combination living/dining room.

That the table was set for a special occasion immediately sent his curiosity into high gear. Since they led a pretty casual home life, having no problem eating off paper plates in front of the television at times, the presence of the wedding china only meant one thing - his wife wanted something.

Not that he viewed that as a bad omen. It had been his experience that whatever it was, it would be something that he would've said yes to without all of the fuss. Not that he was about to tell her that. It was too much fun being convinced. As he sorted through the mail, he wondered if the convincing was going to include his getting laid tonight. With both of their schedules, Jennifer was a nurse and worked worse hours than he did, they hadn't had sex in two weeks.

"Martin, can you give me a hand?" Jennifer called out from the kitchen.

Ever the dutiful husband, Martin put down the mail and headed for the kitchen to do just that.

Entering the small kitchen, Martin wasn't surprised to find that dinner turned out to be lamb chops, mashed potatoes, and cream corn, one of his favorite meals. It was all part of the game Jennifer liked to play.

"I put a bottle of wine in the refrigerator to chill," Jennifer said as she transferred the chops from the pan to a large serving dish, "could you get it?"

Removing the bottle from the small wine rack they kept on the bottom shelf, Martin noted that it wasn't one of the ones they normally drank. It was a much more expensive brand, one that they hadn't had in over a year. They could afford to splurge once and a while, but the sudden extravagance began to turn his thoughts in another direction. What if rather than wanting to ask him for something, Jennifer was going to all this trouble to tell him bad news? The time she jumped the curb and ran the car into a fence came to mind. That was the last time they'd had this particular wine.

Dinner was as excellent as he had expected. Although both of them took turns cooking, Jennifer had the better culinary skills. Yet even as he enjoyed the meal, he couldn't keep his mind from wondering when his wife was going to get to the reason for it all.

"I stopped by and saw Mom this afternoon," Jennifer said as she changed the subject of their discussion from work.

"How is she doing?" Martin asked as he took a sip of the wine. His concern was genuine as he really liked his mother-in-law.

"She still has her bad days," Jennifer said, then paused as she took a drink from her own glass. "But I think I've come up with a way to do something about that." she added.

Nineteen months before, Jennifer's father had succumbed to a fatal illness. Since then, her mother had gone through several long periods of depression. Both of them had been very worried about her, having heard of too many people who lost any desire for life after the passing of a spouse.

"Whatever it is, I'm all for it," Martin said, giving his wife his full attention.

"Well I think you'd better hear what I have to say before you're so quick to agree," Jennifer cautioned.

That only made Martin more curious. To help Jennifer's mother, there were few extremes he couldn't imagine himself going to. And that would include having her live with them, an offer that had been made a few times in the last year, only to be turned down.

"Well, you know that I've been trying to get Mom to start dating again," she began.

Martin nodded his head in response. No sooner had a respectable period of mourning passed than men who had only previously looked at her as Mrs. Benson had tried to come to call. It was a response to her widowhood that neither of them had found surprising.

At fifty-seven years of age, Allison Benson was, as Martin's Grandfather liked to say, still a fine figure of a woman. Five foot, five and only a dozen pounds heavier than her daughter, she also shared the same red hair. Although hers was cut to just above shoulder length and he suspected its hue was helped by Lady Clairol. Allison was also a little more endowed than Jennifer.

Another of his grandfather's favorite sayings was, before you married the daughter, to take a good long look at the mother. Because, he pointed out, that was what your bride was going to be in twenty years or so. If that turned out to true in Jennifer's case, Martin was definitely looking forward to the next two decades.

"Well, I just about convinced her to take Josh Miller up on his offer to take her to the Labor Day dance at the American Legion post," Jennifer continued.

"That's great," Martin said, thinking that Josh Miller was the best of the half dozen men who had shown an interest in her.

"But," Jennifer continued, "she does have a small problem. At least she's convinced it's a problem."

"What's that?" he asked.

"She's worried about sex."

"Excuse me," Martin replied, the answer taking him totally by surprise.

"She's worried about having sex with Josh Miller." Jennifer explained further.

"Well I'm sure he doesn't expect her to sleep with him on their first date," he offered.

"That's not the problem," she said.

"I'm a little confused."

"It's not that she doesn't want to have sex, believe me, she does," Jennifer tried to explain. "She's afraid that she can't."

"That doesn't make sense," Martin replied. "Why wouldn't she be able to have sex? Unless there's some medical problem..."

"No, she's healthier than I am," Jennifer cut him off.

Before he could ask what the problem was then, Jennifer tried to explain. She started off with saying that it wasn't really rational but her mother had this terrible fear of going to bed with another man. She had been a virgin when she got married and for thirty years, had only known one lover. For lack of anything else to call it, Jennifer described it as performance anxiety.

"I'm sure that neither Josh Miller or any other man is going to find her lacking in any way."

"Actually, it's not so much the men that she's worried about," Jennifer said, "it's the women."

"Excuse me?" an even more confused Martin replied.

"I told you it didn't really make sense," Jennifer repeated. "but evidently, Mom has this morbid fear that if she sleeps with any of the men in the neighborhood, and fails to satisfy him, then that is going to get back to all of her female friends."

"But how would any of them..."

"Trust me, things like that do get around," Jennifer answered before he could even finish the question. "You don't know these women. A few years ago, that actually happened to one of the women in their circle. She lost her husband and when she tried to share another man's bed, it was a disaster. The man never called her again and the reason why quickly got around as well. After that, no man wanted any part of her. The women never said a word to her about it but she could tell when they looked at her that they thought she was less than a woman. Eventually, it was too much for the woman to take and she moved."

"This is all crazy."

"I said it makes no sense, but that's what she believes."

Martin just kept shaking his head. This had to be the biggest piece of nonsense that he had ever heard.

"I thought you said you had a solution to all this?" he said as he remembered what started the conversation.

"Actually, I think I do," Jennifer said. "Do you remember Heather Esposito?"

It took Martin only a few seconds to remember the rather plain girl who had been part of Jennifer's wedding party. She had a nice personality but always let her looks overshadow everything else.

"What about her?" he asked.

"We got her laid the night of the bachelorette party."

"Good for her," Martin said, "but what's that got to do with anything?"

"We paid the stripper at the party to screw her," Jennifer confessed. "She never knew of course, but it did wonders for her self-confidence."

"You're going to hire a stripper for your mother?" Martin said in disbelief.

"No, I'm not," she quickly replied, her tone giving no clue to the fact that she had considered the idea. "Mom isn't the type to sleep with a stranger."

"What then?"

"Well," she continued, "I was thinking that if we could set her up with someone she already knows. Someone she trusts, and if things didn't work out, someone she knew wouldn't ever tell anyone."

"But if she won't go with any of the men she already knows then..."

Martin suddenly stopped in mid-sentence as he realized where this was all leading. The reason for the special dinner. Part of him hoped he was wrong.

"You can't be suggesting what I think you're suggesting," he said.

"Can you think of a better solution?" she replied.

"I can't believe you'd even consider asking me to ... to ... I can't even say it." Martin said.

"Fuck my mother?" Jennifer answered. "See, I have no problem saying it, why do you?"

"You can't even think your mother would go along with something like that," he countered.

"Well in the beginning, she was a little reluctant to the idea," Jennifer said, "but after we talked about it a while, she became more receptive."

"You've actually talked to her about this," he said in a voice filled with a mixture of shock and surprise.

"Of course," Jennifer grinned.

"And she wants to do this?" he asked, repeating himself because he still couldn't believe it.

"Yes she does," Jennifer said, leaving out the fact that her mother had only finally said yes after she had lied and said that Martin was already okay with the idea.

"I don't know, Jennifer," Martin said as he tried to come to grips with the idea. "This is pretty strange, even just to talk about it."

"Might I remind you that, at first, you thought what I did for you on your birthday was pretty strange too," Jennifer said, trying to nudge him in the right direction.

"Oh yeah," Martin simply replied, the look on his face changing dramatically as he remembered the surprise gift he had gotten on his last birthday.

When Martin had come home that night, he had been somewhat disappointed to discover that Jennifer had brought home one of the girls she worked with. Her name was Nancy Sy-Su, one of the contract nurses from the Philippines that the hospital had hired. Evidently, the building she lived in was being fumigated and the girl couldn't take the noxious fumes. Jennifer had offered her the use of their couch for the night.

That night in bed, he had been doubly disappointed when he tried to initiate lovemaking and Jennifer said they couldn't because Nancy would hear. It was only when he was awakened an hour later by the sensation of someone sucking his cock that he realized that he'd been had. He looked down and was surprised to discover that the mouth wrapped around his manhood belonged to their houseguest and not his wife. She was busy using her own tongue between Nancy's legs.

Before the night was over, not only had he watched Nancy and Jennifer go at it hot and heavy, he had fucked both of them as well. The diminutive Asian girl had been a powerhouse in bed, draining him until he was ready to collapse in exhaustion.

Jennifer's little reminder had the result she hoped. However reluctant he might have been, Martin said he would do it.

"I knew you wouldn't let me down, lover," Jennifer beamed as she leaned over and kissed him.

"Well at least she didn't wreck the car again," Martin told himself as he responded to her embrace.

Just as quickly, she ended the kiss and stood up again.

"I'll take care of the dishes while you hop in the shower," she said. "I told Mom that you'd be over about eight."

"Wait a second," Martin replied, "you told her we'd do this tonight?"

"No time like the present," Jennifer smiled, again leaving out the fact that she wanted it to happened tonight before either of them could change their minds.

Martin started to say something further, but then thought better of it. He had been out maneuvered.

As the hot water danced across his skin, Martin considered that this might be fun after all. After all, next to sleeping with two sisters, wasn't this supposed to be every guys ultimate fantasy? He would never admit it to Jennifer, but there was a time, back in high school, he'd had a few sexual fantasies about her mother. It was the sort of thing a lot of teenage boys had about older women. That was of course, he lied to himself, back when he and Jennifer were just friends. It would've been too weird to have sexual thoughts about both of them. At least when he'd been a teenager.

Rubbing his cock with a soapy hand, he allowed himself to revisit some of those fantasies. Allison, as he now thought of her since Mom simply didn't seem right in this situation, wasn't the kind of woman who would ever grace the pages of Playboy. Still, she had been impressive enough to give a teenage boy a few hard-ons.

Martin remembered one afternoon in particular when he'd caught a glimpse of her breasts when he'd come over to use their pool and had seen her changing into her suit. He'd had to hide until his erection subsided, visible as it was in the tight swimming trucks. That night, he had jerked off thinking of what he'd seen.

Without thinking about it, Martin had begun to slide his hand up and down the length of his cock, causing it to grow hard and producing a warm feeling to go with the images. He'd reached the edge of orgasm when he realized what he was doing and pulled his hand away. It wouldn't do to show up at his mother-in-law's apartment with a limp dick.

Drying himself off, he put on a T-shirt and shorts. Allison only lived a half dozen blocks away, one of the reasons they had taken this apartment. The summer night was warm and it would only take about ten minutes to walk there.

"My, don't you look scrumptious?" Jennifer said as Martin stepped out of the bedroom.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked one last time. "I'm sure there's someone else you could find to do this."

"Why should I want my Mom to settle for anything less than the best," she replied playfully as she kissed him again, her hand reaching down and giving his still hard cock a squeeze. "Grrrrr, go get her tiger," she laughed.

With that, she led him out the door and watched from the window as he headed off to her mother's apartment. As soon as he turned the corner, she lifted the receiver of the phone and dialed a familiar number.

"He's on his way, Mom," she said with a smile, glad that her plan had worked. "He should be there in about ten minutes."

Her mother thanked her and said she would be ready for him. Just before she hung up, Jennifer added one more thing.

"Oh, and Mom, have fun." she said.

As he walked along the heavily populated streets, Martin gave much more thought to what he was about to do. While it was nice to think of youthful fantasies, the reality was that Allison was a middle-aged woman who'd only known one man in her life.

He knew in the case of his own parents, who were just about the same age as the Bensons, sex had become an infrequent part of their marriage. One night, after he and his father had shared a few drinks while watching the ball game, the elder Bishop had complained that on those rare occasions when his mother was in the mood, sex was a mundane, uninspiring event.

With that in mind, the twenty-five-year-old told himself that he really shouldn't expect much in the way of passion in the upcoming encounter. In fact, not only might he have to take the lead, he might have to do all the work as well. Jennifer had told him that in addition to only having one lover in her life, it had been years since her mother had sex because one of the first side effects of the disease that finally killed her father had been his inability to partake in marital relations.

Still, even if she only laid silently beneath him while he pumped in and out of her, the outcome of the night wasn't in doubt. Even if it were the worst sexual encounter of his life, he would make Allison feel like she was the world's best lay.

Before he knew it, Martin found himself in front of the four-story walkup that Allison lived in. Ringing the top floor bell, he only had to wait a few seconds before being buzzed in. Walking up the stairs, he passed an older couple in their sixties who he remembered as living on the second floor. He smiled and wished them a good evening.

Maybe it was just a little case of nerves, but Martin had the feeling that the couple was looking at him funny. It had to be his imagination he told himself. After all, what could be more natural than a son-in-law stopping by to check up on his wife's widowed mother.

Martin was surprised to find the apartment door open as he let himself in. Normally, Allison would meet him at the head of the stairs. Then again, this visit was anything but normal.

"Allison?" he called out as he locked the door behind him.

Getting no answer, he stepped into the living room and called out again. There was still no response, at least not a vocal one.

A noise from the kitchen caught his attention. Opening the door, he finally found Allison.

"Oh hi, Martin," she smiled.

A dark amber drink in her hand, Allison was dressed in an old, white terry cloth bathrobe. From the slight tremor in her voice, Martin was pretty sure that hadn't been her first drink. Spotting the half empty bottle on the table, he suddenly wished he'd had a few himself.

"Would you like a drink?" she asked, seeming to read his mind.

"I think that would be a good idea," he replied.

The drink was stronger than what he was used to, but now that he was actually here, it was just what he needed. Allison finished off hers as well.

"Another?" she asked as she put her empty glass down next to his.

"One more of those and I might not be able to..." Martin started to say but then couldn't bring forth the words.

"Well we wouldn't want that now, would we?" Allison laughed softly as she put the cap back on the bottle.

A sudden change seemed to come over the older woman as she stepped closer to Martin. She pressed her hand against his chest and kissed him softly. At first the kiss was like any other she had given him over the years, a light peck showing tenderness and affection. Then it abruptly became much more intimate as she opened her mouth and pressed it forcibly against his. Her tongue reached out, sliding between his lips to caress his own. Sparks seemed to erupt between them as their flesh made contact.