Swedish Petitions

Ashley’s three friends emerged from my bedroom the second the front door shut, rushing forward to surround Ashley. They all wore button down shirts from my closet, though the one Brittney wore barely covered her ass when she bent over to hug Ashley.

Erin and I exchanged a look, then we both turned to the whiskey bottle at the same time. I lunged for it, but she beat me to it, throwing it back to take a giant slug. Then she handed it to me and I matched her ounce for ounce.

“Holy shit,” I said under my breath when I’d swallowed. “Did that just happen?”

Ashley broke from her friends and rushed to her mom, throwing her arms around her to cry unconsolably. Erin returned her embrace and swayed her substantial hips back and forth, crooning softly into her ear.

“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.”

I hunted around in the debris on the coffee table and found the pack of cigarettes Denise had left behind. My fingers shook as I fumbled to open it and Erin caught my attention. Her eyes flicked to the balcony and I nodded.

The girls waited inside and got dressed while Erin and I leaned over the balcony railing, sharing a smoke. Her hands trembled as much as mine.

“I thought you had an open marriage,” I said, staring off into the distance at the towering columnar thunderheads forming over the hills.

Erin flicked her ashes over the side of the balcony and cocked her head from side to side. “Sort of. Not really. Fuck, I don’t know,” she said at last.

“And he’s not really that overprotective, is he.”

“Of Chelsea? Sure,” she said with a laugh in a puff of grey smoke. “Ashley?” She shook her head. “No, not so much.”

Erin turned her head to look at me. Her appearance had changed. I thought about those photo comparisons of a president’s first and last day in office. She seemed so much older now than she had when I’d first met her. The puffy bags under her eyes had darkened, and I wondered if she’d slept much. The past week had weighed as heavily on her as it had on me.

“I’ll leave him,” she said, catching me by surprise. “If you asked me to, I would. I’d leave him in a heartbeat to be with you.” When I didn’t respond, she lifted her lips into a weak smile and moved her eyes away. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. Can’t blame a girl.”

“You’re not a good person,” I said, which was the most charitable thing I could think of to say to her at that moment. She huffed.

“No, I guess I’m not.” She moved her eyes back to mine. “But I could try, if you gave me another chance. And you could still fuck Ashley too. I wouldn’t mind that. At all. Chelsea too, if you wanted. You know me. I could make that happen for you.”

I sighed heavily and looked away. What a disgusting person she was. How could that possibly tempt me in even the slightest way? But it did. My depravity truly knew no bounds. I briefly imagined what it would be like to fuck Erin and her two daughters incessantly, every day, all day. Wonderful, I suppose, but awful and terrifying at the same time. I could never trust Erin. Not after all the horrible things she’d done to me and Ashley and Clay.

“You need to go home. Go patch things up with Clay. Your family needs you, Erin. Ashley needs you.”

Erin turned to watch the clouds, then reached into her purse for a pen and an old receipt. She quickly scribbled something onto it, then folded it and handed it to me.

“What’s that?” I asked.

She pressed it into my palm and folded my fingers over it. “My number. Any time, any place. You call, and I’ll be there. No tricks this time, I swear. I’ll make you feel so good, you have no idea. I’ll drain your fucking balls dry.”

Jesus fucking Christ. I couldn’t believe it when my cock began to swell. This fucking woman. I opened my hand and the wind caught the paper and blew it over the railing. Erin watched it tumble and flitter away, then slowly put the pen back in her purse and sighed.

“One last ass fuck in your bathroom before I go?” she asked, but I turned away from her to go back inside.

The girls had mostly dressed, in the way a mechanic often has spare parts in a carboard box after rebuilding an engine. They held shoes and accessories and various small items of lingerie and hosiery in their hands, their bags slung over their shoulders. Erin joined me at my side.

“I’m going home to have a talk with your father,” Erin said to Ashley. “He still loves you, honey, and he always will. Come home soon, okay? I think you and me need to have a long talk.”