A little over a decade later and now a functioning adult, Mabel prefers to lie about her age when discussing her daughter, especially during parent-teacher conferences. She imagined such basic math wouldn't even register consciously for anyone who taught math for a living. They'd realize immediately that something was quite off about the mother sitting across from them.
At age twenty-eight, Mabel was only fifteen years older than her thirteen-year-old daughter, an unsuspecting contributor to America's teen pregnancy crisis. Yet she didn't fulfill any of the stereotypes so it warranted some surprise. She was a college graduate with both a law degree and a well-paying job. Mabel even had a husband to whom she was happily married. Still, whenever she revealed her true age along with her daughter's already being known, some judgment persisted. Always there was curiosity burning dimly in the eyes of everyone listening in. It was just easier to lie.
In general, Mabel tried to avoid thinking about her past but there were occasional bubbly mornings when after preparing breakfast for her husband, daughter, and herself; Mabel would greet her daughter good morning and see the young boy who had ushered her first and only child into existence. The charismatic smile that had seduced her so long ago would burn its way into the present. As would the tawny brown eyes left on her daughter as a permanent parting gift from a then ten-year-old boy. After which, Mabel could almost hear the boy's voice… speaking to her.
The polished blades of his skates scrapped to a halt in front of Mabel and lightly showered her ankles in ice. "Ma'am…" He paused and found his breath quickly again as if it had just come back to him on schedule, like a bus. "I like your hat. Can I hold your hand?" He offered up his mittened palm. His breath formed a visible cloud as he spoke amidst the chilled air of the outdoor ice skating rink. The cloud lifted to his cute button nose. Tufts of soft brown hair poked down from underneath his red knit hat and subtly contrasted with his fair complexion.
Mabel's cheeks had long taken on a rosiness from the cold weather but her newly-found blush was unmistakable. "Oh umm…" She returned an amused smile that reached her bespeckled eyes. "Yeah… sure." Mabel, at age fifteen, seemed very much like a freshly blossomed young lady especially so with a tight-fitting Christmas sweater highlighting much of her womanly shape. She had had an early development but remained clueless as to how to handle her newfound voluptuousness. So as her large somewhat gravity-defying breasts sat high on her chest and pressed against the material of her holiday sweater, she was rather self-conscious of the attention they attracted, of the boy's sly glances toward them.
Instead of skating side by side, the boy insisted that they face each other while they held both of their gloved hands together. Though the idea unnerved her a little, Mabel, with her mousy and suggestive nature, obliged.
The mysterious boy's autumn-brown eyes bore into her own as he skated backward like a seasoned professional skater. She was struggling to keep up with him and his smooth fluid movements even though she had been assigned the comparatively easier role of skating forward.
On one of their laps along the rink, they were almost caught up in a crowd of slower-moving skaters. They avoided the crash only because the boy, in a theatrical close call, maneuvered both him and Mabel around the mass of bodies with a sort of playfulness visible in his piloting. Like he had done this before.
Still recovering from her panic afterward, Mabel found herself scrambling to keep balance on her two thin blades. The boy guided her back to stability and soothed her with his voice, "Relax, will ya?" He laughed a little. "You've got nothing to worry about. Just follow my lead."
Mabel's blush deepened, her heart pounding beneath her sweater. She chuckled like a routine troublemaker. "I'm sorry. I'm really bad at this."
"Hey, don't worry about it. You're doing great." As they skated along the oblong-shaped ice rink, a mundane rotation of Christmas-themed songs played through an unseen stereo system somewhere above their heads. Mabel eased her shoulders, the boy watched her breasts move with them. She shut her eyes for a moment, allowing herself to become lost in the feel of the cold wind brushing across her face. At some point, the boy glanced down at where their gloved hands were joined with some faint annoyance. The slightest grimace. "These stupid gloves are in the way." The boy moved swiftly. He let go of her for only a moment, and when the safety of his hands returned they were bare with his mittens securely stuffed into the pocket of his sweatpants.
"Umm…" Mabel made a small imperceptible noise as her own mittens were removed by the boy with both gentleness and efficiency. He put them into his own pockets instead of hers. Something electric tingled up the young lady's spine when their naked hands joined and warmed each other. Their bodily warmth meshing. Her fingers shifted and became intimately familiar with the creases in his palms. Maybe she would never feel palms quite like these again. It all felt forbidden, like a quiet rebellion against her good-girl reputation.
"I'll hold onto your gloves for you, though I might just keep them as a souvenir." He gave her a playful wink. "Isn't this better than some stuffy mittens? Feels good, right?" His thumb brushed softly against the back of her hand, making her shiver with excitement. "Hahahaha!" His laugh was one that only a ten-year-old boy could make.
Mabel glanced around worried that someone had noticed them, had noticed what naughty thing they were doing together. It was only six in the PM and nearly pitch black already, still, there were a good number of families present. Small children with both their hands being held by mom and dad, others holding onto the wall to keep their footing. No one had really acknowledged them and if anyone did it would likely be assumed that they were siblings spending the evening together. They looked similar enough.
"Yeah… it feels nice. What's your name?"
"The name's Grant. I'm here often since my Pa runs the place. But usually, I don't have the guts to approach any of the really cute girls that come and visit but you seemed like a nice person and looked like you could use some nicer company."
"Cute?"
"Mmhmm. Cute."
Mabel turned her head away for a moment, towards the street neighboring the ice rink, and watched cars glide through downtown traffic, sending up plumes of exhaust in their wake. She smiled warmly. "Such a slippery boy. You're just saying that." She introduced herself, said that it was her fourth or fifth time skating, and that she had come here with a friend from school originally but that they had abandoned her after their boyfriend called. "Honestly, I'm glad you said hello. I was getting pretty lonely. I bet you're really popular with the girls at your school."
He shrugged with a non-denying smirk. "The girls at my school aren't really my type anyway."
She drew in close, her blue eyes had become narrowed behind her pair of glasses with an uncharacteristic playfulness. There was a hard smile drawn across her lips. "Let me guess, I'm your type. Hmmm?"
He smiled back at her. "I thought you seemed pretty smart too, not just nice. I'm a good guesser huh? Maybe I should become a fortuneteller."
"Sounds like a lucrative career."
Grant closed his eyes and hummed to himself as they continued skating. Mabel even grew a little worried, seeing that it was only a matter of time before she was blindly led into a crash with someone or something. "I'm seeing… a kiss." He opened his eyes.
She relaxed and breathed a heavy sigh. "Ohh, a kiss?"
"From a really attractive and smart high schooler. I think she had on glasses too, I don't know it was hard to know for sure."
Mabel stared off into the distance, thinking. She did the same thing while studying in her school library though usually she wasn't gifted a calming view of frost-dusted trees or glowing Christmas lights. A manufactured image of Christmas town. "Yeah? I think so too." She leaned in, not seeing. Grant caught on quickly, and excited, he moved in with her.
Their lips joined in, mimicking the intimacy of their hands. That was Mabel's first kiss: passionate, tender, sensuous. She was kissing an experienced lover, no doubt. Still, they were on the same page and made their kiss brief lest they attracted any unwanted attention. After breaking the kiss, they were both silent for a while, catching their breaths and making sense of everything.
"That was so awesome, Mabes."
"Oh my god. Did that just happen?" She blinked rapidly, feeling as if her world had changed for better or worse. As if a sharp divide had been formed in her personhood: pre-kiss Mabel versus post-kiss Mabel.
"I know right?" He had an open-mouthed smile. There was a prominent bulge jutting out into the material of his sweatpants, she had just noticed it. "I'm open for round two, by the way. Why don't we opt for somewhere more private this time?" Then he noticed where her bespeckled eyes were staring and followed them down to his crotch. "Oh, him? Don't worry. I think he likes you. Guess we're both thinking with the same head." When he saw an emerging look of fear stretch across her face, he reassured her. "Hey, really it's nothing to worry about. See?" He moved one hand to guide hers toward the lump in his pants. The ten-year-old boy made a small groan when her palm pressed against his boyhood. It was warm to the touch. There was some wetness beginning to soak her panties. "I want you real bad, Mabes."
Mabel felt as if she were dreaming, caught up in some delirium that wasn't unlike a spider's web. Her hands felt hopelessly tangled with Grant's. "No… no, no, we… can't… You want me?" She asked without thinking.
"Really badly. I'm gonna go mad if you leave me hanging."
Her nipples hardened, becoming stiff and rigid beneath her clothing. An indecent heat was burning through her ample flesh. A heat that made her want to peel herself free from the blue reindeer-patterned sweater and dark pair of leggings she was wearing.
Her arousal had rendered her clumsy as Grant sneakingly led her toward the rink's exit, closer to the facilities building where there was a restroom, equipment rental, locker, and concession stand all huddled within a few feet of each other. Mabel shocked herself when she held onto the metal railing. Snow began trickling down after they had traded their ice skates in for their shoes. It felt as if their hands had been perpetually joined the entire time.
Afterward, she was afraid to look directly at him. "You said there was a place where we could be alone?"
"Yeah, there's this room where we keep some extra equipment. It gets swept down once a month otherwise no one goes in there." He leered at her prominent breasts. "We could do all sorts of things. No one would know."
"Well… just kissing, okay?"
Grant didn't respond to her question. Instead, he tilted his head and seemed to think. "Hmmmm, well come on. Follow me." Mabel allowed herself to be led along like a child as Grant walked around the back of the boxy shape of the equipment rental where there was a single Zamboni both still and lifeless in the building snow. Next to it, almost hidden behind the dead vehicle, there was a featureless and equally unwelcoming gray door.
After Grant removed a key from the pocket of his sweatpants and began to unlock the door, Mabel stood some distance behind him and eyed her surroundings, aware that she was being a bad girl at that moment. "Are you sure, we won't get caught?"
"Oh yeah. Pa is always in his office doing paperwork and if he's not doing that, he's chatting up the moms." Grant unlocked the door and held it open for her. "Pa's still a bachelor, you know?"
"Yeah…"
"Are you nervous?"
"A little." The girl bit her lip.
"Don't be. We'll just do some kissing for a bit, it'll be so cool!"
"Yeah… okay."
The storage room was well-lit inside. Like the exterior suggested, the room was distinctly box-shaped. There were hockey nets folded up in one corner of the room, along with a few large cardboard boxes filled with other hockey gear. Child-sized sleds were leaning in another corner. A few snow shovels hung on the walls.
Grant opened the single locker in the room and took out a few thermal blankets. He made a little mattress in the middle of the floor with them. "There we go. That gives us a nice place to sit."
When Grant noticed the stiffness in her immobile posture and realized that he'd have to take charge for this to go anywhere, his hands found hers again. He eased her down onto the thick layers of blankets until they lay in each other's arms. They breathed close to one another, saying nothing before their lips locked again.
They kissed deeply. Mabel's tongue ran hotly along Grant's as her breasts mashed against his firm chest, her hard nipples grinding against him. The bloated flesh of his erection lodged tightly against her pussy through the thin protection of her leggings and panties. His curious hands rose up to play with her ample tits. Mabel let out an "mmphh!" at the unexpected contact. She pushed at his shoulders, breaking apart the kiss.
"What's wrong?" Grant asked, his brow wrinkled.
Her chest heaved. "Umm… it's nothing." Mabel's hands lifted up to her glasses. "These are in the way." She took them off and her bookish appearance vanished suddenly though she was still very beautiful, just in a different way. Her view of the storage room became a thick blur but she could see the handsome ten-year-old boy kneeling in front of her perfectly.
"You're like five percent hotter now."
"Ha-ha. Sounds like someone's been doing their math homework, then?" When she took off her hat, Grant did the same. He was staring at her breasts the entire time.
"Pa doesn't let me come to work with him if I don't." Mabel leaned backward until she was lying flat on her back. Grant filled in the space between her legs, resting on top of her. "He's a real spaz about it, you know?"
"Hmm," She smiled. "I can imagine."
"Let me see your tits pleasssseeee." He spoke about her breasts the same way he would about some action figure. "I've never seen boobies in person before. I bet yours look really nice. Please, Mabes. Please, please, please!"
Automatically, Mabel thought: Oh man, am I actually doing this? "You promise to be a good boy?" Mabel surprised herself with the question, even the tone with which she said it. She wasn't his big sister or anything. Grant played along with her question anyway.
"Uh-huh!"
"Fine then, let me sit up." She stared at the blurred wall for a moment before glancing down to study the movements of her hands as she grabbed the hem of her cutesy Reindeer sweater.
She slowly pulled it up, teasing the boy, her sleek bare back and navel coming into view as the sweater rode further up. The ascent was brought to a halt when the sweater touched her bra. Mabel reached behind her back to unhook it. The process took a moment before it was unceremoniously tossed aside. When the great ascent continued, the sweater stretched patiently over the jiggling mounds of flesh before the woolen fabric snapped back to her shoulder blades and her breasts popped free.
Her shapely bare breasts, capped with rigid pink nipples like little erasers and large goosebumpy areolas, bounced delightfully in the boy's face. It was a dream come true. A fantasy his friends at school would only have wet dreams about.
Grant broke into a wide smile. His erection throbbed desperately inside his sweatpants. "Oh wow!" He reached for them and Mabel strangely didn't ease away from his touch this time. They felt warm and soft in his hands, practically overflowing in his palms as he squeezed the abundant mounds. With one hand, he experimentally pinched her hard nipple. "They're so amazing!"
Mabel relished the attention, feeling desirable for the first time in her life. She made a girlish giggle. "You really like 'em?"
"Yeah!" Grant's hands fell down to her leggings without protest from Mabel, not even as he peeled them down to her knees and revealed the bubblegum pink pair of panties underneath. There was a little bow in front just below the elastic waistband. He tugged at it wondering if the bow would come undone. It didn't.
His hand slid over her panty-clad mound, where her fertile virgin pussy was hiding. As he expected, the girl's hips instinctively jerked forward into his palm.
She made a weird sound. "Nhnnn! What are you up to down there?" Mabel asked him. "Being naughty?"
He nodded with a grin. "I wanna pay you back for showing me your boobs. Just relax for a bit."
"Pay me back?" Mabel found herself lying on her back again as Grant lowered his face down between her thighs. He lifted her wet panties out of the way, breathing hot air onto her aroused bare pussy. Her brunette pubic hair was sparse, without the thick thatch of hair that would've made her cunt more difficult to navigate. Her hips wiggled with anticipation.
He tried to remember his Pa's advice. Pa was always long-winded. Grant's little tongue pressed hotly against her delicate folds. Mabel reacted immediately, "Oooh! Grant! Nnhnn!" His mouth moved closer. He lapped at her virgin flower with long strokes from his tongue as her pussy quivered helplessly against his lips. Mabel stared up at the fuzzy ceiling lost in a sort of bliss, her back arched automatically. Her fingers curled around his tousled brown hair as she squirmed and moaned. "Mmm, mmm, Grant, don't stop!"
Grant guided his tongue into her inner folds, teasing her clit in particular by narrowly navigating his tongue around it, avoiding direct contact. It sent vibrations jolting through Mabel's frame as she submitted to his fine technique, listening to the obscene wet sounds of her pussy being licked up as it resounded throughout the small storage room. She didn't question where he had learned how to do this, her mind was carried off into the realm of pure sensation, focusing solely on the warm tightness building in her belly. Mabel whimpered in ecstasy.
For the final nail in the coffin, Grant trapped her clitoris between his lips and proceeded to suck at it, flicking the little nub ruthlessly with his tongue. She clamped her thighs tight around his head, "Ooooooooh! Cumming!" Mabel let out a dangerously loud wail, bucking against Grant's lips as he continued licking her quivering pussy, her warm juices running down his chin. As her body squirmed in the throes of a powerful orgasm, her wailing died down to panting moans. She felt Grant's tongue finally abandon her post-orgasmic pussy. She lay atop the blankets, spent.
Grant rose his body. In one motion, he pulled his sweatpants and underwear down to his ankles, baring his perfectly-proportioned butt. He pulled them completely off his legs until he was kneeling in just his black long-sleeved shirt, his well-sized boyhood sticking straight out from his hairless groin. It swelled up to eight inches, its shaft studded with veins, his glans engorged and purplish in color. His sperm-packed balls hung low underneath with the virility of a bull.
He removed Mabel's panties and leggings from her legs until she was bottomless in just her raised holiday sweater, her breasts still bare. The boy slipped between her legs again. He kneeled in front of her with the underside of his stiff boyhood resting along her moist folds. The sheer heat emitting from her pussy surprised him, it made him become even harder, even more aroused than before. His shaft throbbed with desire.
Grant leaned in close to her ear. The cotton fabric of his shirt brushed against her sensitive nipples. "Mabes, I'm going to fuck you now."
He guided his prick. "Uhh!" Mabel cried out as the head of Grant's girthy boyhood pressed between her wet pussy lips and entered her slowly, seeking out the tight embrace of her narrow virgin cunt. Her pussy greedily enveloped his length. "Mmmmmm," The boy's hands reached underneath her and gripped tight to her buttocks. He used the leverage to lift her pussy as he continued to drill his cock deeper into her delicate flower.
As Mabel's virgin pussy sucked in Grant's hard shaft, his bulbous cockhead wedged deep and nudged against the fragile tissue of her hymen. Mabel's eyes became wider. She glanced down at where almost half of the boy's cock had vanished inside her warm entrance. This was it. Grant was about to steal her cherished virginity, something she intended to preserve until she was married to some gentleman her age or a little older, like what her parents expected of her. That was before she had met Grant.
Mabel didn't have time to protest anyway. Grant reared his hips back until his boyhood was almost completely pulled free from her grasping cunt before he drove back down, the broad head of his driving penis battered through the thin membrane of her virginity and pressed against her cervix. In a flash, he was buried balls deep inside of her. His bare cock throbbed salaciously as Mabel's deflowered pussy quivered around him.
She hissed at the sharp pain stinging inside her cunt. She could feel the boy's massive cock stirring in her belly, his balls ground against her buttocks. She was surprised when Grant planted soft kisses on her neck. "My bad, did it hurt?"
"Hah… hah… just a little." She kissed Grant on his forehead, her world still a senseless blur beside him. "Come on, what are you waiting for? Fuck me. Like how you promised."
Grant grinned down at her. He wouldn't need any more encouragement than that. Immediately, Grant quickly took on a steady tempo. His boyhood sliced back and forth through her tight channel, beginning an unbroken series of sharp thrusts in and out of Mabel's now cock-hungry pussy, each precise jab bringing a shiver of delight that coursed down to her toes and made her pussy clench onto him more firmly. "God, Mabes, your bare pussy feels soooooo good!" He groaned in her ear.
Mabel smiled like a mother and threw her legs around his waist, digging her heels into his active boyish rear end while her pussy muscles squeezed him tightly. His balls slapped against her ass with each inward thrust. The sweet friction on her clit drove her mad as she moaned out for him. Neither of them could've known that an employee was listening in from the back of the equipment rental, on the other side of the wall.
"Aaah, aaah, ahh, Grant you're fucking me like an animal! Aah, ahhh!"
"Grant?" The uniformed employee whispered to himself with a pair of ice skates in hand. "That kid… There's no way…"
Grant continued to ram his stiff boyhood into Mabel's pussy with lustful abandon, his dick having acquired a glistening quality from having dipped into the wetness of her pussy so many times. The undying rhythm of his powerful strokes brought Mabel to a second orgasm, her cries this time being conveniently muffled into the boy's shoulder while he kept pounding her orgasming pussy. Her body quaked against him, her nails dug into his upper back.
Grant was too lost in his own coming orgasm to register the pain near his shoulders. His balls tensed up almost painfully where they swung underneath his firm buttocks. The urge for release had grown so quickly that Grant could feel his remaining thrusts growing thin before he inevitably released. "Uhh, uhh! Mabes! I c-can't!"
Grant buried the full length of his penis inside of her, grinding his hips against hers. His glans pressed tightly against the entrance of her womb as if vying for direct access. He let out a long low groan as his boyhood began twitching and pulsating beyond his control. His potent sperm jetted out in heavy spurts, forceful ropes that lanced straight through the narrow opening of her cervix with each spurt. His butt cheeks flexed as he kept spewing his seed, each rich surge of his semen landing exactly where it was needed so that his seed would take fertile ground. He grunted each time he shoved his hips into hers, still cumming impossibly deep. Mabel's pussy gripped the base of his cock as Grant filled up her womb. Feeling his prolific load as it sprayed down her cervix, Mabel felt another wave of her climax wash over her.
There seemed to be no end to his release.
"Ooooooh, yeaaaaahhh…" He moaned as the last of his sperm spilled out. His face was flushed red with sweat running down his neck. He had worked so hard for her.
Mabel pulled the boy to her gently, their bodies still connected at their core as they kissed in their post-orgasmic afterglow. Mabel's hand slipped beneath Grant's shirt and massaged his rippling abdominals.
When Grant eased his soaked boyhood out from her tight sheath, very little of his sperm leaked out. Most of it was swimming inside Mabel's womb, too deep inside her pussy to ever dream of coming out.
"Maybe I should've pulled out? You could get pregnant, right?" Grant scratched the back of his head as if he had gotten a bad grade on a test. "Sorry."
"Don't worry about it, I'll have time to take an after pill."
"So…" Grant raised his brows with a questioning gaze. "Does that mean we can do it again?"
"Hmmm," Mabel pretended to think, tapping her chin with a theatrical air. She slipped from underneath Grant and turned her back to him. The teenager lowered herself and offered her heart-shaped ass to him. "Come and get me." She sang.
For the next hour, they fucked as if it were the end of the world, grunting and moaning together as Mabel gratefully accepted every drop of his hot spunk.
When it was time to get dressed, Mabel pulled her panties up over her sperm-filled pussy and grimaced as her panties did a poor job of containing Grant's thick semen. They immediately became soaked as his still-warm sperm trickled down the inside of her thighs.
Luckily, her black leggings made it much less noticeable.
After leaving the storage room together, the smell of hotdogs emitting from the concession stand beckoned their noses to actively sniff the air. Their stomachs growled in unison. Grant looked at Mabel and lifted himself onto his toes towards her. "Hungry?"
They ate at an outdoor table near the ice rink with an open umbrella extending from the middle of the table. When Grant asked about her possibly needing a taxi home, Mabel said that he shouldn't worry and that her parents' apartment was only a ten-minute walk away. "It's this complex called The Glendale. I'm sure you've seen it before."
"Oh! Can I walk you home? Can I? I've always wanted to walk a cute girl home."
Mabel blushed profusely at the nonchalant compliment. Even though she was aware of his little tactics, Mabel couldn't help the fluttering feelings his charming words made inside of her. She adjusted her glasses. "Again with the sweet talk?" Though she didn't sound all that annoyed. "Fine, if you really want to."
"Yes!" He pumped the air with his fist. Mabel giggled at his excitement.
They walked to Mabel's apartment together, holding hands again as if they couldn't imagine going anywhere together without them being joined in some fashion. They crossed through the park for a shortcut and were amazed by the pond being so beautifully frozen over. Further down their walk, Mabel playfully scolded the boy when his hand slyly groped her enticing backside. Still, Grant gave her a long kiss outside the apartment complex, a taxi driver saw them but thought little of it.
"I'll really miss you, Mabes. You were the coolest."
"Thanks, you were too. I had a fun time."
"I wanna kiss you again."
"Hah… nice try, little naughty boy." They kissed again anyway.
When they waved goodbye to each other, Mabel's heart genuinely ached. It scared her how quickly she had grown attached to the boy, even if he had taken her virginity and emptied his hot semen inside her more times than she kept track of. Something no member of the male sex would ever do to her again, that part of her now belonged to Grant.
Mabel had to calm herself down in the lobby, pacing back and forth next to the vending machines. The security guard behind the front desk, an older gentleman with a notable mustache and grey hair, gave her a familiar smile. "Everything alright, Mabel?" His voice was sharply audible, not what one would expect from someone so close to retirement age.
"Oh umm, yeah. Uh-huh!" She nodded. That gave her the courage to leap into the elevator but not before waving goodbye to the old security guard. "Have a good night, Mr. Swanson!" She was giddy inside the elevator like a young woman who had just received a marriage proposal.
There was something similar occurring: deep inside her womb, Grant's healthy quick-moving semen fanatically sought out her unprotected fertile egg. There were no defenses to hinder their progress. His vigorous sperm surrounded her egg, all of them, all at once, trying desperately to invade her fruitful ovum. Only one managed to stab deep, swim its way inside, and successfully impregnate her.
Mabel's fertilization brought on a fuzzy sensation. Like being hugged like a panda. Her features softened up. She took a deep satisfied breath, her mind suddenly returning to the boy she had spent only three and a half hours of her life with. The elevator stopped on the sixth floor with a resounding DING!
There were two men, likely next-door neighbors, having a gentle hushed conversation in the hallway. Walking past them, she inevitably tuned in a little:
"Did you hear about the… It was the way he said it…"
"Dude, that was so…"
Mabel knocked before pulling her key from her pocket. It was a strange courtesy. Then something struck her. She suddenly remembered: Grant still had her gloves.
At that same moment, Mabel heard the boy's voice again. His playful wink played in her mind's eye, "I might just keep them as a souvenir," and her heart longed for him again. She took her longing in stride, a warmness spread across her face. "That naughty boy." She whispered to herself.
Mabel unlocked the door. It opened noiselessly. She left her shoes by the door.
The living room TV was turned to the sports channel. There was a hockey game playing live. She smelled her mother's cooking wavering in from the kitchen.
"Mama! Daddy! I'm home!"