The Unspoken Temptation of Mrs. Ellis

The first time I saw Mrs. Ellis after college, I almost didn’t recognize her. She stood in her doorway wearing a wine-colored silk robe that clung to curves I’d never noticed before, her dark hair tumbling past shoulders that seemed impossibly bare. The maternal warmth I’d remembered had sharpened into something else entirely—something that made my throat go dry when her hazel eyes met mine.

“David,” she said, my name sounding different in her mouth than it had when I was eighteen. “Look at you. All grown up.”

I’d come to pick up Connor for our weekly basketball game, but my best friend was running late. Mrs. Ellis—Sarah, she’d insisted I call her now that I was twenty-four and no longer a teenager—stepped aside to let me in. The robe parted just enough as she moved, revealing a glimpse of toned thigh that burned itself into my memory.

“Connor’s in the shower,” she said, leading me to the kitchen. “Can I get you coffee while you wait?”

I watched her move around the space, noting how the silk shifted against her body with each motion. She had to be in her late forties, but carried herself with a confidence that made age irrelevant. When she reached for a mug on a high shelf, the robe rode up, and I found myself gripping the counter.

“You know,” she said, pouring coffee with steady hands, “I remember when you boys used to pool-hop in the neighborhood. You’d always been so careful not to look when I sunbathed.”

My face went hot. She’d noticed. Of course she’d noticed.

“I—” I started, but she turned with a smile that stopped my words.

“Such a gentleman,” she said, handing me the mug. Her fingers brushed mine, deliberate and lingering. “Though I wouldn’t have minded if you had.”

The coffee tasted like nothing. My entire focus had narrowed to the space between us, electric and charged. She leaned against the counter opposite me, the silk pulling taut across her breasts. I could see the outline of her nipples through the fabric, and when I dragged my eyes back to her face, she was watching me watch her.

“Sarah,” I began, testing the name.

“Yes, David?”

“Are you—” I gestured vaguely at her robe, at the obvious lack of anything underneath. “Are you trying to kill me?”

Her laugh was low and throaty. “Would that be so terrible?”

Connor’s footsteps echoed from upstairs, saving me from answering. Sarah’s expression shifted instantly, the vixen disappearing behind the mask of the perfect host. But when Connor bounded into the kitchen, she brushed past me close enough for me to catch her scent—something expensive and warm that made me want to bury my face in her neck.

“Ready to lose?” Connor asked, oblivious to the tension crackling between his mother and his best friend.

I wasn’t sure I’d survive the afternoon, let alone a basketball game.

---

The second time was different. Connor had invited me over for what he called “emergency video game therapy” after his girlfriend dumped him. I’d found Sarah alone in the living room, a glass of wine in her hand and another bottle already half-empty on the coffee table.

“Connor went to get pizza,” she said without looking at me. “Said he needed grease and violence to heal his broken heart.”

I hovered in the doorway, unsure whether to stay or go. She patted the couch beside her.

“Sit. Keep me company while I drink away the irony of giving relationship advice to my son when my own marriage imploded.”

I settled carefully, leaving what I thought was appropriate space between us. Sarah turned to face me, tucking her legs beneath her. She wore a simple black dress that seemed modest until she moved and I realized it was backless, held together by thin ties that my fingers itched to undo.

“Tell me,” she said, refilling her glass, “do you have a girlfriend hidden away somewhere?”

“No.”

“A boyfriend then?”

“No,” I said again, my voice rougher than intended.

“Good.” She took a long sip. “That makes this less complicated.”

“What exactly is this?”

She set down her glass and shifted closer. “This is me acknowledging that I’ve been thinking about you in ways that would make Connor’s head explode. This is me wondering if you’ve been thinking about me too.”

The honesty hit me like a physical blow. “Every day since I saw you in that robe.”

Her smile was predatory. “And before that?”

“Sarah…”

“Before that, David. When you were nineteen and home from college, and I’d catch you watching me garden in my sundress. When you’d volunteer to help carry groceries just to follow me up the stairs. Tell me how long.”

“Since I was seventeen,” I admitted, the words scraping my throat raw. “Since the first time I jerked off thinking about you and hated myself for it.”

She made a small sound—part triumph, part relief. “Show me.”

“What?”

“Show me how you touched yourself thinking about me. Right here, right now.”

My heart hammered against my ribs. “Connor—”

“Will be gone for at least twenty minutes.” She moved closer, her hand settling high on my thigh. “Show me, David. Let me see what my boy’s best friend fantasized about.”

The word ‘boy’ on her lips did something to me. I was frozen, caught between the fantasy I’d carried for years and the reality of her heat seeping through my jeans. Her hand moved higher, deliberately grazing the hardness straining against my zipper.

“Sarah,” I groaned.

“That’s it,” she whispered. “Say my name like that again.”

I caught her wrist, not to stop her but to feel her pulse racing beneath my thumb. “If we start this…”

“We don’t stop,” she finished. “We take this as far as we both want it to go. No guilt, no regrets, just this.”

The front door slammed. We sprang apart like teenagers caught smoking, Sarah smoothing her dress as Connor called out about pizza. She met my eyes and mouthed ‘tonight’ before pasting on a smile for her son.

I barely tasted the pizza. Barely followed Connor’s rant about his ex. All I could see was Sarah’s fingers wrapped around her wine glass, the same fingers that had been moments from touching me. When I left, she walked me to the door.

“Midnight,” she breathed against my ear. “The side gate will be open.”

---

I was early. Of course I was early. I’d spent three hours pacing my apartment, jerking off twice just to take the edge off, then showering and dressing in clothes I immediately changed out of. Now I stood in her backyard like a thief, my hand hovering over the French doors that led to her bedroom.

She appeared like a ghost, the moonlight turning her slip into liquid silver. Without a word, she opened the door and took my hand. Her bedroom smelled of vanilla and something darker, something that made my mouth water. She closed the door behind us and leaned against it, studying me.

“Last chance to run,” she said, though her eyes begged me to stay.

I crossed the space in two strides and kissed her. She tasted like wine and want, her mouth opening under mine with a hunger that matched my own. Her hands fisted in my hair, pulling me closer as she ground against the hardness she’d created.

“Wait,” she gasped, breaking the kiss. “Slow down. I want to savor this.”

Her hands came to my chest, pushing gently until I took a step back. Her eyes never left mine as she reached for the hem of my shirt. “Let me,” she said, her voice a low command. I raised my arms, and she peeled the fabric up and over my head, her fingertips trailing fire down my sides. She tossed it aside and just looked, her gaze traveling over my shoulders, my chest, the tense line of my stomach. “You’re so beautiful,” she murmured, almost to herself. Her palms flattened against my pectorals, thumbs brushing my nipples, making me shudder. “So young and solid.”

Then her hands went to her own straps. She pushed them down her shoulders with a deliberate slowness that stole my breath. The slip pooled at her feet, and she stood naked before me in the moonlit room.

“I need you to see what you’ve been fantasizing about,” she said, her voice thick. “All of it.”

She was better than any fantasy. Her body carried the marks of time—silver stretch marks across her hips like delicate vines, breasts that had known gravity’s pull but were still full and tipped with dusky pink, a softness to her stomach that spoke of life lived. She was magnificent, real in a way my imagination had never captured.

“Your turn,” she whispered, and her hands went to the button of my jeans. The sound of the zipper lowering was obscenely loud. She pushed the denim and my boxers down my hips in one motion, and I kicked them away. Her eyes dropped, and she let out a soft, shaky breath. “Oh, David.”

She didn’t just look. She touched. Her hand wrapped around me, not stroking, just holding the weight of me, her thumb sweeping over the slick head. The sensation was so intense I had to brace a hand against the door behind her. “Sarah,” I choked out.

“I know,” she soothed. She leaned in and kissed my chest, my collarbone, the hollow of my throat. Her mouth was hot and open, her tongue tasting my skin. I could feel her breath, hear the soft, wet sounds she made as she explored me. My hands came up to cradle her head, my fingers tangling in her hair.

“I need to taste you, too,” I managed to say. I sank to my knees before her, my hands sliding up the backs of her thighs. She gasped as I nuzzled the soft thatch of dark curls, breathing in her musky, essential scent. I licked a slow stripe through her folds, and she cried out, her hands flying to my hair. She was already wet, already open for me. I feasted on her, learning her texture and taste—sweet and salty and uniquely her. I found her clit and circled it with my tongue, and her thighs trembled around my ears. “Yes, right there, don’t stop,” she begged, her voice climbing.

But she pulled me up before she could come. “Not yet,” she panted, dragging me toward the bed. “I need you inside me. Now.”

We tumbled onto the cool sheets. She lay back, her hair fanning out, and opened her legs. I settled between them, the head of my cock nudging her entrance. The heat radiating from her was immense. I looked into her eyes, seeking permission, and she nodded, biting her lip.

I pushed in slowly, an inch at a time, letting us both feel every fraction of the joining. She was unbelievably tight and slick, her body stretching to accommodate me. A low, broken moan tore from her throat as I sank deeper, and I echoed it, the feeling of being sheathed inside her almost too much to bear. When I was fully seated, we both went still, panting, connected.

“So young,” she murmured, her hands coming up to frame my face. “So hard for me. Tell me how it feels.”

“Like dying,” I managed, the words gritted out as I fought for control. “Like I’ve been dying for this for seven years.”

She rolled her hips, taking me deeper. “Then fuck me like it. Fuck me like you’ve been saving it up for me.”

I lost control. I pulled out and drove back into her, setting a punishing rhythm. She met every thrust, her nails digging crescents into my shoulders as she urged me harder, faster. The bed slammed against the wall, but she only laughed, a wild, free sound, and told me to fuck her harder. She was vocal, whispering filthy, perfect things about how I felt, how she’d dreamed of this, how her son’s best friend was fucking her better than anyone ever had.

“I’m close,” I warned, my rhythm faltering.

“Come inside me,” she begged, her legs locking around my back. “Fill me up, David. Mark me where no one will know but us.”

The words pushed me over. I came with a shout, buried to the hilt as she milked every spasm from my cock. She followed me over, her inner muscles clenching around me in rhythmic pulses as she came again, crying out into my shoulder to muffle the sound.

We lay tangled afterward, my weight half on her, still joined. Her fingers traced the marks she’d left on my skin. I was already growing hard again inside her, unwilling to break the connection.

“This changes everything,” I said into the sweat-damp skin of her neck.

“This changes nothing,” she corrected, her voice pragmatic, tired. “This stays between us. Connor never knows. Your parents never know. Just this—us—whenever we can steal it.”

I lifted my head to look at her. “And how often can we steal it?”

She smiled, slow and wicked. “How often can you get away?”

---

The next six months became an education in desire and deception. We developed a system. A blank text meant her house was clear if I could get away. A question mark from me asked the same. We used a notes app on a shared, hidden account to leave longer messages, deleting them after reading. We had close calls—once, Connor came home early from work while I was naked in her bed. I had to scramble out the window and dress in the bushes, my heart pounding like a drum as I walked around to the front door and rang the bell, claiming I’d just arrived.

We fucked everywhere—her car in the far corner of the grocery store parking lot, the engine running for the AC, her skirt pushed up around her waist as she rode me frantically. My apartment when Connor thought I was home sick with the flu, the blinds drawn against the afternoon sun. Once, pressed against the vibrating washing machine while Connor watched a game upstairs, her hand clamped over her own mouth to stay silent.

She taught me things about a woman’s body that no college hookup had ever shared—how to use my fingers inside her in a come-hither motion that made her see stars, how to suck her nipples just hard enough, how to read the subtle flutter of her inner muscles to know exactly when to push her over the edge. She showed me how to draw out pleasure until she was sobbing with need, begging for release.

But it was more than sex. In the stolen, quiet moments after, we talked. She told me about the slow, lonely death of her marriage, about years of feeling like an accessory, then a ghost in her own home. “At forty-eight,” she said one night, her head on my chest, “you become invisible. You’re someone’s mom, someone’s ex-wife. You’re not a woman who gets looked at with want anymore. Not until you.”

I admitted my own fears—that I was just a novelty, a temporary rebellion, that I’d wake up one day to find she’d moved on to someone her own age, someone appropriate.

“You’re not a phase,” she said one afternoon. She was riding me slowly in her bed, the late sun gilding her skin. Connor was at work. “You’re my rebellion, yes. My proof that I’m still alive under all the mom-ness and the loneliness. But you’re also…” She paused, her rhythm stuttering as she searched for words. “You’re also the first person in years who’s seen me. Not the role, not the function. The woman who’s scared she missed her life.”

The raw vulnerability in her voice, so different from her usual confident tone, cracked something open in my chest. I flipped us, pressing her into the mattress, driving into her with deep, deliberate strokes. “I see you,” I growled against her lips. “I see you coming apart for me. I see you trying not to scream when you come on my cock because your son’s home. I see every fucking inch of you, Sarah, and I want all of it.”

She came with a sob, her body bowing, her arms clutching me tight as if I were a lifeline. We were still kissing, salty and desperate, when I followed her over.

As the weeks bled into months, the logistics grew more complex, the strain began to show. Connor started dating a new woman, Lisa, and he was serious about her. His nights out became more frequent, but they were also less predictable. Our windows of opportunity shrank, and the anxiety of getting caught grew sharper, tingeing even our sweetest moments with a bitter edge.

One Tuesday, we’d planned an afternoon together. I’d called in sick to work. She’d told Connor she was going to the spa. We met at a cheap motel thirty minutes away, a place with thin walls and stained carpets. We were naked, wrapped up in each other, when her phone buzzed insistently on the nightstand. It was Connor. Lisa had food poisoning; he was taking her to urgent care and needed his mom to pick up a prescription later.

The mood shattered. She sat up, the sheet pooling at her waist, and ran a hand through her hair. “I have to go.”

“I know,” I said, but the disappointment was a physical ache.

She looked at me, and for the first time, I saw not desire or affection, but a weary kind of exhaustion. “This is getting harder, David. The lying. The scheduling. It feels… sordid here. It didn’t feel sordid before.”

“It’s not sordid,” I argued, but the word hung in the air between us, smelling of cheap air freshener and regret.

We dressed in silence. In the car, she stared straight ahead. “I’m terrified he’ll find out,” she said quietly, not looking at me. “Not just because of what it would do to him. But because if he looks at me with that kind of betrayal… I don’t think I could live with it. I’ve already lost so much. I can’t lose him, too.” It was the closest she’d come to confessing a fear deeper than mere exposure—a fear of total, irredeemable abandonment.

The end came gradually, then suddenly. Connor proposed to Lisa. He brought her over for a celebratory dinner. I was invited, of course. I sat at the table, making polite conversation, watching Sarah play the delighted future mother-in-law. She was brilliant at it. But when she passed me the mashed potatoes, her hand shook slightly. Our fingers didn’t touch.

Later, after Connor and Lisa had left, buzzing with happiness, I helped her clean up. We were alone in the kitchen, just like the first time. The silence was heavy, final.

“I can’t,” she said, not turning from the sink where she was scrubbing a pan with fierce concentration. “I can’t keep doing this when he’s starting his own family. It was one thing when it was just us, and he was… adrift. But this—this is real. He’s building a life. I won’t be the secret that poisons his foundation.”

I wanted to argue. To tell her we could be more careful, that love was worth the risk. But the words died in my throat. I saw the resolve in the set of her shoulders, the mother in her winning out over the woman. She was choosing her son over me. As she should. As I would have chosen him over her if our positions were reversed.

“One more time,” I said, my voice rough. “Not here. Somewhere with no history. Give me one more time to say goodbye properly.”

She finally looked at me, her eyes glistening. She nodded.

---

She booked a room at a nice hotel downtown, a place with a view of the city lights. It was anonymous, sterile in its cleanliness. There were no ghosts here, no memories in the walls.

We didn’t speak much. Words had failed us. We undressed each other with a solemn, tender care, as if performing a ritual. We kissed, and it tasted like loss. We made love with a desperate, aching slowness, memorizing the feel of each other’s skin, the sounds of each other’s breath.

She rode me facing away, my chest to her back, my arms wrapped around her. I could feel her heartbeat against my forearm. My hands cupped her breasts, my thumbs circling her nipples as she moved with a deliberate, grinding rhythm, drawing out every sensation.

“I want you to remember this,” she whispered, her voice breaking on the last word. “Remember how I feel around you. Remember that you were wanted, completely, by someone who had no right to want you.”

I came with her name on my lips, a quiet, pained sound. I held her hips as she shuddered through her own release, a silent cry shaking her frame. Afterward, we lay facing each other in the dim room, tracing familiar paths across skin we’d learned by heart.

“I’ll love you forever,” I told her, meaning it with every shattered piece of me. “In the secret part of me that no one else gets to see.”

She brought her hand to my cheek. Her thumb brushed away a tear I hadn’t known I’d shed. “I’ll carry you right here,” she said softly, placing her hand over her own heart. “In the space between who I am and who I’m supposed to be. You made me feel real again, David. Thank you for that.”

We dressed in silence, helping each other with zippers and buttons like an old married couple at the end of a long day. At the door, she stopped me. She opened her purse and pressed something small and cool into my hand—a simple silver locket on a chain.

“For when you need to remember,” she said. Her voice was steady now, resolved. “That for a little while, you were someone’s fantasy come true.”

Inside the locket was a tiny picture of us, taken in a photo booth at a mall fifty miles away. We were squeezed into the frame, laughing, her head tilted against mine. We looked happy and young and desperately in love.

I saw her sometimes after that—at Connor’s wedding, where she danced with the groom, her smile bright and unwavering. At holidays when I came home to visit my parents, passing gravy across the table. We were careful never to be alone, never to let our eyes linger too long. We mastered the art of the polite, distant smile.

But sometimes, when no one was watching, her hand would rise absently to her throat, to the silver chain she never took off, her fingers brushing the locket that now held, I knew, a picture of her future grandchild. And in that fleeting gesture, I’d know she was thinking of hotel rooms and stolen afternoons and the boy who’d loved her like she was the only woman in the world.

It was enough. It had to be.