Son's Best Friend

I never thought I'd be the subject of milf sex stories. I was a respectable woman, a real estate agent, a PTA mom, someone who brought casseroles to sick neighbors. Then Jake Martinez came home from college with my son for Thanksgiving break, and everything I believed about myself crumbled.

My name is Catherine Blake. I'm forty-seven, recently divorced after a loveless marriage, and this is the story of how I fell into bed with my son's best friend, and discovered a part of myself I'd buried for decades.

I'd known Jake since he was fourteen. He and my son Tyler had been inseparable since freshman year of high school. I'd fed him countless dinners, driven him to countless practices, watched him grow from a gangly teenager into a confident young man. He was twenty-two now, in his senior year of college, and I'd stopped noticing him years ago.

Until that Thanksgiving.

He walked through my door and I did a double-take. He'd filled out over the past year, broader shoulders, defined jaw, an easy confidence that came from growing into himself. When he hugged me hello, I caught the scent of cologne that was definitely not the body spray teenage boys drowned themselves in.

"Mrs. Blake, you look amazing. Did you do something different?"

"It's Catherine now. And I lost twenty pounds of dead weight named Richard."

He laughed. Tyler had told him about the divorce, of course. "Good riddance. Mr. Blake never deserved you."

It was a throwaway comment. Something you say to be polite. But the way he looked at me when he said it, holding my gaze just a moment too long, sent a flutter through my chest that I immediately suppressed.

He's your son's friend, I told myself. He's twenty-two. You're being ridiculous.

I was being ridiculous. But I couldn't stop being ridiculous.

The tension built slowly over the holiday weekend. Jake helped me in the kitchen while Tyler watched football with his father (who'd come for dinner because we were "keeping things civil"). He stood closer than necessary while I showed him how to mash potatoes. His hand brushed mine when passing dishes. His eyes found me across the room more times than I could count.

I told myself I was imagining it. Middle-aged fantasy, nothing more. But when I caught him looking at me while I bent over to check the turkey, really looking, I knew I wasn't imagining anything.

The night after Thanksgiving, Tyler went out with high school friends. Richard had left. Jake stayed behind, claiming he was tired from traveling.

We were alone.

"Can I be honest with you, Catherine?"

The use of my first name felt intimate. Wrong. Electric.

"Of course."