Anna prayed God would forgive her for masturbating this furiously at four in the afternoon. Her greedy fingers clawed at her sluiced snatch, rubbing her engorged clit as she moaned in delight. Her hips bucked and she kicked out her legs, pushing her large, fluffy down blanket off of her bed and onto the floor.

She had been at it for what felt like hours, rubbing her nipples and running her long, delicate, perfectly manicured fingers up and down, in and out, all around her vagina. It was almost impossible to masturbate without cutting herself with the lengthy ends of her nails, but by God, she had done it, and she was so close. So, so very close. Sooooooooooooooo clo -

“WORKING NINE TO FIVE!” blared Dolly Parton and a chorus of horns from Anna’s smartphone across the room.

“Fuck,” she said under her breath as she retracted her right hand from her cunt. She groaned, lifted herself out of bed, ran over to the phone, and picked it up with her clean left hand. It was a call from her husband.

“Anna. What are you doing?” he asked.

“Um . . .” she said, looking down at her naked breasts. “Just . . . cooking. Why?”

“Well, don’t wait for me to eat. Boys and I are staying out late on patrol tonight. All hands on deck for dealing with these Antifa bastards. I won’t be home until late.”

“Okay, I’ll, um, stick your dinner in the fridge then.”

“They make me sick, Anna. No respect. Something’s wrong with this country.”

“Love you too,” she said with a sigh, and hung up.

She flopped back on the bed and reached her hand down to her vagina again. Things were going somewhere, but she realized part of the problem might be the cold metal of her wedding ring, which she felt rubbing up against her sex a few too many times. She took it off and tossed in her purse and tried again.

Despite her best efforts, after a few tentative licks with her fingertips, she gave up. The magic was gone. She groaned again and shot a quick mental prayer up to the Lord asking for forgiveness for trying to get off. Since she didn’t cum, she figured God would probably be less angry about this one. Maybe he didn’t even notice because he was distracted by all this Antifa stuff. Well, that’s something, at least.

Minutes later, while putting her blouse back on, she stared out the window at a cavalcade of cop cars rolling down the street through the otherwise quiet neighborhood.

***

Anna was already late for work, but she couldn’t just go in without her morning coffee. She pulled her rickety old Chevrolet into an empty parking spot in the strip mall and hopped out. The light, cold drizzle of late fall landed on her glasses, causing her to take them off and wipe them as she walked.

The line inside the Starbucks was long. Too long. Normally she basked in the warm, inviting smell of fresh ground coffee while waiting, but today, she danced in place behind several other coffeeholics while continuously glancing at her phone. The minutes were ticking by and her boss wasn’t going to be happy. After a few minutes, she was close to the front of the line, but realized it might be better to just leave. She put her phone away, sighed, and mentally prepared herself for a workday without coffee.

At least, that’s what she thought was going to happen. But then, Anna saw . . . her.

The first thing she noticed was her nose ring. It was attached to an adorable little button nose. The nose in question belonged to a woman no older than Anna herself, with layers of light and frizzy crimson red hair flowing out of her head like the pages of an opened book. Her face was littered with washed-out orange freckles that were the color of sunshine, and her eyes were a muted grey-blue, like a murky pond or a cloudy sky.

Anna’s eyes wandered down from her face to the pale-green barista apron that the woman wore, and specifically to the top of the apron, where her low-cut shirt underneath revealed a scandalous peak of cleavage.

“Um . . . Ma’am? Your order?”

Anna suddenly realized she was staring and felt her cheeks grow warm with embarrassment.

“Sorry! Uh, the um, caramel macchiato? To go?”

“Is that a question or an order?”

“Um, an order,” said Anna.

“Yes Ma’am,” said the woman, with a grin. “What kind of milk?”

After ordering, Anna stepped off to the side of the line and caught her breath. For some reason, she had been completely blindsided by that woman. It was unlike anything she had ever experienced before. Anna dwelled on her thoughts for a moment and decided it had to be because she was awfully pretty, and Anna wished she could look like her. Yup, that was definitely it.

But then, the barista appeared again, laying down the warm, comfy drink on the counter for Anna to take. When Anna reached out to grab it, the barista stopped and looked at her.

“I like your nails,” she said.

“Oh, thanks,” Anna replied. “I like your, um . . .,” Anna rubbed her upper lip and the bottom of her nose with her finger.

“The septum piercing?”

“Yeah. I was trying not to call it a nose ring,” Anna said with a nervous laugh.

“There’s no problem with calling a thing what it is,” she said with a wink. “Anyway, toodles,” said the barista, holding up one palm and waving a few fingers at Anna.

“Wait,” said Anna. The woman turned around. It was there, pinned over her breasts - her name tag.

“Thanks . . . Mazzy,” said Anna with a smile.

“You’re welcome Anna,” she said.

“How’d you know my name?” said Anna, looking down at her jacket. She wasn’t wearing a name tag.

“Uh . . . you told me when you ordered?” said Mazzy.

Anna turned the cup around in her hands. Oh yeah. Her name was right on her cup, just like it was always was. “Hahaha, oh yeah. Silly me! Haha.”

Mazzy cocked a quizzical eyebrow. Anna rushed out of the store as fast as she could.

***

Anna came to that same Starbucks every morning for the next week. Every time, like clockwork, Mazzy was there. She must have been new since Anna had never noticed her before.

They quickly built a rapport. Anna always ordered the same thing, so she’d just ask for the regular. Mazzy would compliment Anna on something - her red, steamed, neatly pressed blazer, her perfectly straight, perfectly jet-black hair, her modest purse. And Anna would respond with a compliment of her own - Mazzy’s gauges, or the tattoo of a dragon on her left arm, or her deep purple eye shadow.

Occasionally they’d enjoy light conversation. They talked about the gloomy weather outside, or what they watched on television last night, or about their coworkers. Some of these conversations made Anna late for work, but she didn’t mind. After the third session of her boss reaming her out in front of coworkers for chronic lateness, she started showing up to the coffee shop earlier to get more time to talk to Mazzy. But even then, they’d lose themselves in conversation, and Anna would nervously peak at her phone, finding the time had flown by. “I’m already late, so what’s a few more minutes?” she’d say, and Mazzy would smile.

One day, two weeks after that had met, Mazzy mentioned that she had gotten a new tattoo recently.

“Really?” said Anna, sipping her macchiato as they chatted. “Let me see.”

Mazzy laid her arm out over the drink counter, revealing four letters that were now permanently emblazoned on the inside of her left wrist.

“A.C.A.B? Does that stand for something?” said Anna.

“Ha! It sure does. You don’t know?” said Mazzy, with a laugh and a facetious smile.

“I’ve never heard of it before. What is it?”

“Guess.”

Anna furrowed her brow and scratched her face with one finger as she thought. “Um . . . Always Consider Another’s Boredom? Is it like a rule of etiquette?”

Mazzy pantomimed throwing up. “As if. Try again.”

“Hmm. I’m really not sure. Can I have a hint?”

“All blanks are blank. That help?” said Mazzy.

“Let me think,” Anna said, wracking her mind for anywhere she could have heard this acronym before. “All . . . um . . . cats, are . . . beautiful?”

Mazzy laughed so hard that she started snorting like a pig. Anna laughed too, though she wasn’t sure at what, exactly. But even just hearing Mazzy’s laugh made her want to laugh.

“You know, for you, sure, that’s what it means. All Cats Are Beautiful. I love it.”

“I love it too,” said Anna, admiring the sharp, abrasive lettering of the tat.

“I like talking to you Anna. You’re funny,” said Mazzy.

“I like talking to you, too.”

“Maybe we should talk more outside of work,” Mazzy said. “Here.”

She handed Anna a little folded up piece of white paper. Anna unfolded it. It was a phone number.

“Text me sometime. Toodles,” Mazzy said, holding up a palm and waving Anna goodbye using only three fingers, just like she always did.

***

Anna was at it again, clawing desperately at her hungry sex. She hadn’t been able to cum in weeks and it was beginning to drive her crazy. She closed her eyes and tried to conjure up the exact thing that could make her body give in . . .

Her phone, this time beside her on the bed, buzzed. It was a text from Mazzy. She had been texting Mazzy all week, and Anna really felt like she had made a friend.

The text read: “Are you free tonight, round ten? Catchin a bite at my fave local place.”

Anna, excited by the idea, quickly shot back a text. She wasn’t sure why, but whenever she got a text from Mazzy, it made her really happy. Gals being pals, she thought. It was a beautiful thing.

She put down the phone and went back to masturbating. She closed her eyes and thought about what could get her off . . . and, for the briefest of moments, she pictured Mazzy.

“AAH!” she said, bolting upright. She said a quick prayer to God, asking for forgiveness for whatever had just happened.

***

Anna tapped her foot nervously while sitting on a painful wooden bench in the waiting room of The Ink Blot. A hoard of unheard-of-band posters, indie zine ads, and perverse graffiti coated the slowly decaying walls of the room. A steady drip of punks, rebels, hipsters, and other ne’er-do-wells marched past her. She held her jacket around her shoulders, shielding herself from the damp draft wafting in through the doorless entryway. She had been waiting for 20 minutes, and there was no sign of Mazzy at all.

Then, through the hole in the wall, emerged the woman she had been waiting for, clad in tight, deep-blue jeans, a black t-shirt with a cat on it, and a moss-green punk jacket with tons of strange and colorful patches sewn on.

Anna was so stunned by Mazzy and the smile she wore that she wasn’t sure what to say.

“You really went all out,” Mazzy said with a light giggle.

Anna looked down at herself. She wore an ankle-length crimson red dress that she hadn’t worn in years, and two sparkly fake diamond earrings. “Sorry. I haven’t been out for a night on the town in quite a while, and I got a bit excited.”

“No, I like it. You look good,” Mazzy said. “Sorry I was late by the way. I had to get my car fixed.”

“No, don’t apologize,” Anna said, standing up. “I get it. And you look good, too.”

They finally went inside and took a seat. The interior of the restaurant was much the same as the waiting room - decrepit, graffitied, plastered in posters - except it was full of life, movement, and the sound: in particular, the sound of aggressive punk blasted out of the speakers so loudly that Anna could barely hear anything over it. It was also really dark. All the regular light fixtures had been covered in neon filters, rendering the room colorful, but shadowy.

Despite all those challenges, Anna and Mazzy had a wonderful time. They ordered delicious sandwiches with curly fries, and furtively giggled as they traded stories and feelings about their week. Despite how hard it was to see, Anna thought to herself, Mazzy still shined as brightly as the day she met her.

Eventually they finished dinner, and their server, a girl no taller than 5 feet with two full sleeves of tattoos, brought them dessert menus.

“Hey, Anna, I got an idea. I usually love the desert here, but I got a pint of ice cream back home that you’ll die for once you’ve tried it. It’s pumpkin flavored. How about we just eat dessert at my place?”

“It’s already pretty late . . .,” Anna said. “But life’s short. Let’s do it,” she said, leaning forward and laughing.

Anna trailed Mazzy back to her apartment, which was half of a very small, one-floor duplex home in a beach town twenty minutes away. The two of them met again on the porch, and as Mazzy fiddled with her keys, Anna looked around at the outside of the house, which seemed normal enough.

Of course, that wasn’t true about the inside. Much like The Ink Blot, the inside of Mazzy’s house was a chaotic mixture of neon mood lighting, posters, and questionable knick-knacks, like rusted plates that seemed to have been stolen from a street sign, or small, polished animal skulls.

The real wonder of Mazzy’s place was the walls, though. Every wall was covered from top to bottom in huge, colorful canvases full of expressive swirls of free-form paint. Some showed people, others buildings, and others just collages of colors that made Anna feel things.

“Woah,” said Anna, drinking it all in. “Did . . . you do these?”

“Yup. They’re all mine,” Mazzy replied.

“They’re amazing,” Anna said. Mazzy blushed.

“Stay here. I’ll bring you some ice cream. You can sit on the couch, but don’t go for the left side. It’s broken.”

Mazzy disappeared into the kitchen and moments later reappeared with two bowls full of orange ice cream.

“Oh. My. God,” Anna said as she sucked on a spoonful. “You’re right. I would literally give my life for this stuff,” Anna said.

“I think it may be cursed or something. There’s no way it can just naturally be this good,” Mazzy replied.

Eventually the bowls emptied and the two of them were left sitting on the couch, snuggled right up next to each other.

“I had a great time tonight,” Mazzy said. Anna nodded in agreement. As she did, Mazzy laid a hand on her knee, then moved it up towards her thigh. Anna wasn’t sure what was going on, but she didn’t stop her.

“You’re rad. I should paint you sometime,” Mazzy smiled.

Anna found herself lost in Mazzy’s smile, drawn forward towards her face. “I’d love that,” she said.

Mazzy moved over, only slightly, and planted a soft, warm kiss on Anna’s lips. Then she backed away and looked Anna in the eyes.

“Um . . . what was that?” Anna said.

“A kiss,” Mazzy whispered.

“But, um . . . wait,” Anna said, backing away. “I’m confused.”

“What is it?” Mazzy said.

“I’m, not, um . . .” Anna trailed off. “I’m married. To a man,” she said.

Mazzy was stunned. Her mouth just hung open for a moment. “What? But you . . . why didn’t you tell me?”

“I, um . . . I’m sorry, I . . .” Anna stumbled over herself, unsure of what to say. Truthfully, Anna wasn’t sure why she had kept that fact from Mazzy. She was only half conscious of the lie-by-omission herself, until this moment. “I - I don’t know why.”

Mazzy groaned and buried her head in her palms. “What the fuck? Anna, we just went on a date. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“A date!? That was a date!?”

“We literally got dinner! You even dressed up! I thought you were a lesbian!”

“What!” Anna said, shooting to her feet. “Why would you think that? Do I look like a lesbian?”

“Ughh, you don’t get it Anna. You’re the third ostensibly straight girl this year I’ve fallen for. Ugh,” Mazzy said, hunching over. “Why does this always happen to me?” she moaned.

“Didn’t you see my ring?” Anna said, holding out her fingers spread wide to show the wedding ring. Except it wasn’t there. Anna gazed over at her purse and realized she had never put it back on after masturbating a few weeks ago. Frantically, she dug the ring out of her purse and showed the glimmering golden band to Mazzy.

“Wait, so you took it off on purpose? What the fuck?”

“No no, I forgot, or, I - well, still, you kissed me, and . . .” Anna trailed off, not sure of what to say anymore.

Tears were welling up in Mazzy’s eyes. Anna had been angry, but when she saw this, her heart ached. She realized that she had really fucked this up bad. She wanted to sit down and wrap her arms around Mazzy and say that it would be okay. She might have even wanted to kiss Mazzy again. Her lips were so soft . . . but! To do so would be completely inappropriate for a married woman. So, she went to the door and opened it.

“Um . . . I’m sorry Mazzy. This is all my fault. I’m gonna go. Bye,” she said.

“No, don’t go! Let me talk to you!” Mazzy said, but it was too late. Anna was out the door.

***

“Where were you at?” Anna’s husband barked. She was standing in the doorway of the living room, and he was sitting on the couch, flipping through television channels.

“Why? Get off my back,” she said, lifting her foot and using her finger to help remove her tight heels.

His eyes narrowed. “What’d you just say?” She didn’t respond. “You’re all dolled up.”

“I went out to eat. With friends. From work.”

He grunted and kept his gaze on Anna. She ran upstairs and shut the door behind her. As soon as she heard the little click of the door locking into place, she slumped over against it and loudly exhaled. She threw her heels into the closet and bent over, crossing her arms as she reached for the hem of her dress with her fingertips. In one swift motion she pulled it off over her head and flung it across the room. The dress landed in a pile by the bedside with a clothy thump.

“So graceful,” her husband said. She turned around and saw him leaning in the now-open doorway. She flinched, now stripped down to just her bra and underwear, reflexively covering her breasts with her hands.

“I’ve seen them before, you know,” he said.   “You scared me,” Anna replied, not moving her arms. “I didn’t hear you at the door.”

He eyed her suspiciously. “I’m trained to be silent,” he said flatly. She didn’t budge. Then, he stood up straight and leisurely strolled his way over to her. She still held her arms in place, staring right through him. Anna’s husband placed his hands on her arms, lightly pulling them down and putting them on her hips. She didn’t resist.

“They look so much better that way,” he said.

“I’m not in the mood.”

“What’s his name?” he said.

Anna looked at him. At the smug, all-knowing anger behind his eyes.

“What?” she said. “You can’t be serious.”

“Don’t lie, Anna.”

“I’m not lying. You’re being ridiculous. I came home late from a nice dinner with friends, and you think I’m cheating on you? Do you realize what you’re saying?”

“How long have you been seeing him?”

Anna held up her left hand and pointed to her to ring. “I made a vow to you and to God. Benny, please. There isn’t another man. Now stop being paranoid and please just let me sit. I’m tired.”

“Prove it me,” he said, still as stone. “Prove it to me right now.”

Anna’s head ached. Her legs were sore, and she just wanted to close her eyes and try to forget. But, as always, she did what he said. She undid his belt. He laid her down on the bed and squeezed her boobs until they hurt. Then he undressed and undressed her as well. It was cold and mechanical, like swiping a credit card.

Anna, on her back, closed her eyes and tried to dissociate. This was the last thing she wanted right now. It hurt. He kissed her neck, one of her favorite spots, but it felt like a leech sucking her blood more than anything else. She tried to picture something, anything in her mind’s eye - but the only thing she could see was Mazzy. Mazzy’s melting smile in the neon lights. The little valley of her cleavage. The way Mazzy’s lips fit hers like a key fits a lock. Anna wondered what it would feel like to have Mazzy on top of her, her breasts pushing on Anna’s, her fingers roaming through Anna’s hair, the heat of her vagina just barely licking Anna’s own, her skin, her eyes, the way she smelled, her, her . . .

Anna came. The muscles in her back lit on fire as she curled her toes and felt her whole body writhe with pleasure. Her husband came with the force of a mostly empty soap dispenser. He rolled off of her and onto the bed, grinning. “You’ll always be mine,” he whispered, and closed his eyes. Anna, meanwhile, stared up blankly at the ceiling, trying, and failing, to concoct a prayer.