Laura's Dad and Ruth
The stain was roughly the size of a pancake—yellowish at the edges, darker in the centre—and it clung stubbornly to the crisp white cotton. David stood over the washing machine, arms crossed, watching the water slosh against the glass door. He’d already run it twice.
Laura leaned against the doorway, arms folded, still in her pyjamas from the all-night study session. "Third wash this week," she said. Her voice was casual, but her eyes flicked to the stain like a detective spotting evidence. "You’re gonna wear the sheets out before they’re clean."
David didn’t turn around. The rhythmic thumping of the machine filled the silence between them, like a heartbeat that refused to steady. "Just a spill," he muttered. His fingers tapped against his elbow—quick, restless.
Laura tapped her credit card against the edge of her laptop, hesitating for only a second before clicking "Purchase Now." The tiny black camera—smaller than a coin, the listing promised—would arrive tomorrow. She shut her laptop with a snap and exhaled through her nose. It wasn’t spying, really. Just... curiosity. The kind that gnawed at her ribs when she lay in bed at night, listening to the distant hum of the washing machine cycling again.
Laura adjusted the tiny lens one last time, angling it just enough to catch the bed but not so obviously that it would draw attention. The photo frame—an old one, with a faded picture of her mother smiling beside a younger David—made for the perfect cover. She pressed her thumb against the glass, smudging it slightly so the camera’s reflection wouldn’t glint in the light. "Just curiosity," she whispered again, as if the words could absolve her.
Laura's thumb hovered over the playback button, the glow of her laptop screen casting jagged shadows across her dorm room walls. The timestamp read 10:47 PM—right when she'd been pulling an all-nighter in the library. On screen, her father shuffled into frame wearing his usual flannel pyjamas, the ones Mom had bought him years ago. He smoothed the sheets with that same methodical precision he used when arranging communion wafers on Sundays. Then he lay down stiffly, hands clasped over his chest like a mannequin in a casket, and didn't move for seven hours and fourteen minutes.
Laura’s backpack hit the floor with a thud as she dropped onto her dorm bed, her fingers already flying across the laptop keyboard before the screen fully woke. The timestamp showed 3:02 PM—right when her father should’ve been knee-deep in tax returns, not… whatever this was. The footage was jumpy, as if the camera had been jostled. A blur of motion—her dad’s socked feet pacing, the bed creaking under sudden weight, then nothing but the muffled sound of rustling fabric.
Laura’s breath caught in her throat as Pastor Ford’s familiar, broad-shouldered silhouette filled the frame, his usual crisp Sunday suit replaced by a rumpled sweater and jeans. Beside him, Ruth—always immaculate in her pressed skirts and pearl necklaces—wore an oversized hoodie, her hair loose in a way Laura had never seen. They moved with a quiet urgency, exchanging glances that held none of the polite distance they maintained during church coffee hours.
The bedsprings creaked softly as Pastor Ford’s fingers worked the tiny buttons at Ruth’s collar, each one slipping free with a quiet *pop* that made David’s throat tighten. Ruth stood perfectly still, her breath shallow, her gaze fixed somewhere beyond the bedroom window as if she could will herself into the muted afternoon light outside. The dress—prim, high-necked, the sort of thing she wore to lead the women’s Bible study—pooled at her feet like a shed skin, revealing white lace that clung to her curves with a precision that felt almost liturgical.
The lace was ecclesiastical in its intricacy—each delicate pattern of flowers and vines woven with a precision that could only be devotional. Ruth’s bra was a push-up, the cups lifting her breasts with gentle, unnatural symmetry, the white fabric stark against her flushed skin. The suspender belt hugged her waist, its thin straps descending like benedictions to clasp the tops of her stockings. The thong was nearly invisible beneath the curve of her hips, a whisper of fabric that made David’s breath hitch when she turned slightly, revealing the taut line of it between her cheeks.
Ruth stepped forward, her fingers trembling slightly as they found the first button of David's shirt. His breath was ragged, his chest rising and falling beneath the fabric like a man trying to steady himself before prayer. The button gave way with a soft whisper, revealing the greying hair dusting his collarbone—something intimate, something she wasn’t supposed to see. His cock strained against the fabric of his trousers, the outline unmistakable, and when her fingers brushed against it as she undid his belt buckle, he exhaled sharply, as if the touch had scalded him.
Ruth’s knees hit the carpet with the same practiced devotion she brought to Sunday morning prayer—only now, her lips parted not for hymns, but for the swollen heat of David’s cock. Laura’s fingernails bit into her palms as she watched Ruth swallow him whole, her throat working around him with a surrender Laura had never seen in the pews. The woman who’d scolded her for chewing gum during sermons now had mascara smudged under her eyes, her mouth stretched obscenely wide around David’s shaft, her fingers digging into his thighs like he was the only thing keeping her from damnation.
Pastor Ford stood motionless near the dresser, one hand braced against the wood grain, the other working slowly between his legs. His gaze never left Ruth’s bobbing head, her rhythm punctuated by small, wet sounds that made David’s fingers twitch against her scalp. The pastor’s cock—stiff but slight—looked almost delicate in his broad palm, the flushed tip barely peeking past his foreskin as he stroked himself with a precision that bordered on clinical. There was something unsettling in the way he watched, like a man studying a ledger, calculating every gasp and shudder as if they were entries to be balanced.
Ruth's hands pressed flat against David's chest, her fingers splayed like a starfish against the worn cotton of his shirt. There was no hesitation in the push—just the quiet certainty of a woman who'd spent years arranging altar flowers to her exact specifications. David's back hit the mattress with a soft thump, the bedframe creaking under the sudden shift of weight. His cock stood rigid against his stomach, flushed and glistening where Ruth's mouth had left it. She didn't look at Pastor Ford—didn't need to—when his hands slid around her hips, thumbs hooking into the lace of her thong. The elastic snapped against her skin as he peeled it down her thighs, the fabric clinging momentarily to the dampness between her legs before dropping to the carpet.
Ruth swung one leg over David’s hips, her stockings rasping against the sheets as she positioned herself above him. The lace of her garters strained against the soft swell of her thighs, the delicate straps digging into flesh as she hovered there—just for a moment—her breath hitching as the blunt heat of him nudged against her. Then she sank down in one smooth motion, her lips parting in a silent gasp as he filled her, stretching her open with a slow, relentless pressure that made her toes curl against the mattress.
The sound was obscene—wet, rhythmic, the slap of flesh against flesh punctuated by Ruth’s shallow gasps. David’s cock vanished into her again and again, each thrust driving her forward until her palms braced against the headboard, her knuckles whitening with the strain. Her curls clung to her damp forehead, her mouth slack between moans, her body moving with a desperation that bordered on prayer.
Ruth’s pearl necklace swung wildly with each roll of her hips, the beads clattering against her collarbone like hail on a church roof. Her usual composure—the one that kept her back ramrod straight during hymns and her voice measured during prayer meetings—had dissolved into something ragged, untethered. The Ruth who never let a single hair escape her tight bun now had strands sticking to her sweat-slicked neck, her breath coming in short, uneven gasps as she rode David with a hunger that bordered on violence.
Ruth's voice cracked like shattered stained glass—"May God forgive me, I'm cumming"—the words torn from her throat just as David's hips jerked upward, his fingers biting into the soft flesh of her thighs. His release hit her in thick, pulsing waves, deeper than communion wine, hotter than penitent tears. She collapsed forward, her forehead pressing against his heaving chest, her pearl necklace now tangled in the salt-damp hair between her breasts.
Pastor Ford's breath hitched as Ruth lifted herself slightly, David’s softening cock slipping free with a wet, obscene sound. The bedsprings groaned under her shifting weight, her thighs trembling as she swung one leg over David’s hips, her stockinged feet finding the carpet with unsteady grace. The lace of her garters was twisted now, one strap dangling loose like a broken rosary bead. Ford didn’t move to help her—just watched, his broad hand still wrapped around his own cock, his thumb absently smearing a bead of precum across the flushed head.
The silence between their ragged breaths was thick with the scent of sex—salt and musk and something faintly floral from Ruth’s perfume. David lay sprawled on his back, one arm flung over his eyes, his chest still rising and falling unevenly. Ruth was beside him, her stockings twisted around her ankles, the lace of her garter belt snapped in two places. The pearls of her necklace had scattered across the sheets like abandoned prayer beads.
Pastor Ford's tongue was slow and deliberate—the same measured pace he used when reciting scripture from the pulpit—as it dragged up the length of David's softening cock, gathering the sticky blend of their transgressions with a devotion that bordered on sacramental. His lips closed around the head with a wet, sucking sound, his tongue swirling against the slit where Ruth's climax had mingled with David's own. There was something unsettlingly tender in the way his fingers cradled David's balls as he worked, his other hand still gripping the base of his own cock, stroking absently as if the motion were second nature.
Pastor Ford's hands trembled—just slightly—as they skimmed up Ruth's thighs, his fingers catching on the torn lace of her garters with a reverence that might have been mistaken for hesitation. His tongue flicked out first, tentative, tracing the damp seam between her legs where David's release still glistened. Ruth shuddered, her hips jerking involuntarily, her fingers gripping the rumpled sheets. Ford's mouth closed over her then, his lips sealing tight as he sucked with a rhythm that mirrored the cadence of his Sunday sermons—slow, deliberate, building to something inevitable.
Pastor Ford’s tongue dragged upward with the same deliberate cadence he used to recite Psalms—slow, reverent, each stroke punctuated by the soft hitch of Ruth’s breath. Her thighs trembled against his shoulders as he worked, his lips sealing over her slick flesh with a suction that made her toes curl into the sheets. David watched, his own breath still ragged, as Ford’s broad hands gripped Ruth’s hips, anchoring her in place while his tongue lapped at the mingled wetness there, his nose bumping against her clit with each upward pass. Ruth’s fingers twisted in Ford’s hair, not pushing him away but holding on, as if he were the only solid thing in a room tilting with sin.
Laura watched all of this with mixed emotions—her stomach churning with something between revulsion and fascination as Pastor Ford's tongue worked between Ruth's thighs with a dedication that bordered on worship. The laptop screen cast an eerie blue glow across her face, her fingers hovering over the touchpad as if she might click away at any moment. But she didn't. She couldn't. Her father's strained groan when Ruth arched against Ford's mouth was a sound she'd never heard before, raw and unguarded, and it lodged in her chest like a stone.
Laura’s knuckles went white around the edge of her laptop as she watched Ruth’s trembling fingers button the high-collared dress back into place—each fastening a deliberate act of erasure, transforming the flushed, sweaty woman back into the prim Bible study leader before the camera’s unblinking eye. Pastor Ford was already by the door, his suit jacket slung over one arm like he’d just finished a board meeting rather than what had happened, his other hand adjusting his tie with quick, practiced tugs. David stood stiffly near the bed, staring at the rumpled sheets like they contained some answer he couldn’t decipher. Then Ruth crossed to him, her heels clicking softly on the hardwood, and pressed her lips to his in a kiss so lingering it made Laura’s throat tighten—not passionate, but something worse: tender, familiar, like this wasn’t the first time.
Laura snapped the laptop shut with a force that sent a sharp crack through the dorm room. Her breath came in uneven bursts, as if she'd sprinted up the stairs instead of sitting motionless for forty-seven minutes. Happy? Disappointed? The words felt too small, too neat—like trying to cram the tangled mess of her thoughts into one of Pastor Ford’s tidy Sunday sermon outlines.
Laura pressed her palms against her closed eyelids until colours burst behind them—hot, swirling shapes that mirrored the chaos in her skull. Happy for Dad? That much was obvious. The way his hands had trembled when he touched Ruth’s face afterward, the raw tenderness in his voice when he whispered something against her hair—that wasn’t just lust. It was the first real thing she’d seen in him since Mom died. But Pastor Ford? Her stomach twisted. The man who’d lectured her youth group about purity, whose sermons on fidelity had left her squirming in her pew—watching him lick her father’s come from Ruth with that methodical hunger made her want to scrub her brain with bleach.
Laura still couldn't fully believe her own eyes with the prim and proper Ruth—the same woman who’d once scolded her for wearing shorts to Wednesday night Bible study—now moaning into her father’s mouth with her stockings torn and her pearls tangled between her breasts. The dissonance was almost funny, if it didn’t make her stomach clench. She kept rewinding the footage, as if expecting Ruth’s face to morph back into its usual stern composure between blinks, but the screen only showed Ruth’s flushed cheeks, her lips parted around ragged breaths, her fingers clutching David’s shoulders like he was the only solid thing left in the world.
Laura’s fingertips hovered over the laptop’s power button, the faint heat from the processor warming her skin. The sheets—those damn sheets. That was the missing piece. How many times had she come home to find the washer humming, her father’s bedroom door cracked just enough to reveal the stripped mattress? She’d chalked it up to fastidiousness, some lingering habit from when Mom was alive. But now the footage rewound in her mind like a confession: Ruth’s lace-clad thighs pressed into the mattress, Pastor Ford’s mouth working between her legs, the wet sounds that must have seeped into the cotton like ink.
Laura’s finger hovered over the delete button, the cursor blinking mockingly over the footage she’d just watched. But something—some stubborn, clawing curiosity—made her pull her hand back. She snapped the laptop shut instead, pressing her forehead against the cool metal casing as if it could quiet the images replaying behind her eyelids. The tiny black camera would stay. Just one more week. Just to be sure.
Laura leaned against the doorway, arms folded, still in her pyjamas from the all-night study session. "Third wash this week," she said. Her voice was casual, but her eyes flicked to the stain like a detective spotting evidence. "You’re gonna wear the sheets out before they’re clean."
David didn’t turn around. The rhythmic thumping of the machine filled the silence between them, like a heartbeat that refused to steady. "Just a spill," he muttered. His fingers tapped against his elbow—quick, restless.
Laura tapped her credit card against the edge of her laptop, hesitating for only a second before clicking "Purchase Now." The tiny black camera—smaller than a coin, the listing promised—would arrive tomorrow. She shut her laptop with a snap and exhaled through her nose. It wasn’t spying, really. Just... curiosity. The kind that gnawed at her ribs when she lay in bed at night, listening to the distant hum of the washing machine cycling again.
Laura adjusted the tiny lens one last time, angling it just enough to catch the bed but not so obviously that it would draw attention. The photo frame—an old one, with a faded picture of her mother smiling beside a younger David—made for the perfect cover. She pressed her thumb against the glass, smudging it slightly so the camera’s reflection wouldn’t glint in the light. "Just curiosity," she whispered again, as if the words could absolve her.
Laura's thumb hovered over the playback button, the glow of her laptop screen casting jagged shadows across her dorm room walls. The timestamp read 10:47 PM—right when she'd been pulling an all-nighter in the library. On screen, her father shuffled into frame wearing his usual flannel pyjamas, the ones Mom had bought him years ago. He smoothed the sheets with that same methodical precision he used when arranging communion wafers on Sundays. Then he lay down stiffly, hands clasped over his chest like a mannequin in a casket, and didn't move for seven hours and fourteen minutes.
Laura’s backpack hit the floor with a thud as she dropped onto her dorm bed, her fingers already flying across the laptop keyboard before the screen fully woke. The timestamp showed 3:02 PM—right when her father should’ve been knee-deep in tax returns, not… whatever this was. The footage was jumpy, as if the camera had been jostled. A blur of motion—her dad’s socked feet pacing, the bed creaking under sudden weight, then nothing but the muffled sound of rustling fabric.
Laura’s breath caught in her throat as Pastor Ford’s familiar, broad-shouldered silhouette filled the frame, his usual crisp Sunday suit replaced by a rumpled sweater and jeans. Beside him, Ruth—always immaculate in her pressed skirts and pearl necklaces—wore an oversized hoodie, her hair loose in a way Laura had never seen. They moved with a quiet urgency, exchanging glances that held none of the polite distance they maintained during church coffee hours.
The bedsprings creaked softly as Pastor Ford’s fingers worked the tiny buttons at Ruth’s collar, each one slipping free with a quiet *pop* that made David’s throat tighten. Ruth stood perfectly still, her breath shallow, her gaze fixed somewhere beyond the bedroom window as if she could will herself into the muted afternoon light outside. The dress—prim, high-necked, the sort of thing she wore to lead the women’s Bible study—pooled at her feet like a shed skin, revealing white lace that clung to her curves with a precision that felt almost liturgical.
The lace was ecclesiastical in its intricacy—each delicate pattern of flowers and vines woven with a precision that could only be devotional. Ruth’s bra was a push-up, the cups lifting her breasts with gentle, unnatural symmetry, the white fabric stark against her flushed skin. The suspender belt hugged her waist, its thin straps descending like benedictions to clasp the tops of her stockings. The thong was nearly invisible beneath the curve of her hips, a whisper of fabric that made David’s breath hitch when she turned slightly, revealing the taut line of it between her cheeks.
Ruth stepped forward, her fingers trembling slightly as they found the first button of David's shirt. His breath was ragged, his chest rising and falling beneath the fabric like a man trying to steady himself before prayer. The button gave way with a soft whisper, revealing the greying hair dusting his collarbone—something intimate, something she wasn’t supposed to see. His cock strained against the fabric of his trousers, the outline unmistakable, and when her fingers brushed against it as she undid his belt buckle, he exhaled sharply, as if the touch had scalded him.
Ruth’s knees hit the carpet with the same practiced devotion she brought to Sunday morning prayer—only now, her lips parted not for hymns, but for the swollen heat of David’s cock. Laura’s fingernails bit into her palms as she watched Ruth swallow him whole, her throat working around him with a surrender Laura had never seen in the pews. The woman who’d scolded her for chewing gum during sermons now had mascara smudged under her eyes, her mouth stretched obscenely wide around David’s shaft, her fingers digging into his thighs like he was the only thing keeping her from damnation.
Pastor Ford stood motionless near the dresser, one hand braced against the wood grain, the other working slowly between his legs. His gaze never left Ruth’s bobbing head, her rhythm punctuated by small, wet sounds that made David’s fingers twitch against her scalp. The pastor’s cock—stiff but slight—looked almost delicate in his broad palm, the flushed tip barely peeking past his foreskin as he stroked himself with a precision that bordered on clinical. There was something unsettling in the way he watched, like a man studying a ledger, calculating every gasp and shudder as if they were entries to be balanced.
Ruth's hands pressed flat against David's chest, her fingers splayed like a starfish against the worn cotton of his shirt. There was no hesitation in the push—just the quiet certainty of a woman who'd spent years arranging altar flowers to her exact specifications. David's back hit the mattress with a soft thump, the bedframe creaking under the sudden shift of weight. His cock stood rigid against his stomach, flushed and glistening where Ruth's mouth had left it. She didn't look at Pastor Ford—didn't need to—when his hands slid around her hips, thumbs hooking into the lace of her thong. The elastic snapped against her skin as he peeled it down her thighs, the fabric clinging momentarily to the dampness between her legs before dropping to the carpet.
Ruth swung one leg over David’s hips, her stockings rasping against the sheets as she positioned herself above him. The lace of her garters strained against the soft swell of her thighs, the delicate straps digging into flesh as she hovered there—just for a moment—her breath hitching as the blunt heat of him nudged against her. Then she sank down in one smooth motion, her lips parting in a silent gasp as he filled her, stretching her open with a slow, relentless pressure that made her toes curl against the mattress.
The sound was obscene—wet, rhythmic, the slap of flesh against flesh punctuated by Ruth’s shallow gasps. David’s cock vanished into her again and again, each thrust driving her forward until her palms braced against the headboard, her knuckles whitening with the strain. Her curls clung to her damp forehead, her mouth slack between moans, her body moving with a desperation that bordered on prayer.
Ruth’s pearl necklace swung wildly with each roll of her hips, the beads clattering against her collarbone like hail on a church roof. Her usual composure—the one that kept her back ramrod straight during hymns and her voice measured during prayer meetings—had dissolved into something ragged, untethered. The Ruth who never let a single hair escape her tight bun now had strands sticking to her sweat-slicked neck, her breath coming in short, uneven gasps as she rode David with a hunger that bordered on violence.
Ruth's voice cracked like shattered stained glass—"May God forgive me, I'm cumming"—the words torn from her throat just as David's hips jerked upward, his fingers biting into the soft flesh of her thighs. His release hit her in thick, pulsing waves, deeper than communion wine, hotter than penitent tears. She collapsed forward, her forehead pressing against his heaving chest, her pearl necklace now tangled in the salt-damp hair between her breasts.
Pastor Ford's breath hitched as Ruth lifted herself slightly, David’s softening cock slipping free with a wet, obscene sound. The bedsprings groaned under her shifting weight, her thighs trembling as she swung one leg over David’s hips, her stockinged feet finding the carpet with unsteady grace. The lace of her garters was twisted now, one strap dangling loose like a broken rosary bead. Ford didn’t move to help her—just watched, his broad hand still wrapped around his own cock, his thumb absently smearing a bead of precum across the flushed head.
The silence between their ragged breaths was thick with the scent of sex—salt and musk and something faintly floral from Ruth’s perfume. David lay sprawled on his back, one arm flung over his eyes, his chest still rising and falling unevenly. Ruth was beside him, her stockings twisted around her ankles, the lace of her garter belt snapped in two places. The pearls of her necklace had scattered across the sheets like abandoned prayer beads.
Pastor Ford's tongue was slow and deliberate—the same measured pace he used when reciting scripture from the pulpit—as it dragged up the length of David's softening cock, gathering the sticky blend of their transgressions with a devotion that bordered on sacramental. His lips closed around the head with a wet, sucking sound, his tongue swirling against the slit where Ruth's climax had mingled with David's own. There was something unsettlingly tender in the way his fingers cradled David's balls as he worked, his other hand still gripping the base of his own cock, stroking absently as if the motion were second nature.
Pastor Ford's hands trembled—just slightly—as they skimmed up Ruth's thighs, his fingers catching on the torn lace of her garters with a reverence that might have been mistaken for hesitation. His tongue flicked out first, tentative, tracing the damp seam between her legs where David's release still glistened. Ruth shuddered, her hips jerking involuntarily, her fingers gripping the rumpled sheets. Ford's mouth closed over her then, his lips sealing tight as he sucked with a rhythm that mirrored the cadence of his Sunday sermons—slow, deliberate, building to something inevitable.
Pastor Ford’s tongue dragged upward with the same deliberate cadence he used to recite Psalms—slow, reverent, each stroke punctuated by the soft hitch of Ruth’s breath. Her thighs trembled against his shoulders as he worked, his lips sealing over her slick flesh with a suction that made her toes curl into the sheets. David watched, his own breath still ragged, as Ford’s broad hands gripped Ruth’s hips, anchoring her in place while his tongue lapped at the mingled wetness there, his nose bumping against her clit with each upward pass. Ruth’s fingers twisted in Ford’s hair, not pushing him away but holding on, as if he were the only solid thing in a room tilting with sin.
Laura watched all of this with mixed emotions—her stomach churning with something between revulsion and fascination as Pastor Ford's tongue worked between Ruth's thighs with a dedication that bordered on worship. The laptop screen cast an eerie blue glow across her face, her fingers hovering over the touchpad as if she might click away at any moment. But she didn't. She couldn't. Her father's strained groan when Ruth arched against Ford's mouth was a sound she'd never heard before, raw and unguarded, and it lodged in her chest like a stone.
Laura’s knuckles went white around the edge of her laptop as she watched Ruth’s trembling fingers button the high-collared dress back into place—each fastening a deliberate act of erasure, transforming the flushed, sweaty woman back into the prim Bible study leader before the camera’s unblinking eye. Pastor Ford was already by the door, his suit jacket slung over one arm like he’d just finished a board meeting rather than what had happened, his other hand adjusting his tie with quick, practiced tugs. David stood stiffly near the bed, staring at the rumpled sheets like they contained some answer he couldn’t decipher. Then Ruth crossed to him, her heels clicking softly on the hardwood, and pressed her lips to his in a kiss so lingering it made Laura’s throat tighten—not passionate, but something worse: tender, familiar, like this wasn’t the first time.
Laura snapped the laptop shut with a force that sent a sharp crack through the dorm room. Her breath came in uneven bursts, as if she'd sprinted up the stairs instead of sitting motionless for forty-seven minutes. Happy? Disappointed? The words felt too small, too neat—like trying to cram the tangled mess of her thoughts into one of Pastor Ford’s tidy Sunday sermon outlines.
Laura pressed her palms against her closed eyelids until colours burst behind them—hot, swirling shapes that mirrored the chaos in her skull. Happy for Dad? That much was obvious. The way his hands had trembled when he touched Ruth’s face afterward, the raw tenderness in his voice when he whispered something against her hair—that wasn’t just lust. It was the first real thing she’d seen in him since Mom died. But Pastor Ford? Her stomach twisted. The man who’d lectured her youth group about purity, whose sermons on fidelity had left her squirming in her pew—watching him lick her father’s come from Ruth with that methodical hunger made her want to scrub her brain with bleach.
Laura still couldn't fully believe her own eyes with the prim and proper Ruth—the same woman who’d once scolded her for wearing shorts to Wednesday night Bible study—now moaning into her father’s mouth with her stockings torn and her pearls tangled between her breasts. The dissonance was almost funny, if it didn’t make her stomach clench. She kept rewinding the footage, as if expecting Ruth’s face to morph back into its usual stern composure between blinks, but the screen only showed Ruth’s flushed cheeks, her lips parted around ragged breaths, her fingers clutching David’s shoulders like he was the only solid thing left in the world.
Laura’s fingertips hovered over the laptop’s power button, the faint heat from the processor warming her skin. The sheets—those damn sheets. That was the missing piece. How many times had she come home to find the washer humming, her father’s bedroom door cracked just enough to reveal the stripped mattress? She’d chalked it up to fastidiousness, some lingering habit from when Mom was alive. But now the footage rewound in her mind like a confession: Ruth’s lace-clad thighs pressed into the mattress, Pastor Ford’s mouth working between her legs, the wet sounds that must have seeped into the cotton like ink.
Laura’s finger hovered over the delete button, the cursor blinking mockingly over the footage she’d just watched. But something—some stubborn, clawing curiosity—made her pull her hand back. She snapped the laptop shut instead, pressing her forehead against the cool metal casing as if it could quiet the images replaying behind her eyelids. The tiny black camera would stay. Just one more week. Just to be sure.
26日前
