Twenty-One Night Stand ✓

8 / love game

The sun streamed through the curtains that didn't belong to Maddie, a floral pattern that she recognised but couldn't place. The cream walls with the pink trim were familiar, something she knew she had seen before but where exactly that was, she had no idea. Her dress was draped over a chair, her bra hanging from the back, and it was then that she realised she was wearing no more than last night's underwear. A blush stained her cheeks and she pulled the duvet up higher over her chest as though there was someone watching.

Then it hit her like the hangover that had already settled in her head. The familiar wallpaper that she had seen hundreds of times before; the paper that belonged in Peter's guest room. She lay on a crisp white sheet beneath a luxurious duvet, completely along in Peter's guest bedroom. Not his, she thought. Why hadn't they shared a bed, when they had shared so much else? She swallowed a seed of doubt and clasped her hands over her chest.

A knock on the door roused her attention, bringing her into the reality of her pounding headache and the heartburn that stabbed her chest. When she said nothing, paralysed beneath the covers, the door slowly opened and Peter's mother stepped into the room.

"Oh, good morning, Maddie," she said with a sunny smile. "I wasn't sure you'd be awake yet, hun." She had a pile of laundry folded over one arm and a glass of water in her other hand.

"Hi, Cathy," Maddie croaked, her throat not quite accustomed to the day yet, and she smiled at Peter's mother. Cathy Jensen was the kind of woman whose looks perfectly suited her disposition: warm and motherly with lips that were never without a smile, her eyes never without their sparkle, she was destined to be soft and matronly. She possessed the kind of bosom that provided the best comfort, and many a time she had calmed a distraught Maddie against her chest.

"I just thought I would leave you a glass of water and something to change into." She left the pile of clean clothes on the end of the bed and set the glass down on the nightstand. "I'm just about to put a wash on, hun, so if there's anything you want cleaned, I'll be back in a minute.

"Ok," Maddie said a little dumbstruck by Cathy's unquestioning hospitality towards a girl she hadn't seen for years. "Thanks, Cathy."

"Oh, Maddie, the pleasure's all mine," Cathy said with a broad smile that deepened the crow's feet around her eyes and showed off her crooked incisors, almost identical to Peter's. "You just relax, darling. Peter's still asleep anyway." She rolled her eyes fondly and left the room, pulling the door shut behind her.

Maddie's skin prickled with warm humiliation and she slipped out from under the duvet, balling her underwear up in her dress before she changed into the fresh pair Cathy had left for her. The top was more like a short dress and the leggings were a little baggy around the ankles but it was preferable to putting last night's clothes back on, with the faint aroma of alcohol and sex, and whatever else had happened after Maddie's memories faded.

Cathy returned a few minutes later with a basket full of dirty clothes from five sons pressed against her hip. She added the dress to her pile and paused in the room for a moment.

"It's lovely to see you again, Maddie. It's been ever so long since we've seen your face around here," she said in her warm, honeyed voice. "I'm sorry I don't have anything smaller. I've never been your size so I'm afraid even my smallest pre-Jack clothes will dwarf you."

She had maintained for years that her fifth son had been the undoing of her body, pushing her skin past its limit of elasticity. Her wardrobe was like a charity shop rack, a mismatched combination of every size from twelve to twenty, with nothing suited to Maddie's trim size eight.

"No, it's great, thanks Cathy," Maddie said. The soft, loose material was delicious against her skin after the tight straps of the dress she had worn for the party.