The strange thing about what happened, between my daughter’s best friend and me, was that it seemed so perfectly natural, so utterly ordinary. It was never a destination that either of us chose, but it was a place that both of us were happy to travel to. More than happy in fact, ecstatic – at least in my case. You’d have to ask Cassie about her recollection of the events of last year.

Most of all, it didn’t seem strange and it didn’t seem wrong, though it was clearly the former and more than likely the latter too. When all’s said and done, the thing it most seemed was inevitable. It was always going to happen. From the very first moment we were alone together, the very first time she confided in me, the very first time I inserted myself into her life as a trusted friend and source of womanly wisdom.

It all started when Leanne, my daughter, left for college. Her sudden absence left a hole in the house that I found difficult to cope with. My husband, Rex, worked away most days. And let’s just say that relations between us hadn’t been particularly great up till then. His usual lack of interest in me, or sex in general for that matter, had escalated to the point where we barely spoke, even when he was around. But I didn’t care about that. I’d married Rex out of obligation, expectation. The prom queen and the quarterback, a modern American love story. My heart wasn’t in it though. For all of those twenty long years, I’d had a nagging feeling that I wanted something else, something different…

Cassie was nineteen, my daughter’s best friend since kindergarden. I’d known her since she was in pigtails and bows, but she was all woman now. As my daughter went off to college, Cassie stayed behind. When others asked her why she didn’t go, she offered a multitude of reasons – her grades weren’t good enough, her Mom needed her around to take care of her sisters, she loved our hometown too much to leave it. But the real reason was something else. Cassie hated the burden of expectation that was placed on her, she hated the weight of responsibility, she was paralyzed by what others thought she should do, so she did nothing at all. She longed for structure, for someone to tell her what decisions to make.

How do I know this? Why, she told me.

Because, when Leanne left town, Cassie kept coming around to our house. At first, she’d visit seeking updates about Leanne’s college adventure – though we both knew she had emails and her cellphone to find out herself. Eventually she lost interest in my daughter entirely and came for my company instead. We’d talk over iced tea in the garden, or over hot chocolates in the den, giggling like schoolgirls and telling each other our secrets. I told her about how Rex had been in the early days, or the time I got caught smoking weed beneath the high school bleachers. In turn, I found out that she’d never been with a boy, hadn’t even kissed one before. I asked her, with only mild interest and no judgement, if she liked girls instead. She simply blushed and fell silent, changing the subject to something else entirely.

Looking back, it was that fumbled confession that got me thinking about what it was that I wanted, what I needed. The small spark from which the forest fire exploded.

Over a period of months, I started to see Cassie differently. No longer the pretty little princess in pigtails and bows, Cassie was a woman in her own right now, and I found myself unable to think about anyone else. I started to obsess over small details. The way she touched my hand when I passed her the sugar, the way she blushed when I asked if she was dating, the cute little outfits she would wear, the way she complimented mine.

Like a festering sore, my obsession with my young companion grew to rule my waking thoughts and my sleeping dreams. I barely even stopped to acknowledge my revealed sexuality, the cause of my lack of interest in Rex and my apathy towards my marriage in general. It was just one more facet of my paralyzing obsession with Cassie, and not the most surprising one at that. I like girls, I thought to myself in my brief moments of lucidity, well duh!

Even my reputation and my standing in the community didn’t dampen my sordid imaginings, at least not too much. Oh, I worried about how the high school governing board would view my sinful lust, or my church bridge club. But they were only half-concerns, replaced quickly by fevered, immature thoughts of Cassie’s toned body in the tight little crop tops and denim jeans she always wore, and what it might be like to feel her pressed up against mine.

The tipping point came a week after Thanksgiving. I was changing to go out for dinner with friends, half dressed in lingerie and pretty French stockings, busying myself with my hair and my makeup, when Cassie stepped into my bedroom.

“I’m s-sorry, Ms. Cole,” she stammered, seeing me standing there in my underwear. Her face lit up fire red, a growing flame that licked her neck and the exposed flesh of her upper chest. “The door was open, I should have knocked, I–“

“It’s fine, honey, come on in, take a seat, I’ll be right with you,” I said, smiling warmly, turning back to the mirror. I felt a flush of excitement that Cassie was in my bedroom and that I was so inappropriately dressed. “Can I help you with something?”

“No, Ms. Cole, nothing important,” she said, sitting gingerly down on the edge of my bed. Every few seconds, her eyes would flick over to where I sat, lingering for a second on some fine detail of my revealing outfit – my legs, my breasts, my bottom. “I just wanted to see how your Thanksgiving was,” she added.

“It was good, really nice to see the family. And to see Leanne again, of course,” I said, offering my daughter out as a lure, to see if Cassie would bite. She didn’t.

“Say, you look really nice tonight, Ms. Cole,” she replied instead, using the compliment as an excuse to gaze over at my bra and panties.

I nodded and stood from the dressing table, stepping across the room in heels that seemed perilously high for a woman of my age. I sat down on the bed beside Cassie, still unsure what I was going to do, knowing that I really shouldn’t, but knowing that I definitely would. This had gone on too long.

I turned to face her and curled my leg up onto the bed. Cassie gazed down at the floor and started to shuffle away from me. I reached out and touched her bare arm. “I won’t bite,” I whispered, stroking her skin with the back of my fingers. My touch provoked fields of goose flesh wherever I caressed her. She sighed.

“Ms. Cole, I–” she said, but didn’t finish.

“I want you to turn to face me,” I said, feeling powerful, feeling in control for the first time in my life. All thoughts of propriety and reputation had fled, leaving only raw desire and palpable longing. In as long as I could remember, I’d never felt this much like myself. I was no longer playing a role, acting out the me that others thought I should be.

Cassie sighed and closed her eyes, then turned her body to face me. I touched my fingers to her chin, gently lifting her head until she opened her eyes and gazed into mine. She looked terrified, uncertain, and something else – was it relief?

“We shouldn’t,” she breathed, but there was no conviction there, no real resistance. “Leanne… your husband…”

I tried to ignore my own feelings of guilt. It wasn’t hard, if you want the truth. I felt like the old me and all the aspects that had defined her had been hollowed out and filled with something else, something new, something wonderful. Cassie’s fear thrilled me, her nervous trepidation fanned the flames that burned deep inside me. I felt a pulsing throb between my legs, a nagging ache that I couldn’t ignore.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” I said, holding her cheek in my hand.

“O-okay,” she replied, her voice soft and timid. Her eyes were wide, her full, red lips were parted in nervous anticipation.

I leaned forward and held my face inches from hers, basking in the radiant heat that was rising from her and the intoxicating scent of perfume and desire that filled my nose and throat. She closed her eyes, waiting, frozen, a perfect flower, ripe and ready for plucking. I took a breath and tried to calm my thoughts, tried to still the incessant drumbeat of my heart. Then, with a sensation that felt like flying, I closed the gap and touched my mouth to hers…

The rest, like our eventual coupling, was inevitable. I won’t bore you with the sordid details of what we did that night, and the countless nights afterwards. How we explored each other, how both of us developed our nascent feelings in different directions, becoming the women we always were going to become. I won’t tell you about the myriad depravities we enjoyed in the dead of night. The themes of seduction and capitulation that we explored, of pain and pleasure, of domination and submission. I won’t tell you about how I had her call me mommy and spanked her when she was bad, or about how much she begged me to do so. All of that is irrelevant.

The only thing that matters is how utterly normal it all felt. Some things, they say, are just meant to be.