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Mara was holding a dollar store tin of crappy Christmas cookies that she’d burned while crying in the bathroom. Her kids had snooped while she’d slept, unwrapping every single gift. She’d never hated her children before, but for thirty minutes – the oven screaming at her as smoke started to fill the kitchen and her kids crying on the porch – she seriously considered burning the house down and leaving them all.

Eventually she stopped crying, turned the oven off, and let them back inside.

They’d been quiet as church mice ever since. The youngest, Jeffrey, sniffed and hiccupped now and then. He seemed to be taking the news about Santa not being real the hardest.

She couldn’t even bring herself to feel bad about it.

They didn’t say a word when she pulled on her coat, hair still damp from a shower, and walked next door.

She’d seen Cary in the driveway, roiling with that strange tension she’d sensed on Halloween. In the daylight, out of the shadows, it seemed more normal. Just a protective older brother. And she figured she’d been reading it wrong, in the dark.

Honestly, she could kind of get why he was being big brotherly… The boy looked quite a bit older than Laney, and he definitely looked like trouble. He was striking, as dark and handsome as Cary was rakish and blonde. But he made her nervous, somehow. Like he was about to throw himself in front of a bus, or something.

She knocked, and the door flew open. She opened her mouth to say something, but Cary just waved her inside and was on her like flies to shit.

He half-walked half-ran them to the bedroom, his mouth hot and angry, pushing her down on the mattress. She wrapped her legs around his waist and kissed him back, both of them working off their stress to the point of aggression. It felt good, to let it out. To not have to be soft, and gentle, and motherly .

He slipped off her shirt and made quick work of her pants, flipping her over onto her stomach and nipping his way down her spine. His hands left her body for a moment, and she heard the clink of a buckle and zip of a fly, before he unceremoniously shoved her legs apart and pushed himself into her, hard.

She sucked in a breath, wincing in pain a little. Cary had always been a hard fuck. But this was something else.

His anger was bleeding out of him like a tidal wave, and he was pounding into her so hard it hurt – like he could fuck whatever it was inside of him away if he could just push harder, harder, harder.

She tried to lift her chest, to turn her head to tell him to ease up a bit, but his hand gripped the back of her head and forced her down into the pillow.

She clammed up, blind panic rushing in, and stayed frozen in place until he tensed up and came. His fingers slackened, the rage finally bleeding out of him. She stayed as still as she could, and after a few moments he pulled out and stood up, doing up his fly and refastening his buckle.

“Thanks baby,” he said. “You can show yourself out, yeah?”

Then he was gone.

It took Mara a few minutes to collect herself, and a few more to get dressed. It hurt, and she walked home with cum dripping down her thigh.

When she got back inside, her kids were mixing a new batch of cookie dough.

“We thought we could try again,” her oldest said, “so they aren’t burned. For Santa.”

Mara swept them up in her arms and burst into tears.

Then she called the landlord and gave her notice.