“So, what did Ava have to tell you? How are your books looking?”
“Bad,” Brandon admitted. “I guess I didn’t do my due diligence when I took this place over. I’m losing three grand a month.”
Mia said nothing. In fact, her face was a mask when she heard that.
“If I don’t get some more money coming in by the end of next month,” Brandon sighed, “I’m going to have to close the school. Maybe even declare bankruptcy.”
Mia reached over, and squeezed his shoulder.
“I’m sorry, B.”
But Brandon turned to her, and a smile stretched across his handsome face.
“It’s okay, though,” he explained. “I’ve got a plan.”
“A plan?” Mia cocked her head on one side, skeptically. “What sort of plan?”
“You know how I used to do MMA back in college?”
“The fighting? I remember you telling me about it.”
“Well, the promoters want me back – and my first fight will get me enough to keep this place open for at least another month.”
Mia blinked.
Her face grew pale.
“A fight? As in, a cage fight, like those MMA guys do on the TV?”
“Yes,” Brandon nodded, enthusiastically. “I’m going up against their new heavyweight contender – some British guy called MacDonald.”
“Wait,” Mia held up one hand. “You’re telling me that your ‘plan’ for saving this place is to become a fighter?”
“Yeah,” Brandon nodded. “It’s genius, right?”
“Genius?” Mia spat. “It’s absolutely fucking insane.”
Slap! Her palm left a ringing imprint on Brandon’s cheek.
“There is absolutely no fucking way I am letting you get into a cage match,” she snarled. “I forbid it.”
And when Brandon opened his mouth to explain himself, Mia hit him with the kicker.
“And if you loved me – truly loved me, like you tell me you do – you wouldn’t even consider it.”
Chapter Sixteen
Brandon
Mia was pissed.
She was sitting there with her arms wrapped tightly around her slender torso, with her jaw jutting out defiantly.
“It’s a one-time thing,” Brandon tried to explain to her. “It’s not like I’m going back on the circuit indefinitely.”
“I don’t care, Brandon,” Mia snapped, hand raised to slap him again. “There is no fucking way I am letting you get into a televised cage match.”
Then she reached out, and instead of a slap, she laid her palm softly against Brandon’s cheek.
“I care too much for you to let that happen.”
“But I need the money,” Brandon told her. “How else am I going to raise that kind of money by the end of next month?”
“I don’t know,” Mia shrugged. “But however much you need it, it’s not worth that.”
Brandon blinked.
Of all the reactions he’d expected from Mia, this was not one of them. Why was she against this? This was his life.
“If you won’t do it for me,” Mia continued, “think of the kids. Your students. How do you think it would look to them? To see their teacher up there on TV, brawling with somebody else?”
Brandon blinked, genuinely astonished.
“I run a martial arts school!” He snapped. “That’s what I teach them each and every day!”
“No!” Mia snapped. “I’ve listened to what you teach these kids, and it’s not that. You teach them about discipline, and personal responsibility. You put them on the right path to becoming responsible adults – and responsible adults don’t climb into an octagon and beat the shit out of each other.”
“But…”
“That’s my final word, Brandon,” Mia snapped – and when she used his full name, Brandon always fell silent.
Right then, her tone of voice was the same one she use to bark at her kids when they were too slow clambering out of the back of her minivan. It was her ‘mom voice’ and it served as a stark reminder that Brandon was a 25-year-old single guy, and she was fifteen years older than him… and married.
“I mean it, B,” reverting to sweetness, Mia squeezed Brandon’s hand again. “You tell me that you love me. If you do? Give up this idea of yours. I mean it.”
And, deflated, Brandon nodded.
Chapter Seventeen
Ava
The worst thing you can give a stay-at-home mom is a mystery to solve, and that’s exactly what Mia’s surprise visit had become to Ava.
Why had this 40-year-old, married mother-of-three turned up at the karate center, late that night?
Of course, Ava suspected she knew the answer to that, and over the course of the following few days, she collected evidence while at the karate center to fuel that theory.
It started with the obvious. As she took Lex and Harley to class, she made sure to watch the interplay between Mia and Brandon more closely than she had before.
And it was pretty obvious from that alone.
The looks they gave each other from across the room. The jokes. The way they’d stand in the corner and laugh with each other.
The way, when Brandon reached for a yoga mat, and Mia passed it to him, their hands touched and they didn’t pull them away until long, lingering seconds had passed.
But for Ava, the real proof came when Mike, Mia’s husband, turned up to collect the kids so that Mia could teach her class.
A tall, balding Jewish man, Mike Werber acted as if coming to the karate center was almost a little distasteful. He bent his head as he walked through the door, and smiled thinly at the other mothers and kids as he located his three children.
Ava had seen Mike around half a dozen times and never thought much of it. Like her own husband, Clark, Mike didn’t have the same emotional investment to the karate school, and seemed to act like coming here was something of an inconvenience.
But now her eyes were open to it, Ava did see a whole new level of interaction going on.
Firstly, the moment Mike walked in through the door, Mia was on edge.
Her shoulders hunched. She spoke more rapidly. She started scurrying around the karate center, engaging parents and kids in conversation, as if to demonstrate how productive she was being there in front of her husband.
And she steered clear of Brandon, as if there was a ten foot force-field around him.
And Brandon himself? He gave Mike a curt nod, and then barely said a word to him. But the moment Mia’s tall husband had his back turned, Brandon would scowl at him murderously.
Ava found herself smirking at how obvious it all was now, now that she knew what to look for. Mia and Brandon were obviously sleeping together; and doing so right under the nose of Mia’s seemingly oblivious husband.
What hadn’t been so obvious, however, was the effect it would have on Ava.
The moment it all clicked inside her head, she suddenly felt an emotional punch, right in her solar plexus. For some reason, it hurt knowing that Mia was sleeping with Brandon.
And she couldn’t figure out why.
I mean, hell, Ava didn’t have any claim to him. She was married, and while there had definitely been sparks between her and the handsome karate instructor, nothing had ever come of it – and wasn’t likely to, knowing what she did now.
But – and it took a fair amount of guts to admit this – she liked him. She was jealous.
Ava was younger, and prettier, and a hell of a lot nicer than Mia. The sight of Brandon’s sad, brown, puppy-dog eyes as he followed Mike’s wife around the room hurt because she knew he could do so much better.
And while ‘better’ might not mean her, Ava decided then and there that she was going to try and do something to help Brandon.
And if that put a wedge between him and Mia? More was the better.
Chapter Eighteen
Brandon
“I meant what I said, B.”
Mia was sitting on the corner of Brandon’s
office desk, like a prissy little pussycat. She was staring down at the ledger he was showing her – the one which ended the month’s take with a big, red figure of -$2,964.32.
“What with the Millers moving upstate next month, I’m going to be in the hole even more then,” Brandon tried to explain. “Not that it will matter. This place will be closed by then.”
“No fighting,” Mia growled – and when passing kids turned their heads and peered into the office to see what she was hissing about, she smiled sweetly and murmured: “I’d sooner see this place close than watch you up in the octagon.”
Brandon’s eyes narrowed. He leaned back in the leather chair, the wood creaking under his weight.
“Well, that’s what you’re gonna see,” he sneered.
Mia put on a smile.
“Come on, baby,” she squeezed his hand. “It’ll work out. You’re a smart, hard-working guy. If this place doesn’t last, I know you’ll come back with something even bigger, and better.”
But Brandon wasn’t convinced. He’d thrown everything into this karate center. If it closed, it wasn’t just the business that would close – he’d be broke.
No apartment. No job. No way of getting back into law school.
This place was his life. When he’d dropped out of law school to take this place over, he’d promised his parents he was going to make it work – that he’d fight to make it work.
And now he had the opportunity to literally do that – and Mia wasn’t letting him.
“Come on,” Mia reached over and tugged his hand. “I know what will make you feel better.”
Puzzled, Brandon let Mia pull him up out of his seat, and dragged him out into reception. Glancing around, to make sure that none of the kids or other students saw them, she dragged him down the corridor and shouldered open the door to the storage room.
“Mia?” Brandon asked. “What are you…”
Thump! Despite her small size, Mia successfully threw Brandon against the wall, and kicked shut the door to the storage room.
Then she dropped to her knees in front of him.
“This will take your mind off things, honey,” the housewife said, as she yanked down Brandon’s karategi pants. His cock was already swelling in size as she exposed it.
Brandon groaned, as he suddenly felt Mia’s slender fingers curl around his shaft.
He should have been mad at her. Her should have shut this whole thing down. But the moment Mia opened her mouth and engulfed the head of his stiffening cock, he knew he was powerless to resist her.
“Fuuuck,” flopping his head back against the wall, Brandon luxuriated in the feel of Mia’s lips and tongue on his straining cock.
“Mmmph,” Mia mumbled, and then pulled her mouth away, using her spit to slicken her hand as she stroked him. “Is this better, baby? Do you like this?”
All Brandon could do was groan.
Grinning, Mia opened her mouth and swallowed his cock once again.
It took a while – with her bobbing her head in his lap, and the sound of wet suction echoing around the little storage room. Brandon was distracted by the noise of the kids running up and down the corridor outside, and by the hard wall against his back.
But soon he felt a delicious tingling in his balls, and his breath quickened. As if sensing that, Mia opened her mouth wider, and bobbed her head faster in his lap.
“Oh, shit,” he groaned, sliding his fingers into Mia’s long, reddish hair. “Oh, God, here it comes…”
And then the moment his climax hit him, Mia pulled her mouth away, and jerked him off furiously with her hand.
Brandon’s knees buckled, and he groaned as he spurted wetly into her stroking palm. It wasn’t nearly as satisfying as her warm, wet, sucking mouth had been – but by then it was too late to stop, and he emptied himself into her hand.
And then, when he was finally drained, Mia let his sticky cock drop, and pulled some wet wipes from her pocket.
“There,” she grinned, wiping the cum from her fingers. “Feeling better now?”
And Brandon looked down at her quizzically.
On the one hand, of course he was feeling good. He’d just had his lover bring him to orgasm. His knees were still wobbly at the intensity of it all.
But as he’d increasingly begun to realize – there was something dissatisfying about it. Like the way Mia never climaxed when they made love, there was something coolly detached the way she pulled her mouth away the moment he was about to cum, and jerked him off into her hand instead.
The moments of physical intensity in which he wanted to be closest to Mia, she backed off. Perhaps it was irrational of him, but he couldn’t help but feel rejected by her – even as they were at their closest.
Oblivious to Brandon’s thoughts, Mia cleaned his softening cock with the wet wipes, and pulled up his gi pants.
“Come on, Bruiser,” she kissed him on the cheek. “You’ve got class in a minute.”
Drained and confused, Brandon followed her out of the storage room, letting the door click shut behind them.
Chapter Nineteen
Ava
“Mommy!” Lex screamed. “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!”
With a sigh, Ava picked up her son, and handed him the Joker action figure he was desperately searching for.
“Hun!” Clark called from the living room. “Have you seen my phone, hun?”
Ava was about to reply, when Harley came skidding into the kitchen without her pants on, screaming: “Mommy! I can’t find my karate gear!”
Ava stood there, Lex feeling like a weight of bricks in her arm, and slowly closed her eyes.
It didn’t make any difference.
“Mommy”
“Hun?”
“Mom? Mommy!”
With an exhausted sigh, Ava carried Lex through to the living room, dumped him unceremoniously on the couch, and tried to focus on all the demands the rest of her family were screaming at her.
“Hun! My phone?”
“On the sink in the bathroom,” Ava sighed.
“Mommy! Mommy! Where are…”
“In the tumble dryer,” she answered Harley’s question before she’d even finished answering it.
With an exhausted sigh, she looked up into the full-length mirror in the hallways. Staring back at her was – in Ava’s opinion, at least – a frumpy, overweight housewife with tangled, matted hair and dark rings under her eyes.
Normally she wouldn’t care – hadn’t cared for what seemed like years. This was just what motherhood resembled, right?
But in a few minutes, she was going to be taking the kids to karate – and that would mean seeing Brandon…
For once, she didn’t want to look like a schlubby wife who’d given up on life. Not in front of the young, handsome karate instructor.
“Mommy?”
“Mom?”
“Honey?”
“Guys!” Ava snapped, and her two kids and one husband (who practically ranked as a third kid, the way he was so needy) all fell into immediate silence. They weren’t used to Mommy snapping at them like that.
“I’m going to go and put some make-up on,” Ava growled, watching three astonished faces looking up at her. “I need to you guys to give me a few minutes.”
“Well, honey…” Clark started.
“That includes you,” Ava hissed. Her husband fell silent.
With the three of them in hushed astonishment, Ava padded into the bedroom, and pulled open her dresser drawer.
Makeup she hadn’t worn in six months rolled around in the drawer. A broken lip-liner. A smudged lipstick. Foundation powder that was mostly caked and solid.
Nevertheless, Ava took the time to use what she could of it – and when she looked up into the mirror, she was delighted to see somebody she hadn’t seen in a very long time.
Somebody pretty.
Buoyed by that realization, Ava decided to change outfits – removing her frumpy mom jeans and oversized t-shirt, and slipping into yoga pants and
a tight v-neck instead.
Okay, so she didn’t have the figure of a Victoria’s Secret model any more – but the tighter clothes emphasized her ripe and inviting rear end, her Bette Midler cleavage, and a waist that might not have been tiny, but was certainly the nexus of an impressive, hourglass figure.
A spritz of body spray and a few quick sweeps with her hairbrush completed the transformation. Looking in the mirror a second time, Ava was delighted at the result.
“Wow,” said Clark, nervously peering in through the doorway. “You look great.”
For a guy who normally never interacted with his wife unless he wanted something found, or cooked, that was high praise indeed.
“So you’re okay to come and pick up the kids at seven, right?” Ava asked, throwing her deodorant into her bag. “I want to take kickboxing tonight.”
Clark snorted and rolled his eyes, because picking up the kids and then having to put them bed was an inconvenience to him. But he’d been married to Ava long enough to know not to complain.
“Sure,” he pouted.
“Good,” Ava slung her bag over her shoulder. “Because God knows I need the break.”
Chapter Twenty
Brandon
A wave of depression hit Brandon not long after Mia had left the karate school.
She’d taken her kids off to a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese, and that left Brandon alone to run the last few classes of the day, wallowing in his misery.
His financial problems still loomed over him like a shadow, dominating his thoughts. It was not even five weeks before he was due to make the next round of rent payments – and the way things were going right now, he’d be even deeper in debt by then.
It would mean the end to his karate school; to his classes. It would mean goodbye to the students he loved, and to what he loved teaching them.
And as good as Mia’s surprise blowjob had been – well, up until she’d quit at the end, at least – it wasn’t enough to distract him from his very real problems.
What did help was working – doing what he loved to do. That evening, he taught two kids classes, and then had cardio kickboxing lined up to wrap up the day.
Bruiser: A Lonely Housewife Embarks on a Passionate Affair with an Alpha Male MMA Fighter Page 4