It was something Ethel had seen in a magazine she wasn’t supposed to have seen. She found it in one of her husband’s magazines. Of course, she wasn’t looking for it. He had left it out for his alpha colleagues, lying out in plain sight in the waiting room outside his office. He thought he was oh so clever doing that. There was no conceivable way a beta or an omega would know what they were looking at.
Ethel rolls her eyes and clutches the purse in her lap more tightly.
The model in the spread is a beta, of course. No omega would be caught dead tainting themselves with this sort of work. But the beta in question has a small build, delicate features. Omega-adjacent just like her Deborah, only blessed with a standard vagina and clitoris. Makes it easier for the alpha viewers to pretend they’re looking at something illicit.
Ethel’s lip curls. At least she could appreciate a beta’s beauty directly. While the alphas stressed themselves out over their stupid notions of purity, she was sure the beta staff who made this spread had a lovely time during and after the shoot.
The model in question is only wearing two things: a glittery gold bomber jacket and a matching pair of pumps. She leans casually against an end table, mid-laugh, her hair perfectly framing her face. The dark hair trailing down to her pussy is completely exposed, contrasted by perfectly shaped hips and long smooth legs.
She’s good at her job.
Ethel would like to study the magazine in more detail, but her husband has just stepped out of his office, and she wasn’t supposed to have seen the magazine at all.
There was a difference between the model and Ethel. There was her age first of all. And then there was—
Ethel sighs at her reflection. She had the long legs, certainly, but with this outfit there was no hiding the malformed bite scar on her right hip, no hiding the way the bone itself was malformed from where her husband’s teeth sank too far into it. She didn’t even know why she bothered. Not to mention her version of the outfit was brown with plain black pumps, not gold with sequins. There was absolutely nothing to distract from her deformity.
Well, her curiosity was sated, she supposed.
She reaches up to undo the zipper on her jacket and hears a noise of complaint. Her eyes dart back up to the mirror. Three familiar faces peek around the doorway. Deborah, Cynthia, and Russ, all watching her every movement like she’s a queen in her throne room.
Ethel sighs again and reluctantly zips up the jacket.
Her children’s faces brighten up. They rush into the room, gushing over her and offering up all sorts of praise that’s…They’re exaggerating, of course. It’s hardly true. They’d think differently if they saw the real thing.
A week or so later, the magazine appears in her house. Evidently, it was swiped by her little Cynthia after her latest visit to the office. Deborah, Cynthia, and Russ had annotated it in incredible detail, all while keeping it out of Timothy’s sight.
Ethel raises an eyebrow in admiration, then flips through to the familiar spread. There’s a single note, taped over the models face.
Mom did it better. —D
Cosigned. —C
Ditto. —R
Ethel blushes and closes the magazine.