The Boyfriend

by Abigail Barnette

“Of course!” What I really wanted to do was tackle him off the bench and fuck him right there on the floor with the ghost of Casanova probably critiquing our form, but I could do that after he played his composition for me.

  He smiled and turned back to the keys. He hesitated, then faced me again. “And if you don’t like it...don’t tell me. It would break my heart.”

  I laughed. “Now how can I tell you that I like it without it sounding disingenuous?”

  “You can’t. That’s why I said it. I can’t abide genuine praise.” He glanced down at the placement of his hands, took a breath, and began to play.

  Every time I’d ever seen someone play a song for their lover in a movie or on TV, I’d rolled my eyes. Strenuously. It seemed like it would be the most uncomfortable thing in the world, to sit there, alone, not sure what face one should make so one didn’t look like one was having an adverse reaction. No matter how romantic an actor or writer managed to make a scene, I always cringed. Not even Edward Cullen had been able to make the scenario work for me.

  It worked for me, now. El-Mudad didn’t try to gauge my reaction at all, keeping his eyes firmly trained on his hands. His fingers moved effortlessly, coaxing the sweetest melody from the keys. It wasn’t a sad song, or bittersweet as I’d thought romantic gestures of this nature were supposed to be. It was happy and mellow, and if I closed my eyes, I could imagine the windswept beach in front of our house and the smell of the salt on the air. It was lovely and poetic and, despite my initial fears, over too soon.

  I didn’t realize I was crying until a tear hit the back of my hand. I wiped my eyes and laughed. “Wow. You even put Edward Cullen to shame.”

  “I don’t know who that is,” he said doubtfully.

  “From Twilight. Super hot vampire guy?” My heart had entirely melted over him when I’d been in high school.

  “Ah. My daughters were too young. They missed that craze the first time around and are deeply critical of it now.” He looked down. It was the first time I’d ever seen him actually appear self-conscious, that I could recall. “I hope that means you liked it.”

  “I did,” I hurried to assure him. “That was... I mean...nobody has ever cared about me enough to express it in instrumentation.”

  He chuckled a little at that. “I’m sure that if Neil weren’t tone deaf, he would have composed you something by now.”

  My heart pitched at that. “I-I wasn’t...” I searched for the word and landed on one that didn’t convey my meaning fully, frustrating me. “I wasn’t criticizing him. I hope you know that.”

  “I know that.” He turned sideways on the bench. “Sophie, I know that you love Neil. We both love him.”

  “I’m being silly.” I looked down at my hands in my lap. “Of course you know. I just don’t ever want either of you to think that I love one of you more and one of you less.”

  “I don’t think that all. I think that we’re all in different stages of love, together.”

  “How so?”

  He thought for a moment, rubbing his hand over his chin. “You and Neil have been together far longer than the three of us have been. You were living with him when we first met. So your love is...settled. Comfortable.”

  “Thanks, you make it sound so exciting,” I said with a derisive snort.

  “I’m not implying that your relationship with Neil is lacking,” he explained evenly. “Just that it’s different. You have a history that you’ve built, and that you continue to build with him. But our story is only just beginning.”

  “When you put it that way, it makes more sense. Before, it sounded like we were using you to spice up our dull marriage,” I joked.

  He grinned. “Your marriage is anything but dull. In fact...”

  Standing, he offered me his hand. When I took it, he pulled me to my feet and before I could protest, hefted me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

  “I think I’m the one who should be more exciting,” he finished as I laughed and wriggled and he carried me from the hall. He had the good sense to set me on my feet when we got to the stairs. I raced ahead of him, laughing breathlessly.

  “You won’t get away that easily,” he called up after me. “Is that what I’m supposed to say?”

  “You can say anything you want. I’m getting in the tub!” The bathroom wasn’t exactly to my tastes—any place that didn’t have my favorite claw-foot tub was severely lacking—but it had a fantastic jacuzzi, big enough for two. Gold marble steps surrounded it on all sides, and I sat on the top one as I turned on the taps.

  “I thought we were going to have sex,” El-Mudad said from the bedroom, raising his voice to be heard over the running water.

  “Nobody said we weren’t.” I loved having sex in water, but my “too-tall” husband had drawn the line at bathtubs the time he cut his foot on the faucet.

  El-Mudad had also made his views about water sex known but in a much less dramatic and bloody way. With a heavy sigh, he replied, “I’ll bring the silicone lube, then?”

  “Yes, please.” I wriggled out of my jeans, and my phone clattered onto the floor. I picked it up and grinned. “Hey, I have a great idea!”

  El-Mudad walked in, already naked, and set the pump bottle of lube on the side of the tub. “I’m almost afraid to ask.”

  “We should record this. So, Neil can see what he missed.” I got a perverse thrill from the thought of teasing him with footage of me with another man, even if that other man was our boyfriend. No matter how much Neil loved El-Mudad, he still very much had a jealous streak in him that he liked to indulge.

  El-Mudad grinned. “I think we should. And I think that when we get home, we should watch it with him.”

  “Maybe lightly tied down?” I mused. Neil would probably never be over his fear of submission, but he’d gotten more comfortable with playful bondage. “Some denial?”

  “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to really torment him that way?” El-Mudad laughed. “He likes to say he’s a patient man, but that patience is fully on his own terms.”

  Talking about him just made me miss him more. I tested the water and went to El-Mudad. “So, where do you think we should put the phone?”

  He reached down and took the hem of my sweater, slowly rolling it up in his hands. “What about on the towel shelf? I think that would be a fine angle.”

  I considered what would be the most flattering for me. “Yeah. Might not be high enough to hide my double chin—“

  He made an impatient noise. “You do not have a double chin. And if you did, why would you need to hide it? How do you still not understand that we want you?”

  “Maybe not having a milestone birthday while dealing with a fairly new chronic illness would help.” I shook my head. “I know that you’re both trying. And I know that you think this is me doubting the two of you. But I’m not. I’m doubting myself. It’s just easier to project those doubts onto you.”

  “Well...don’t. I don’t like to have someone else making up my mind for me.” He pulled my shirt over my head, leaving me in my black t-shirt bra. He pulled that down to free my breasts and bent his head to take a nipple into his mouth. I squirmed on my feet. His hand steadied me at the small of my back, while the other one squeezed my ass through my panties.

  “Do you think I’m settling for you?” he murmured against my skin. “Do you think I don’t enjoy you?”

  “I think...” I breathed, combing my fingers through his hair. “That this is an unfair way to have this conversation.”

  “Actions speak louder than words, my love. I’m showing you right now how much I want you. How much I worship you. When Neil sees the recording, I’ll be showing him, too. And he’ll feel the same way.” The hand at my back dipped inside my panties to clutch my ass. El-Mudad lifted his head to look me in the eyes. “So, why don’t you set up the phone, get in the tub, and let me fuck you until your legs can’t hold you up anymore.”

  “Ooh, oui, Monsieur,” I said playfully, though I doubted we would be
playing our roles tonight. “We better not waste any time. Don’t want to miss the fireworks.”

  My own words reminded me of that night in Reykjavik, when Neil had proposed, and we’d watched the New Year’s Eve fireworks while fucking against the full-length windows in his ultra-modern house there. It made me miss him more than I’d expected. We’d spent every New Year’s Eve together since our very first one in Paris, only a few months after we’d started dating. When El-Mudad and I had set off on this trip, I hadn’t made the connection that this would be the first one where Neil and I were apart. Tears of homesickness for him filled my eyes, and I blinked them away.

  Nothing ruined the mood like the wrong kind of crying.

  Besides, if Neil were here, I reasoned with myself, we wouldn’t have a chance to film our amateur porno and show him later. Anticipating his reaction made it all worth it.

  El-Mudad went to retrieve our robes from the hooks on the wall, and I positioned my phone—in selfie mode so I could keep an eye on the angle—and propped it against some towels, praying it wouldn’t fall in or face-down on the marble tile. Of course, I’d dropped it about a hundred times already. Neil was always bitching about me having to buy new ones.

  “Be careful,” El-Mudad warned with a laugh. “If you break it, you’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “Plus, we’ll lose our video.” Which was really the most critical part of the equation at the moment.

  I took off the rest of my clothes and went to the vanity to grab a ponytail holder; wet hair was not a great look on me. At least, not one I’d want to preserve on film. I pulled together a high ponytail and slipped into the water to join El-Mudad, who had already eased himself in.

  He grimaced. “How can you stand this? It’s like I’m being boiled alive.”

  “You like hot tubs,” I reminded him. “You love them!”

  “I have never been in a hot tub this hot. I’m sweating already.” He shook his head. “Why are women like this?”

  “Some women aren’t. Hot baths give you varicose veins, so I know a lot of women who deny themselves the pleasure.” I tossed my head loftily at my proclamation, as if I hadn’t been obsessing over the vein in my thigh for months. “I refuse to sacrifice comfort for beauty.”

  “In this,” El-Mudad corrected me. “I’ve seen your shoe collection. You’re lying if you say any of those are comfortable.”

  He had a point. Mom had been warning me for a while that I would need a knee replacement by the time I was forty if I didn’t stop wearing six-inch stilettos all the time.

  The tub was amazingly deep. The surface of the water lapped around my thighs as I reached up to hit record on the camera. “Are you ready?”

  El-Mudad waved his hand. “In your own time.”

  I tapped the screen and waited to make sure it was rolling before I lowered myself into the water and settled against El-Mudad, lying between his legs.

  “Are we recording?” he double-checked.

  “We are.”

  He raised his voice to be heard over the sound of the tub jets, and his voice echoed a little off the marble. “Hello, Neil! Sophie thought it would be a good idea to show you what you missed in Venice.”

  “Yeah. I figured you’ve seen all the sights before, so there was no sense in making you a slideshow. This will be a little more interesting,” I darted my tongue out like the brat I was.

  El-Mudad reached beneath my arms to cup my breasts, his wet thumbs circling my nipples. “We know how much you love watching me enjoy Sophie. Now I have her all to myself.”

  Oh, that was good. Preying on Neil’s jealousy would turn this into a fetish video for him.

  I moaned. It was a little exaggerated, but El-Mudad’s hands on me felt really, really good, so it wasn’t like I was faking.

  “I think I’ll spank her,” he said into the camera. The talking directly about me while I was right there turned me way, way on. “What do you say, Sophie?”

  “Yes, please!” I clapped my hands.

  “Stand up. Show him that beautiful ass.”

  I did have a great ass. It was maybe the one body part I wasn’t critical of.

  Standing, I turned to face El-Mudad. He wasted no time, gripping my butt to pull me forward. He slapped both hands across my wet skin, hard, and I jumped with a yelp. Wet skin always hurt more.

  “Look at that, Sophie.” He told me, nodding over my shoulder. I looked behind me. The view on the phone screen would be incredible for Neil, and the shine of the water off my skin was incredible in the light of the overhead sunlamp.

  “If only you were here,” El-Mudad continued to Neil, his fingers dipping between my cheeks. “It would be so fun to fuck her tight ass while you choked her on your cock.”

  My thighs trembled at the image he painted with his dirty talk.

  “Would you like that, Sophie?” he asked, gliding his fingertips up, then down again to really reach my pussy.

  “I would,” I agreed, then sighed in dramatic disappointment. “But he decided on a sexless weekend in the woods.”

  El-Mudad pulled me forward so that my breasts were level with his mouth. His erection bobbed between us, so hard I was tempted to climb into his lap immediately. Sucking my nipple into his mouth, he alternated soft bites with gentle taps of his tongue. His hand lifted from my ass to scoop up more water to splash my lower back. It ran down, freshly wetting me for another spanking, this one so hard the sound rang off the marble walls.

  I gasped and used my hands on his shoulders to steady myself. He repeated the careful application of water and burning slap again, and my nails dug into his skin.

  He lifted his head and met my eyes. “I want to leave marks. May I?”

  I considered. “Well...since we don’t have to fly home tomorrow.”

  He grinned and spanked me again, but this time, it wasn’t just one. It was over and over and over, concentrated in one spot. I squeezed my eyes shut and cried out at the pain, and he implored gently, “Look at me. I want to look into your eyes while you feel it.”

  It was difficult for me to hold his gaze when I so associated spanking with dominance and submission. Usually, I wasn’t allowed to make eye contact during those times, unless I was being ordered to look at myself in a mirror. The pain of his next slap took my breath away, and tears formed, but I stared down at him, even when I flinched and cried out from the burning in my flesh. My cunt clenched with every new strike, my clit pulsed with the intensity of the intimacy between us. The insides of my thighs were wet, but not from the churning water.

  He rubbed his palms over my stinging, bruised ass before lifting his arm and spanking me harder, faster, never bothering to move his strikes until he switched to the other side. And then he let me wait for a long, agonizing moment. The corners of his eyes lifted as he smiled.

  It took just one more hard strike, and I tumbled over the edge of a small climax, still gazing deeply into his warm brown eyes.

  “I think that’s enough for now,” he said with a grin. Releasing me, he pulled himself up to sit on the edge of the tub. He patted his thighs, and I eagerly moved to climb onto his cock.

  He laughed. “No. Turn the other way. Show him your pussy.”

  I sat on El-Mudad’s lap—and not his dick like I’d hoped—and spread my legs a little.

  “No, more than that. Look, he can barely see anything at all,” he told me, indicating the screen. I leaned back on him. Then I planted my feet on the edge of the tub and opened my legs wide.

  “Much better,” he said, sliding a hand down my chest as I looked away from the phone and reminded myself that anyone alive would have rolls in the position I was in.

  I didn’t stay self-conscious for long. I reached between my legs and spread myself with two fingers. My clit, already pulsing from the hands-free orgasm I’d experienced, jumped as the cool air touched it.

  El-Mudad rubbed the flat of his hand roughly down my vulva then pushed two fingers inside of me. I clenched on them and let my head
loll back on his shoulder. He pumped those fingers, and I swore I could hear my own wetness over the sound of the jacuzzi jets.

  He withdrew his hand and brought his fingers to my mouth, slicking my juices over my lower lip like gloss. My tongue darted out to catch him, and he let me suck his fingers clean. “Move your hands,” he warned, and when I did, he landed a stinging slap directly to my vulva.

  “Motherfucker!” I sat straight up, cursing. He spanked way, way harder than Neil usually did, and while the pain wasn’t unwelcome, it had definitely been unexpected. “I didn’t realize we were playing like that tonight.”

  He soothed the burning away with a slow, gentle rub, sliding one fingertip between my labia to brush over my clit, almost as though it were an accidental contact. “We’re not. Forgive me, I didn’t realize that was only for those times.”

  “It’s not!” I said quickly. “It’s not. You didn’t hear me say I didn’t like it, did you?”

  He answered with another smack. I widened my legs to invite another, arching toward his hand as it fell. Like Neil, he didn’t overdo it in that area. I got six slaps before he planted his hands around my waist, lifted me up, and aligned my cunt with his cock. I sank down on him, my sore, already bruising body opening eagerly for him.

  El-Mudad groaned beside my ear and flexed inside of me. His hardness and the angle of penetration put strange pressure on my pelvic bones. I ground down, trying to take him deeper, as though I could draw him in entirely.

  “You’re so tight,” he murmured, his teeth grazing my shoulder.

  “It’s called swelling,” I snarked at him. If we had been indulging in an actual scene, that answer would either have never passed my lips, or it would have earned me a hard slap across the face from Neil. El-Mudad didn’t like doing that, and we weren’t playing submission games at the moment, but he did give me a soft little bite on the neck and a growl. I giggled and twisted my head away from him.

  “I can’t really...” he made a frustrated noise. “I can’t fuck you properly in this position. How do porn stars make it look so easy?”

  “It’s their job,” I reminded him, trying to lift up a little on legs that already felt gelatinous. “They’re frickin’ athletes.”