by Ben Boswell
My mom, as usual, was delighted to get the kids for the weekend. Terri and I traveled on the same plane down to Florida, though we planned to sit apart just in case anyone on board happened to be going to the same resort. It seemed a strange precaution, but Avi was apparently still laboring under the impression that Terri was single. Again that struck me as dicey – dishonest at least and maybe a little cruel. She was leading him on, and he clearly wanted more than the roll in the hay she’d already offered him. On the other hand, there was a limit to how much sympathy I could feel for a man who would, likely that very evening, be burying his cock in my wife.
We drove together to the airport, but then separated. I dropped her off at the terminal and then went back to park the car. At the gate, I kept my distance. Terri, looking ready for Florida in a flowered sundress and cork-heeled sandals and single without her rings, had attracted the attention of a well-built, young Latino man. Expensively attired, he gave off a vibe that was equal parts scion to real estate fortune and up-and-coming drug lord. Confident and a little dangerous, and very much Terri’s type.
I mused darkly that were this an overnight flight, he’d have a better than even shot at inducting my wife into the mile-high club. Even with the handicap of daylight, I wouldn’t rule it out. It would be simple enough for her to duck into the toilet after him and casually impale herself on his long, thick cock.
I shook my head to banish the vision, but it remained there, like an afterimage burned into my memory. Did I really think my wife could so easily be seduced? That she was so consumed with lust that she’d go in for a quickie, even with her husband just yards away and already on a voyage planned for her to consummate her relationship with yet another man?
The answer, of course, was yes. The image was so powerful precisely because it was so absolutely, completely, undeniably plausible. But why? What had gotten into her?
Despite all the navel-gazing I’d done about the situation, I still just didn’t know. I knew… or at least I thought I knew that if she had any inkling what was in my mind that she would do it. If she knew I was already imagining it, she would immediately follow through on the attraction. But why? Because my thoughts would give her permission to pursue her own desires? Or because she liked to play with my emotions? Or because she just liked cock that much?
Indeed, what was this whole trip about? Whose fantasies were we really feeding?
I had a sense, deep in my gut, and powerful as a result, that Terri didn’t mean to hurt me. That somehow, in some way, in her mind this was all about us. At the same time, I couldn’t shake the sensation that things were spiraling, and that regardless of intentions, or perhaps rationalizations, the situation was now out of control and dangerous. The danger wasn’t the sex. The danger was the possibility that the sex would, at some point, no longer be enough.
They began boarding, and immediately Terri approached the gate. Avi had bought her a seat in first class. My heart sank when I noticed that her new friend stood as well. They walked together to the gate, chatting. She was smiling, looking radiant, only a quick glance in my direction providing a hint that she even remembered I was there.
I looked down at my boarding pass. I was in Group 5, peon class. I grumbled to myself about the way more and more reminders of class distinction seemed to be working their way into our society. Then I checked myself. My annoyance was less with the privileges of the one-percent, than with the fact that this particular one-percenter was getting close to my wife.
I looked around at my fellow plebs still awaiting our call to board. Short. Fat. Blotchy. Pale. A roller bag missing a wheel. Greasy hair. Peering at older cell phones in tacky cases. Earbud dangling and twisted. Smudged glasses. Khakis and sneakers. Anxious. Annoyed. An overstuffed computer bag. Just shabby. But these were my people. I was a little more put together, but even still, I was… average. Always had been. Always would be.
But Terri… she wasn’t. And I know, part of it is that I always put her on a pedestal. How could I not? She was… is… just perfect. Forget her looks. Okay, impossible to do. But, okay, let’s look past it. Her quirky sense of humor. Her quickness of mind. A great mother. And then, okay, let’s talk about it. A genetic freak. Two kids and the body of a supermodel. Those breasts. That hair. Those eyes. Just intoxicating.
She is so fucking out of my league. How many times had I thought that? A million times. And even when I wasn’t thinking it, it was always… always there. Even if I almost never said it aloud, it was omnipresent. And it wasn’t just looks. She was a sexual animal, and I was… blah. Even if I didn’t have my weird experience with April to hold me back, I’d still never be the kind of lover she craved. I didn’t have it in me.
They called my zone. I picked up my carry-on and headed toward the gate. There was a back-up on the jetway. I shuffled my way forward, stopping and starting. And then onto the plane. The flight attendant, mid-50s, a blond bob, a rictus smile. “Welcome aboard.” Get in your seat, peasant. I turned into the aisle.
Terri shot me a quick glance. Her lips curled into a small grin. Obvious to me. Surely invisible to her handsome Latin seat-mate. She waited until she was sure I was watching before she broke into a big laugh, her long fingers curling around his tanned, muscular forearm.
The woman behind me urged me forward. Terri broke her gaze with me and turned toward her new man. I slipped past her, forcing myself to keep my eyes forward instead of watching her with him.
I settled into my seat. Okay, not “settled.” That implies some sort of acceptance that I didn’t feel. Instead, I had this constant feeling of insecurity.
Here was the situation: My wife was on her way to a weekend with a potential lover. She was seated beside a potential lover. She had yet another lover waiting for her back home. For all I knew, Mike was still lurking.
I was… one of five. I wasn’t as kinky as Mike. I wasn’t as hung as Brian. I wasn’t as successful as Avi. I wasn’t as dangerously sexy as her current seat-mate. What was I? And whatever I was, why was Terri still with me? I was safe. I was convenient. I was, I guess, until recently, reliable.
She was so fucking far out of my league….
I didn’t have any answers. Objectively… well, fuck that. No one who saw us would think we were a match. Surely that explained why men felt so comfortable making a pass at her even when I was there. Terri and I… it always seemed unnatural, like she wasn’t settling down, she was just….settling.
And yet… Terri was a smart, passionate, terribly-independent woman. Even I had trouble seeing that sometimes. I mean, even I could sometimes have difficulty seeing the sum of her parts. Sometimes she was my soul-mate, my life-partner. Sometimes she was this crazy, porn-star-style sex symbol. Sometimes…. Well, whatever. She wasn’t any one of those things. She was all of them. All at once. All together. All indivisible.
A hard landing. Thud. Bounce. Slam. And we were down. The aisle filled immediately with sweaty, cranky people all just desperate to get out of that plane and into the Florida sun. I craned my neck to search for my wife. I caught glimpses of her, still smiling and laughing with the handsome Latin guy.
They walked off the plane together, and I anxiously awaited my opportunity to follow after them. By the time I got out, they were gone, but an airport being an airport, I knew if I hurried I could catch up to them.
I was in such a rush that I actually almost ran right into them. They had stopped short of the baggage claim and were talking very animatedly. I didn’t need to hear them to know what they were discussing. He was trying to talk her into going somewhere with him. She was trying to back out gracefully since she already had a man waiting for her, although from the way her gaze shifted from the exit back to his grinning face, I could see that she was conflicted.
She peered over his shoulder and spotted me. She gave me a quick eye roll. Can you believe this? she seemed to be saying. I shook my head in disbelief and she seemed to chuckle.
She returned her attention to her seat mate. I
read her lips.
I can’t.
More talk from him. She shook her head.
Call me.
He hesitated and then nodded. He took out his phone and entered her number, or at least a number. She smiled and then leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. He ran his hand over her upper arm. She turned and went into the bathroom. He waited for a moment and then with a surprisingly jaunty grin exited toward the baggage claim.
Once he was gone, she reappeared. She’d obvious just ducked away to give him a chance to leave. She looked over at me. I began to walk toward her, but she gave me a quick head shake, followed by a glance toward the exit doors.
I nodded and looked away. She didn’t want to be seen with me. I got it. It would have messed up the plan. But it still hurt.
She took a deep breath and then headed toward the exit herself. I waited a moment and followed after her.
I knew she’d be meeting Avi, so I steeled myself to the sight of my wife being swept up in her lover’s arms – well, intended-lover, at least. So I was surprised when she suddenly stopped short. Not only me, actually. A fat guy in a tent-sized printed tee who had been following her with his eyes glued to her ass almost ran into her, although he managed to shift his bulk at the last second to avoid a collision.
I looked up and tried to follow her gaze. It took me a moment, but then I realized why she’d stopped. Up ahead, wearing white, linen slacks and a sky-blue polo was Avi, looking even more handsome than in his professional headshots, and standing next to him was… the Latin guy from the plane.
They were both smiling and began laughing at what must have been Terri’s look of shock. She slowly approached them, head cocked to the side in puzzlement. She warily stopped a few paces away. I edged closer, phone out, pretending to be engrossed in it even as I focused all my attention on trying to hear what they were saying.
“You know each other?” she asked.
Avi held out his hands, palms up. “I thought you might hit it off.”
She hesitated as both men observed her closely.
“You set it up?” She asked, although her tone was flat, more of a statement than a question. Then she nodded to herself. “Of course, you got the tickets and got Manny and me seats next to each other.”
Avi nodded.
She chuckled. “I gave him my number,” she admitted, “but didn’t agree to anything else. So did I pass or fail?”
Now it was Avi’s turn to look puzzled.
She stepped in closer, so that she and Avi were now face-to-face with Manny to the side. A small movement, but it recast the triangle to make him the outsider.
“You were testing me,” Terri said. “You wanted to see just how big a slut I am before, um, getting intimate.”
Avi shook his head. “No, no.”
“It would have been easier just to ask me to get tested if you were worried about catching anything.”
Avi looked mortified. “No, Terri, it’s nothing like that.”
She stepped back, once again restructuring the interaction, eyeing Avi and Manny suspiciously. Avi reached out her for her hand, but she pulled it away before he could grasp it.
“Start talking then,” she challenged.
“I… It’s….” Avi stammered as he turned a deep red. At the same time, Manny grinned broadly.
I had no idea what was going on. But then, suddenly, Terri covered her mouth and laughed. She started to turn her head toward me, but caught herself in time. Squaring up again, she shook her head at Avi.
“You can’t be serious,” she said, amused.
He turned an even darker shade of crimson, and while staring down at his feet, he mumbled, “I was hoping you’d hit it off.”
“This wasn’t part of the plan,” she said.
Avi looked at her expectantly.
She giggled and from beneath her eyelashes gave me a quick glance. Straightening up, she turned her gaze to Manny. “Men are crazy.”
Manny shrugged. Terri laughed again and then stepped forward, elbowing her way between the two men. She handed her roller bag to Avi, and then linked arms with one man on each side.
“So are you driving Avi?”
“I have a limo waiting,” he replied.
“Better yet,” she said as they began moving toward the exit. “I guess you’ll get to see first hand how well Manny and I hit it off.”
I followed after them and watched as a black-suited driver opened the door to a stretch limo. Terri, Avi, and Manny piled into the back. Her dress had ridden up to expose her long, smooth legs, and the last thing I saw before the door slammed shut was Manny’s large, tanned hand cupping my wife’s creamy thigh.
***
I didn’t have a limo. I had to wait in line for a cab. The air was hot and humid, tinged with the scent of gasoline, and the misery of it was not at all diminished by the sight of a handful of sad, spotty palms growing out of concrete dividers between car lanes.
Then again, I was pretty sure that even a coral blue sea and a long expanse of white sand would have done little to improve my mood.
What the fuck was going on? Avi was playing some sort of game…. Or at least that was what Terri wanted me to think. I wondered how much of that scene at the airport had been scripted. Sure, she seemed surprised, and yet… it all seemed too fanciful to be anything other than some sort of game. But what game?
The line slowly wound forward. I shuffled forward robotically. Locked in. Lacking any real urgency. When the person ahead of me advanced, so did I. When they stopped, I did as well.
It was, I realized, how I’d been feeling for a long time with Terri as well. Out of control. Reactive. Passive even.
I finally got into a cab. A torn seat. Sputtering A/C. Salsa beat on the radio. We drove to the resort.
It was a ritzy hotel. Expensive. Even without an ocean view, the price was eye popping. I hesitated before entering. I didn’t want to run right into Terri and her… men. Not that I needed to worry. They weren’t in the lobby, and I realized they probably had benefited from some sort of VIP check-in.
I got to my room and managed to beat back the urge to just sit in the dark by myself. Instead I changed into a swimsuit and a short-sleeved shirt and made my way to the pool.
It was a trendy crowd. Women in tiny bikinis and oversized sunglasses. The men coming in two types – overstuffed and wearing their wealth on their sleeves or ripped, with six-packs and bulging biceps. Most women were accompanied by one or the other, though it occurred to me that Terri currently had one of each. That was just conjecture though because she wasn’t there. I could only imagine where she was and what she was doing….
Except, I found I actually didn’t really want to.
I ordered a frozen margarita and took a deep draw on the oversized straw. Cold, tangy, and a head-rush: equal parts brain-freeze and alcohol jolt. I slurped it down and ordered a second.
My gaze kept being drawn to movement around the pool. Both hoping and dreading to see Terri. And then realizing dread in both senses – dread of seeing her with someone else. Dread of not seeing her and imagining what she was up to wherever she was.
In any case, I didn’t see her. Not that afternoon and evening. I passed it drinking at the bar, periodically jumping in the pool to clear my head.
The booze and my discombobulation about my wife conspired to put me into an odd mood. Dark. More than a little misogynistic.
The blonde popping out of her swimsuit accompanied by a hairy man twice her age. Whore. The pert little brunette showing off her killer ass in a Brazilian cut bikini. Slut. A slightly older woman, early forties, with expensive jewelry and puffy lips. Cocksucking tramp. Latin girl with a red rose tattoo over her asscrack. She takes it up the ass.
I stopped when I realized I was muttering under my breath instead of just thinking those thoughts, like Nicholas Cage at the beginning of Leaving Las Vegas. Embarrassed, I slunk away to my room, unsteady, already rueing my forthcoming hangover.
I dropped onto th
e bed. The room began to spin. My phone buzzed. A text from my wife.
[Terri]: Have I got a story for you…. I’ll slip away tomorrow morning. What room are you in?
I tried to respond. Something snarky. Glad you remembered I’m alive. But I was too hammered, my fingers so thick and awkward that autocorrect was overwhelmed, making things even worse. Finally I gave up. I texted my room number. That’s the last thing I remembered.
***
Pounding. I know it is a cliché, but honestly I was so fuzzy that it took me a second to realize it was knocking on my door. My curtains were framed with a thin line of sunshine. Morning.
I opened the door. Terri pranced in.
“You look like shit,” she noted.
“You look great,” I replied.
She peeked at herself in the mirror. “Not bad on virtually no sleep, huh?”
“Yeah, you’re a slut savant…. I’m sorry.”
She laughed. “I actually like it when you say things like that.”
“Why?”
“Figure it out.”
I couldn’t.
She spun around. “Like my outfit?”
She was wearing a minimalist, white bikini. Just tiny strips of strategically placed fabric held together by strings barely thicker than fishing line. Her knit-mesh “cover-up” covered up virtually nothing either. Nipples poking through her top, ass hanging out. She was obscene.
“They let you walk around in that?”
“They’d probably frown on it by the family pool. But in the VIP section, I think anything goes. It certainly did last night.”
That explained why I hadn’t seen her and her boy toys.
“Speaking of which.” She reached into her purse and handed me a room key.
I held it up.
“That’ll get you into the Platinum Club area. And also the villa later tonight. Number 3.”
“Huh?”
“Since you’re here, I thought you might want to watch. I wish you could have been there last night.”
“Memorable?”
She laughed. “You could say that. Manny’s a pro.”