by Jewel Geffen
“Victoria,” he said, his eyes catching mine, as he reached out to take my hand in his own, “don't sell yourself short.”
“T-thank you,” I stammered. What was wrong with me? I've always prided myself on being an independent and sensible woman, and here I was acting like some smitten schoolgirl! What was it about him that had this effect on me?
I looked down at his hand holding mine, his black fingers entwined with my white ones. My golden wedding band gleamed on my finger. He brushed his thumb over the smooth surface, and he cocked a wicked eyebrow in my direction.
“I'll get the dishes,” Jason said, and I'll confess that I'd actually forgotten he was there for a moment.
“T-thank you honey,” I managed.
“Yes, Mr. Thomas,” he said, “much obliged.”
“No problem,” he said, and gathered our plates.
“Perhaps now we might discuss... certain other matters,” Antoine said, his deep smooth voice seductive and intoxicating.
“I... I just need a moment,” I said, “to freshen up.”
“Of course,” he gave my hand a light squeeze, “I'll be here.”
I walked in a daze to the bathroom. Jason and I had shared a glance as I passed the kitchen. He'd given me a nod, and in that nod there were contained multitudes.
And now here I am, putting on my makeup in the mirror and trying to stretch out this moment until I feel steady enough to face what awaits me in the other room, trying to exert some manner of control over myself.
I can't let him see how fully in his power I feel myself to be. If he asks it of me, I think I'll do just about anything. He can't know how completely he had mastered me.
But of course he must know already. He proclaims it with every fiber of his being. He knows that he's in control. I belong to him, and my body will not let me fool myself into thinking otherwise.
I'm so wet now that's gone beyond what my panties can contain. I feel a little wet drop rolling down the inside of my thigh, and I clamp my legs shut to try and suppress it. I'm slippery as butter down there, aching with need.
I want him to fuck me again more than I can stand.
I take a deep breath and stare at myself in the mirror. “What are you doing, Vicky?” I ask myself once more, then I slip on the lacy negligee I'd planned to use to seduce Jason this week. I no longer care, however, about seducing Jason. We've gone beyond that.
I want Antoine to fuck me again, and I don't care what I have to do to make it happen. I want my husband to watch, want to make him so hard that he couldn't stand it. And I want it to happen tonight.
I cup my breasts in my hands and try to steady myself. I can see the pink nipples in the mirror through the black lace. My lipstick pops on my mouth, violent red. I am ready.
I shut my eyes. Don't lose control, I tell myself, and I open the door.
Chapter Two
Antoine is crouched on the shaggy rug in front of the fireplace when I come out, a merry blaze burning. His hands are outstretched to the fire as he warmed himself before the glow. Jason sits back on the couch, a sports magazine folded open on his lap.
When they hear the door shut behind me they turn and, both together, they stop and stare. I feel a pleasant blush rise on my cheeks. I know I'm a good-looking woman, but it's still nice to turn heads. This is the effect I'd hoped for: both of them gobsmacked and ready to wrap around my finger.
It had always been easy enough with Jason. He's gaping at me now with his jaw hanging open, moving the magazine subtlety to cover the little bulge in his pants. Antoine represents a greater challenge. As far as I can tell, he's completely unflappable. Nothing I've ever done had seemed to faze him much. And, at the same time, practically any attention he turned my way reduced me to a quivering puddle.
It wasn't fair! I'm going to take control of the situation, though, I promise.
For the entirety of our marriage, I've been the one wearing the pants. Jason knew it, and he hadn't ever done much to push back against it. I've gotten used to having my own way. Now here comes Antoine Moreau, thinking he could make me into his little sextoy.
Well... he's got another thing coming, that's for sure. He might be rich, he might be powerful, he might even be the sexiest man I've ever met – much less slept with – but he's still a man, and he'll eventually bow to my feminine wiles.
“You look incredible, hon,” Jason says, his voice low and filled with aroused wonderment.
“Thank you,” I reply, affecting humility and fluttering my eyelashes playfully as I slink seductively across the room to drape myself over the back of the couch, a coy half-smile on my lips.
“Very beautiful,” Antoine agrees, though it seemed almost as if he is amused by something.
I feel suddenly like a little girl playing dress up, and I can't help but be annoyed by it. How is it that he's so effortlessly able to make me feel like I'm completely in his power? Just with a look or a word?
“So then,” I say, leaning over the edge of the sofa in a way that pressed my c-cup breasts up, “let's talk about our arrangement.”
“Indeed,” he says coolly, still seated by the fire.
“You want to paint me.”
“I do. Very much. How long is vacation here?”
“Two weeks,” Jason says, “another ten days or so.”
“That's more than enough time,” he says, nodding slightly as if calculating something in his head. “I'll need you for... three days. That should be enough time to complete the details I need. I'll take reference photos and complete the portrait in my own time after that, but I need you to pose for me while I complete the general structure and paint the details of the face.”
“What kind of pose were you hoping for?” I ask, my tongue running slowly over my lower lip. God, all I can think about is sucking his cock. That's not normal, is it?
“I think we'll just let it come about... organically. In the moment, you understand.”
“Alright,” I say, “so... what is there to discuss?”
“I want to fuck you again,” he says.
Jason splutters on the glass of water he'd just lifted to his lips, coughing and hacking as he tries to get back in control of himself. Meanwhile Antoine and I are locked together, his eyes glued to mine and mine to his.
“Well... I promised you a painting,” I say, coming slowly around the sofa, trailing my fingertips across the top of the cushions as I make my way slowly closer to him, “I don't remember saying anything about a repeat performance.”
He looks down, a knowing smile on his face, and he shakes his head a little. “You think you're fooling me with that, Victoria? I know you better.”
I laugh, but it's forced. “Oh, do you now?”
“I do. You want to think you're in control here, but you're not and you know it. That scares you, because you're used to being in control. You think it's something you need.”
“Is that so?” I say, trying to project a sort of bemused detachment and falling woefully short. My voice shakes a little as I speak.
“You don't need it, Victoria. What you need to do is let go. You need to give me control.”
“Why should I do that?”
“Because you know it's what you want. Come here.”
The nerve of him! Absolutely unbelievable. As if he can just come in here and boss me around like that, like I'm some kind of... I don't even know the word. That's when I realize that I'm walking across the room towards him, as if there were an invisible leash around my neck and he was gently but insistently pulling me towards him.
What am I doing? How can he have this power over me? I kneel obediently on the carpet before him, my whole body shaking with desire.
He smiles and he picks up one trembling hand, holds it in his own and turns it over. His dark ebony thumbs move in slow circles on the surface of my palm, gently pressing down. He strokes my fingers one after the other.
“You're a strong woman,” he says, finally, “a confident woman. You don't let men tell yo
u what to do.”
“That's right,” I say. It's always been that way, it how my mother raised me, it's how I've lived my life.
“Sometimes,” he says, “the strongest thing is to... let go. To give yourself over to another... to trust them utterly.”
“Why should I trust you?” I say, and my voice is a choked whisper. “I barely know you...”
His hand is on my chin, lifting my head so that we're looking at each other again. “You know me,” he says, “you know me. Here,” he puts his hand over my heart, gently cupping my breast, then he slowly brings it down, sliding over surface of the lacy negligee as he works his way down between my legs, finally sliding his hand into the warm place where my thighs meet. He smiles when he feels how wet I am. “...and here. You know everything you need to know.”
I can feel my lips quivering, my mouth open slightly. I can't quite bring myself speak.
His hand goes under the lace, finds the strap of my panties. “Spread your legs,” he commands, his voice suddenly growing in strength and forcefulness. I obey as if in a trance, my thighs parting to allow his hand access to my body.
I feel my eyes shut as his hand slides into my panties, the long middle finger slipping between the lips of my soaking pussy. I bite softly on the tip of my tongue, rising a little on my legs, my fingers digging into the carpet beneath me as his finger goes deep inside me.
I can feel the weight and heat of his body, so near to mine as he fingers me. The fire crackles eagerly. I hear the soft wet sounds of my folds as they take him eagerly inside. Hungry sounds. I need more. I'm desperate for it. Everything else fades away. The cabin, the stillness of the lake outside, my husband on the couch behind me, everything. There is nothing in all the world but he and I, and my desire as it floods through me.
“F-fuck me...” I murmur through teeth chattering, “please, I need you to fuck me...”
He leans close, and his lips brush against my cheek. “Submit to me, Victoria... give yourself to me utterly... I want you for my own...” His voice is less than a whisper. I could almost believe he'd not spoken, and that the words were but the echo of a dream from inside my own head.
“I can't do that...” I whisper back, “Please... I can't...”
For a long time he says nothing, only continues to slide his finger in and out, his palm pressing tantalizingly against my clit, the hard cock in his pants against my thigh were he's almost straddling me. Then he speaks, and again it's so quiet I hardly hear it. “You will,” he says.
And then, suddenly, his finger slides back out, his hand withdraws from my panties, and he stands. He lifts his hand, considering the slickness, then lifts his eyes to Jason.
“You see how much she wants it?”
My husband nods slowly. I'm trembling on the floor, kneeling at this man's feet, my entire body aching with need.
Antoine smiles, then steps away from me, towards Jason. He holds the hand out. “Have you ever seen her so wet, Mr. Thomas?”
Jason just shakes his head, going a little cross-eyed as he stares at the finger in front of him.
Antoine turns back, looking again towards me. “I'll be busy tomorrow, I'm afraid. Business which needs my immediate attention. The house staff is arriving, and there will be a great deal to put in order. The day after, however, should suffice quite well for us to begin our work.”
“The... the house staff?” I feel a flash of fear at the thought of an army of butlers and cooks and drivers and maids all watching me... do whatever it was I'm going to do. It was one thing to do this when I'm alone with him, or in front of Jason. But... for others to know is entirely different.
“Hm, yes. But don't worry. We'll have plenty of privacy for our... project. They shan't disturb us in the least.” He says, seeming to have anticipated my hesitation.
“Oh.”
“I'll send a car for you in the morning. Expect it at dawn.” He turns and starts towards the door, then pauses. “Thank you both for the lovely meal. Much appreciated.” He seems to think of one more thing just before he leaves the cabin. “Jason, there will be no need for you to come. The work would be quite boring to you, no doubt. I'll provide you with radios so that you can talk easily, though.”
And then he's gone.
Jason and I look at each other. I'm still kneeling there in my lingerie, trembling with frustrated desire, aching with sexual need. My husband just blinks. “Well then,” he says, “that just happened, didn't it?”
Chapter Three
“I'm just saying, you don't have to do it.”
“Jason, I know. You don't have to keep bringing that up. If you don't want me to go, just say so, okay?”
“I didn't say I didn't want you to. I just... thought I'd mention it.”
“Well, it's not helping. I don't know what I want, that's the problem.”
“But you're going?”
I pause, staring out across the square, my head spinning. Slowly, I nod, then lift my spoon and take a bite of my frozen yogurt. “Yeah,” I say, “I'm going.”
“Alright then,” he says, and licks his cone of mint chocolate chip, “then it's settled.”
I take a deep breath and look around the little town center where we're sharing our ice cream. Children are skipping around, their parents trudging wearily after. Couples in hiking gear are sitting on benches and laughing. An old woman with a walker sits alone feeding crumbs to a little flock of ducks. Everything has a sort of rustic feel to it, even here in the touristy heart of the town. There are bear carvings everywhere – they do like their bears up here.
If it were up to me, I think, I'd be trying to downplay the bears, rather than highlighting it. Not exactly a comforting thought, especially for all the people who would be huddled in tents tonight with nothing between them and the wilds outside but a thin sheet of tent fabric.
Jason and I have decided to spend the day in town together, since I'll be taking an unexpected detour from our vacation together to go off and have my picture painted by my strange new billionaire lover.
Yeesh, what a thing that is to be thinking about!
“I still can't believe...” I say, then trail off, not really sure how to finish.
“I know,” he says, then shrugs. “It's just so...”
“Crazy,” I finish.
“I was going to say sexy.”
I laugh. “Were you really?”
“What, you don't think it is?”
“No, I do... I'm just... You're sure you're okay with this, right?”
He sighs, and looks away for a long moment. I peer into the reflections on his sunglasses, searching for a clue as to what thoughts might be going on in his head behind them. Finally, he looks back, and his face seems somehow... relaxed, in a way that I'm not really used to. It's like there this tension that he'd been carrying for so long that I stopped even seeing it, and now it's just gone.
He's like a whole new person somehow.
“I'm okay with it,” he says, “More than okay. I welcome it. Honey, for the first time it feels like... I mean, it's like I understand something now that I never did before. Like it all just makes sense somehow. This is what was missing all along.”
“You really think so?”
He pulls down his sunglasses, and I can't see any sign of evasion of doubt in his green-blue eyes. “We spent so much time and energy just... trying to be something for one another that we weren't. I don't know... maybe two people, certain people anyway... they can't be everything for one another. And that's okay. Maybe we don't have to be. It's okay to... let go. Not hold onto each other so tightly that we squeeze out all the love we have for one another.”
I stick my spoon in the yogurt. “You're not... worried?”
He shrugs again. “I guess I am a little, but... Honey, if we didn't change something, something drastic, then I was going to lose you anyway. We both knew it. Maybe this way... we can figure out a new way to be together. I don't know what's going to happen, or even if we make it through this intac
t, but... If we can make it out the other side of all of this and still want to be with each other, I think we'll be okay. Everything's going to be okay.”
I looked at him for a long time. I'm not used to hearing Jason speak his mind like this. He usually seems... well, almost frightened of me, like he can't express an opinion without worrying about setting something off. “I like this new you,” I say, a bit dryly, and pick my spoon back up.
He just grins. “Come on, let's take a walk around town and I'll buy you dinner. We don't wanna stay out too late. You've got an early morning tomorrow, after all.”
* * *
I was in my early twenties when Jason and I got married, only a couple years out of college. I'd been a wild girl in college, had half-a-dozen boyfriends over those four years and a dozen others I'd only been with once or twice. It was fun while it lasted, but by the time I'd graduated I was starting to feel a bit exhausted with it all, to be honest.
A man like Jason, nice and simple, level-headed and dependable, was just what I was looking for. Sex seemed a distant concern, something I could just put on the back burner for a while. For the first few years it was wonderful, everything I'd hoped it would be. Jason was sweet and kind and affectionate, everything I'd been missing during my torrential college years.
The sex wasn't anything to write home about, but then that was in its own way a sort of a plus for me at the time. As time went on, however, my old desires started to reemerge, my too-long neglected needs asserting themselves once again. I started to crave what I'd left behind.
I'm not proud of it, but I couldn't help resenting him – and I resented myself for resenting him. I was confused and horny and increasingly miserable. It got gradually worse over the last two years, until finally it had reached a point where I was starting to think that I wouldn't be able to continue on.
I did what I could to stifle my needs, but... Easier said than done.
Our new arrangement, though, whatever it is, seems almost like the thing we've both been looking for all this time. The thing that's going to save our marriage. If it doesn't destroy it first, of course.