My chest was tight, and my heart was pumping rapidly.
I was excited, there was no doubt about that.
But the excitement was so raw, and terrifying, that it almost made me sick.
Anna didn't bring anything up again for several days. She let me simmer, thinking about what we had agreed to. And not agreed to.
She got ready for work, made coffee, talked absent-mindedly about dry cleaning, snapped back at TV reporters on the news, and put her lunches into tiny glass Tupperware containers. She let me wonder if I had imagined everything we had discussed, if I had misread something she had said when I suggested my idea.
Of course, I had a feeling she was doing just that – building the tension so that I started to doubt whether she had agreed to anything at all.
I didn't want to come pawing at her desperately, like some out-of-control addict or animal.
She had agreed to it, after all.
Hadn't she?
I couldn't remember if she had ever exactly said yes to any of this. She had liked the idea, but maybe she was just pretending. Maybe everything she had said to indicate that she was taking it seriously had been a game to her.
She had, after all, never received my specific instructions.
I was so obsessed with thinking about whether Anna had, in fact, agreed to my fantasy, and whether she took it seriously and understood that I really wanted her to do it, that I gave no thought at all to how she was going to accomplish it.
There was certainly no doubt that Anna could pique John's interest. There was no doubt in my mind that he was attracted to her. Every man was attracted to Anna. Had I given it any thought, though, it was still a tricky situation: she needed to maneuver the situation so that she and John ended up in the apartment, in his room, where I could see them.
John didn't seem like a reckless guy. He really didn't seem like the kind of guy who would fuck his landlord's wife in his own bedroom.
I didn't actually think about any of this, though, like I said. My mind was occupied with endless circles of imagining Anna on the other side of the wall, her skin covered in sweat, her pussy filled with cock, and me watching her.
And then worrying about whether or not Anna was really trying to make that happen or not.
Anna must have known that I wasn't sleeping well. When she rose in the middle of the night, she didn't touch me or try to rouse me. This would bother me later, because if I had been sleeping as I usually slept, the whole thing might have unfolded without me even knowing.
She sat up first, and there was nothing unusual about that. She always paused before slipping out of bed, as if she weren't sure whether she wanted to or not.
I was on my side, and my eyes were closed, but I was awake and they snapped open the moment I felt her sit up.
The weight shifted in the bed, and then she was gone.
I rolled over onto my back and looked at the ceiling.
Anna had been up two nights ago, to do work in the kitchen, so I didn't give it a lot of thought at first. It was just another night of insomnia for both of us. I tried to close my eyes, and maybe I even began to drift off.
It was a cool night, but Anna had left the windows open. She insisted on it up until the coldest winter nights, and closed windows, reluctantly, for rain alone. So there was nothing unusual about the open window, either.
I smelled cigarette smoke. It came up from the street, and my nose sought it out. I had been a smoker in college and I still loved the smell of it from a distance, outside. It reminded me of good times.
Then I heard Anna's voice. A light laugh.
I opened my eyes, as though I could better see her voice.
That was her voice, wasn't it?
Again.
By the time I got to the window, I caught only the tail end of whatever had been happening out there. The scene was so unusual, and ended so quickly, that for a second I felt sure I was in a dream. I saw Anna's hair, John's black arm resting on his knee. He was seated, and then he stood up. The orange tip of a cigarette streaked through the darkness. Anna had on a gray sweater-wrap, and her bare shoulder hung out of it. Smoke came from near her face – but Anna didn't smoke.
And then they disappeared from view.
Their voices were low, and I heard them for a few seconds. The scrape of feet on the sidewalk. A door opening. A door closing.
Crickets.
I blinked into the darkness. The scene had happened so quickly I didn't even know what to make of it. I looked at the clock. It was 3 am.
What time had Anna gotten up, I wondered? Had she really been smoking a cigarette? Where had she dragged that gray wrap out from?
My mind pondered these and other meaningless questions, before the reality of what was happening crept into my mind:
They had entered the building. Together. And they were not in our house – Anna's and my part of the house.
They were in John's apartment.
You fucking idiot.
My mind and body closed off from each other, with the strange divergence that occurs in an emergency or a crisis. My limbs began to move, even though my brain was still, apparently, confused. My body took me down the stairs, through the silent kitchen. My brain managed to note that Anna was not there, but continued to be too slow. My thoughts were lingering on things like the fact that her laptop was out on the table and still glowing, and hopefully she had saved her work.
But my body knew where to go, what to do. Down the stairs again, down to the basement. My hands reached up to a shelf just above my head on my way down the stairs, and grabbed a flashlight.
And then, there I was, in the basement, my face pressed to the wall, straining to see through the opening to the living room and kitchen, where a single light splashed against the olive green paint and gave off a dim glow. I could see the outline of their figures, and indeed my wife was in John's apartment.
What were they doing?
The light was dim and whatever they were saying to each other or doing was taking a long time. My back was starting to hurt from the way I was crouching on a pile of clothing and a some unemptied boxes from when we had moved. The whole pile was terribly unstable and I felt like I was going to slide off and crash through the wall.
I should have readjusted everything, but I couldn't tear my eyes away from the hole in the wall, from the snippet of the scene between John and Anna that I could barely see.
In fact, the fact that I could barely see it was only making it hotter. Better, in a way. Like when Anna wore extremely conservative clothing.
Like her white t-shirt at dinner with John.
My eyes were on their silhouettes, my ears prickling with every laugh of Anna's, ever smooth rumble from John. My cock was twitching in anticipation.
But my mind was on a troubling loop.
What if Anna had actually planned this whole thing right from the start? What if Anna had only tricked me into thinking that this was my idea? What if clever Anna, with all of her marketing skills, had turned the whole thing on me so that she could go to John's apartment in the middle of the night, guilt-free, and fuck his brains out?
How could that even have happened, idiot?
And:
Did it matter?
Did it really matter to me?
My cock reported that nothing mattered, nothing except seeing Anna fuck John.
I pressed myself up to the wall, which was comical because it wasn't possible to get any closer and it wasn't improving my view of anything that was happening. I could faintly hear Anna's voice, and John's baritone beneath it.
The voices of flirting. Moving together like a harmony and a melody, entwining themselves. John insisting, Anna resisting.
I blinked. It was cool in the basement but I was sweating.
My cock was rock-hard and my mouth had gone dry. It was so close now, this thing that I wanted.
And then.
And then Anna and John's silhouettes came together. I couldn't see very well but I could see well enough to
know that their mouths were inches from each other, then centimeters, then nothing at all.
My breath was caught in my throat and my heart actually stuttered inside of my chest.
Anna's lips, on John's lips. Their big, poofy lips pressed together. Now his hand would move down to between her thin thighs, and up the length of her leg, over her panties (which ones had she worn?)...
Suddenly, however, the figures parted. Anna was shaking her head.
Then she leaned back to kiss him, and before I could get my mind around what was happening, she was gone. The sound of the door closing echoed through the apartment.
I watched, only because I was so stunned by the abrupt ending, as John hung his head.
I pushed myself away from the hole.
The disappointment hit me hard, in the face and the chest. My cock felt like it had been pounded by someone's foot.
I used the flashlight to scramble up the steps.
Something had gone wrong.
There was a part of me that was relieved. My sweet Anna was so faithful she couldn't do it, she couldn't truly give herself to another man.
Or maybe John had something wrong with him, some perverse desire...
And then there was disappointment. That was the feeling that drowned out all the others.
Anna was closing the kitchen door gently behind her by the time I reached the top of the steps.
She held her finger to her lips to silence me.
I followed her upstairs, still uncertain of what she was going to do or say. Adrenaline was rushing through my body, and a sick nervousness.
By the time she closed the bedroom door and turned to face me, my cheeks were flushed with emotion.
“You watched?”
I nodded. I was trying to read what it was that was on her face. It didn't seem like regret, or nervousness, or defeat, or embarrassment.
It seemed like complete confidence.
She folded her arms. “I wanted to make sure that this is really what you wanted,” she said. She lifted her chin, eying my reaction.
Then she reached out with her hand and grasped my cock.
“Is it?” she said. “Is it what you wanted?”
The sweet-sick feeling had migrated up to my heart and was squeezing me almost as hard as Anna was squeezing my cock now.
She moved her body closer to me.
“You never gave me your specific instructions,” she said. “So. Now that you know this is what you want: tell me what you want to see.”
My mouth was open and I was unable to speak.
Anna smiled.
“Or just show me.” But her eyes fell down to my cock, and I knew she could feel how wet I was at the tip of it. “Although...you probably won't last as long as John will.”
She pushed me backward, and I fell into a chair.
“Anna,” I managed to say. “Look...I am so turned on by this -”
“Obviously,” she laugh-whispered, and her hands went to work on freeing my cock.
“I just...are you really okay with this? This turns you on, too?”
Anna grasped my cock in her hand and guided me to her pussy, where her flesh was wet. She slid her body down, and my shaft moved easily into her body. She shifted and I nearly lost it right then and there.
Since the idea of John, and watching Anna with him, had come into our lives, sex had been like the sex that teenagers have, quick and dirty slamming and slapping of skin. No need for thinking, or imagining: we were both right there at the edge of pleasure right from the start.
Anna took her time, knowing how close I was. If her moisture was anything to judge by, she was probably nearing the edge as well.
She moved slowly up and down my shaft, though, just not quite giving me enough to push me over the edge. She looked down at me as if to say: Does this answer your question?
My abdomen trembled. I was so close, and Anna just kept going, maybe even more slowly, her eyes on mine.
Until finally, unable to take any more of her teasing, I grabbed her by the hips and slammed her down onto the base of my cock, while I thrust upward at her as well. She gasped with delight, a tiny bit of pain, and it took very little to send both of us over the edge. Anna's pussy was so wet that I could feel her spilling out onto my balls, dripping down to my anus, spreading out on the chair.
We laughed at ourselves after that. Right after sex, it can be seen for what it is: a little ludicrous. We decided to make a snack.
I forgot to tell Anna what I wanted her to do with John.
But Anna had it all under control, as I would soon find out.
12: THE REAL THING
I watched Anna getting ready for work each day after that, not knowing if she was getting ready for just herself, just me, or for John. Not knowing if any of these things were, at this point, completely independent of each other. I watched her choice of lingerie, which provided almost no information, because Anna wore sexy underwear all the time.
But what would she choose for John? Black, to show how naughty she was? Red for her passion? White, because she wanted to give off some air of innocence?
Would she choose something new, to entice him further under her spell? Or would she choose something old, to give him the impression that her affair with him was unplanned and casual?
How much would she tell John?
I was on my stomach, watching just glimpses of Anna in the door frame as she moved from one side of the bathroom to the other, each time in a more clothed state. Here was Anna with only thigh-high stockings, and her shower-damp landing strip glistening. Anna with her breasts bouncing as she shook her hair vigorously with a towel. Anna's hips encased in a rich brown lace (perhaps this was the one for John?”)
“Are you going to tell John?” I said abruptly.
Anna passed by the door frame again, this time with her breasts pressed up tight against the same rich chocolate lace and satin of her panties. The bottoms, I noticed now with satisfaction, were a thong, the same hue but many shades darker than Anna's exotic skin. Her two round, high buttocks were displayed neatly on either side of the satin strip.
“Tell him about my third nipple?” Anna joked. She was leaning toward the counter, applying make-up, and it gave me a nice view of two crescent slivers on her butt.
“That we...have an arrangement,” I said.
“Want me to?”
I wasn't sure about that.
I looked at the floor. Did I want her to? Or was it more exciting if she didn't?
On the other hand, it was sort of mean to John, who seemed like a nice enough guy.
But a guy who was willing to screw your wife, Brian.
“Honey?”
Anna was standing in the doorway, buttoning herself up into a silky, dark brown shirt with a stringy white pattern on it.
But who could blame him?
“Should I tell him or not?” Anna was getting impatient. She liked people to answer her quickly and economically.
“Uh...yeah, I don't know.”
She turned and went back into the bathroom. “Well...” and I could tell by the change in her voice that she was applying lipstick, “if you decide call me, because I think tonight's the night.”
My cock, which was admittedly already a little hard from watching her get ready for work, slammed into the mattress, hard as a rock.
I felt like an idiot, sitting on the bed the way I was. I mean, if I had played out this particular scene in a fantasy of mine, I certainly wouldn't have been on the bed like a teenage girl reading a magazine at this moment.
But Anna saved the moment from being awkward by being in a hurry. She kissed me on the forehead, still buttoning something on a dark brown skirt, and swept herself out of the room before I had a chance to do much of anything.
“Like 8 o'clock. I'll text you if I'm late,” she said.
She was swinging a blazer over her head as she went down the stairs.
When I look back on it, after everything that happened, I pinpoint this
moment as the moment where I lost control. I became unfocused, I didn't answer her question, I was indecisive. And then I forgot all about it.
But shit happens.
Now I was really, really, really behind on work.
I was losing clients, that's how bad it had gotten.
I spent the morning in a trance anyway, staring at the trees.
This was a bad addiction. I knew it, and I couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't stop myself or cut myself off.
I wondered if Anna knew how bad it was.
Was this sex addiction?
That had always sounded like such a minor problem to me. Kind of like people who say they have trouble because they are 'too rich' or 'too beautiful.'
Why had it lain dormant for so long in me?
And where was it headed?
Would I spend the rest of my life like this, just waiting for Anna to come home and screw some other man? Thinking about it all day, watching it all night, tasting her cum-salted skin for myself, and then starting it all over again?
Or would this satisfy me?
I sighed aloud.
If there was one thing I knew, it was that no vice ever satisfied a craving.
And what about Anna? Why was Anna capable of getting so much done, why could Anna take it or leave it, why could Anna concentrate on other things?
I opened my email.
It was full of angry emails about late projects, with a lot of Re: fields filled with multiple questions marks and exclamation points.
Someone even wrote a subject heading in all caps.
I closed my laptop quietly and bit my fingernail.
Okay. Okay, Brian. You're getting what you want so open your computer and get to work.
But I didn'twork. I did nothing, nothing I can remember, until 7:00, when I crept into my basement. I knew Anna would be late. I knew it might take longer to convince John, there might be traffic, that hundreds of things stood in the way of Anna being in that room at 8:00 on the dot.
But so many other firsts in my life, I was too excited to care. Even sitting in the dark of the basement, waiting, was exciting. The dark around me, thick and slightly musty, the hot water heater flaming up and then turning off, the hours ticking by slowly...it was all part of the experience.
The Tenant: A Very Naughty Hotwife Novel Page 10