Irresistible

by Rachel Kramer Bussel

  “Thank you all for coming,” Jacob starts, and silence rolls over the crowd. “I stand before you today to express my gratitude for your tireless efforts and steadfast commitment during this past year. It is the work of people like you that nurtures the promise of liberty in this great nation of ours.” The wind whips into my hair, obscuring my view of the strained faces gathered in front of us, hanging on each sentence he speaks. Steeling myself, I wipe my face clear and stand a little more erect. I can’t focus on what he’s saying…no, I simply won’t.

  Something, anything else to do with my mind right now would be good. When was the first time he really surprised me?

  The night he won his first city council election produced just a little bit more insight into what made Jacob tick. He stood there in front of his campaign staff, much like we do today, with a message of perseverance and a double entendre for only my ears to decipher.

  “They said we couldn’t do it, but when darkness obscures your way, the sun will always follow.”

  I grinned. No doubt, there would be a blindfold in my future that night and perhaps some revelations. After three years of marriage, I’d learned to appreciate his cues. His public persona was that of stoic dignity, yet even the highs of victory could not outdo his need for wilder thrills or render his ripened sexuality obsolete. As dedicated to his political career as he was, it would never sustain him alone.

  We escaped the last of Jacob’s constituents around eleven, feigning exhaustion and the intention to get some sleep. But once his shirt lay discarded on the floor and his glasses were removed, the man who few really know made his appearance. The fuzzy cuffs were already on the bed, a present from a Christmas past. I only grinned while lying there in the flouncy little miniskirt Jacob loves to fuck me in and waited for him to materialize at my side—first to restrict my sight and then to bind my wrists.

  He didn’t say much; at that point, he didn’t need to. He was my trusted captor. No sound, no sight, just his familiar impression on the surface of the mattress, sliding into position with the promising lick of precome over my clit and the startling chill of lube in my ass. More than a finger this time inched forward between my cheeks while eager legs found his hips crisscrossed in leather straps and I imagined the harness slung low around his blunt angles, a perverse gladiator.

  Hot breath on my face gave slow prelude to his tongue, meant to mark me with saliva. I arched my hips toward his and could feel his lips turn toward a measured smile on my skin. Of course, he intended me to suffer his patience. When Jacob was wanted and needed most of his days by too many people to count, he relished taking his sweet time, delighting in the reviving power of self-control.

  He eased away my little polka-dot skirt to catch a full view of his two cocks dancing at my thresholds. With my legs captured firmly in his grasp, I wished I could see the concentration pumping across his forehead in that thick vein I find so very sexy. Instead, darkness compelled me to guess the exact moment that he would decide to make me scream.

  I wriggled on the bed, bucking forward to no success. Only when his desire mounted high above his resolve would I first come to know what it was like to be filled, full and heavy, in both portals at once. For months prior, he had been practicing, testing my limits with a multitude of plugs and digits in preparation for that first night. His diligence had paid off.

  “I cannot properly articulate the regret I have for my failure to live up to the promise of this office.” That strong baritone voice, bouncing off the concrete of the surrounding buildings, is magnetic as ever, recognizable with a single word.

  His words make me cringe. Jacob never broke a promise in his life. For my birthday, he promised to take me shopping and we found the most adorable twenty-something football-player type among the endless selection of eligible swingers profiled online. The anonymity of the web had provided us a smorgasbord of eager participants. Young and dumb seemed like the safest bet, with fear of recognition easily dismissed by a low aptitude for congressional upstarts. We met Brett first for a late lunch, testing the waters, then moved onward to a hotel room tucked away in an obscure suburban corporate park.

  Could that evening have been more perfect? The answer came the following year after our guest list increased to two. When the allure of my birthday parties became too great to enjoy only once a year, we secured a discreet apartment downtown for the sole purpose of hosting such gatherings as often as we could.

  “Though my marriage remains intact, the embarrassment my actions have caused is insurmountable, and I publicly apologize to my cherished wife of eighteen years.”

  In the back of my mind, I knew it was risky, but asking a new playmate to the apartment seemed like a good idea at the time. Precautions are important; Jacob was adamant about that and there was no way he’d have approved of a last-minute addition. Still, Lyle’s profile picture was so fucking beautiful, I just couldn’t resist when the request to meet appeared in my inbox. Forwarding his health screening even before I asked was like icing on the cake. He was clean, cute and looking for a new experience—harmless enough.

  From the moment I woke that morning, the hours stretched out before me with no concern for my itching anticipation. I was a giddy bundle of nerves and excitement and I purposely didn’t call Jacob the whole day, fearing he would know I was up to something. By seven, my usual persona was concealed beneath a long, blonde wig and equally conspicuous sunglasses. The doorman turned to watch as I breezed past, though not because he recognized me. From under my navy wool coat, netted legs moved swiftly toward the elevator and I saved all eye contact for the floor.

  I promised again to pick a new paint color soon and begin to rid our high-rise studio of its bachelor-pad vibe. We hadn’t bothered much with furnishings and a rumpled club chair tucked alone in the corner cried desperately for my decorator’s help. But this wasn’t a place for swank cocktail mixers meant to cozy up with Manhattan’s political elite. This was a place for fucking, pure and simple and, rightfully, the only care we’d taken was in selecting the king-size bed placed starkly in the center of the room. I dropped my coat on the arm of the chair and waited.

  Mac was the first, announcing himself with the tap of his retro lighter. I invited him in, though we both knew such formalities were unnecessary; not when I could still imagine the distinct swell of his cock growing ever larger inside me. He relaxed in the chair and I returned to sit on the bed. There wasn’t anything to talk about. I didn’t want to know what he had planned for the weekend or if his mother had been giving him a hard time about still being single. I didn’t want to hear about the interesting film he’d seen or the amazing meal he’d enjoyed or if he planned to vote for my husband. There we were, primal, basic, with no reason for meaningless chitchat. Blatantly stark, our silence was far from awkward. It was natural.

  Instead, I drifted to how Jacob and I came across Mac in the first place—the sheer luck of it. An invitation to the only respectable smut fest in the city seemed too good to pass up, and the licentious disguised as curious were on their best behavior at the Met’s special viewing of Victorian erotica. After a second whiskey sour, Mac casually mentioned he was a top OB/GYN at Presbyterian. A doctor that smokes is indictable enough, but a gynecologist with an affinity for forbidden pussy has a more perfect need for discretion than we could ask for.

  Jingling keys outside the apartment ignited a familiar blast of adrenaline, something I still feel every time Jacob’s smoldering eyes flood upon me. I sat there, excitement building, begging the lock to turn faster. He emerged a shadow among the hallway lights, slack-tied and steel jawed, focused like a maestro ready to conduct. My Jacob intended to arrange a trio of players into a complicated mélange of flesh and I would be the instrument.

  He kissed me in greeting, the way a husband kisses his wife upon returning home from work, and nodded at Mac, who nodded back. Then he rubbed a bit of my Greenwich Village wig between his fingers, staring at my exaggerated kohl-lined eyes, amused for the moment with
my alter ego. His gaze was interrupted by the next gaggle of knocks rapping loud and brash on the door, finding Brett standing in the hall with Lyle approaching directly behind him.

  I introduced Lyle as my surprise guest, twisting my heel nervously on the floor as I waited for Jacob’s response. Impetuousness, the character trait of my undoing, still seemed to tug my husband’s mouth into a wily grin after all these years. He sized Lyle up; a taller image of himself, but fifteen years younger. Only Jacob was never so clean shaven during our college years, full of dirty backpacks and flap jackets. Lyle looked like he’d spent every summer on his daddy’s yacht and every weekday on the trading floor downtown. I liked that about him, neat and trim just like we are now, with currents of rebellion coursing beneath the polish.

  Our party complete, Jacob began to strip away my first layer.

  His fingers trickled slowly around my neck, slipping into my collar and flicking my buttons loose. Designer silk fell away from my shoulders, revealing fine imported lace. Studious eyes might have questioned their departure from the rest of my cheap getup, but Lyle was more focused on the removal of these items than their cost, and I smiled toward his moistened lips, anticipating them sweeping across my skin.

  Who would be first? It could have been any one of them, all delicious looking and stirring in their trousers with signs of readiness. I didn’t want to decide, and thankfully, I knew I wouldn’t have to. Jacob was in charge here in the id’s secret little playground of vaporized regrets.

  He pointed to Mac and to Lyle with a casual pass of his finger through our silence. I understood and sauntered over to Mac, topless, taking his hand and placing it on my bare chest. Then, reaching for Lyle, I offered him the same. Greedily, each of them took of me what was given, hungry with selfish urgency, splitting me in half for their share of my skin. Wet mixed with soft, tinged with dull scrapes and harsh suction. They were wild and disorganized and Jacob meant to set them straight. He stepped between them to push me gently onto the bed and part my legs. Instructions were given with as few words as necessary. This was Jacob in the raw.

  “You, two fingers. And you rub her nice.”

  Jacob yanked my skirt up around my waist like a belt, and I stretched my netted legs wide thanks to Pilates. Mac’s fingers took to examining my entrance, probing as directed, while Lyle churned my grateful clit. I reached for them both, catching collars and pulling their mouths back to duty on my breasts. There was one simple rule to follow in Jacob’s playground: give me pleasure, more than I could handle. And only when I was so wet that my thighs glistened and my lips dribbled desperate pleas for release would anyone get to have me. I gritted my teeth for the decadent and agonizing ascent to the point of no return, while Jacob watched and waited.

  “Though the events widely publicized in the news are greatly exaggerated, the nature of the allegation requires the withdrawal of my candidacy and my immediate resignation of this office.”

  I was so wet that Lyle’s fingers were merely sloshing about while Mac worked me steadily inside. Still, I wasn’t wet enough for Jacob’s liking—not yet begging for it. I was moaning though, moaning long and loud as my hips rose and fell to Mac’s rhythm, encouraging his fingers deeper. Poor Brett was stuck in Jacob’s holding pattern, stroking his cock footsteps away. I wanted a taste of it, that long sweet cock in his hand belonged in my mouth and the thought of him pushing past my lips, heavy on my tongue, cinched my cunt with a jolt.

  I called for him, “Brett, come closer,” daring Jacob to intervene.

  “You can’t have him yet.”

  My voice tangled with breath on my lips. “I won’t suck him, I promise.”

  He nodded and Brett pressed his head against my surly pout as I willed myself to be still, save for the tiny licks stolen from underneath.

  Brett continued to pump his hand along his shaft, oozing salty precome over my taste buds. My pussy ignited, flooding anew and sending me truly to the brink of my own sanity, just like Jacob wanted.

  Abruptly, my head dropped away and I made myself clear. “Now, please Jacob, please!”

  He was already sliding off his pants. “Get over here.”

  I took my place in his lap on that old chair and he blindfolded me with his Hugo Boss necktie. The air smelled of sex, dirty and pungent. I’d be sure to leave a window cracked when we were finished, but right then I wanted to suffocate on it. Obediently, I opened my mouth as Jacob spread me equally agape from below. He pulled my legs roughly and danced at my ass with slickened fingers. Ready, together, he worked his cock into my tightest hole as another pressed toward the back of my throat. I recognized it, the smooth shaft cast to the left and salty-sweet like roasted almonds. Brett usually started in my mouth.

  The next cock inside me would be a mystery—and so went the beauty of four men…musical cocks. I didn’t want to know which of them, Lyle or Mac, was stretching me to my limits, sliding past Jacob with long definite strokes, wrapping his sweaty palm around my neck for leverage. I wanted only to imagine, to guess, to lose myself in my right of depraved ignorance—the right not to care. And I also focused on the known; the way he traded places with Jacob and staved off the urge to come in a sudden motionless protest. I sucked hard and deep on Brett, waiting for him to paint me with sticky seed, like he always did. The first molten drops came quickly as vacancy assaulted my cunt, only to be filled again before my next shower.

  “Ooo—” Another cock thrust into my mouth stuffed the moan back down my throat.

  Measured and controlled, Jacob kept to his own languid pace in my ass; always there, always mine. He would be the last to come, patient to the end, more concerned that I was left a shuddering ball of nerves in his arms.

  “She’s close. Eat her.”

  Whose mouth lapped roughly at my clit, bathing his chin with my silk and diving persistent fingers inside me? Whose name should I have called out when the surge swelled under my skin like an over-filled balloon?

  “Oh, god, Jacob, I love you.”

  “I am regretful of many things, but mostly I am saddened to know that I have let all of you down. I will have to find it in myself to come to terms with that.”

  They had the decency to warn us at least, though the call came only moments before the big story broke on cable news. Jacob told me that they’d keep me out of it, that the report would state that he’d been at a sex party with a prostitute. I saw his mouth twitch when he said that. Jacob had never been with another woman, not even once. In an hour, I’d booked us on a flight to Ibiza scheduled to take off right after his speech.

  I wonder if Lyle will do the talk-show circuit; will they drag the whole thing out until nobody even cares anymore? To hell with sticking around for that. For better or for worse, it’s over. I’ve packed our freedom into those old backpacks I found in the hall closet behind the golf clubs. From now on, I hope it’s all the baggage we’ll ever need.

  THE PACT

  Elizabeth Coldwell

  The pier was about to close for the evening by the time Catherine finally reached it. For a moment, it looked as though the fat, sullen girl in the ticket kiosk was going to refuse her admission, but in the end she relented, taking Catherine’s money and pushing a thick pasteboard ticket back through the hole in the glass.

  What if she were too late? Catherine wondered. What if Leon had decided she wasn’t coming, that she hadn’t been serious when she had arranged to see him, and had already left? She cursed her stupidity at forgetting to charge her mobile phone before she’d left North London that morning, so that by the time a signal failure had caused the train to come to an unexpected halt somewhere in the Hampshire countryside, she’d been unable to ring and let him know she was delayed.

  She hurried toward the end of the pier, heels clacking on the weathered deck and coat collar turned up against the November chill. Through the gaps in the planks she could see the sea beneath her, churned up into choppy waves by the breeze. As she passed the little café halfway along the pier’s lengt
h, a middle-aged woman in dowdy green overalls was already taking inside the wooden board advertising hot drinks, toasted sandwiches and ice cream, a silent declaration that no more customers were welcome. There was nothing sadder or more dispiriting than an English seaside town out of season, Catherine thought, and she wondered again why Leon had chosen to settle here. Whatever the impulse, it could be no stranger than the one that had compelled her to drop him an email a couple of days before her fortieth birthday and remind him jokingly of the pact.

  The pact. How long ago it all seemed now, the night when Leon and she had first agreed to it. It wasn’t a solemn moment, not as she remembered it. Indeed, it had started as a joke. But somewhere along the way, it had become a promise they repeated to each other over the years. “If neither of us is married when we’re forty, then we’ll marry each other.”

  Leon had proposed it, lying on his bed in the grim hall of residence they had found themselves in, that first year at university. They had spent the evening at a block party, drinking themselves almost insensible on punch laden with cheap vodka. As ever, Leon had been lamenting his luck with the opposite sex.

  “What is it about me, Cat?” he’d asked, arms flung out in a sacrificial pose. “Why don’t they go for me?”

  She knew exactly, but there was no way she could tell him without hurting him. And the reason she knew was because she felt the same. It wasn’t just that Leon somehow hadn’t grown into his body yet, was still gangly and awkward where other lads had gained muscle and the swagger and self-assurance that came with it. Away from home for the first time, away from the boys—and the boyfriends—they’d grown up with, the girls she knew were beginning, in their nice, Home Counties fashion, to rebel.

  That meant passing over the likes of loyal, kind-hearted Leon in favor of Danny Demetriou in East Block, who had come-to-bed eyes, gel-stiff hair and the tightest jeans on campus. Her friends might have joked that the only possessions he owned were a set of dumbbells and a mirror, but they still queued up to share his bed for the fortnight or so until he tired of them and moved on to someone else. Leon was strictly best-friend material, safe and comforting, always there to help her pick up the pieces rather than cause things to fall apart in the first place.