by C. C. Morian
Melissa fumed, stunned, not knowing what to say. One moment she had been reliving a passionately erotic sexual memory, the next minute she felt violated.
Would she have done it? If Marcus had set it up? That shouldn’t matter. Yet there had been so many things she thought she would never do, and she had done them all with Marcus. The back seat of a car. Other places almost in public. Other places in public, hotel spas. The anal sex.
And it had been so good. All of it. Even the blindfold. Especially the blindfold. And she had been thinking about Shawn that night, just as she had fantasized about being with two men, Richard and the biker Vern, Richard and Marcus, others.
Marcus and Vern. Wow, that was something to consider.
Melissa felt her anger subsiding, but she couldn’t explain why. Rationally, she was still pissed, one more reason why she could never trust Marcus. But once again he had put thoughts in her head that turned a switch in her loins, just as he had when he casually mentioned the idea of a threeway with the platinum blonde, nasty images that should have been revolting but somehow did nothing except turn her on.
“It makes me feel like a whore.”
“I got nothing against whores. But I wouldn’t want to be with one. You aren’t a whore.”
“Still. That’s the way you make me feel.”
“Since when? Did I ever say anything to make you think I thought of you that way?”
Marcus was right, he never had. She wasn’t being fair.
But why should she worry about being fair, after what he had done? It all came down to trust again. Sure, maybe she would have done it with the two of them, Marcus and Shawn. And maybe she would have resisted at first, been hesitant. But in the end, she probably would have done it, blindfold or not.
Maybe she was a whore, after all.
They drove the last few blocks in silence, Melissa alternating between fuming, being mad at herself, and being furious at Marcus. At the hotel, Marcus parked, but kept the engine running, making no move to leave the car. His way of saying what happened next was up to her.
In the bedroom, Melissa always felt that Marcus was in charge. Not every second of every time, but he was the one controlling things. She suddenly realized, though, that often he waited for her to make the decision to go the next step. She had thought of it as a power thing, Marcus making her ask for it, beg for it. But maybe, at least in some ways, it was his way of giving her some equality in their sex, giving her the opportunity to say yes or no.
If she hadn’t said anything that day with the blindfold, if she hadn’t basically admitted to Marcus that she had been thinking about Shawn, would it have gone the same way? If she had said, “I really only want you,” would Marcus still have let Shawn fuck her?
She’d never know. But right now, at this moment, she knew he was waiting for her to decide something.
Melissa turned to him. “I want to explain better why I’m here.”
“You don’t have to. As long as you have it figured out.”
Melissa shook her head. “No. I need to.” She paused, collecting her thoughts. “I love Richard. Although that sounds odd, given where I’m sitting right now, and what we did last night, you need to know that. I loved him when I married him and I love him now.”
She looked out the window, watching a couple walk into the hotel, hand in hand. “I think the whole marriage thing is different for most women. A lot of their priorities change. Some of the things that had seemed really important before get passed over. Or lost in the excitement.”
She turned back to Marcus. He was very still, not looking at her, but she knew he was listening. “I know myself pretty well, and I’m not the type to jump into anything permanent without thinking it through. I didn’t marry Richard on a lark, or because I was smitten. I married him because he is a good man, and he treats me well, and he is self reliant and supportive, and I’m comfortable with him. All the things that people talk about when they define love. He’s plenty handsome, which is a real plus, I’ll admit. And—although I have a rule about never revealing the specifics of my sex life to another man, even my husband—I’ll tell you that sex with Richard is good. Not great, but good. It was like that before our marriage and it hasn’t changed. Just saying that makes me feel guilty. I thought it might get better over time, because I loved him, but even if it hadn’t, given everything else we had, it just wasn’t important.”
Melissa waited, wondering what Marcus thought about that, since it was obviously so important to her relationship with him. But he said nothing.
She went on. “I was wrong. The sex is really important for me. Not just the act itself, but how it is part of the relationship, how it contributes to it. The frequency. The surprise.” She turned away from Marcus again, embarrassed, guilty. “I love Richard but I don’t lust after him,” she whispered. “And I miss that. The lust.”
There was the longest silence, the car still humming patiently, as if it too waited.
Finally, still without looking at her, Marcus said, “And that’s why you are here? For the lust?”
“Not just that. I was thinking so much about it, about what I was missing with Richard, that I started to wonder if I was rationalizing, about whether there was something else wrong with our marriage, that maybe I was blaming the sex. So yes, I needed to find out. Maybe I’d discover that it wasn’t the sex after all, or it was just a phase. I talked about it with Richard. You can imagine how difficult that was for him; I was making him feel inadequate. I think a lot of other men would have been really angry, or might have left. But Richard, being who he is—he is the one who suggested I come to the reunion, to see you. Because he knows that you are the one, the only one, who totally fulfilled my needs, my desires. You are the only one I truly felt passionate about. Richard thought if it wasn’t still the same with us, then the whole thing might go away, that I’d realize it was something else, or that I had created this ideal sexual world that didn’t really exist, couldn’t exist.”
Melissa reached out and lightly touched Marcus’s hand. “I realize this sounds so selfish, that we were using you, that I was using you. I know it came out that way when I said it before. But it’s more than about just my relationship with Richard, it’s about my relationship with you. I chose to be with Richard because I had one set of priorities. Maybe I had them in the wrong order, maybe at the time I didn’t know myself well enough to understand what was really important, what I needed to make me happy. So the real reason why I’m here is that I needed to see if it was you, after all, that I should be with.”
Now that she had said it, Melissa was out of energy, out of emotion.
The same couple came back out of the hotel, still holding hands. They stood in front of the entrance, perhaps waiting for a taxi, animated; they looked happy.
“So your husband told you to come here, to be with me, knowing you might find out that you’d rather be with me?”
“Yes. And before you say it, I fully realize that you might not have been interested, that I might decide I made a mistake with Richard, that I should have tried to be with you, but that I’d find you married, or with someone else, or just not want me. But Richard was willing to take the risk that you would.”
Marcus’s voice was flat. “He must love you very much.”
“He does. And I know it might sound odd to you, that he would want to deal with it this way. But he chose to see it as a problem to solve. Some of that is just being who he his, but another part of it, I think, is how he hides his insecurity. It make him feel like he is taking action. Not the type of action you would take, but that is part of why we are all where we are—you are not Richard. And Richard is not you.”
Marcus finally turned to look at her. As was often the case, Melissa couldn’t read him, other than to know that he was very in tune with the conversation, that there could be a bomb going off right outside the car and he would have heard and internalized everything she had said.
“How did you get your husband to rea
lly accept that fact that you weren’t getting what you needed from him?”
Melissa watched the couple get into a cab, holding hands until the last minute. She didn’t remember ever having held hands with Marcus in public.
“I broke my rule,” she admitted. “Maybe not in words, but I let him know how much other men could turn me on, had turned me on. Especially you.”
“And how did he react to that?”
“Mostly as you’d expect. A little anger. Some humiliation. Some sadness.” She hesitated, wondering whether to reveal more. “He was able to also really see how excited I got talking about it. That turned him on.”
“Ahh.”
“Don’t ahh me. I’m trying to be honest here, tell you everything. I feel bad even mentioning that part, it feels like I’m betraying his confidence.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“But you were thinking it. The cuckold husband getting off while his wife gets fucked by the black bull.” Melissa didn’t give Marcus a chance to respond. “Let me ask you something. What were you thinking when you watched Shawn fuck me? That must have done something for you, you certainly jumped on me again right away.”
Marcus gave her a half smile. “I’ll admit to enjoying how turned on you got.”
“And maybe that’s what Richard is doing. Plus he really does want to get this resolved. One way or another. Even if the entire idea disgusted him, he probably would have still wanted to find out the truth, and me being with you was the best way he could think of to do it.”
“And what about you? What did you think?”
“I thought it was crazy at first. I wondered about him. What kind of man wants his wife to get back with a past lover, one who she admits she still fantasizes about? I tried other things to spice up our sex life, I won’t go into detail, but they didn’t really work. Finally it was clear that his idea wasn’t that crazy after all. And by that time I was thinking so much about you I needed to find out for myself.”
Marcus tilted his head. “You fantasize about me?” Serious, like he hadn’t considered it. Or giving her a hard time, knowing she did, just wanting to get her to admit it.
Melissa had told Marcus everything, so this was not hard to disclose. “All the time.”
She had said what she needed to say, now it was up to him.
“I had a fantasy about you,” he said.
That wasn’t quite what Melissa expected, but the unexpected is one of the reasons why she was here.
Serious as all this was, she slipped immediately into their old ways, the back and forth. “A fantasy. Just one?”
“Just like a woman. Give her what she wants, and she’s bitching you aren’t giving her more.”
“That’s sexist.”
“Of course it is. Doesn’t make it not true.”
Melissa tried to wait him out, but he was like a rock, he could have sat there until the car ran out of gas. “I’d like to hear about this one fantasy.”
“Remember the movie The Graduate?”
Melissa frowned. “I never saw it. Something about a young guy and an older woman. That’s your fantasy?”
Marcus shook his head. “So impatient. There’s a scene in the movie where he stops the woman’s marriage to another guy, and he runs off with the woman. There’s this look on her face at the end, excited, caught up in the escape, but just a hint of wondering whether she did the right thing.”
“So you fantasized about stopping my wedding?”
“No. That was your decision. I’d never do that. But—”
He was teasing her, dragging it out. “Damn you, Marcus, but what?”
“I get there before the wedding, and I come into the room where you are getting ready. You are in your wedding dress.” Marcus paused, letting the image sink in. “I know you will never cheat once you decide to get married. But you aren’t married yet. I want you to have a very clear memory of what you will be missing.”
Melissa started to squirm, Marcus had painted a vivid picture. His half smile was back, he was enjoying this. Of course if that had really happened Melissa would have been shocked, frantic, she would have demanded that he leave. . .
“You put up a little fight, but we both know your heart isn’t in it, and I lift up your wedding dress and fuck you right there, and you are begging for me to come inside you, and I do.”
Melissa’s heart was thumping, that never could have happened, she wouldn’t have ever let that happen. But it aroused her just the same, whether it was because Marcus had admitted to this fantasy, or because she couldn’t really, really, know what she would have done in that situation, whether she might have had sex with Marcus, and then run off with him. Or stayed to go through with the wedding just minutes later.
“And what do you think of me now?” she asked, trying to match his even tone, trying to pretend that she wasn’t turned on. “Do you think differently about me, because I had sex with you even though I’m still married?”
Marcus shrugged. “Like you said, it isn’t cheating if he knows.”
Melissa realized suddenly why Marcus had told her this fantasy. Not just to turn her on, and not to change the subject, not to avoid having a serious conversation about what she was really saying, that she wanted to put him on the spot and be a part of her decision.
Instead, he was telling her that he no longer felt like he was being used by her, that he realized the importance of all of this, to her, to him. That he was willing to keep going.
She reached over and turned off the key.
Chapter 19
This time they made it past the doorway, but only barely. Melissa could hardly contain herself on the way to the room, ready to explode. All the talk about sex in the car, all her fantasies about Marcus, what they had done the night before, what might still be to come. Even seeing Marcus with the little blonde, even hearing about him fucking other women, all of it working to make her skin vibrate, her fingers twitch.
In the room Melissa pulled Marcus toward the bed, trying to control herself, wanting this to be more than what the night before had been. She put her arms around him, not a hug, he wasn’t the hugging type, and somehow any kind of embrace wouldn’t have been enough. Instead she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, locking onto him, onto his eyes, falling into them, until she could take it no more, and she kissed him, pulling his head into her, smashing her mouth against his, all her desire focused in her mouth.
Marcus waited just a second before returning the kiss, just enough to let her feel the hesitation, his way, as always, of being in control. It only served to make Melissa want him more, and her tongue darted into his mouth. She pressed against his face, and now he opened himself to her, and his arms were around her. She was on her toes, reaching up to him with her mouth, and then his fingers were on her ass, and he lifted her, so easily, and she wrapped her legs around him, totally in his hands now, her breasts squeezed against his hard chest.
Marcus laid her on the bed without breaking the kiss, Melissa spreading her legs to surround him. Her body was on fire, his weight almost overwhelming, he could crush her if he wanted, the fine line between pain and pleasure, being taken and participating.
Melissa forced her hands between them, not to push him off, but to unbutton his shirt. He broke away from the kiss, and she gave a little cry, she didn’t want to be separated, not now.
He held her shoulders and leaned back, so that she didn’t have to support herself as she worked on his shirt, her fingers clumsy, not able to undo the buttons. He just watched her, and when she finally got to the last one she couldn’t wait any longer and started to yank at the shirt, pulling it out of his slacks, trying to get it off him.
Marcus made a little tsk-tsk sound of playful annoyance, then helped her, unbuttoning his cuffs, freeing himself from the shirt, revealing his chest in all its glory, hard, lined with natural muscles, just where they should be, everything perfectly proportioned.
Melissa ran her hands over his pecs, touching his n
ipples, his abs, everything. She studied his tattoos as if seeing them for the first time.
“This one is new,” she whispered, running her fingers over the darker lines above his left pectoral muscle, some kind of foreign character, Chinese maybe.
“Not that new,” he said.
Melissa reached over and clicked on the bedside lamp, something she never would have done with Richard. The curtains were wide open in the room, and though they were a few floors up there were other buildings not far off. She didn’t care.
“What does it mean?”
“It’s hard to explain. Aware yet calm. Calm while aware. Something like that.”
Which explained Marcus perfectly. “Are you calm and aware right now?”
“Totally.”
Melissa reached down and ran her hand over his groin, feeling his cock. “This doesn’t seem very calm.”
“That’s the aware part.” Marcus pushed her hand away, not harshly, rolling off her and lying on his back. “Take off your clothes.”
So it was going to be like that. Melissa didn’t mind, it didn’t matter. Any way was going to be good, was going to be right.
She stood up and unzipped her dress, not making a big deal of it, not making stripper sounds and fake seductive faces. She just let her dress fall to the floor and stepped out of it, then slipped off her heels. She stood there in her bra and panties.
Marcus made a little gesture with his hand. “The rest of it,” he said.
Melissa unsnapped her bra and let it fall, and then pushed her panties down her legs. She stood up, suddenly very aware of her body, now regretting having turned on the light, knowing it would show every line, every imperfection. Thinking about the little blonde, probably five years younger, and her perfect, tight body, bigger breasts. Hoping Marcus wouldn’t tell her to turn around, her ass being no match for the blonde’s.
“Turn around.”
Damn him for the tenth time today. Like he knew what she was thinking. She hesitated.