by Ben Boswell
I shook my head. She had a point. In retrospect, I had invited that.
“You just got jealous when it looked like I was having more fun,” she continued.
"I still don't see it that way," I replied. “I do feel like you misled me.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
I paused. "So, what now? You gonna do downstairs and look for Jack or some other random guy to fuck?"
She narrowed her eyes. "It would serve you right for being an ass. And yeah, if you were up for it, I'd be up for playing for the rest of the trip. But you're not. I get it. I'm sorry you're upset. Let's just call it one of those 'what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas' moments, although not in the fun sense of the phrase."
I nodded. It wasn't ideal. But it was what it was. Sometimes that the best you can do in a relationship. You can’t turn back time, and you can’t just blow things up when things go wrong. For the first time I think I understood what people mean when they say a relationship takes work.
She leaned in close and gave me a kiss on the cheek. "It was just a little meaningless fun. You're the only one I love," she said softly.
She walked past me into bathroom and climbed into the shower.
***
We had two more days in Vegas, and for the rest of the time we might as well have been retirees. We tried the buffets, saw some shows, sat at the pool, and went to bed early. We spoke in banalities.
On the last night, we made love. It was awkward and oddly passionless. Pleasurable, but lacking in urgency. And more than anything else, vanilla.
Once home, things slowly got back to normal. The STD tests came back negative, and Leslie went off the pill. Our love making slowly improved, though it was obvious we were both holding back.
She's pregnant now, and it is a relief. I hope it serves as a clear dividing line between what was and what will be.
I need that divide because I think about "it" all the time. I think about Vegas… and even more, I think of what she was or would be if it weren't for me. I just can't help it. I picture her in college, pulling a frat party train, getting drunk and eating out her female roommate, bent over the sink in a bar bathroom, getting fucked up the ass by some guy she just met. Other times, I think of her now, of her having an affair with her boss, or blowing a cop to get out of ticket, or seducing the plumber.
I don't want her to do any of that. It's like a terrible looming fear, but one that never fails to get me hard. I can't help it. Even when we're making love... ok, especially when we're making love, I think of her with other men. I think of them using her, roughly, repeatedly... and then I come. In a weird way, the experience has reshaped my fantasies. There is something disturbing, unsettling about getting aroused thinking of situations you absolutely, positively don’t want to see happen... again. But then again, our sexuality is a weird and mysterious thing, and for good or ill, we can’t always control our fetishes.
What happens in Vegas doesn't always stay there, I guess.
AFTERWORD AND COMMENTARY
This is perhaps the oldest story of mine that I remain fond of. Begun originally sometime in the mid-1990s, it was, I think, the first story I wrote about a cheating significant other that did not portray the woman as an unrepentant harpy.
The evil bitch characterization, of course, caused plot difficulties. If the wife/girlfriend was an evil, manipulative slut, then why is the man with her? Because she’s beautiful, perhaps. Or he’s desperate and pathetic. In either case, the story now has not one, but two unsympathetic characters. She’s evil, he’s either shallow or sad. Now, I know that this is actually what most cuckold fiction looks like. Some people, I guess, get off on it and identify with it, or whatever. Perhaps they just like how this sort of story meets their expectations. Indeed, I guess it did for me as well, for a time.
Over time, however, I’ve come to want more out of erotic fiction, both as a reader and an author. But if the wife/girlfriend isn’t just a lusty hellbat, then why does she cheat? Well, a real and honest look at relationships isn’t very sexy, unfortunately. Why do most people cheat? Because, on the whole, their relationship is no longer fulfilling (if it ever was). People take each other for granted, drift apart, and so on.
Some authors shorthand those relationship problems as “boredom” for which the cure is, obviously, swinging. I don’t find those stories particularly interesting. I like some conflict in the narrative. Sex is sex, and sex is hot. I get that. But sex that provokes myriad other emotions – anger, jealously, fear – is, I think, even hotter. Erotica where everyone is happy and laid back and fucking around can be fun, but it just doesn’t feel real to me. More than that it doesn’t feel in any way consequential. I don’t mean that in the “cure for cancer” sense of consequential, but rather in the sense that it lacks a strong narrative arc. Without some conflict, you have description, but not a story.
This is why I tend to write cheating fiction rather than swinging fiction. But then the original problem remains. I’ve employed three different tropes over time to trigger the cheating situation. Over time, I’ve clarified and tightened them, but what is fun about this story is that all three are present in outline form. People who like my other books and stories will see how this one foreshadows several of the others.
Anyway, the concepts are the following:
(1) The woman with the lusty past plot. I have to admit, I just love this one, even though I recognize it is unrealistic. There is just something that turns me on about the idea that some women (most? all?), have a deep, dark buried, wildly sexual past. That the soccer mom you see at church on Sunday was a gangbang slut back in college. Why it turns me on, I don’t know, but it does. Anyway, in this case the cheating is basically a story of suppressed impulses and desires suddenly bubbling forth.
(2) The misunderstanding plot. She cheats because she thinks he wants her to. Erotica as old TV sit-com. This is even less realistic, but it gets the woman off the hook, and also creates a certain Greek tragedy feel. She cheats because of something he does or says that inadvertently encourages her to do so. As a result, the “cuckold” has to deal with the realization that he, in part, is to blame for the situation.
(3) The change of scenery plot. We’re in the tropics, anything goes. We’re in Vegas, anything goes. We’re in Bangkok, anything goes, etc. Basically, the idea here is that we’re all sexual creatures, but that we restrain ourselves in normal circumstances, but what happens when things aren’t normal?
Last Fling is pretty immature, of course. I mean, why does Leslie sleep with Jack? He’s sort of a character and he’s packing. Okay, but that is pretty shallow. If I were writing it now, I’d expand on her concerns about being tied down with kids, about the irrevocable choice that starting a family entails. I might explore her feelings of inadequacy compared to the girls at the strip club, and then her annoyance with Dave that he isn’t more grateful about the threesome with the hooker. I think Leslie’s behavior makes sense if you see her as angry that after the night she’s given her husband, he basically blows her off to play cards. Except, you, the reader would have to invent all of that since I don’t provide it in the story.
On the other hand, I do make use, in underdeveloped fashion, of the three tropes I mentioned above. Leslie was slutty back in the day. There is a misunderstanding at the blackjack table. And of course, there is the change of scenery plot.
This story also dates back to when I was conceiving of stories as shorts. I was operating under an implicit word budget of 6,000-10,000 words. Nowadays, if I were writing this story from scratch, this would just be the first part. I mean, obviously this can be read as an “origins” story. Will Leslie be able to put this side of her back under wraps? Will Dave be able to resist his desire to see her again act the slut? I don’t want to speculate too much because I might indeed write a sequel to this at some point, but as a book, the story would not have such an abrupt, open-ended conclusion. In re-editing this story, I was tempted to flesh out the ending, but then I realize
d that I couldn’t do it without writing that sequel immediately.
There are a lot of other themes here that I often explore: The idea of that men are turned on by cuckolding because it represents an eroticized fear; the notion that a swinging couple is likely to have different experiences – more sex for her, less sex and more frustration for him; the concept that the early hours/days of a new sexual relationship create an all-enveloping fog where judgment disappears.
Anyway, this is not a great story, though I think it has some hot moments. But in a lot of ways it is a story that somehow hints at all my obsessions. Perhaps that distorts my judgment, and makes me read this short more fondly than it deserves. I don’t know. I hope you enjoyed it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I am your typical family man with a wife and kids and an overactive imagination. I am a longtime reader and author of erotic fiction. I write in genres that I find exciting and arousing. Most of my stories are in the naughty wife, wife-watching genre, though occasionally I venture into other subject matter.
Reader feedback is what keeps me going. Please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or visit my blog at benboswell.blogspot.com. You can follow me on Twitter @BenBoswellAut.
I have written five other pieces of longer-form fictions.
Two Sides of Terri
Bill has just about the perfect life. Good paying job. Lovely home. Perfect children. And most of all, he has his wife Terri--smart, funny, great with the kids. Thing is, she's a good girl trapped in a bad girl's body. Blonde, busty, and devastatingly beautiful, she makes him want to do dirty things--things you don't admit to wanting from the girl-next-door.
Or so he thought.
It starts with a revelation about Chucky, a past boyfriend, and everything he thought he knew about his sweet wife unravels. He becomes obsessed with learning more about this other side of Terri--and everything he learns points back to Chucky, a man she couldn't say no to. Does he dare invite her past back into their present? And if he did, would she now be able to say no?
Available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Two-Sides-Terri-Ben-Boswell-ebook/dp/B00HSCMZTW
Whatever it Takes
Daniel and Kris are as white bread as they come. Together since junior high, they have two kids, a house in the suburbs, and no excitements in their lives. Things change when Kris' little sister Jessi moves in. Jessi is everything Kris isn't, reckless, promiscuous, and mixed up with very bad people. As their two orbits intersect, Daniel and Kris get dragged into Jessi's world of drug dealers, strip clubs, and prostitution. Can they survive the dangers? And even if they do, will their marriage?
Fueled by their love for each other, and drawing on a strength and resourcefulness they never realized they had, Daniel and Kris are desperate to recover their old lives. To do so, they will do whatever it takes!
Available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Whatever-It-Takes-Ben-Boswell-ebook/dp/B00KABTO42
Honeymoon Hazards
After being together for seven years, John and Claire marry and jet off to beautiful Hawaii for their honeymoon. It is a paradise of hard bodies in tiny bikinis, mixed drinks consumed in the hot sun, and a resort built for private encounters.
But when John is struck down with a stomach flu, he can do nothing but sit on his balcony and watch others have fun. Discovering his inner voyeur, he finds that spying on a resort full of sexy and adventurous guests is an enjoyable distraction.
That is, until he spots his new bride flirting with an oh-so-handsome stranger by the pool. Things really heat up when Claire disappears from view, and he can't find the stranger, either. As John’s imagination runs wild, the line between fantasy and lust blurs until he can no longer tell where his worst fears end and his fondest desires begin.
http://www.amazon.com/Honeymoon-Hazards-Ben-Boswell-ebook/dp/B00N84NIRM
The Surrogate Master
Would you trust a stranger you met online to repair your marriage? Would you be comfortable with him knowing your wife’s most intimate secrets? Would you let him come into your home, your bedroom?
When his wife Rachel returns to work after being a stay-at-home mom for five years, Max knows they will have to make some adjustments. What he hasn’t counted on is Rachel’s new boss. Handsome, aggressive, and domineering, he awakens long dormant desires within Rachel.
As Max watches, helpless, the transformation in his wife, he has to deal with his own insecurities and fears. As their marriage faces its ultimate challenge, both Rachel and Max have to confront their pasts, their fears, and their fantasies… but they aren’t alone.
They meet a stranger online, a man who has an uncanny ability to see both Max and Rachel for who they really are. But what is his game? Is he just an unconventional marriage therapist? Or does he represent an even greater danger than they can even imagine?
http://www.amazon.com/Surrogate-Master-Ben-Boswell-ebook/dp/B00P3FDIE2
Dark Tide: An Interracial Adventure on the High Seas
Jeremy should be focused on enjoying a luxury cruise with his beautiful, blond wife Jennifer. But all he can think about is her with Captain Reg Wallace. Reg is built like an NFL wide receiver, and very, very black. Jeremy can't shake the image of this powerful, black man between his wife's creamy, white thighs.
With everything going right in his life, is Jeremy willing to risk it all to indulge his fantasy of seeing his wife with a gorgeous black man? And how will he react when he finds she is all too willing to make his fantasy come true?
http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Tide-Interracial-Adventure-High-ebook/dp/B00U8AV05Q/
Short Stories
There are a number of short stories that I’ve written over the years that I am particularly fond of. I am in the process of editing and preparing them for publication. The first three are out.
Cuckolding Shorts
Volume 1: The Cottage
Rich has always had fond memories of his parents' old lake cottage. When they decide to sell it, he invites some old friends to join him and his wife Becky for a weekend of beer and nostalgia. But Rich's plans are upset by the presence of Robby, who is boorish, aggressive, and makes no secret of his lust for Becky.
When Robby badgers Rich into a foolish bet, he learns that his wife is willing to go to any lengths to make sure he pays his debts.
Available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Cottage-Cuckolding-Shorts-Book-ebook/dp/B00NY1CQAE
Volume 2: Déjà Vu
Bill and Jessie are celebrating their tenth anniversary when they run into Bill's college roommate. Chad is so handsome and charming that Jessie knows she needs to have him. Saying no should be easy for Bill, but he and Chad have a long and twisted past and this is not the first time Bill has had to deal with Chad's intoxicating effect on even the most sober-minded of women.
Available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Deja-Vu-Cuckolding-Shorts-Book-ebook/dp/B00QE2B1ZG
May/December Romances
Volume 1: Midlife Glitch
Dan is fifty-four, married, semi-retired, and an empty nester. Ashley is eighteen, blond, beautiful and the daughter of Dan's best friend. She's in town pursuing an internship. They have nothing in common except a sudden, burning attraction that risks destroying everything around them if they give in to temptation.
When a family emergency sends Dan's wife half-way across the country, he is left to grapple with his lust for his inappropriately young houseguest. But Ashley has her own needs and desires, and in the end, attraction can't always be contained.
Available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Midlife-Glitch-December-Romances-Book-ebook/dp/B00STZT9KA/
For more information on future projects, visit http://www.benboswell.com
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