by C. C. Morian
If they were going to play this game, she had to contribute equally.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to disappoint him, although she didn’t. It wasn’t that she was doing it just for him. It was that she now understood something new about herself, what she responded to, what she enjoyed. If they were going to include sexually themed items in the bucket list, for her not to contribute the kinds of things she now realized she liked would be just like lying. And she just couldn’t lie to Justin. Or herself.
The only sound in the house was the ticking of the grandfather clock. Justin had left for work twenty minutes ago. Emily glanced at the clock, almost nine a.m.; she’d been staring at the jar for so long she was going to be late for the office. Yet she couldn’t leave until she made a decision.
The blank piece of paper on the top of the pad demanded to be written on. She picked up the pen, surprised to see that her hands weren’t shaking. All her trepidation was burning up in her heart and mind, leaving little for her body.
Now she regretted having ripped up her bucket list item about having sex in the shower. Justin would have been so surprised to have opened that one, so excited. But now that they’d done it, she couldn’t very well write it down again.
She could, but it wouldn’t be the same. It had to be something—more.
She poised the pen over the blank piece of paper, wishing it were an old fashioned Ouija board, willing it to move on its own. No luck. She’d have to make a conscious decision.
Maybe she could put in a whole bunch of less risky ideas. Taken together, they’d have a weight of their own. She could use the categories she had seen on the porn site. Just listing a few would be funny to read, titillating. She could have a note that said, “read porn listings together.” Maybe they’d even find one to look at, one not as scary as BBC or wife sharing.
Scary, because those were the ones that had turned her on. That had tempted her.
Just to see how it looked on paper, how it felt, she wrote watch more videos of a wife having sex with another man in her tiny, neat hand.
What would Justin do if he saw this note? How would he feel?
And is that what she really wanted, to watch more porn? Is that what had really affected her? The video itself?
She drew a shaky line through the first four words.
She stared at the paper. Wife having sex with a another man.
Such little words, tiny drops of ink that should have been innocuous. And yet, just by thinking them, writing them, seeing them, she had crossed a chasm, a momentous step over danger.
And those same words, if Justin saw them, could allow them both to soar into a new world.
Or make them fall.
She just couldn’t do it. Imagine it, yes. Listen to Justin’s dirty talk about it, yes. But do it for real. . .she couldn’t believe it could ever happen.
And yet, if someone had asked her a few months ago if she had watched porn, she would have told them they were crazy. If someone had asked her if she’d ever been excited thinking about having unprotected sex with a black man, she would have told them they were sick.
And yet she’d done both of those things.
So what was the lie? Writing it down and not thinking she’d do it, or fantasizing about it and not admitting it?
She heard the front door open, Emily’s hands grabbing for the paper before she even realized what was happening, shredding the sheet. Justin stopped in the doorway, staring at her, their eyes locking.
He knows, Emily thought. He knows what I was thinking.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I—is everything okay? Why are you home?”
“I forgot the files I was working on, I was almost all the way to the office. Aren’t you late for work?”
“I didn’t realize what time it was,” she said, rising, using the movement to hide her hands as she crunched the bits of paper up in her fist. “I was making a list—a grocery list for what I need at the store.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Justin disappeared into the kitchen, returning a moment later. He gave Emily a quick kiss. The torn pieces of paper were like a lead weight in her hand.
It didn’t really hit me that something might be going on with Emily until I got home that night. She was still out, it was the night she went shopping with her girlfriends. I flicked on the light in the entry. Normally I’d turn left into the kitchen, but a gleam caught my eye from the other direction, the dining room.
Frowning, I went that way, switching on the chandelier. Everything was fine. Where had that gleam come from? I switched off the overhead, and there it was again, on the table.
The crystal jar, the one with our bucket list items.
What was it doing on the dining room table?
Then I realized it had been there when I had rushed into the house that morning to retrieve my files. It just hadn’t registered in my brain.
Emily must have put it there. Why? Was it her shy way of saying she wanted to pick something else out?
I lifted the lid. I couldn’t tell if anything had changed, if there were more pieces of paper. Could she have added something?
I was so tempted to look. After our experiment with the porn videos, I was dying to know if Emily might have added something sexual. I stared at the jar from every angle attempting to guess if anything new was inside.
No luck.
Still, it had to be here for a reason.
I could ask Emily, that would be the easiest thing. Or just suggest it was time to pick something else out. Maybe we’d choose a note she had just added.
Emily’s reaction to my whispered description of her having sex with another man had blown me away. She’d been incredibly, impossibly aroused. That night, after, she’d said nothing at first, although when I had quietly asked her if she had enjoyed my story she had nodded into my chest. Then, after a moment, her voice tentative, as if fearing how I would respond, she had asked, “Did you?” I had guided her hand to my now deflated cock, and she seemed to understand immediately. It wasn’t that I hadn’t been hard, it was that I had finished. She sighed and snuggled up against me.
The next day she’d mentioned nothing at all about it.
And yet here was the jar, right out in the open. Like a big banner proclaiming she wanted to go again.
I remembered what other bucket item ideas I had put in the jar. Some of them seemed downright tame now, although if you thought about it, getting drunk and watching porn really wasn’t that extreme either. And yet, given Emily’s upbringing, her background, her shyness, her reaction to what we had done seemed way past the ordinary.
What exactly would she write down and add to the list if she felt truly comfortable doing it? If she had a different history?
Suddenly I remembered that Emily had written something else down, but she’d changed her mind, or lost her nerve. Given what else happened that night, I had forgot all about it. Yet she had ripped the paper to shreds, hiding it. Was that because it was too tame or too naughty?
I went into the living room and stuck my hand down the crevices in the sofa cushions. Nothing. I pulled up the cushions, groping, on my hands and knees looking under the furniture. Feeling foolish, I got up. Whatever she had written down was gone, I’d never know. Maybe I’d just pretend; it would be wonderful fodder for a fantasy, something to jerk off to when I was on a business trip, pretending Emily had written that she’d wanted anal sex or. . .letting me watch her have sex with another man.
It would never happen. But just seeing the words in her handwriting, or her just saying she wanted to pretend, would be enough.
I grabbed a beer and went back into the dining room, where I sat, sipped, and stared at the crystal jar. It seemed to be calling to me, asking me for another contribution. Perhaps just as Emily had secretly hoped.
I turned to the sideboard and from the small drawer pulled out a pad and pen. At the bottom of the first blank page I drew three horizontal lines, forming the outlines o
f the strips I’d tear off with my new ideas.
What could I write? It had to be something that Emily wouldn’t be turned off by so much that she’d quit the game. I needed something she might be willing to try. I had thought that watching porn would be the furthest we could go, that was the stretch goal. Yet perhaps because she had been a little drunk, Emily had gone along, and I sensed no regrets. What next?
It wasn’t that a lot thoughts didn’t immediately spring to mind. But I immediately rejected most of them. Not that I didn’t want to experience them, but even with her recent willingness to experiment, I sensed Emily wasn’t ready for, say, anal sex.
I was staring at the blank page when a series of indentations caught my eye at the top of the page. It must have been the remnants of whatever had been written last on the pad, on the page above. Then I remembered the grocery list Emily had been preparing. Yet there was only one item, and I could tell part of it had a line drawn through.
Why would she need a grocery list for only one item?
Curious, I held the paper up to the light. It was hard to make out the impressions, the writing had been light. Yet even the shadow was unmistakably Emily’s dainty handwriting. Unfortunately, part of which she had written was overwhelmed by other writing, probably from two sheets above, hard pressed letters. That would have been me, I’d been doing that for years.
I could only make out two complete words, more and man. The others didn’t make sense, or were indecipherable. A third word seemed to be sex, but that might have been my imagination.
What could that mean? More sex? She wanted more sex? That by itself was exciting. Yet more was one of the words she had crossed out.
And what did the man part mean? More sex with a man didn’t make any sense. Unless she meant. . .no, that couldn’t be it. I twisted the paper this way and that. Was the word another in there somewhere? Could she possibly have written sex with another man?
My hands were shaking as I tried everything I could to figure out what she had written. At one point I even went through all the trash containers in the house, looking for the piece of paper she had obviously torn off the pad. But I could find no evidence. Again I resisted the urge to upend the jar and paw through all the slips of paper.
That wouldn’t be right.
Though I had found no trace, there was no doubt in my mind that Emily had at least written something down. Something to do with sex.
I couldn’t wait to find out what it might be. In the meantime, it convinced me I could make my own additional contributions to the bucket list. Sexual contributions. But what?
I thought back to what had first turned both of us on. It had been the night she’d been out in the new outfit, wearing the stockings. My thoughts of her being ogled by another man. Perhaps more than one man.
Is that what Emily had written? That she wanted to fantasize about other men? Maybe not to have sex with them, but to watch more videos? To hear me talk dirty to her about her having sex with someone else?
She’d been aroused that night we’d gone to the restaurant. Had she realized the men were leering over her? Is that what had set her off?
I tore off the top sheet of paper, the one with the indentation. I was going to save that. To think about. To fantasize about. And maybe, someday, to ask Emily about, if nothing like it turned up in the bucket list.
I tore three strips off the next page. On the first one I wrote: I want you to dress up again in your new outfit and stockings and go out with me so that men can look at you.
She’d already done that, but this time it would seem different, we’d know about it beforehand, she’d be thinking about it in real time, just as I would. I felt my cock grow hard picturing it, Emily showing a little thigh, maybe revealing the top of her stockings.
On the second sheet, I wrote: Go out to a bar and I’ll pretend that I don’t know you, and see if anyone tries to pick you up. I’d already had that fantasy, Emily being hit on by a stranger. Only this time I’d be watching for real.
I thought long and hard about the third idea. Finally I wrote: Go on a real date with another man. And see what happens.
I frowned over that one, then crossed out the second sentence. It was too much. Nothing would happen. Although the first part would be incredible, just Emily going out with someone, and then coming back and telling me about it.
I realized that if Emily picked that one first from the jar, she’d freak out. No way she’d go out on a date with someone, even with my blessing. And it’s not like I wanted her to have sex with another guy for real, I just wanted to think about it, hear her talk about it, see her get excited about it. Our own private fantasy.
And yet, taken together, the three ideas I’d come up with had a certain progression. Just as watching the porn had led to the sex in the shower and the whispered erotic story, so could dressing a little sexy and pretending to pick up another man lead to. . .a date.
I set aside the three separate slips and instead started a new sheet, where I wrote all three ideas down on one page, numbered one to three. It wouldn’t be three separate bucket list items, but just one. Shook my head, that wouldn’t work either. She’d read all three, it would be too much to take in.
Then I smiled, I had a thought. I carefully folded my original three slips one on top of another and got a stapler from the drawer, stapling them together. One idea, three steps, each to be revealed after the prior one was completed.
I carefully folded the whole thing and put it in the jar.
Now all I could do was wait.
Emily wrapped her fingers around the cold metal of the dumbbell. She knew why they kept the gym cold, but she didn’t like it, she always felt it was a good way to pull a muscle. With one knee on the bench and her feet planted firmly on the floor, she began her new routine of tricep curls.
She normally didn’t lift weights, but she’d had a sudden urge to get a little more toned up. She ran a lot, her legs were good, nice and firm with definition. And she did Pilates and core exercises, giving her a flat stomach. But she didn’t do much for her arms. So after some internet research she’d worked out a little routine after her swim: curls, different extensions, kickbacks.
She’d been in the gym a lot lately. Justin was on his first long trip in his new role heading up the pipeline project, and he had been gone over a week. She hated him being away weekends, that was when they usually did fun activities. Not wanting to be in the house alone she was spending more time at the gym.
For Justin’s sake, she wouldn’t reveal she was bothered by him being away. He was really into his new job, she’d never seen him so happy. She just hoped that once the project was over he wouldn’t have to travel so much, especially after the three months he would be away at the final startup.
In the meantime, she could get her arms in shape.
She lifted the dumbbell back, trying to remember what she had seen in the internet videos. She knew she should have asked the trainer at the gym, but he’d been a little too friendly, and she’d caught him staring at her. She’d seen him hitting on other woman and she had no doubt that there was some fooling around. She just wasn’t interested in that.
Not with him, anyway.
Not with anyone, for real. But alone at night the last few days she’d lie in bed, in the dark, having the recurring fantasy of sex with another man. No matter how she tried not to think about it, every time she lay down it was there. She had even tried one night to sleep with the lights on. It was like an itch that had to be scratched, out of your control.
She had masturbated three nights in a row.
The first two times she had felt guilty. Last night she had rationalized that she must not be the only woman masturbating when her husband was away. And she was masturbating about Justin. Mostly.
Another rationalization.
Plus, she told herself, Justin would be excited if she admitted to him what she had been doing. At least the masturbating part. Would he really want to hear that she had been fantas
izing about being with another man?
Now, in the crowded gym but alone with her thoughts, just the thought of it made her heart beat faster. The rhythm of her arms increased, each lift of her arm like a pelvic stroke. She shook her head, trying to clear the image.
The men in her fantasies were not only strangers, they were faceless. Yet unmistakably new, different men, not Justin. Sometimes her fantasies started with him, sometimes just with someone else, ending with Justin in the bed, or just in the room. Watching.
So ridiculous, having these thoughts in the gym, growing hot in the cold room. . .
It was a good thing she wasn’t a guy, she’d have an erection right now, that would be so embarrassing. As it was she felt awkward and self conscious as she stood up and shifted to the other arm.
She started slow, but within a few seconds she was back in her faster rhythm, not able to shake her wicked thoughts. It was impossible not to think of the movement of her arm as a stroke, her fingers tight around a man’s shaft—
“You’re doing that all wrong.”
The voice was right on top of her, so close that Emily jumped, the weight coming down against her leg, painful. She yelped.
She turned to see Damian. He was shaking his head and laughing.
“It’s got to be long and slow, not short and quick,” he said. “At least, if you want to get the most out of it.”
Emily was rubbing her thigh where she’d hit herself. “Look what you made me do,” she said, her tone angry, unlike her but not caring.
“I could rub it for you,” said Damian.
“You’ll do no such thing. What are you doing here?”
“I’m working out. You told me about this gym, remember?”
Emily tried to look away but she couldn’t take her eyes off him. God, he was in incredible shape. He was wearing a tight workout top, his arms bulging through the fabric. She swore she could see the outline of his abs right through his shirt. A pair of tight three quarter pants, like what football players wore, showed off his thick thighs and muscular calves.