She was wearing a red dress, and it looked terrific on her. It sloped low on her chest, and gave a nice view into the deep valley between her breasts. I was excited to see her back into something sexy. Ultra-sexy. This time it was her own dress, and she had shopped for it specifically for this convention. My cock got hard just thinking of her, strolling through the mall, looking for a dress for a night like tonight.
I also liked to indulge myself a little more, every now and then, by fantasizing about her strolling through the mall, looking for the perfect lingerie for another man to peel away from her body...
But we weren't there yet.
Not yet.
This was as much as Kathy had agreed to do.
I wasn't sure what to do at this moment, while she looked at herself in the mirror. I wanted to go up behind her, and tell her she looked beautiful, but I also didn't want to do anything to shatter the uneasy agreement we'd reached.
The agreement to try out our game again.
On purpose this time.
Taking the fun we'd had the last convention to a slightly higher level.
I felt torn apart, watching her. An (admittedly small) part of me wanted to stop it all before it even happened.
At the same time, I could feel my cock getting hard just thinking about what we were about to do.
She rubbed her fingertips lightly over the back of her neck, and looked back at me. She had pinned her hair up, and the effect was quite sexy. A week before the convention she had it dyed. The shade was much lighter than her natural color, a near-platinum blonde. She had hated it at first, and I had found it a bit jarring, but now that she had the red dress on, some bright lipstick and some smoky eyeshadow, she looked incredible.
Her face was transformed.
Kathy's father's Russian features had mixed with her mother's All-Americanness, and the effect was...strange. If she did nothing with her make-up, she almost looked like an awkward teenager. Her nose was a little big and flared at the nostrils, her lips were heart-shaped and almost too sweet for her overall appearance, and her eyes held traces of Asian influence in their straight upper lids.
But if she outlined her pretty little mouth and she put eyeliner on her lids, as she had done tonight, the mixture of features came together to delightful effect. And she looked stunning.
Unusual, and stunning.
“You sure about this?” she said, catching my eye.
“This.”
“This” was our plan for her to go have some fun, introduce herself as Kate Orel, pretend to be someone else, and see where it took her.
And where it took us.
I smiled, trying, as I am wont to do, to play it cool. “It's a great dress.”
She laughed. A light laugh, more to put me at ease than her, because she knew me better than that. She looked uncertainly at herself in the mirror and ran her hands over the front of her dress.
“It looks fantastic,” I said.
“It's just so...I dunno. Sort of... slutty. Again.” She laughed lightly.
I shook my head. “It's hardly that.”
She met my eye in the mirror and gave me a nervous smile. “I mean, I guess that's sort of what I'm going for anyway.”
I shrugged, still playing it cool. “Look, why don't you just not worry about that. Wear it, see what happens.”
She brushed a stray strand of hair from her face. “Yeah. I guess.” She had straightened up to look at herself, but she was slumping again. She pressed her lips together and leaned toward the mirror to adjust her lipstick with the nail of her pinkie finger. “It's...now that we're like, actually doing this...I feel a little...”
She looked up at the ceiling.
“Nervous?” I offered.
“That and...sick,” she said.
I stayed on the bed. The truth was, I felt a little “sick” as well. After all the time I had spent gently coaxing my wife into even listening to my fantasy, let alone teasing it out of her, bit by bit – and now we were here. She was really going to go through with it. A little bit.
And my hope was, maybe a little bit more than even she intended.
“Someone's going to remember me,” she said, with a laugh. “And I'm going to make a huge fool out of myself. I just know it.” She gave a loose strand of hair a toss.
It wasn't going to happen, someone remembering her, but I didn't want to have to explain it to my wife and risk hurting her feelings or pissing her off.
No one was going to remember Kathy Banks, because Kathy had worn frumpy pants suits that made her look much larger than she was. Kathy had avoided talking to anyone and spent most of her time buried in the convention literature (the only attendee who actually did this). My wife Kathy had gone to bed at 8:00.
No one was going to remember the plain, mild, silent Kathy Banks. They hadn't even recognized her last time she had gone out with nothing changed but her dress.
There was no way they would recognize her now.
I was thinking about what to say, when Kathy's eyes suddenly snapped up to the mirror. Something flickered in her eyes and she smiled at herself. She shrugged.
“Remember,” I said. “Just...you know...do what feels natural to you. If you don't want anything to happen, then...whatever. Okay? And...maybe there won't even be anyone you like. So...you know.”
“That's probably what will happen,” she said, laughing her nervousness off. “All this getting dressed up for nothing.”
“I'm fine with that,” I said. “Anyway, it's just flirting.”
I wasn't fine with it. I was a deeply perverted man who could barely keep myself together for all the excitement I was experiencing. I was a man who had done nothing else for the past eight months but think about how I wanted my wife to repeat the performance she had given the year before. Eight months of gently warming her up to the idea of flirting with another man again.
For my own pleasure. The pleasure of watching her.
For my own hope. The hope that she might one day do more than flirt.
But that was for another day.
“You're sure about this?” she said, turning around to face me.
I nodded. My breath got caught in my chest when she said this. I was overcome by a crushing wave of excitement and anxiety. But reached out for her and pulled her close to me. “I only want you to do this if it's something you want to do.”
She tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. Then she laughed nervously. “I haven't even talked to another man who wasn't the FedEx guy since last year,” she said.
I knew that Kathy had nothing to worry about. She had never had anything to worry about. When I first met her, men had been attracted to her like bees to nectar. She was never the belle of any ball, mostly because she dressed more conservatively than most girls her age, and didn't really put herself out there. She wasn't a waif, so maybe it took a while for guys to clue in on her insanely curvaceous figure. But there were always plenty of guys with their eyes on her. Kathy had just been oblivious to it.
And then she had sort of stopped taking pains of any kind with her appearance. The less she did, the more she sort of blended away. She'd lost some confidence because of the kids, who she remarked had widened her waist significantly. This was an untruth: the changes to her figure had been minor and proportional; where her waist was slightly wider her hips were, too.
If anything, she was sexier now.
I knew, of course, what was under her frumpy pants suits.
And I knew as well as she did, from the events of last year, that when she took the time to spruce herself up, especially if she put her breasts on display, she could be a knockout.
And this new idea of ours gave her motivation to do just that.
“Look,” I said, “remember what we agreed. It's just for fun. It's just to spice things up a little. Get dressed up, get me feeling a little possessive...that's all. Hot sex like last year. Just for fun.” I stood up and slid my arms around her waist. “It's sort of like...making us appreci
ate what we have.”
She turned back to the mirror that evening, though, without asking that same old question. “Okay. Just don't be disappointed if it isn't exactly what you expect. And if -” she held a finger up firmly, “anyone recognizes me or I even think they do, I'm out of there. I'm a terrible liar.”
I smiled at her.
To be honest, I was 50% sure the plan would fall apart the moment she set foot in the hotel bar. She was a terrible liar, and not much as an actress, and even less of a seductress. And she was pretty unwilling, as far as this plan went. She would probably start laughing at herself in the elevator, and turn around and come back.
But men have more hope than women, don't we? Hence: missions to the moon, action movies. Playboy magazine.
So, even though I mostly knew it would never work, I summoned the burning hope of man, and kissed her goodbye.
The nice thing about VerdeCo conventions – and probably the only reason that anyone goes to them – is that they were almost always in a tropical place. And if you chose not to take them seriously for business, as nearly everyone did, there were plenty of cocktail parties and mixers scheduled. The company, which no longer was a pyramid scheme but had essentially begun as one, also had ever-increasing numbers of operators attending the conventions. Hundreds of new people each cycle. All told, this provided the possibility of remaining semi-anonymous if you had to much to drink or wanted to have an affair, and...well, a lot of choices for just that kind of thing.
The parties had never been our interest in going before, but now that we had a taste of that kind of excitement, it seemed like such a perfect opportunity: another place, separate from our regular lives. A place where Kathy could become Kate Orel, and flirt with other men.
Where Kate Orel could do even more than that. Kate Orel could do whatever she liked.
(I hadn't gone that far into the plan with Kathy just yet, but I had it on the back burner, simmering).
The idea was very alluring: have my wife satisfy my fantasies once a year in some other place. Keep them contained and limited.
But in all honesty, I never really thought Kathy would make it past the first night. She would balk, or crack up, or indeed, someone would recognize her.
Still, it was fun just to plan and to savor the anticipation of it.
The evening's activity was, unimaginatively, a pool and beach party. It did have the extra allure, though, of attracting other guests from the hotel. I strolled along the balconies overlooking the pool, scoping out where I would sit and what I would do as I watched my wife come to the same party as me, unaccompanied, looking stunning.
With permission to flirt.
I was tingling with excitement, I remember that. But it's hard to remember now exactly how seriously I was taking the whole thing. I feel like I was making plans to sit here or there, and do this or that, more like a pleasant daydream. I think I didn't really believe that she would go through with any of it.
I found a spot at a table someone seemed to have used for something else and then forgotten about. It was partially tucked behind the white stucco walls, and truthfully it was a picture-perfect scene, almost as though from a movie. I had a nice view of the hanging lights over the bar at the end of the pool, the warm fires beyond it on the beach, the empty pool.
I was never sure, later, why I had chosen to sit there. The whole point of Kathy coming as Kate, and under her maiden name, was to allow me to be a voyeur without having to hide.
It took me a moment to notice her. She came from one of the stairways that led to the upstairs rooms with balconies over the pool. The entrance she appeared from was nowhere near our room. It was telling: she had obviously walked around for a bit upstairs. Thinking. Maybe hesitating.
For a moment I felt sorry for her. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, and did an awkward, hesitant shuffle before standing with her feet together and her hands clasped over a small purse. A breeze picked up a strand of her hair and she tucked it back into place. Her eyes were searching the party, and her expression was one of shyness and fear.
This was ridiculous, I suddenly realized. I started to push up on the table with both hands, and it slid from its precarious perch, tipping my gin and tonic into my lap. I looked down to try and brush it away before it soaked into my pants, and when I looked up, the hesitant woman in the red dress was gone.
I scanned the party frantically.
She had moved only a little, and through some incredible magic, her face had been transformed. She was tucking another strand of hair behind her ear, and smiling – really smiling. She looked down at her feet and then looked back up.
I was so caught up watching her, watching the expressions I hadn't seen forever move across her face – expressions of delight, of flirtatiousness, of carefreeness – that I didn't even notice the reason for her new expression.
The short sandy hair of the man who was speaking to her was all I could see.
He was evidently making her laugh, because she opened her mouth and tipped forward a little with the force of her quiet laugh. It was difficult to get Kathy to laugh (I was an expert), and yet this guy seemed to be doing it in...well, less than ten seconds.
I felt a flare-up of a feeling that was close to rage.
I hadn't expected it.
I had expected jealousy. Hard-won jealousy, or maybe even exasperation, after watching her all night and not even getting much out of it. I had expected some time to dip into the waters of my wife flirting with another man.
To be honest, I had expected her to fail a little bit.
I had not expected her to get picked up in less than ten seconds, while I spilled a fucking drink.
I lowered myself slowly into the chair and watched some more. Kathy was running her fingers through her hair and looking out toward the beach.
She looked uncertain.
Good. She had probably not expected things to move this quickly, either.
I held what was left of my drink to my lips and bored my stare through the air toward my wife. She would shake her head next, I was thinking. She would be too taken aback by such an early proposal, and she would go and sit at the bar alone for a bit.
She seemed to totter, first up, then down. I squinted, not understanding what was happening.
Then, just as I was realizing that she was removing her shoes, her blonde head merged with the head of the sandy haired man, and they disappeared.
I was charging like a bull toward the beach, almost instantly.
“Paulie!”
Pete Olsen popped up in front of me. He was wasted. Pete Olsen was a man who looked like his last name couldn't possibly not be Fitzgerald, with the slight underbite, square jaw, drawn lips and bumpy nose that screamed rich Irishman. He clapped me on the back. Then he looked to either side of me, as though searching for a child. “No wife this time?”
I was still in a rage. Still needing to move as quickly as I could to the beach, and see where my wife had gotten off to. So suddenly. So instantaneously.
I shook my head. “She's...she has the kids.”
“What's her name again?” Pete slurred, oblivious to my state of mind. He was a square man, and he braced himself against me as though he were a sailor on a storm-bound ship. “Liz?”
I squinted. What did I want to say here?
My mind replayed Kate, my creation. Her hair picking up in the wind, her full cleavage on display in her stunning red dress. She was out there on the beach right now. Talking to some guy. The wind from the ocean was picking up her dress and I could go sit down at a table right next to her if I wanted. Listen in, watch her flirt. Listen to other men talk about her like she was someone else's wife.
I shivered.
“Kathy.”
“Oh yeah, man. Kathy.” He threw an arm around me. “Well. It's just us then. Dude, there are some babes on the beach.”
He started to pull me exactly where I wanted to go. The sky had darkened to a blackish ink, and the beach yawned like an em
pty mouth. The white crests of the waves were barely visible beyond the fires set out for beach-goers.
Pete pulled at me, just before we got to the sand. My eyes were straining into the darkness, but the shapes of people were impossible to distinguish. The colors all faded to dark grays and light grays, and I couldn't find my wife.
“Gotta refuel,” Pete said. “You drinkin'?”
This was, “what're you drinkin',” not a question about whether or not I was.
“Gin and tonic,” I said absent-mindedly.
Pete ordered two of whatever he was drinking, because he forgot my order by the time the bartender got to him.
We clinked our glasses together and then we stepped into the uneven sand of the beach.
It was only at this point that I noticed that Pete was not wearing any shoes.
“Ladies,” he called, walking with open arms toward a group of women, who, to my surprise, evidently not only knew him but were happy he returned. I paused to take off my shoes, and then I waddled through the sand to the noisy group. Three women in bikinis were sitting on chairs by a fire.
“This is my buddy Paulie,” Pete said, when I came up to the group.
“Hi,” I said curtly. I looked out into the crowd of people on the beach, scanning for my wife and the sandy-haired stranger.
“I'm Alyssa,” one of the girls said, drawing my attention back to her by extending her hand. She had a dark tan, with extremely long sandy-brown hair that was streaked by the sun. Her bikini was a tight-fitting, sports bikini, and her skin had tan lines that didn't match the suit. She leaned her head back and gave me a smile with her row of inexplicably white teeth, and her whole story of rich daddy's girl turned surfer was told. I took her hand and smiled at her. “Paul.”
“You with Pete?” she had the overly laid-back drawl that comes with having smoked a kilo of weed in the past ten hours and not sobered up at all in the past ten years. Her eyes dropped as she talked to me.
It was sort of sexy, but I was interested in other things.
“We used to be together,” I quipped – this was my standard dumb joke for this question - “but now we're just friends.”
A Conventional Hotwife Page 5