by Ben Boswell
“Erm…” he struggled with his composure, and finally stammered through his spiel before hurriedly retreating.
“Great,” I commented. “Now we’ll be lucky to get him to come back to take our order.”
“If they scare away that easily then they aren’t going to be any good in bed anyway.”
“How did you get so, ah, experienced in all of this?”
“I thought we were talking about you,” she noted.
“We were, but you’re more interesting. So, seriously, what --”
“I wasn’t a virgin when we met.”
My cock twitched as I thought about her and Chucky. I’d heard a lot of stories about him. How he’d picked her up in a nightclub and scored with her in the bathroom. Their passionate relationship. The night he’d shared her with Jason, a light-skinned, black man who’d been her biggest until apparently just now. And I’d actually instigated their recent reunion, which had proceeded through various encounters, and even had a threesome with the two of them that was equally scaldingly hot and scaldingly dangerous. So I knew all about Chucky.
And I knew about her other men. We’d had that talk, though oddly it took her revelations about Chucky to bring it on. But that had been a list. It was enough at the time, but as I looked back on it, I realized it had been unsatisfying. A lot of half-truths on my side, and I suspected as many on hers. So, I knew she wasn’t a virgin when we met. I knew she’d been with precisely seven men before me, and with our recent adventures, two more men since. But I suspected there was more to her story.
“I know that,” I replied. “But I still don’t understand things.”
She shrugged. “What is there to understand?”
“I don’t know Terri. It’s not something I ever realized before, but something I’m finally seeing now.”
“Uh oh, that doesn’t sound good.”
“No. It’s just. I don’t think I’ve ever really gotten it. You’ve told me your stories. I know about Chucky. And Alex,” the nineteen year-old wannabe rocker who’d taken her virginity, “and Gary,” the older married man she’d first screwed on his desk, or was it her desk, in the office, “but….”
“But what?”
I hesitated, trying to put the sensation I was feeling into words. “But, I think I’ve been in denial. I’ve been thinking of the rawness, the thrill seeking, the… whatever…. I’ve been thinking of it as, you know, something that just, sometimes, comes out like a… like a….”
“Like a split personality?” she prompted. “That sounds about right, I guess.”
I thought of the white… grey… lies she’d told me about Chucky and how they’d almost caused a crisis between us. I thought of that, but also of more.
“But that’s not what I think anymore,” I said.
“Oh? And why is that? You think I’ve been hiding away a secret life? I’m an escort on the side, maybe?”
I groaned. God, that was a disturbingly sexy thought.
She grinned.
“That would be pretty hot, don’t you think?” she continued. “Would you like me to sit at the bar and see if a man offers me money for –“
“Terri, no, don’t,” I interrupted before adding, “not yet.”
I knew how easily she could derail me. How quickly she could spin a story of sex-for-hire that would have me desperate to hear more, to drag her from the restaurant and fuck her. And I knew I’d want her to do just that. Later, though. Not until we’d had this conversation.
“You sure, because –“
“Terri,” I said simply.
She stopped and nodded, like she knew her power over me, but was willing to refrain from using it… for now. That too was part of the puzzle. She looked at me expectantly.
“Terri,” I began again, “how’d you get so good at this?”
“At what?”
“Wrapping me around your little finger.”
“Is that how you see me?”
I laughed. “I admit, you don’t abuse your powers, but you do have them.”
“My powers, eh? I don’t think I’ve ever been compared to a superhero before.”
I shrugged.
She regarded me pensively. “Okay, Bill, I’ll play. We have been together a long time. And especially recently, you’ve given me plenty of ammunition.”
“It’s not just me,” I replied. “I see the effect you have on other men.”
“They’re called boobs, Bill. No superpowers involved. Just lumps of flesh.”
“No, it’s more than that.”
“We’ve had this conversation before as well,” she noted. “Men are easy, and almost conditioned by society to value this.” She gestured at herself with both hands. “Have you seen Fox News?”
“No,” I persisted. “It’s not just the blond hair.”
“Bill –“
I interrupted her. “It’s the way you flick the hair away from your face. The way you tap your red fingernails against a wine glass. The way you tilt your head and make a sly comment while peering through your eyelashes. The way you run the tip of your tongue over teeth, letting it just peek out between your lips. I could go on.”
“Are you calling me a flirt?”
“You are.”
“Sometimes,” she admitted.
“More than sometimes. I just realized it.”
“Bill, what are you saying?” she replied a little hotly.
Happily, the waiter returned to halt the escalation. We ordered. And I noticed Terri’s deliberate gravity. She had to work at not being a flirt. When he left, she looked up at me again, still angry.
“They say men think about sex every seven seconds on average,” I noted.
“Sounds about right,” she replied tersely, but I could see a glimmer of amusement returning to her eyes.
“It isn’t,” I replied. “Not literally so, of course. But it works as apocrypha.”
“Do you have a point beyond trying to impress me with your knowledge of obscure nouns?”
“Is it working?”
“Oddly enough, Brian didn’t need to use any Latin on me,” she replied.
“I bet he’d have liked to use Greek.”
She shook her head and chuckled. “Ouch. Too big.”
I smiled at her, pleased that the moment of tension had passed.
“So?” she prompted.
“I think you’re a much more sexual person than I ever realized.”
“I like sex.”
“It’s not something that just comes out periodically. It’s more… organic.”
She hesitated. Then came a look of scandalized realization. “Bill, I swear, I’ve never cheated –“
I put up my hand to stop her. “I’m not accusing you of that.”
“You sure? Because that’s where it feels like this is going.”
“But, I think you’ve thought about it.”
Another paused. “I’ve never….”
“I know. Cheated. But I think you think about other men.”
“Bill….”
“It’s okay. I fantasize about other women.”
“You bastard!” she teased.
“So, I’m right?”
“I’m still not sure what you’re asking.”
“I think you think about other men. Often. It’s not just a blue moon kind of situation. And it’s not just because it turns me on.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I just want you to help me see the world through your eyes.”
“I… I like men. I like sex. I like the way it makes me feel when I can see a man wants me. And if I find a man attractive, I guess I do sometimes like to see if I can get a rise out of him. I’ve never really thought of it that way, but is that wrong?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t say it was wrong. I just want to understand you better.” I paused. I knew what I wanted to ask, but even still, it was weird saying it. I decided to plow ahead. “And what happens when you get that rise?”
S
he looked at me quizzically.
“Does it turn you on?”
She giggled. “Do I get aroused?”
“Well, do you?”
“Sometimes. I guess.”
“Sometimes?”
She blushed. She actually blushed. Less than an hour earlier she’d seduced another man right in front of me. But she was embarrassed by this discussion. She took a sip of wine. Buying time, obviously, and thinking. She seemed to make a decision.
“Okay Bill. I guess the answer is yes. Yes. I often see men who turn me on. I imagine having sex with them. What they’d do to me, and what I’d do to them. And when I see that they’re interested too, that it would just be a matter of letting go, letting things happen, then yes, it does turn me on. And I do get aroused.”
“Tell me more.”
“Like what?” She tilted her head slightly and peered through her eyelashes. “Like the way it makes my skin so tingly and sensitive that I almost want to tear my clothes off? The way my nipples get hard and rub against the fabric of my bra? The way I can feel my panties moisten? Like that?”
I had to adjust my erection to keep it from being too conspicuous. My mouth was suddenly dry, and my concentration shot.
“Um, something like that,” I choked out.
“What else do you need to know?” she asked.
“Did you feel that way with Brian?”
“You know I did.”
“Would you even if I hadn’t been there?”
She blushed again. “Yes. I wouldn’t have done anything with him if you hadn’t been there to enjoy it. But yes, I probably would have flirted with him, and if he’d flirted back –“
“Which he would have….”
She nodded in agreement. “Then, yes, I’d have probably let my mind wander. Let myself imagine being with him. Enjoyed the guilty thrill my excitement provided.”
It was only what I had expected. Yet it sent me reeling. My wife wasn’t a werewolf, rendered mad only in rare circumstances. There weren’t two sides of Terri. There was just Terri, and beneath the surface, just barely constrained was a churning volcano of passion.
I was speaking now without even thinking. The words just emerging from my mouth as if by an irresistible compulsion.
“What if I didn’t have to be there to enjoy it? What if it was only about you?”
“But it isn’t,” she noted simply.
“It could be.”
She took another sip of wine. More buying time.
“You should be careful what you wish for, Bill.”
“I’m not wishing for anything in particular.”
She gave me a small smirk. “Next time, we should talk about you instead, then. But let’s leave that for another time. Time to think. Time to reconsider.”
“I don’t need that,” I assured her with a bravado that I didn’t really feel.
“I do,” she said firmly.
The waiter arrived with our orders, putting a period to the end of our discussion.
CHAPTER THREE
We didn’t get around to fantasizing the escort scenario. In fact, we barely had a real conversation over our meal. Instead, we spoke in the way long-time couples do. Work, news and kids. Sharing information, coordinating schedules.
The car ride home was virtually silent. We paid the babysitter and checked on the sleeping kids. We made our way to the bedroom and began to undress.
“Should I get cleaned up?” Terri asked.
“No.”
She finished removing her clothes and dropped onto the bed. Her legs were slightly apart and I caught a glimpse of her shaved pussy, swollen and glistening. As I joined her on the bed naked, she turned out the lights.
I moved on top of her, and she lifted her legs high into the air in a V. I entered her easily. Heat and wetness and very little friction. Was it excitement? Or was she still dripping with the combined come of two men? It didn’t matter. It felt amazing. Slutty. Raw.
We didn’t speak and barely kissed. The sex was oddly distant. Me relishing a wet hole. She enjoying a thrusting cock. Oddly distant because despite the lack of communication, I knew we were thinking about exactly the same thing: all the men who’d turned her on over the years of our marriage. About how different everything would be if she took me up on my impetuous offer.
I knew that through her mind were spinning faces and bodies, names and situations. The myriad situations and sex acts she’d fantasized about.
For me, it was more indistinct. From her work as a health care advisor, I knew her surroundings. Hospitals and doctor’s offices, conferences, client meetings, and lunches with contacts and referrals. So I had impressions of the men who she probably met on a daily basis. The muscular bad-boys: hospital orderlies, personal trainers, waiters, and repairmen. The distinguished gentlemen: doctors, financial planners, and clients.
She moaned softly, getting closer. Her eyes were shut tight in concentration. She was far, far away, with another man. I thrust in harder. She gasped. And then her pussy clenched my cock again and again. Another hard thrust and I was done as well, coming inside her, knowing that in her mind, this was the third different man to complete the act with her in a single day.
***
There is nothing wrong with white lies. Heck, I doubt any relationship can survive without them.
Do these jeans make me look fat? Mind if I have another beer? Are you upset I forgot to do the laundry?
We use them even more in our sex lives.
Did you come? Are you attracted to my sister? Does size matter? How many one-night stands have you had?
Anyone who thinks they’ve gotten the straight answer to any of those questions is hopelessly naïve.
I’d told my share of white lies. When the situation with Chucky had begun, Terri and I had finally had the talk about our sexual past. I felt that since we seemed to be moving in the direction of a new chapter in our lives, it probably made sense to be clear on the prologue.
I told her about my first. April. That she and I had dated the summer before college, and never quite got around to having sex. That we were both virgins and she wasn’t ready. And that with college right around the corner, I wasn’t desperate. That I’d finally managed to get some pity sex off her around Thanksgiving.
I’d told Terri all of this, and even mentioned that April had lost her own virginity at college before taking mine later in the semester.
So, Terri had the outlines. Had I lied about anything outright? No. But it wasn’t the whole story, of course.
I hadn’t been that into April over the summer. She was a pale skinned ginger. She wore glasses. She had this really thick hair that turned into a rat’s nest at the slightest hint of humidity. She had this annoying laugh. I was almost embarrassed to be seen with her.
All of that, in retrospect, was crazy. She had a very pretty face, and big green eyes. And her body, which at the time didn’t seem skinny enough or something, was actually gorgeous. But the truth is, I felt she was beneath me, which probably explains why I never got her into bed.
It didn’t help that I was selfish. She’d come over one night, and we were watching TV and making out, and listening for my parents who didn’t seem particularly inclined to give us any privacy. Even still, I’d managed to get my hand into her pants, and then her panties. I remember feeling my way through her full bush, touching her wetness for the first time. I pressed a finger inside her, too hard, and she tensed, but she didn’t push me away. I didn’t recalibrate. I thrust inside her a couple more times, thinking about how nice it would feel to have my dick in there, and not once thinking about how to make it feel nice for her. My dad rumbled down the basement steps, and I quickly withdrew my hand. She buttoned her jeans back up.
That was the closest we’d come to sex.
But I didn’t care. College was in a couple of weeks.
Of course, I was quickly taught the lesson that most freshman boys eventually learn. When you get to school, you’re low man on the totem pol
e. Freshman girls want older guys, and the older guys are eager to get their hands on the fresh meat. At least that is how it felt to me at the time, which I recognize now was part of the problem. It’s not so much that freshman girls want older guys. They’re just turned off by that stench of desperate, predatory, misogyny freshman boys give off. Not that older guys are much better, but they do hide it more effectively.
I’d barely thought of April the first week. Pinged her once the second. But by the third, I was emailing her a couple of times a day.
She’d put me into the “friend zone,” although I was in denial about it. Again, that is clear more in retrospect. At the time, I didn’t see that there was a plan in the way she brought up the other boys she’d met or hung out with. I didn’t cotton to the fact that it probably wasn’t a good sign for my romantic prospects that she was asking my advice about other guys. I thought she might actually just be trying to make me jealous.
Then, in late September, after a weekend during which I’d heard nothing from her, she broke the news.
Billy, remember that guy I told you about? Well, we hooked up this weekend. Hope you’re having fun too. April.
Or something like that. Brief. Terse even. I parsed every word. Which guy? There’d been several. But I knew. She’d mentioned him most recently. Danny. He was a junior. A business major. He had a car. He was, in short, to my mind, an asshole.
Hooked up seemed ambiguous. Did she mean they’d just made out? No. Fuck.
Having fun too. Too. That meant she’d enjoyed it. It had been fun.
I felt sick to my stomach. Some asshole was fucking my girl.
Angry too. I fired off a reply.
You whore.
I regretted it almost right away. Some manipulative instinct kicked in and it occurred to me. Well, now that she’s not a virgin…
I wrote again.
J/k. Good for you!! I’m getting close to this girl here too. Guess it’s time for me to make my move. Any tips?
She didn’t reply. Fucking whore. Maybe she was too busy fucking Danny to check her email. Stupid, slutty, whore.
I’d seen enough porn. I understood the mechanics. I wondered, had she sucked his cock? How had he fucked her? Doggy-style, with her big tits flopping back and forth. Did he come on her back? On her face?