by Ben Boswell
Still, I wasn’t sure I wanted to take the bait. I had started to feel that her games had a dark side. That the ease with which I allowed myself to be dragged along represented a vulnerability that she played on. I don’t think it was malicious, but, by the same token, it didn’t seem to bespeak a deep respect either. The fact that she could manipulate me so easily and did it so casually seemed a little disdainful, even if she explained it away as trying to bring to life my fantasies.
The truth is, I’d actually begun to question more and more about our game. I knew she’d been with Chucky. I knew it because at the end I’d seen it with my own eyes. I’d watched her impale herself on his cock, and I’d watched him roughly fuck her in our own bed. So that at least, had happened.
I was pretty sure Jean-Pierre had bedded her as well. Whether he’d stripped her naked on a Paris balcony, I couldn’t be sure. But either she’d been with him, or she’d spent the better part of three nights roaming alone around Paris. No. She had fucked him as well.
But Brian? All I knew was she went off with him for a few minutes, and that she had what seemed like a used pussy for me after. Suggestive, yes. Conclusive, no, especially after she’d fooled me into believing that she was also giving me Te’ron’s sloppy seconds. That had been pure invention, as had her interest in Herb.
So, now, faced with an anklet and a risqué smile, I was skeptical that this was anything more than another tease.
Still, she had that hold over me. As long as I was with the kids, I could focus on domesticity. Getting them dressed and fed and off to school grounded me to reality. But the minute I drove away from the school, my mind began to race.
On my way into my office, I called Terri’s cell. It went right to voicemail.
Please leave a message. I’m in meetings all day, today, February 9, so I may not be able to get back to you until tomorrow. If it is an emergency, please call Maggie at….
I disconnected without leaving a message. She’d see I called and could return my call if she wanted.
She didn’t.
The conference she was attending was real. I checked it out online once I got into the office. I glanced through the list of panels. The topics were, to me, a study in tedium. Multigenerational wellness management. Techniques and risk for self-insurance for high-net worth individuals. Five potential revolutions in health care. I noted as well the closing keynote from 6:00pm to 7:00pm in the Lincoln Ballroom, and the closing reception from 7:00pm to 9:00pm in the Grand Atrium. It was going to be a long day.
Surely the discussions were relevant to the participants, but I couldn’t imagine them being sufficiently enthralling to distract the male attendees from the sexy blonde one row over with the enticing anklet on display. Except, now that I knew that was the thought she was trying to put into my head, I felt like a chump for having it. And yet, that didn’t make it any less true.
She was going to be the belle at the ball, surrounded by dozens of men who shared her professional interests and would have no shortage of excuses to strike up a conversation. And then, as always, it would be up to her. Even men with qualms about messing around with a married woman would see those evaporate at the first flirty gaze from Terri. Indeed, even though she usually went for strong, confident, aggressive men, I could imagine that it might amuse her to seduce a man who wasn’t initially inclined to make a pass at her.
All part of the game. Her game. Not our game. So many different games going on that I had trouble keeping track.
I expected her to at least check in around lunch. To see what my call had been about. But I guess she knew. So she didn’t. I was tempted to call again, but I didn’t want her to see how much she’d gotten under my skin with that stupid anklet.
“Not this time, Terri. Not this time,” I muttered to myself under my breath like a lunatic.
Mid-afternoon and I packed up some work to take home since I needed to pick up the kids from school. Annabelle had ballet. Braden and I would pick up Chinese takeout while she danced and the kids and I would eat at home.
Chicken Lo Mein. Moo Shu Pork. Dumplings. I stopped by the 7/11 and picked up a six-pack of beer. I don’t usually drink mid-week, but I knew I’d need it.
Despite my determination not to give in, I was spending more and more time imagining her day. Flirty conversations in the hallways between sessions. A man tracking her down and taking the seat next to her before the keynote.
We keeping running into each other.
Ha ha, yeah, must be fate.
Hi, I’m Greg.
I’m Terri.
A lingering handshake. A gaze held a heartbeat longer than comfortable. A soft giggle. A confident smile.
“Daddy, make me a pancake,” said my lovely daughter.
“Me too, me too!” added Braden.
I took a swig of beer and handed over some folded Moo Shu to my kids, even as I tried to clear my mind of images of their mother giggling and flirting with other men.
A little after seven, my phone buzzed in my pocket. Terri. I answered it.
“Hey, honey, had a good day?” I asked cheerfully.
“Mmm, yeah, and very interesting and stimulating,” she said.
“Oh? Want to give me some more details?”
“Oh, Baby, I’d love to, but I’m running from one room to another. Can I just say goodnight to the kids?”
“Sure, sure, of course.”
I passed the phone to Braden who nattered on for several minutes about, I think, something that happened in gym class. It isn’t always clear what he’s talking about. Then Annabelle spent her time complaining that Braden had eaten the last of the Moo Shu. My daughter then handed the phone back to me.
“So, long day?” I prompted.
But the line was dead.
“Oh,” Annabelle explained, “Mommy said she’d talk to you when she got home.”
I forced a smile. “Of course.”
I got the kids into bed and came back down stairs a little after 8:00pm. I cracked open another beer and pulled out my phone and stared at it, as if by doing so I’d get some additional insights into my wife’s activities. I wasn’t expecting anything, so I was actually a little startled when a text popped up.
[Terri]: Going out to dinner. Be home later than planned.
Nothing really weird there. Except…. She didn’t say who she was going out with. And “later” struck me as deliberately vague.
[Bill]: Okay, have fun.
[Terri]: I always do.
I groaned. She was teasing me again. I imagined her smiling to herself as she composed the text, especially since she was almost certainly just with a group of people planning to go to an Olive Garden or something.
Except…. What if she wasn’t? What if dinner was a continuation of the flirting I’d pictured during the keynote address.
What if Mr. We Keep Running into Each Other had, after a glass of wine at the closing reception, become Mr. How About We Go Someplace a Little More Private?
I was constructing all of this out of whole cloth. Still, why was it so much easier to imagine her huddled close to a handsome man in a darkened booth than to picture her laughing with a bunch of women as they passed around a basket of breadsticks?
According to her text, she left the reception around 8:00pm. Half an hour to get settled somewhere else. Dinner, dessert, coffee, split the bill. At around 10:00pm, I began expecting her to come through the front door. By 10:30, with my six pack of beer gone, I began wondering what game she was playing now.
I resisted the urge to send her a text. I imagined her sitting at Starbucks, waiting for me to panic, then grinning at her control over me before heading home. And then, a second later, unbidden, was the image in my head of her naked, writhing beneath a new man as my text flashed unseen on her phone.
At 11:00 I began to worry. Maybe she’d had an accident. Or more likely, maybe after a few glasses of wine at the reception and dinner she’d gotten pulled over for DUI. And then, bam, the segue flashed into my
head of Terri in the back of a police car, on her hands and knees, sucking off a beefy cop as he churned a fat finger in and out of her wet pussy.
11:30. Just as I was about to call, I received another text from her.
[Terri]: Sorry. Got tied up. On my way now.
Still playing me. I knew she planned the double entendre. She knew I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from picturing her, what, bound? With whom? Mr. How About We Go Someplace a Little More Private? I shook that one off, finding now that my annoyance with her had outstripped my manias.
Stop fucking messing with me Terri!
She finally got home right before midnight. I was waiting for her in the living room. She crept in, shoes in one hand, clutch in the other, her hair disheveled, and a guilty grin on her face. Staged. All staged.
“We need to talk,” I said firmly.
“Don’t you want to hear about my evening first? It was quite, um, interesting.”
“Uh huh,” I replied noncommittally.
She read my skepticism and gave me a queer look. Then she smirked. “I was a bad girl tonight.”
Then, without another word she slowly slinked up the stairs.
I remained downstairs for a few minutes. I wanted to pull the plug on it, let her know I was onto her game. But I also had to admit, I couldn’t quite help myself. I wanted to hear what she had to say. Let her dig a nice deep hole before I called bullshit on the whole thing. I was also curious about who she was going to use as a foil. Not Herb. Brian? Maybe. But perhaps, most likely, a new man. A compilation or invention based on some people she met during the course of the conference, like she’d done the night she went to Bardos.
I rose and went after her.
“Anyone I know?” I asked as I entered the bedroom.
She paused. “Know? No. Know of? I think yes.”
“Um, okay.”
She circled around me and shut the door behind us.
“Did I ever mention Mike Coates?”
“The silver fox,” I groaned softly.
She smiled, crossed the room, and stood in front of her closet. “You really do keep track of my crushes, don’t you?”
Fuck. I’d stepped right into her trap. I held my tongue.
“Yes,” she continued. “Mike Coates, the silver fox. He was one of the speakers at the conference. I kept having the naughtiest thoughts as I watched him, up there, on the stage.”
I laughed. “You sound like a groupie.”
“I acted like one too.”
She neatly placed her shoes in her closet and turned to face me again.
“Terri, you don’t have to—“ continue playing these games.
“But I want to,” she interrupted me. “I want to tell you all about it. It was pretty memorable.”
I shrugged. Fine. Best to get it over with. “Where did you go for dinner?” I prompted.
She moved gracefully over and placed her clutch on her bedside table.
“No dinner. Just his place.” She frowned. “Sorry to have lied about that. But, I still wasn’t sure how things would turn out and I didn’t want to, ah, raise your expectations. I know how you hate when I tease you.”
I chuckled again. “Doesn’t seem like much of a mystery if you went back to his place.”
She nodded and brushed a strand of hair from her face. “I have been to men’s apartments without sleeping with them, you know.”
I felt a surge of excitement, but it vanished almost immediately when I realized she was just planting another seed. I edged over to the bed and sat down on the edge.
I sighed. I wished she’d just get on with it. “So, how did he seduce you?”
She blushed and looked away. “He told me to get naked.” Seeing my expression, she grinned. “I know. I know. I need to make them work for it a little more.”
I thought of her and Brian. An extra pour of champagne, a little flirting, and she was following him into a storeroom for a quickie.
“Well,” she continued. “I did protest… a little. But he just said, ‘We’re both adults here. Let’s not play games.’”
“So?”
She slowly peeled off her suit jacket. Even in the dim light of our bedroom, I could see that she was no longer wearing a bra. Her breasts tented out the sheer fabric of her white blouse, her nipples poking through obscenely.
“So,” she said slowly, as she unbuttoned and removed her blouse, “I… got… naked.” A quick tug at the zipper on her skirt, and it too fell off.
And suddenly, there she was, fully nude, except for her gold anklet, nipples hard, an enticing glimpse of pink cleaving her swollen mound. Despite my skepticism, I couldn’t help but picture her naked, aroused, before this sophisticated, handsome, older man.
“Was he surprised?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No, Honey. I think he’s used to being obeyed.”
My mouth was suddenly very dry. I couldn’t speak. Not that I would have known what to say. My brain and my cock were having a chaotic battle inside me. I wanted her to stop mocking me, but at the same time, I had this desperate desire to just roll with it, let her get us both worked up to within an inch of madness, and relish the fiery passion that followed. And yet, like an alcoholic having a moment of clarity, I could also see beyond the immediate bacchanalia to the hangover the following morning, when I’d wake up ashamed and resentful that she’d played me once again.
She seemed unaware of my inner struggle. Or maybe she read my inner turmoil as excitement. Or maybe, she read me better than I could read myself.
She proceeded. “Not that he took any chances.” She approached me and held out her wrists. “Can you see the marks?” she asked.
I looked closely, and yes, faintly, I could discern lines coiled up her wrists halfway up her forearm.
I lifted my eyes to hers, confused.
“He had this very thick, very soft white rope. He slowly wound it around my wrists and up my arms and tied it off with a big knot. It felt sort of silly, like I could just shake it off, but when I tried to move my hands apart, I realized that I was really, really tied. He gave me this cocky smirk, sort of like, you’re going to get more than you bargained for.”
“Terri –“
“Normally, you know, I’d have just come home and ravaged you… or played with my toys. But since you insisted I should pursue my desires, I decided –“
“Terri –“
“He grabbed the free end of the rope and dragged me into his bedroom.”
I couldn’t ignore it anymore. My mind was filled with a vision of my gorgeous, naked wife, wrists bound, being pulled by a well-dressed man.
“He led me over to the bed.”
She edged past me, brushing against me with her naked body. A whiff of soap. An unfamiliar shampoo scent on her hair. And yes, just a hint of her excitement.
I stood to get out of her way as she sprawled onto the bed, arms together and stretched out over her head. I turned and looked down to see her draped enticingly across the bedspread.
“He threaded the rope through the headboard and made it fast. Then he trailed his hand down my spine. I closed my eyes and just enjoyed it. His palm was soft, but strong. It made me shiver as he touched me. My lower back… my ass...”
Her voice had dropped deeper, throaty, rumbling.
“…he slid his thumb between my cheeks. And I thought… I thought for a moment that he was going to push it in my butt…”
Her pauses were, as intended, driving me nuts. I couldn’t take my eyes off her naked body, except in my mind, she wasn’t alone, but instead being fondled by this debonair, handsome man.
“…but he didn’t. And then his fingertips fluttered against my pussy. And this time I was hoping her would put them inside me. I know he could feel how wet I was…”
She spread her legs for me. Just a little. Just as much as she would have for him to touch her. Her pussy was glistening and pink. It was all I could do to not fall upon her and devour her pretty, little slit.
“…but he didn’t. Instead, he caressed my inner thigh. Oh God, Bill, it drove me nuts. I just wanted him to… take me…”
A longer pause.
“…but he didn’t. He spread my legs… further… further…”
Her legs scissored open wide. Obscenely wide. Spreading and exposing her pussy, wet and pulsing with excitement.
“…and then he wrapped a rope around my ankle…”
With difficulty, I tore my eyes away from her throbbing snatch. And yes, there below her calf, another series of thin lines corkscrewing up her leg.
“…and pulled my legs even wider apart… and tied it to the leg post… and even though I knew what he was going to do, I still started shaking as he tied my other leg to the bed. It wasn’t even that I was completely exposed to this… man. But now I was completely helpless. And I knew he could do anything to me.”
I shuddered as well, watching my beautiful, naked wife, spread eagle on our bed, knowing that she’d been in this same position with another man just hours earlier. A stranger. A stranger who’d tied her up….
Suddenly, I groaned. It was all bullshit. Despite my best intentions, she’d sucked me in. But she’d gone too far. There was no way she’d let this virtual stranger tie her up. No way she’d give up control so thoroughly.
“Terri, stop. Okay. Just… stop.”
She looked back over her shoulder at me, her hair sexily draped across her face.
“What’s the matter, Bill? I thought this was what you wanted.”
“I did. I… do. I just feel like you’re making fun of me.”
She frowned in confusion. And then, after a moment, her eyes went wide, incredulous.
“You don’t believe me?”
“Terri, I appreciate you making up these stories. And you are good at it, but it –“
“I have pictures.”
I laughed. She was digging a deeper hole. “You let him take pictures of you naked?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I was tied up. I didn’t have a choice.”