by Jaime Thorne
It was the only answer I could give. The only answer I could dare to give because if I put words into the ether then they would speak volumes of my confession. He would know the truth of me and he would hate me for it, and Jeremy was the one man on this earth that I couldn't bear to have hate me.
“Love you,” he mumbled, his words slipping into heavy breathing as sleep took him.
I rolled away from him, pulling the covers up over my shoulder and staring wide-eyed into the face of my clock on my nightstand. I watched the minutes tick by and then the hours pass. I counted each one without fail, and when my phone buzzed with the first message from him I was more than awake enough to answer.
Are you awake?
His message blared out into the darkness of the room, demanding an answer from me.
Yes
I found myself waiting with rapt anticipation, waiting for him to respond back to me and almost holding my breath as I did so. I didn't know what response I wanted from him. Didn't know what I could expect.
Where are you?
I typed my response back to him quickly, following it up with a clarification shortly afterward.
In bed
With my husband
It was an obvious answer, but the truth. Still, I found myself wondering what response he would have wanted. What truth would have been acceptable to my lover? I found myself wondering that as the next message came in.
What are you wearing?
There was a flutter and flurry in my stomach as I read it. I felt my eyes turn from the screen to look over at the man lying next to me, listening for a moment to his even and steady breath that showed me he was well and truly asleep.
When I typed out my response the words came automatically and they came because I wasn't sure what else I could say. They may have come off as teasing but that wasn't the intention, in truth I was at a loss in that moment.
What do you want me to be wearing?
I bit my lip, watching my screen with my eyes wide open and waiting for him to process his response. I'd intended to go to bed wearing my usual pajamas but after the night I had I couldn't bear the touch of anything on my skin besides the sheets and so I'd ended up falling into bed naked. That was unusual for me.
Nothing at all
And apparently lucky for him. I grinned while I typed out my response, and that grin was a grin of mischievousness.
Then that is what I'm wearing
I had to stifle a laugh. This whole thing felt positively naughty and frankly crazy. I was lying next to my husband flirting with danger with each text I sent. I should tell him to go to sleep. I should tell him to stop, but when I got the next message from him I found that I couldn't help but follow his commands.
Good, send me a picture
My fingers played nervously with the sheets and I tugged them down. I pulled them down to my thighs and glanced once over at my husband before flicking open the camera app on my phone and raising it above my head. I positioned it above me, closing my eyes and leaning my head back as I tapped the button and heard the shutter sound above me.
And then I stayed breathless for a moment. Frozen as I listened to the man lying next to me. Listening for any sign or change in his breathing and hearing nothing so I switched back to the messaging app and sent the picture.
Too dark. take one with a light on
There was a demand to his words, an edge to them that made me almost want to obey him right then and there. Something about the force of him made me want to give in, even if I knew it was a bad idea.
In the end, sense won out.
I can't he might wake up
His reply was quick and firm, and I couldn't believe it when I saw it.
Don't care. Want to see you.
I trembled looking at it, knowing that I was so close to giving in even though I knew that it was wrong. I tugged the sheets up over my body in the end though, tapping out my response and then turning to stand and get out of the bed.
Let me go to another room
His response came quickly. His further responses took a little longer but each one hit me with a thud.
NO
Take one beside him
I want you to take one beside him
I want to see him in the background
For everything that Bruce was, he wasn't stupid. He had to know what a risk this was. He had to know what a chance I was taking.
He couldn't really expect me to do that.
Are you serious?
And I sent that response and I waited. I waited for him to respond back saying it was all a joke and telling me to go to bed. I waited for him to say even that I could leave the room and that we could have some fun sexting without my husband lying next to me. I waited for him to even say that he wanted me to come to him, to slip out in the middle of the night and find some excuse to be with him.
I waited for any response but none came.
And I found myself reaching for the bedside light instead. I found myself flicking it on and tilting it so that it lit me up properly. I found myself opening my camera app and positioning it just right so that you could see Jeremy in the background and my naked body in front.
And I took that picture and I sent it to him and when his response came it was with a demand for more.
Good. Another with you touching yourself.
I trembled, my throat feeling dry. My fingers pecked out the response quickly.
Seriously?
My heart was pounding as I watched his reply come in, and I realized in that moment I'd gone so far that I didn't think there was a single thing that I would say no to.
Do it. Now.
My free hand dipped between my thighs. It found my sex that was dripping wet and ready for it. It found that I was so hot and bothered that my fingers slid in easily, a thin reminder of the thickness I'd had pounding inside of me earlier but enough to make me moan lightly as I clicked the picture and sent it over to him.
I received one from him in response. His hand wrapped around the base of his thick cock. Stroking himself while he made me work for him, while he made me obey him.
His cock looked so fucking good, so fucking tasty to me that I wanted to reach through the screen and take him.
I settled for texting him a response instead.
Oh wow. I can't believe I'm fucking doing this.
His response was quick and demanding, just like all the ones before it.
Keep playing with yourself. Tell me how you feel.
Bruce didn't have to ask me to keep playing with myself. I couldn't help but play with myself. I couldn't help but bite my bottom lip and dip my fingers deep inside of me, pulling them out just long enough to strum back and forth across my clit before diving in again.
Oh god I'd feel so much better with you here with me.
Oh god I need to feel you inside of me.
Two rapid texts in response to him. Two texts that were all of my feelings building and true. When I saw his text back to me I almost shouted out yes.
You want me to come over there?
I took my hands off myself long enough to craft my lengthy response. My shuddering plea for him to take me.
Yes I want you to come over here and fuck me in bed while my husband sleeps right next to me. I need a real man to fuck me just like you did earlier.
I returned to my sex, waiting for his message and moaning loudly as I saw them come in in time.
Not tonight. Tonight you play with yourself. Tonight the memory of me will have to be enough.
Tomorrow I will have you again. Tomorrow and any day that I want from now on.
Tell me you belong to me.
He didn't have to demand that. Bruce knew that. He knew that I couldn't deny it but still, I gave him that truth with fingers that were shaking and trembling.
I belong to you.
And hitting send made me tremble and shake. It made my body clench and curl up into a ball. It made me shudder and bury my head in the bed to muffle my screa
ms and after it was done I didn't give a single moments thought to the man who shared my bed.
My words were only for the man who should be here.
I just came.
His response came and made me smile, happy with the knowledge that I'd satisfied my new man.
So did I.
I lay back in bed, typing out my response without really thinking about anything but the man on the other end of my phone.
God when can I see you again?
Bruce responded quickly, that order apparently becoming commonplace as he laid out all the details.
Tomorrow. One PM. That Italian place we went to last week.
I smiled, content that I wouldn't have to wait long to feel that cock once more. I tapped out my response and hit send.
Yes.
And only after it was done. After I clicked off my phone and turned off the light and curled up under the sheets did I cast a thought to the man who had stayed snoring beside me. Only then did I think of Jeremy and how I was going to betray him once more.
But that thought wasn't enough to keep me up anymore.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
BRUCE
The cab ride back to my hotel didn't take long and I rode it in blissful silence. It was a rarity in this town, most drivers thought of this time as an opportunity to make a friend.
And normally I was fine with that. I had an affable personality and I wasn't the type to be closed off. If someone started a conversation with me I would jump right back and respond to them.
But not tonight.
I think ordinarily I give off the sort of congenial personality that makes it easy for people to talk to me. They take one glance at me and see a guy who wants to talk. And that's true, I really do like to talk and to meet people.
But not tonight.
Tonight I was quiet and introspective. Tonight I wasn't interested in making friends or finding company. Tonight I was interested in staring out the window and watching the world pass me by while I considered what the hell I was doing here.
This wasn't me. I wasn't the type who set down roots and I wasn't the type who got attachments. I wasn't the type to stay still for long, I had a long-standing policy to keep moving forward and I had no intention or need to change that anytime soon.
So what the hell was I doing here?
Twice with Jeremy and Avril and me all in the same room. Countless more times with just Avril and me. I spent more days with her than without, and the days that I was without her were spent pining for time spent alongside her.
I was becoming a part of her life, a part of their life, and I didn't have any right.
The streets were slick with rain, a spattering that fell in fits and starts and had started sometime while I had been in their house. It gave the whole city a sort of slick shimmer to it, made it look like an unsteady and insecure beast.
One that would never be conquered. One that was insubstantial bordering on impossible to hold. One that you couldn't ever grasp or pin down and that squirmed and slithered if you even came close to grasping the full scope of it.
I watched the world pass me by and I felt sick to my stomach as I saw it slip past. As it slipped past the realm of the real into the fantasy of insubstantiality and became something glimmering and insidious and threatening.
Turning my eyes away I stared at my feet instead, anything to keep the nausea at bay.
Thinking of anything, anything but her and anything but him. Anything but the curves of her body and his groans of pleasure. Anything but the look in each of their eyes, the pure pleasure in his and the tortured pain in hers.
God, this was killing her. How could he not see this?
It made me want to scream, made me want to grab him and shake him and tell him to open his damn eyes and start thinking with something other than his dick. It made me want to shout at him and tell him the truth that he couldn't or wouldn't see.
And I'll be honest, it made me want to do the same to her as well. Made me want to tell Avril to be open with her husband and with herself. To tell her that all of this was unsustainable and that if we kept on the way that we kept on that it would result in the destruction of all of this.
That if we kept going forward there would be no going back, and that none of the three of us wanted to see that happen.
I knew that none of this was possible just like I knew that none of this could come from me. If they were going to see the errors of their ways then they would have to see it themselves. Of the three of us, I had by far the lowest stake in things. I had the least amount invested, so how the hell was I the only one thinking clearly about this?
God, I needed some fresh air.
Thankfully at that point we pulled up out front of my hotel and I paid the driver and stepped outside. I stood for a moment in the rain, feeling the wetness soak into the fabric of my suit and just barely reaching my skin before I stepped through the double doors and inside.
I knew what my routine was, and frankly the fact that I even had a routine in this city was enough of a sign that I'd been here too long. But I had made a habit of spending my evenings in the lobby bar, sitting at a table by myself self-medicating before heading up to bed. The employees at the bar didn't know me by name, but they knew me by sight and knew me enough that I got a polite nod from the bartender as I stepped up to talk to him.
I had no intention of spending even the slightest amount of time in the company of another person, but I knew that if I didn't get something in me that sleep would never come. So I pointed across the bar at a mostly full bottle of whiskey and addressed the bartender as directly as I possibly could.
“I want that,” I told him, “Not a glass. Not a bit. All of it. The whole bottle. To take.”
He paused and glanced from side to side, the bar was empty enough and I was quiet enough that no one had noticed my request yet.
“I'm sorry sir,” he said, “I can't just give you-”
He lapsed into silence as he watched me pull out my wallet and pull out a stack of bills. I carefully counted out around the cost of the remaining drinks in the bottle and then counted out two other equal stacks.
“This,” I said, sticking my finger into the first stack of bills, “Covers the cost of the drinks.”
I looked at him to make sure he understood before moving to the second stack, “This covers your tip.”
He nodded, and I moved to the third stack, “And this just sits right here for you to do with as you will.”
It was a lot of money. Enough to make him reach back and grab the bottle, pulling out the pouring nozzle and slipping it across the bar to me while his eyes were on a swivel from side to side. I nodded at him and did him the courtesy of at least moderately hiding the bottle from view as I stepped out of the bar and headed across the lobby over to the elevators.
I rode up in blissful silence and solitude, heading out from there and into my hotel room before I made a single sound.
That first sound was the sound of drinking, as I pulled a heavy draw from the bottle and let the liquid burn down my throat. I sat there for a while mechanically repeating that motion, drinking it in great gulps until my body adjusted to the fire and my vision went wobbly with the drink.
And in that murky mess, I found a bit of clarity. I found a path forward that wouldn't result in me losing my soul and I found a way forward that would get all three of us back the lives that we had so gleefully cast aside.
Neither one of them had the courage to do what was right, so I would force their hand. If they couldn't muster up the strength to put an end to this I'd show them just why they needed to do that.
I'd lean back into the person that they expected me to be. I'd become the man they wanted all along once more.
Somewhere along the way, I'd lost my way. I'd grown attached to Avril and in the process I had abandoned my edge.
Around him I was putting on a show, but I dropped the act when I was with her. I acted lovesick around her because that was what she wan
ted.
But it wasn't what she needed.
She needed me to be an asshole, to be the man she had expected me to be. She needed me to be cruel and callous. To be forceful and controlling.
Dropping everything and walking away wasn't an option. We'd gone too far for me to leave it all behind without also leaving behind lasting damage.
I had to convince them to cut ties with me.
Jeremy wasn't an option. There was no level of cruelty I could dish out that wouldn't feed into his fantasy and need to be dominated. When it came to him the harder I pressed the more he would give.
But the same couldn't be said for Avril. She didn't have the same interest and fixation in the fantasy. She had a limit, and that limit was surely me being the asshole that they had both expected me to be.
When I pushed her she would push back. When I pressed her she would turn away.
She had to.
Grabbing my phone I pulled it open and pulled open the messaging app. I scrolled through the history of our texts back to the beginning and then tracing along through them as the conversation shifted and changed.
The tone had become genial, had become familiar and then had become flirty. It had gotten well past the point of a simple fling and now it was time to get back to basics.
My fingers were heavy but my path forward was clear. I knew just what I needed to do.
Are you awake?
A simple enough start, but one that I could build from. I didn't know what was happening over there, needed to get the lay of the land before I started to press her to her breaking point.
Yes
I read her response, a part of me wishing that she hadn't responded at all. A part of me wishing that I could put all of this off for another day. That I could ignore what I had to do and go to sleep tonight content that I could dream that I was still happy.
Still with her.
Where are you?
And I don't honestly know what I expected in response from her. Whether I expected her to tell me that she was in bed or up wandering the house. Maybe I thought she was walking the halls waiting for me like some old Victorian heroine.