by Jaime Thorne
I didn't need a computer. I didn't need videos or pictures. My mind and my memory were enough to satisfy me to completion time and again and again. To spend hours trembling in my office chair as my breath rasped in the silent stillness of the office until I was nearly fully drained.
Glancing at the clock I saw that it read three PM. I had been in this chair for probably five fucking hours pleasuring myself to the thoughts of my wife with another man.
How had I let it get this far?
Whatever disgust I felt with myself wasn't enough to keep me from pushing even further. From grabbing my phone and pulling up the text conversation I had with Bruce. From texting him the question 'When can we set up the next session?' and sitting staring waiting for his response.
It didn't come, and I shouldn't have let that bother me but it did. It nagged me with an insistent pressure that gnawed at me.
I left the office after that text message. Left that place because I knew if I kept on pushing forward in this I would risk causing myself an actual injury. Left because as much as I hated the idea of being alone with her I knew I couldn't avoid it forever.
And the whole way home the only thing I was wondering was when Bruce was going to respond, and how I was going to convince Avril to give this one more go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
AVRIL
I nervously and demurely chewed and swallowed a bite of the salad that I had ordered, the lettuce feeling like an explosion of taste on my tongue in spite of the fact that it was, in reality, a really shitty salad. This place did terrible salads. They did fantastic pasta and even did a decent steak, but I couldn't possibly have been able to stomach any of that at the moment.
I'd noticed it this morning after Jeremy had left. I'd noticed it when I'd gotten a text from Bruce telling me that he had made our reservation for two in the afternoon instead of one and I hadn't been angry or hurt by the fact that he'd changed the time without even asking me.
I'd been thrilled enough that he was just really wanting to see me.
Who the fuck had I become?
The Avril that I had known all my life wouldn't have put up with a game like that. She would have blown the guy off just for being an asshole, the slightest bit of disrespect would be enough to make me dismiss someone out of hand.
But here I was going along with it. Feeling positively giddy that a man was paying me any attention at all.
And worse than all of that was the way that the world had changed for me.
Some poet somewhere probably wrote a verse once about how love changes the way you look at the world. How it makes the lights glimmer and shimmer. How it makes the taste of things explode. Enhances all of the senses so that you're not living in the same world you would have lived in before. So that you're living in a world that is heightened and exciting and new.
Up until now, I would have thought that was craziness. I would have figured that it was folly and fancy, poetic license and nothing more.
Except that I was living it now.
The touch of my slip of a dress on my skin was the caress of a lover on my body. The feel of a breeze on the nape of my neck was a breathless moan as they pleasured me. The taste of something bland was an explosion of flavor, an explosion of sensation that made me gasp and roil and nearly lose control from it.
And in the process lose oh so much of myself.
It was like I was walking along a path through a forest, my gaze drifting from side to side to admire the nature. I was taking in the trees and the leaves. The freshness of it all making me see the world differently. Letting me reconnect with a primal side of me.
A side that had cravings and desires that were base and carnal. A side that had been dulled by urban life and the comfort that came with it but that was coming back to the surface with renewed cravings.
Like getting even a taste of what had once driven it was enough to make it hunger for it.
And so focused was I on that gnawing hunger in me that without noticing it the path through the forest had become overgrown. Glancing down I couldn't see where the path shifted from the natural undergrowth and spinning round and round I couldn't see any path out of here.
I couldn't see anything but nature surrounding and pressing in on me.
The question was, was that such a bad thing? I might be trapped in here, but the craving was calling to me. And wasn't abandoning yourself to nature just going home, in a sort of way?
The other question was, was this love?
I had thought that I had known love before this. I had thought that I loved Jeremy and I was still relatively certain that I did. I had a deep and abiding affection for him, a connection that I knew would remain no matter how far things went with Bruce or how sideways things wound up with Jeremy.
But that love was nothing like what I felt with Bruce. With Bruce things seemed to change me, they felt like they were changing me. They felt like they were challenging me to see the world through renewed eyes, to take it all in with a different sort of sight and touch and taste and feel.
It made me feel alive and made something as simple as sitting in a restaurant eating a salad a meaningful endeavor.
I looked up over my fork at him, seeing him sitting across from me grinning at me like I was some prize that he'd won. Bruce had been different since last night. He'd been different texting me on the phone and different in person as well, and it wasn't until right now that I really realized what it was.
Bruce can be quite a dishonest man, quite closed off and guarded and he tends to put up a wall of brash cockiness around him to keep people from seeing the real him. When I'd met him that first night in the bar that cocky persona had been the one that had taken over. It was only when he spoke of art and showed a bit of his vulnerability that the real him finally started to emerge.
And in the time that we'd spent together just the two of us that persona had come to the surface more and more readily. The more time he spent with me the more he grew accustomed to me, the more comfortable he was with me and so the easier it was for him to let me see his real self.
But I had seen this persona as well, not just when he was initially guarded but also anytime he was around Jeremy. This was the personality that Bruce affected to be the man that Jeremy wanted him to be, the man that his fantasy demanded of him.
This was Bruce being a bull.
I had so many questions about this. So many questions for him that I couldn't answer myself.
What had happened to make this shift? It was obviously on purpose so what had I done or what had happened to make this choice an inevitability for him.
Why was he able to slip so comfortably into this? Wouldn't he be far more comfortable being the real version of himself, without having to worry about affecting a persona?
Why was he keeping it up here? When we were out in public and it was just the two of us. When he didn't need to impress Jeremy and certainly didn't need to impress me.
But more than anything else the pressing question was: Which version of Bruce did I prefer?
There was a part of me, the more enlightened part of me, that craved the vulnerable soul that I'd begun to get attached to. The one that I had found a deeper connection with than I could have possibly imagined, who had made me feel alive with excitement at finding a kindred spirit in art and culture.
But the baser and perhaps less refined part of me craved this blunt instrument, in a way that I hadn't anticipated before. The last encounter where it had been only that had given me a taste of what his hard body could offer were it to be unleashed on me. Just thinking of it would be enough to make me breathless, and seeing him here before me in such a public place as this sent chills and thrills running through me.
The cultured man made me feel far more at home. It made this connection about a missing piece of myself, a tortured part of me that was going unfulfilled, just as much as it did about sexual satisfaction.
But the bull made me feel like my cravings were finally being sated. And i
f I'm honest I couldn't say that he didn't satisfy a piece of me as well, a piece that was going unfulfilled.
They appealed to different parts of me. And each part was no less valid and no less a part of me than the other. Each one meant just as much to the whole of me, and each one had been aching for a partner for so long.
“You're staring at me,” he said with a grin, “Do you see something you like?”
I blushed hard, knowing that every bit of him was something that I liked but knowing that I couldn't very well say that here. I clamped my mouth shut and pressed my thighs together for good measure to try to keep myself from squealing out with need.
But I wanted to. More than anything I wanted him to take me right here. I wanted to beg for him to have me over this table, to hike up the bottom of my dress and plunge himself deep inside of me. To fill me like he had filled me so many times before.
To loose the beast on me.
Lunch was a formality. That was an inevitability. I would have my satisfaction and nothing would stand in my way.
“Avril?” came a delightfully feminine voice from one side, “Is that you?”
I turned to look, eyes wide staring at none other than Emily herself striding into the restaurant.
She was tan and lean, and my best guess was that upon leaving Jacob she had absconded to somewhere warm and tropical and likely with the man she had on her arm.
He was young and handsome but looked more than a little dumb. More than a little straightforward in his approach to things, probably good in the sack but nothing more.
“Emily,” I said to her, my voice registering surprise at the sight of her, “Isn't this unexpected.”
“It really is!” she practically squealed, “I mean I didn't know you came here and if I did I would have chosen a different restaurant. I just wanted a little place where no one would recognize me. Didn't want to have to deal with the rumors and all, but I see you know precisely what I mean.”
Her eyes fell on Bruce and I felt a cold chill run down my spine as she made her opinions all but expressly understood.
“This is Bruce,” I said quickly, “He's a friend of mine from out of town.”
“Indeed,” she said, “And this is Roger, a friend of mine as well.”
The smile she gave me then nearly made me sick to my stomach. The thought that I could be anything close to her made me feel absolutely terrible, and though I wish I could say that it made me feel worse than I had in a long time the truth was that my emotions over the last few weeks had been so up and down that I couldn't honestly say if this was my lowest point.
“Well I don't want to intrude on Bruce and you,” she said, “Roger and I will grab a table and leave you alone. Have fun you two!”
And it was only when I watched her walk away that the nagging voice in my head registered the name she had said. Registered that it was Roger and remembered that was the name that Jeremy had spoken on the phone. The name that he had given instead of Bruce, that hadn't made a damn bit of sense to me then but all fell into place now.
We ate the rest of our meal in silence, me with one eye on Emily and her little toy in the corner. We ate the rest of the meal and the guilt of what I was doing ate away at me the whole time.
And I wish I could say that it made me change my course, but I don't know that anything could have at that point. I wish I could say that I'd gone home alone, but instead it was me that set it up for him to come into my house and my bed.
And I don't have a single excuse for why.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
AVRIL
There was a fervent urgency to us as we moved through the door of my house. The sound of it closing behind us was like a gunshot setting us off, signaling the start of our race.
We fell into each other's arms, stumbling backwards into a table we had in the entrance way and sending a vase tumbling to the ground with a shatter. Flowers and water spilled onto the floor, but I didn't give a moments concern to it and neither did he.
Lunch had been uncomfortable from the moment that Emily appeared. She remained hovering in the corner of my vision the whole rest of the time that we were in the restaurant, and though Bruce was kind enough to keep his hands to himself I couldn't help but feel judged by her.
Emily was the last person I wanted to be judged by in this regard.
I'd always thought of Emily as a bit of a bitch, to be honest. Not an asshole or a prick, she was a bitch.
The sort of person who got it in their head that you were going to stab them in the back without any evidence and so plotted to make sure that they could stab you first. The sort of person who would spread rumors about you just because they felt that you were having a better go of things than they were. The sort of person who refused to see their own flaws in themselves, instead relying on bringing other people down to her level in order to make themselves feel better about being themselves.
I'll admit that I always felt a little superior to Emily, but then I always thought that I had a right to feel that way. I found purpose in my life that didn't involve purely improving my social standing. I found meaning to my existence that had its roots outside of parties and social engagements. I wasn't petty and mean and most of all I wasn't cheating on my husband.
But of course, I couldn't hold true to that last statement any longer.
As we stepped outside of the restaurant Bruce had flagged down a taxi and helped me inside like a gentleman. It was a nice gesture, one that stood in stark opposition to the way he acted all brusque and demanding at times and it just served to further confuse me.
But when he slipped into the back of the cab with me and gave the driver my address I knew that he had intentions, that he had aspirations for how the rest of the afternoon would go. When he put his hand on my thigh and spent the whole cab ride gently sliding it up I knew that I would give into him and give him whatever he wanted.
Somewhere along the way Bruce had taken control, had taken over me and had me so thoroughly wrapped up in the image of him that I didn't know how I would ever let it go. I didn't know that I ever could.
When he was near me my body ached for him. When he was away my mind was fuzzy with thoughts and memories of what he could do to me.
I wanted him, even if it would destroy me and destroy everything I had I wanted him.
Emily had her man, her Roger. Roger was a handsome little toy but he was nothing more than that and he would be discarded in time just like so many before him. I don't know what the straw was that broke the camels back, but I'm sure it had far more to do with Jacob than it ever did with Roger.
I knew that Emily admired strength, that she was drawn to it. Not just physical strength but dominance and will at the same time. Emily craved to be bent over the yoke and she loved being commanded by a strong man, and Jacob had been that for her at one time.
But age and drink and indulgence had softened him. And maybe just maybe Emily had grown tired of waiting for the man that she loved to come back to her.
But maybe there was more than that.
Bruce didn't even flinch as that vase hit the ground. His hands were on me and with a growl he lifted and moved me around. He spun me and pinned me against another wall, and then his hands lifted me up it until I was hovering with my feet a few inches off the ground.
I was entirely dependent on Bruce, just like before. I was entirely his to have and command and control and I found myself leaning into it, lifting my long legs up to wrap around his waist and squeeze him tight and pull him into me. My arms wrapped around his neck as my tongue pressed into his mouth and I moaned for him, moaning his name as his body nearly crushed the air out of my lungs.
Jeremy had called him Roger, that time when he was proposing our second encounter. Jeremy had mistakenly called him Roger instead of Bruce and I couldn't forget that.
I'm not a big believer in coincidence and chance. I had to feel like maybe there was something to that. That maybe that was the indicator of a greater thing.
> That maybe Roger had been for Jacob what Bruce was for Jeremy.
It made sense and it explained why Emily had left. It explained why Roger was different, why he could be the impetus to motivate her to put her life behind her.
And if Roger could do that for Emily, what could Bruce do for me?
“Oh Bruce,” I mumbled to him, “Oh god Bruce you're amazing.”
His hips slammed into me, and I felt the crush of him between my legs. I felt a dull ache there that grew with each passing minute, a need inside of me to be filled with him. To be satisfied by him.
“Fuck me Bruce,” I begged of him, “Oh god please Bruce I need you to fuck me.”
Bruce was so strong, picking me up and holding me just like that. Leading me up the stairs without a stumble or a fault. He carried me all the way up there without stopping once, without stopping his tongue pressing into my mouth or his hands kneading at my ass.
And each step up ratcheted up the heat in me, building and building until it was bubbling and trembling beneath my skin. It was making me want more from him, making me want all of him.
It was making me crazy.
Would I leave my husband for Bruce? It was a hard question and one that I didn't have the answer to.
Because on the surface Bruce was a compelling option, compelling enough that I didn't really know if I could say no to it. He was handsome and strong and we had so much in common when it came to art and even the way that we looked at the world. And he was good in bed, better than any lover I'd ever had in the past and better than I could have ever expected. Being with Bruce had opened my eyes to a whole new world of sex and sexuality, and like the apple in the garden I think the merest fact that I had tasted the knowledge meant that I could never be the same again.