Trapped in Amber

"How was Jason?" Dawn fished in her purse for her wallet.

"He was an angel, of course!" Amber had flounced in from the living room as soon as we entered the house, carrying a depleted bag of Cheetohs and a Diet Coke, which she set on the counter. "We played games until eight and then I put him to bed. I had to read him

Bedtime Bear

three times. He uses the funniest voices! He acts so serious and puts on this really cute face and wants to read the lines for Bedtime Bear's daddy." She scrunched her flawless features until she looked stern, lowered her voice an octave, and growled, "Bedtime Bear must go to bed!"

It was an uncanny vocal impression of Jason imitating me.

Dawn glanced over at me with a rare smile. "That's Kevin's voice he is doing. Kevin reads Jason that story every night."

"Oh, Mr. Cleft! Do the voice!" Amber didn't give me a chance to decline. She contorted her voice into a plaintive whine, but she couldn't entirely banish her natural alto purr. "I don't want to go to bed, Daddy!"

I didn't see an escape short of looking like an asshole. "Um...Bedtime Bear must go to bed!" I recited in my Daddy Bear voice, assiduously avoiding any prolonged eye contact with Amber's large pale blue eyes and generous mouth. Instead, I glanced at Dawn, who didn't notice my discomfort and was extracting two twenties from her wallet.

"The bed's too far, Daddy!" Amber continued, with the soft purr in her voice more pronounced than before.

I smiled uncomfortably. The next line in the book was for Daddy Bear to say, "Then I will carry you, Bedtime Bear!" Amber should have been old enough to understand the inappropriateness of prompting me to offer to carry an eighteen year old girl to bed — particularly with my wife standing next to me. It was time for a topic change before she started asking me to tuck her in. "Dawn, are you driving Amber home?"

Dawn didn't answer right away. "Amber, here is $40 for tonight, and we will see you next Friday night." She then turned to me. "I have a bit of a headache from the movie. Can you be a dear and drive her home?"

The strain on our marriage forced me to be extra cautious in ever being alone, or appearing to want to be alone, with any attractive woman. Amber wouldn't have the slightest interest in a thirty year old married father, but I didn't want the possibility of infidelity even crossing Dawn's mind. This was a bad idea. I deliberately used a fake smile to show Dawn my honest reluctance. "Of course."

Amber made the money vanish into the pocket of her tight denim pants. "Thanks for the money, and have a good night, Mrs. Cleft!" She followed me out to the driveway. I was acutely aware of the smell of her perfume once I closed the door to my car. She was wearing a sultry, midnight fragrance more appropriate for highballs during an illicit meeting in a hotel bar than for a drive home from babysitting.

The boys in her high school must have been in perpetual priapic shock. Amber didn't seem to have the faintest conception of the effect she had, with her big eyes, open smile, effervescent personality, lifeguard-tanned skin, and gymnast physique. I considered yet again that my wife had selected Amber solely to torment me for my sins, but that wasn't fair to Amber. Few eighteen year olds liked babysitting, but Amber seemed to do it because she loved kids.

"Jason looks a lot like you, Mr. Cleft," Amber observed as I backed out of the driveway.

"He is a cute kid, so I take that as a compliment."

Amber stretched her arms in a yawn, setting the pronounced curves of her breasts in sharp relief against the street lights. "You should! My dad never read my stories as a kid. He was too busy at work. Your wife is lucky to have someone so good with kids." She was looking at me, and the purr had returned to her voice.

My wife wasn't feeling very lucky this year, but I wasn't about to reveal my shame to the babysitter. I simply responded, "I am lucky to still have my wife." The "still" had crept in accidentally, but Amber didn't seem to notice, extending another yawn into a full-bodied cat stretch. I tried to keep my eyes focused on the road.

We pulled into her driveway, only five blocks away. "I like to know the parents of the kids I sit for, and I think I got to know you better tonight," she said as she exited the car. The cast to her sunny, pretty features seemed a little smug as she said that, but she just smiled. "Thanks for the ride!"

"Thanks for sitting. See you next Friday."

"I can't wait!" She turned and scampered into the house, her blonde ponytail bouncing behind her, pointing like an arrow to a slim waist and a bottom made for holding.

Annoyed with myself, I tore my eyes away and drove home. Amber indeed had no concept of the effect she had on men, and there was little chance of any temptation going anywhere deadly, but this was the very habit I was trying to break. The drunk steers clear of the bar, and the junkie avoids skid row. I needed to avoid attractive women.

Dawn was already asleep when I returned, nursing her headache. She frowned and turned away when I kissed her on the cheek.

I swallowed a bitter taste in my mouth. The entire purpose of these date nights was reconciliation through bringing romance back into our relationship, yet she was still banning me from our marital bed. I was disappointed, but I didn't blame her.

Stifling my sigh, I headed downstairs to the living room, where I flipped on the monitor to the computer. I didn't like what I saw.

With a marriage on the rocks, I needed outlets for sexual release that didn't betray my vows of fidelity. Sometimes it was video sites, but I disliked the lack of story, bad acting, and gynecological precision of most porn. Most of the genre was as sexy as a childbirth video, and finding the few exceptions took effort. I preferred websites that printed erotica.

But no matter my nocturnal diversions, I always made sure I closed the website down before bed. Last night, I had been on an erotica site, and had closed it down as usual, but tonight the website was already up, opened to the same story and the same page from last night's reading.

Ever since my wife had hired Amber for weekly date nights, babysitter fantasies had been on my mind, and the story on the screen was an unremarkable example of the genre, with the wife out of town, the sitter watching the kid, and the husband stuck in bed with a broken leg. The sitter was far more slutty and sexually aggressive than a real eighteen year old girl would ever be, but that unreality held a certain charm.

Had I forgotten to close the website down last night? I hadn't used the computer since then, so it was possible, but I always remembered. Dawn wasn't the most sexually open-minded woman in the world, and with our troubles, the last thing I wanted her to see on my computer screen were fantasies of extramarital seduction.

I must have forgotten. Thankfully, Dawn must not have used the computer today either. She would have said something if she had found this up.

A search on the web site revealed a few other stories fitting my current fetish. In one, the sitter turned out to be a werewolf, but that was okay since the husband was really a vampire and their frenetic doggy-style rutting sealed a cease fire in a millenium-long war between paranormal factions (but wait, the cliffhanger was a surprise attack by a new faction of lesbian sorceresses).

In another, the babysitter tied the wife to a chair, verbally abused her, and made her watch as the sitter fucked the husband. The latter story was disturbingly hot, causing me to ponder the extent of my resentment at Dawn's sexual punishment. I finished the night off with a pretentious story about a mind-controlling marriage counselor, made a point of closing all browser windows, and shut off the monitor.

It was then that I noticed an orange film of Cheetoh dust and a wet circle of pop can sweat marring the surface of my computer desk.

—-

Dawn went to bed early again, with the excuse that she needed to sleep if she wanted to have energy for our weekly date tomorrow night. They had thrown a new project at her when she came back from maternity leave early last year. Supposedly it was going very well, but she had been putting in long hours ever since. Her frequent absences, as well as the rare opportunities for sex since the pregnancy, had been among the reasons for my fling with Bronwen. No, those things had created the opportunity, but the action and the consequences were my own doing. I couldn't rationalize that away if our marriage was to recover.

Despite our reconciliation, Dawn hadn't cut back her hours. She had been promising that it would just be a few weeks more — that her big software project was almost complete.

I would have waited regardless. I wasn't certain our marriage would survive, but I knew if it didn't, I would become only an every-other-weekend father, and that was a horror to avoid at almost any price. I peeked in on Jason to remind myself why I had to stay the course. He was cuddled up with his plush blue Bedtime Bear stuffed animal, looking snuggly in his footie pajamas. I kissed him on the forehead, and went downstairs.

Dawn and I had bigger problems than infidelity, demanding work schedules, and a cold marital bed. The simple truth was that she had changed from the woman I married. I had to admit the changes should be considered good ones — she looked better, and her success at work was instilling a new-found confidence she had sorely lacked — but you can't profoundly change one partner's personality without changing the entire relationship. I was still adapting to this new Dawn. She had always been sort of helpless, needing protection. I had my own insecurities, and that was part of what had drawn us together. I admired Dawn 2.0 but was seriously doubting whether I still had a place in her life.

I wouldn't be able to sleep for another couple of hours, and decided to browse through one of my favorite erotica sites, looking for new stories. One title caught my eye:

Babysitter Seduction Diary, Part One

. Almost all the more recent stories in my "favorites" list involved the babysitter seducing the reluctant husband, and the title was a magnet for my current set of neuroses. It had just posted earlier today, and the preliminary reviews suggested it might not suck. It started with a dateline of six days ago.

Dear Diary,

I am so excited! I found out tonight that he is fantasizing about me, reading stories on dirty websites where a slutty babysitter seduces a husband who isn't satisfied by his bitch of a wife.

And she is such a bitch. She is so mean to him. He stands close to her and she moves away. He kisses her and she flinches or only purses her lips to give him a dry dead smooch.

I wonder if he has forgotten what a real kiss is like? I so much want to remind him that a real kiss should be messy wet and wonderful and taste like fire and sin. A real kiss would draw his tongue passed my lips, showing him that I want every part of him inside me — inside my mouth, inside anywhere. That is how he deserves to feel.

My mom says they are having problems, and that is why I need to give up Friday nights out with my friends. I didn't want to do it at first, but their kid is so sweet and the dad is so wonderful with a sexy smile, a kind face, and strong shoulders and arms and a butt so cute I want to eat it. And he is such a good dad! I wish my dad had been more like him, kind and loving and willing to hold me in his arms.

My mom wouldn't tell me what the marriage problems were, but I heard her talking to Dad about it — that bitch of a wife drove him to seek love in the arms of an Other Woman. The Other Woman wasn't happy being just the Other Woman (which I can understand! But that is no excuse for what she did) and she ratted on him to his wife. He got caught and now his bitch of a wife is keeping him in line with threats of making him loose custody of his son! That's how wonderful he is! He loves his son so much he is staying with a woman who hates him, just to be a good dad!

The drive home was so hard. I sometimes catch him looking at me, but he tries so hard not to that his looking away is even sexier than his looking. I looked at his pants and I think he had a hard-on. Or maybe he is just really big. Oh God, I hope he isn't too big for me! I am afraid it would hurt, but I would bite my lip, spread my legs wide and do the best I could.

I wanted to tell him that I knew he was fantasizing about me, but he seemed so nervous it would scare him, and I knew his wife would be expectign him home right away. I didn't want him to get in more trouble or make his wife suspicious and make him loose his wonderful son!

I couldn't think of what I should do. All I knew is that I had been wet the whole ride home, knowing he was reading sexy stories thinking of me. I couldn't think of anything else. After he dropped me off tonight, I ran up to bed, took all my clothes off, and touched myself while thinking of him, just like I bet he touches himself thinking of me. I imagined myself as his Other Woman. I was soaking wet and I put my fingers... down there... and imagined they were him, taking me. I could be his Other Woman, and I would promise (cross my heart and hope to die!) that I would never tell his wife. I would just want him. I would want his hands and mouth on my neck and breasts, my arms around his strong shoulders, and I would want to feel his tight butt as he took me, loving me, and (I feel I should whisper it in writing because it feels so wrong and right) fucking me.

That's when I started to get all hot and tingly. I had touched myself before, but it never felt like this. I moved my fingers faster, and the outside of my... you know... started to feel like it would explode, then it did explode, and I exploded inside at the same time! I felt hot all over and my body actually vibrated. The girls at school talked about this sometimes. My best friend said it was like being turned into a Fourth of July firework (she said that's what the Katy Perry song was about, and the "oh oh oh" is the noise you make when it happens), but I had never felt one. This was an orgasm! I tried to be quiet because mom and dad are sleeping next door and I hoped they didn't wake up (I hear them doing it sometimes and I don't complain) but I cried out his name anyway. The second time I cried his name I covered my face with the pillow so I could scream it louder and not wake up my parents.

I curled up in bed, naked and still wet, thinking of him, thinking of ways I could be his Other Woman. We could meet in hotels or in parks. His wife is out of town a lot, and I could volunteer to babysit, and tell my parents I was staying at a friends house, and I could then have sex him all night long, pretending that I was his wife, doing to him the things he deserves.

That's when I had my idea. I would write up what I was thinking tonight, and what I did to myself, and post it to that naughty website I found by looking through his browser history. Maybe he would see my diary and read it. Maybe he would have ideas of his own on how I could be his Other Woman. I wasn't sure. Maybe it was to much, but I needed him to know what I thought and felt, and what I did to myself when I was thinking of him.

Good night, Diary. My fingers are still warm from touching myself, and I am crossing them for good luck.

The hairs on the back of neck stood at attention, awaiting orders, and I was sweating and feeling dizzy. There were precious few details, but the story fit almost completely, from the open browser last Friday after Amber went home, to the distance with which Dawn treated me. There were some details wrong about my marital troubles, but the author was repeating rumors, not reciting firsthand knowledge.

It even read as if written by an eighteen year old girl — or at least someone's idea of how an eighteen year old girl would write. Of course, this was the Internet and it could really be written by a sixty year old guy from Hoboken named Morrie, just impersonating the style. Maybe it wasn't even a style, but just bad writing. Similar typos, change of verb tense, run-on sentences, and grammar errors were all over stories that were almost certainly written by Morrie and his ilk. The style in combination with the story, however, meant it either had to be Amber or an incredible coincidence.

I scrolled down to read any comments — sometimes authors posted there. Nothing, just a few guys offering to pay her to come babysit them and claiming this was the "Best! Story! Ever!"

The author's name was Babysittingslut. Subtle. I clicked, but there were no biographical details on the author's page, and no other stories to her credit. Her join date was last Saturday, and the only identifying information was a black and white, high contrast photo showing the nude lower breasts, midriff, and upper pelvis of a nubile woman.

I leaned back in my chair, letting the blood return to my brain. It didn't matter if it were really Amber, I decided. I had faced the abyss two months ago, and had chosen to turn away and ask Dawn to end our separation and reconcile, with the promise that I would never be unfaithful again. My fantasies about Amber were just a harmless need for sexual stimulation and gratification while Dawn and I were going through a rough patch. My fantasies were not plans, and I would not act on them. My best course of action was to ignore the story and talk my wife out of hiring Amber again. It was probably too late for tomorrow night, but I could probably concoct an excuse for next week. I just needed to avoid doing anything tomorrow that might encourage Amber, or it could be disastrous for both of us.

—-

The date nights were Dawn's idea. She felt our difficulties stemmed partly from us not spending enough time together. Her pregnancy with Jason had been difficult, and motherhood had stolen much of the romance from her life. Friday night dates were her attempt to recapture romance, where we would see a movie, walk in the park, or catch a play.

They hadn't worked so far, but that was my fault. My dalliance with Bronwen had badly damaged Dawn's trust in me, and I could see the sadness and pain of betrayal in her eyes. I would talk about my day at the office, crunching the latest sales figures, or she would talk about her plans for the next speech pathology conference. It was all boringly unromantic and asexual. We could always talk about Jason, but reminders of our responsibilities did nothing to reignite romance either.

Tonight was no different, We went to a nice Japanese teppanyaki restaurant, walked around the park for an hour, and discussed nothing but banalities, and stories about our wonderful son.

Dawn used to like nothing more than to bare her heart to me, telling me all her hopes and dreams and fears. She had insecurities about her body and her weight even before she was pregnant. When that ballooned while Jason was in her belly, the insecurities were rampant. I would reassure her, we would make gentle love, and I would hold her in my arms until we slept.

She had changed since then, not entirely by my doing. She had eliminated her pregnancy pounds, and kept up her regimen of diet and exercise until she was now more fit than she had ever been. Sadly, her new body was foreign to me. I had not been allowed into her bed in six months, and I spent my nights instead sleeping in the guest room.

I suspected the woman I had married would have looked the other way at my affair, but this new, more confident woman had kicked me out of the house for four months, until my separation from my son had pulled me back with abject apologies. Dawn was a stranger to me now — a leaner, confident, more attractive stranger, but she seemed to block my attempts to know her.