What was she been thinking, screaming her desire for Steve when she knew how thin the walls were? What must the Nortons think?
Beth avoided both Robin and Steve the rest of the weekend and begged out of meeting Violet Sunday for lunch. The idea was to straighten things out with Vi, that whole thing about Joe, but Beth was having trouble thinking about it. She was having trouble thinking about much beyond the events of Friday night.
Beth always thought of herself as open-minded, but all day Saturday and Sunday, her thoughts were consumed by the wrongness of the things Robin said, that she said and did, and the things she discovered about herself.
Beth experimented in college—with her friend's sister, Megan—and it was a lot of fun. Shame it had to end the way it did...
There was no denying that Robin was attractive. The older woman's obvious interest was intriguing, like her awareness that her own attraction to Steve was reciprocated. And Robin and Steve were a sexy couple.
But Robin and Steve were also a
married
couple. That meant something, didn't it?
So what did it mean that she was interested?
The week passed in a blur. Data entry was a mindless, repetitive job, but Beth threw herself into it with a passion, forcing her eyes to focus on records and database fields instead of the sexy images her mind kept conjuring. For the most part, it worked. She volunteered for even more overtime. If she kept this up for another week, she would double her paycheck.
Beth considered curtailing her morning ritual for the week. After all, the temptation to think about Steve would be less that way, she figured. That plan worked OK Monday, but died a quick death Tuesday morning.
That morning, while in bed, she had a vision of such power, such intensity that she was halfway to orgasm when she found both hands between her legs. Was it a dream? A fantasy? She didn't know and didn't care.
She was on a small stage, the floor painted the usual matte black. Empty, cheap-looking seats stretched before her. It couldn't have seated more than 200 people, tops. Together, the lingering sweat of stage productions come and gone combined with the sawdust and cigarette smoke to produce the unmistakable smell of a theatre.
Looking down, Beth saw that she was wearing a black crepe Donna Karan evening dress and holding a leather mask. The hem of the dress was jagged; below it, a graceful pair of Nine West suede pumps. The pair of peacock feathers was a brilliant splash of color against the bone white of the mask while rhinestones formed a fanciful filigree flowing from the same spot the feathers did.
"Beth."
She turned to see a formally-attired man. His black jacket was the traditional peak collar; his tie, white. His face was obscured by an ornate mask. Similar to the familiar comedy/tragedy faces, the face of his mask was split in two, comedy on the left in white and tragedy to the right in black. But despite its familiarity, there was still something strange and threatening about it. Dark, slicked-back hair could be seen behind the mask and just beneath its edge she could see his lips pursed in a predatory smile as a shudder gripped her.
As he stepped closer with measured, confident steps, she could make out the scent of his cologne—musky and slightly spicy, it was indisputably masculine. The sound of his footfalls rang through the empty theatre as he approached, its emptiness giving them an added weight.
He seized her roughly and, pulling her quickly into an embrace, kissed her with a savage passion. The ferocity of this welcome assault was itself intensely erotic and was made more so by the contrast between his behavior and his elegant attire.
He positioned himself carefully as they embraced so he could lean her back in a slow dip with ease. From this position, as he continued covering her in kisses, his free hand pulled up the hem of her dress. She could first feel, then hear, his appreciative growl as his hand continued up past her knees, coming finally to her soft, trimmed down. With a flick of his wrist, he flipped the edge of the dress up past her thighs.
Beth gasped as his mouth made its way down her cheek. He lightly ran the edge of his teeth along her neck.
"Open your eyes and look at your audience," he purred softly in a rich, oddly familiar baritone.
She did and was shocked to see people in the seats, where mere moments before, they were empty. It took several seconds to realize that she was exposed. She was about to pull her dress down when he nuzzled up to her ear again.
He pulled her hands away and thrust two fingers in her. He growled, "Don't do that. Don't you want them to look?" As he said this, he slowly allowed the edge of one finger to brush against the center of her passion. "Can't you see just how exciting you're finding this? Can't you feel it?"
Beth's long, jagged moan escaped before she knew it. "No, I can't..." Her hands stretched down to fix her dress.
He added a third finger now and bringing them together began a torturous, exquisite exploration of her exposed lower mouth, cutting short any further protest as her arms fell weakly to her sides.
"You like what I'm doing, don't you?"
Beth could only nod weakly as his hand destroyed her ability to think. With each agonizingly leisurely stroke, she gasped and moaned as he delved just slightly deeper than the time before.
"Tell me."
"Mm...I love what you're doing to me."
He chuckled cruelly. "Of course you do. Do you care that there's someone watching you?"
"Uh—well..."
Suddenly, his hand thrust all the way in, forcing her to gasp. "No! I don't care who's watching me!"
Picking up the pace, he began to ravage her with his hand properly now. "Good. Now, give them a better view."
She went rigid. "O god no, please please please don't make me do this."
He chuckled as he started going faster. "Make
you? You
want
to do this."
With a groan, she silently spread her legs wide.
As he kept going faster, Beth became aware of the wet, slurping sounds of his hand as it became almost deafening. She could feel the crescendo building quickly—the knowledge that people were watching this, staring at her most intimate part being ravished was thrilling, intoxicating.
Everything quickly spun out of focus when he suddenly stopped. Beth gasped in surprise. "No! Don't stop!"
"Are you sure you want these two hundred some-odd people to watch and hear your orgasm?"
"God, I don't care, just please don't stop!"
"Tell me you want it."
A strangled cry erupted from her. "Yes, please make me cum in front of the audience! I want them to see and hear me cumming from you finger-fucking my pussy! Please, I need your hand in me again, I'll do anything!"
He looked at Beth with a strange and frightening intensity. He growled, "Yes you will."
With that, he thrust his hand inside her again. Her orgasm was upon her before she even knew it, a tsunami sweeping away her thoughts, her feeling, and perhaps one or two scruples. As Beth became aware of the musk of her own arousal drowning out the theatre smell, her lover gently lowered her to the stage and walked away.
"Until later," he purred. He flashed that predatory smile again and walked off-stage.
No, the plan didn't last very long at all.
For the next two days, from the time she got home until she fell asleep, her thoughts were completely consumed by her new fantasy and renewed guilt. Adding to the confusion was the fact that the Nortons were quiet this week. The silence was unwelcome, but not as unwelcome as her reaction to it. Did she upset them? Did they change their minds? Did they hate her?
Violet called Thursday and sensed something was wrong, but Beth didn't want to talk about it—how could she explain it to her? How could she start? She couldn't even explain it to herself!
So it was a surprise when during lunch on Friday, her phone rang as she was trying to figure out what to make for dinner. Looking at the caller ID, she saw it was Robin. She decided to let it go to voicemail.
When she checked her messages a few minutes later, she was surprised by Robin's message.
"Hi Beth, it's Robin. Steve and I would like you to join us for dinner tonight. We think we should talk. We'll cook if you bring the wine. I know you're screening your calls, but give me a buzz. I think you owe it to yourself to hear what we have to say."
The next ten minutes were pure torture; there was no other word for it. Beth knew she needed to talk to someone about what happened last week. She couldn't tell Vi. None of her other friends would understand it.
The Nortons were the only ones who would. Could she face them? No, that was impossible. But what did Robin mean when he said Beth owed it to herself?
After going back and forth countless times, she finally called Robin back. Grateful that it went to the answering machine, Beth said cheerily, "Hi, it's Beth. Thanks for the invitation and I'll see you tonight!"
As she listened to Beth leaving the message, Robin smiled to herself. Curiosity and isolation: were there two better weapons? Robin reflected idly on what to make for a side dish and took another a sip of her coffee.
Beth pulled out of the liquor store parking lot, two bottles of Chianti resting on the floor of the passenger seat. There wasn't any return call from Robin, and Beth almost fooled herself into believing that she was too busy to try calling to confirm.
She considered changing, but what was the point? If she was casual, it would send a nice, relaxed tone for dinner, right? The black jeans were OK and they looked good on her. The pin striped dress shirt with the French cuffs—OK, maybe that was a bit much, but what the hell. The oxblood mules would help keep it casual.
So it was a real surprise when she knocked on the Nortons' door to find Steve in a suit. Then he flashed that incredible smile and Beth got a little weak in the knees.
Damn but he looked good! His suit was gray with black pinstripes and under it were a white shirt, metallic tie and black slacks. It looked very Calvin Klein, as did his shoes. As always, some stray dark hairs covered his eyes slightly but that just made them all the more piercing. A little stubble was starting to come in on his cleft chin and while she normally thought stubble looked messy, with Steve it just made him sexy. Yummy, even.
"Um...hi?"
"Beth, hey, it's good to see you again! Come on in! Honey, Beth brought some Chianti."
Robin called from the kitchen. "Hi, Beth! Steve, why don't you take the wine and pour us some? Beth was asking last week about the flat-panel, by the way, so maybe you could talk about that?"
"That's right, you told me. Hey Beth, why don't you follow me towards the kitchen? I'll open up one of the bottles and in the meantime, we can talk computer stuff."
To listen to them, they seemed like a perfectly normal, everyday couple. There was no hint that there was anything at all unusual about them. Perhaps that's what made them so odd.
Beth followed Steve to the kitchen as he explained about the monitor. "It's a 19 inch monitor, which really gives you as much viewing area as a traditional 20 inch monitor because you don't lose anything at the edges of the screen. This particular model is rated very highly by a couple of magazines..."
