Under The Spotlight

I Love You, Dumbass; Take Off Your Pants:

Prologue

She surged her hips forward harder, then back again, and faster once more, forward, awash, as she was, in sensation. In the back of her throat she could still find the faint alkaline after-taste of the cranberry punch. Between claps, she could hear the uneven breathing of the room surrounding her and the gentle friction noises from cloth on flesh and from flesh on flesh. At each intake of stale air, she smelled sweat -- hers and theirs comingled: the strange and the familiar. She felt...everything. And she saw nothing there in the dark. Then the lights came on again, and to her great, great surprise, she surged her hips forward harder still, and then back again.

Chapter 1 -- Be Adventurous

"Why are we going to this?" he whined, as he came into the bedroom.

"We need to get out more - socialize."

"You're not selling me," he replied, flopping backward into the softness of the duvet while rubbing the sides of his forehead.

Nicole stood at the large vanity mirror, brushing hard against the wet resistance of her glistening strawberry blonde hair, and wondering if she had time to let it dry on its own or if she needed to blow-dry. She knew that his argument was moot. Caleb was already in his black khakis and untucked navy blue dress shirt, a definitive sign that she had already won this battle.

She was quite sure in fact that he wasn't arguing with her at all, just making up an excuse to be around while she dressed. He thought, as he often did, that he was being subtle in finding excuses to always be in the room whenever she first got out of the shower. He was, as he often was, quite wrong about that. She knew exactly what he was doing, and exactly what he wanted.

Years ago now, Nicole had committed to never calling Caleb on this and instead she sort of just lingered in the implied flattery, or even, on occasion, seeking to prod him just a bit with the command that she knew her body held over him. More elegantly than was necessary, she unwrapped the towel from around her breasts and glanced at the reflection of Caleb in the mirror to see that his eyes were on her, even during his child-like fit of complaint.

"OK, then, because Lucy invited me, and I like her and want to be nice to her," she said while sliding on a pair of black cotton panties and pulling them into place far more slowly than could have accomplished anything beyond further seizing Caleb's attention.

Caleb's eyes ran up Nicole's soft, supple body, the kind that models weren't allowed to have anymore but that everyone felt a stirring of the emotions to behold, a longing to caress. Where there might have been rigid muscle and the protrusion of bone against skin, Nicole was instead a symphony of graceful curves. In stillness, she was beautiful. When she moved, however, to see her was to know a mindless sort of desire. To his credit, Caleb recovered from the obvious pause he took fairly quickly, and acted as if nothing had happened, stating with a dry mouth: "Remind me who Lucy is again?"

"She does my nails."

As she tucked her large breasts into her matching black bra with a white lace trim at the top, and clasped it tight behind her, Nicole's effect on Caleb settled somewhat and he regained a more passable sense of composure.

"Have I met her?"

"Like five times."

"Ugh." His eyes rolled back to stare at the ceiling in dismay. Caleb was long and lean, and had a cyclist's build with the metabolism to support it. He was tall, at 6 '2, but not large, built for speed and endurance, rather than strength. His hair was dark brown, shaved close to his head, and his chin was almost blockishly square. He had a large wide mouth, and deep dimples emerged on his cheeks whenever he smiled.

"Quit your whining. Nicole said there will be good food and chess. That's two out of your favorite three things."

"What's the third?"

Nicole turned to face him and leaned her face in close with a wry smile. "Me," she said, her large blue eyes glinting in the light of the room, as if on cue, "and I'll be there too." Still performing, she stepped gracefully into her maroon, satin dress and dragged it slowly upward across the peaks and valleys of her silhouette. It was a knee length cocktail dress, cinched at the wait so as to maximize the shapeliness of her form. All told, it gave off an air of delicacy -- like a fragile curtain too easily blown by the wind to expose the vista beyond it.

Caleb's mind drifted in that space for a moment, before settling back to reality again. "I have so much work to do." Somehow his tone had grown poutier as she put on the dress. He always seemed less compliant the second that her clothes were all on. She was still, however, quite sure that he was bluffing.

"Just come to this thing," she said, tightening the spaghetti straps that held her dress aloft to their perfect measure. "I'll make it worth your while."

Magically -- the kind of stupid, simple magic that constitutes the male libido -- his tone changed again, as he sat up to face her. "What does that mean?"

"What do you want it to mean?"

A new possibility had entered Caleb's mind, and a new awareness of how beautiful his wife looked in her dress. Where at first he had only seen it as an obstacle to the familiar curves that he obsessed over, he saw it now as a sort of accentuation, and a reminder of how beautiful she was as an aesthetic beyond simply her body. The vision of her in this light felt profound to Caleb, and he immediately felt a deep sense of shame when his mouth opened, seemingly outside of his own volition, and stated something that was so, so far from profound.

"Take off your panties."

Nicole raised an eyebrow and her wry smile fell into a frustrated frown. "We don't have time for that."

Caleb was undeterred, rolling with the instincts of his voice and spurring the idea onward without retreating because his own earlier ineloquence. "That's not what I meant. Leave them here."

Nicole explored the possibility in her mind, not landing on one side or the other of it. "All night?"

Caleb sat up straight, his posture transitioning seamlessly from petulant child to confident, worldly man's man, as best he could muster. "Well, you're not going to come back and get them, right?" He practically winked at her, but had just enough sense to tone it down before reaching that point.

"Seriously?"

For a moment, the faux confidence that Caleb put on vanished behind something sincere and compelling. He looked up into her large, beautiful eyes and suggested "be adventurous."

Nicole met his gaze, trying to make sense of it in terms of both its implication and its promise. She loved him dearly, and she held in her hand something that could make him happy at that lizard brain level. In some ways, it was an easy concession. She wasn't stupid, however, and made sure she'd get back something else in return.

"And you'll come? And you won't complain?"

"Absolutely," he said, far too urgently. "Take them off."

"Come over here and take them off yourself."

Chapter 2 -- This Ditch Looks Romantic

In the depths of the winter season as they were, the sun was already set by the time they left the house. The potential for feeling despondent at the early darkness was balanced somewhat by the bed of white snow all along the ground and amidst the trees. It caught the light of the moon overhead, and of the street lamps that lined the road, and of the headlights of Caleb's truck as they drove along the road - the night was imbued, as a result, with an ambient glow.

"Is she taking us the right way? I didn't think there were any houses back here." Nicole sat rigidly in the passenger seat, all too aware of her missing underpants. She wanted, however, to appear free-spirited and unphased, so she said nothing on the subject whatsoever. Had the cabin of the vehicle not been so dark, and had her husband not been so dense on the matter, her posture would have completely given her away, however.

"I trust the robot," Caleb replied, referring to his phone's GPS and the steady stream of instructions guiding them through the small town of Ayr, then out past farmland, and forest, onto unfamiliar roads.

'How long 'til we get there?" she asked, unsure whether she was anxious to get out of the cold air of the truck, which may have been contributing to her awareness of the absence, or whether she was anxious about going to a party without being properly dressed.

Caleb peaked at the screen to his left. "8 minutes."

Nicole was a little surprised with herself for giving in to her husband's request. It was an out of character move for her, but she liked the idea of being sexy, of feeling sexy. She allowed herself to feel that through the anxiety.

Even so, her mind sought solace from anxiety in the familiar. Nicole was 19 when she first became physical with Caleb. They had met at a summer internship with a museum -- he got the job she had wanted, despite her stronger qualifications. She had resented him at first for that, but found herself spending more and more time around him, nursing the hatred through proximity, until, by the end of the summer, it was the proximity alone that she craved -- the hatred had vanished.

By October of that year, they had started dating. They took it slow -- both of them young and inexperienced. The December that followed was the coldest in a decade, but their hormones ran at an altogether different temperature. Living, as they did, in the homes of their respective parents, they were only able to indulge the yearning of their bodies in parked cars on the sides of lonely country roads, the kind of roads they were driving on now, years later.

The first time he truly touched her was on one such night and one such road. The temperature had fallen to thirty below. It was her car. She had parked along a seldom travelled gravel road not far from city limits and slid over to his lap in the passenger side of her old grey sedan. They had kissed as they always had but she wanted more, and he was all too eager to provide. When he'd reached for the button of her jeans, she permitted, and pivoted her body around to face the windshield, and the darkness beyond. She wanted to be clear with him, so she'd pulled down her pants and underwear herself.

She was remembering hard now, and the memories were making her feel the same sort of bodily rush she had that night when he slid his fingers down to receive her warmth, her wetness. She rubbed her knees together in the truck just thinking about it.

Back then it was a sedan, and he had pulled her shirt up over her breasts with his other hand, cupping and caressing until the barrier of her bra also felt grating, and she reached back to unclasp herself, elegantly sliding the bra through the arms of her sweater. The cold night air had felt shocking to her then, and she remembered it so vividly that she rushed her hand over her right breast in remembrance.

Caleb saw nothing in the dark.

She spread her legs apart, then closed them again, trying to keep control, but she only opened them up once more to feel the rush of cold air between her thigs. In her head she'd already decided. It was only the phrasing that she was still workshopping in her mind:

"Pull over and fuck me like when we were teenagers" she decided was way too aggressive.

"I want you inside of me" was classic, but maybe a little cliché.

"This ditch looks romantic" was objectively stupid.

Her hand was between her legs now. When had that happened? She remembered again the sedan at 19, the way the condensation on the windows had frozen solid on the inside and had to be scraped when she and Caleb were done, flakes of frozen lust falling like snow over their sweaty, naked bodies.

She told herself not to touch, but her fingers got away from her in the passenger side of the truck, eager, if nothing else, to confirm that she was still in want of underwear, that she had really done that. She told herself it was confirmation, but even when she had that, she found that her fingertips were still gliding around, almost absentmindedly, refusing to leave.

She was resolved now. Fuck this party. It was time, and even if the words escaped her, she would know her husband's touch within the minute or she would...

"You have arrived at your destination," the GPS declared.

"Shit," she thought. "Shit, shit, shit."

Chapter 3 -- So What Are You Then?

"Are you sure you put the right address into the GPS?" he asked.

"Yup 163 Malkin. That's what Lucy texted me."

"Yeah, your nail person does not live here, my friend," he replied while staring through the windshield at the massive three story red brick manor house whose front entryway, and double 8ft tall mahogany doors with wrought iron handles, was currently locked in the headlights of his humble 2010 Ford Ranger pickup truck.

"No," she protested, wondering if women could get some equivalent to blue balls. "This is it. Why do you think all the cars are here?"

"Text Lucy for the address again. There's no way."

"This is it, dude."

Caleb closed his mouth and turned away from the spectacle in his windshield to face her. He paused for a moment, hovering in that gaze. "Would you bet your panties on it?" He asked squinting his eyes at her in mock-seriousness.

She did not laugh.

"Hmmm," he at last broke the silence. "Seriously though, there's no way your friend lives here."

"This is it," Nicole asserted.

"Come on. Don't be stupid," Caleb replied.

"Park the car, asshole," Nicole stated bluntly.

Entering a party was always the worst part of going to one, and the panties comment had only served to remind her of one more thing that she might feel self-conscious about. She decided to put it out of her mind, reminding herself, as if such a reminder were needed, that boys were clueless. They had not made into the actual party yet and she already regretted being so accommodating to him with her choice of undergarments, or lack thereof.

The cold winter air rushed up her skirt as she opened the door of the truck and stepped outside. The chill air matched her mood and, without waiting for Caleb to properly park, she walked up the large red cobblestone pathway to the front door. Caleb, at last reading her correctly, rushed up behind her and was barely at her side by the time she grabbed hold of a large iron door knocker that she hit back against the wood, harder and louder than she had intended.

"Sorry," he said. "I get a little carried away when I'm nervous."

"I'm nervous too," she replied. "Don't be a dick."

"Deal."

Light split open the doors and streamed out into the dark night behind them like steam escaping an oven as a tall, red-haired woman in a short black cocktail dress pushed the doorway ajar. Nicole smiled and embraced her friend while Caleb took the opportunity to remind himself who Lucy was by looking over the warm, freckled face now resting atop his wife's shoulder. Vague recollections came back to him and he waved and said hello without leaning in for a hug himself.

"I'm so glad you could make it!" Lucy beamed, "I didn't think you'd come." She made eye contact with both of them while gracefully stepping back with her left foot and gesturing them inward with her extended right hand with the practiced grace of a game show hostess. Then with obligatory interest she passed a cursory scan over Nicole and Caleb's attire. "I love your dress," she exclaimed. "You always look amazing in red."

Nicole thanked her shyly -- even in circumstances of polite banter, Nicole was not comfortable receiving comments about her appearance. She didn't even like being looked at, apart from by Caleb, and even then not all the time. Caleb could never decide whether this paradox was the tragedy of her existence -- to be so beautiful yet unaware, or if it was some kind of grace that had spared Nicole's personality from being subjected to the kind of callousness and self-indulgence that comes with a lifetime of accepted flattery.

"Your house is unbelievable" Caleb stated.

"Well," Lucy replied with a laugh "I wish. This isn't my house. It's a rental."

"You rented a house?" Nicole injected. "Who does it belong to?"

"I'm not actually sure," Lucy replied. "The property is managed by a holding company out of London. It's mostly a corporate conference centre. They do all kinds of synergy exercises and presentations and business-y stuff. Every so often, they have gaps in their schedule, though, so our group rents it out for a night at a pretty good rate."

Every sight and every step they took deeper into the house confirmed Lucy's story even as she spoke. The house was enormous, and decorated in a style of generic excess. Everything looked new and just a little bit extra. They walked under vaulted ceilings 16ft high, and past 10 foot long leather sectional sofas, and past a downright gaudy marble staircase that had to have cost more than the average house in itself. Everything in the mansion seemed to be screaming with the intent to impress. As much as they were inclined to reject the insincerity of the house's style, however, they were impressed nonetheless.

Nicole was still adrift in awe at the building when her train of thought caught back up to Lucy's earlier words. "Your chess group rents out a corporate retreat?" she asked as Lucy continued to lead them through the labyrinth of hallways.

Lucy went silent for several steps, her hostess routine somehow derailed. The uncharacteristic pause lasted long enough for Nicole to pass a glance to Caleb that said "Are we about to be murdered?" Lucy's eventual response didn't help alleviate that concern. "We're not a chess group," she said as she stopped in front of a large glass door.

"You said we should come play chess with your group, though" Nicole replied.

"Oh yes, this is our chess event," Lucy shot back with a concerned look on her face. "But you read the email attachment, right?"

Nicole recalled the email well, but could not remember an attachment. Before she could reveal her ignorance, however, Caleb asked "so what are you, then?"

Lucy smiled and opened the door to reveal a small auditorium with a large stage at the front, backed by an enormous projector screen, and surrounded by approximately 100 seats, roughly seventy of them empty. The other thirty were filled with a bevy of couples - some complete strangers to Nicole and Nicole, some known to them as friends or neighbours or just vaguely familiar faces.

The crowd turned to face the door as it opened, staring directly at Caleb and Nicole, all smiles, all welcoming, just as Lucy stated "well, we're swingers."

Chapter 4 -- Always Read the Email Attachment

As if they were executing some sort of blood transfusion, Lucy's face turned white just as Nicole's flushed red. Caleb wasn't reacting at all -- he was only slowly putting together the complex social consequences of what was transpiring and he tended to sort of freeze up whenever he was in over his head.

Lucy and Nicole, meanwhile, hovered on the precipice of conflicting desires as each of them realized the extent of the faux pas that had carried them to this misunderstanding. With the entire group watching them, Lucy leaned toward walking everyone into the room, but then hesitated back to ushering her friend out of the building immediately in order to avoid making the error more outrageous and traumatizing. For Nicole the choice was flight or be polite, and decades worth of good upbringing couldn't tell her which was the right thing to do: to smile and say hello to a group of swingers, or to run from them, because they were a group of swingers. She didn't want to be narrow-minded, but she was deeply, deeply uncomfortable.