My heart lurched in my throat, its beating rhythm a strident tattoo against the door of my sanity. How quaint, seeing as I was also perched against the door to the bedroom. The drum drum drum beating against my ears made my head a little dizzy. Please God, not another migraine coming on, not when I was witnessing my husband having the time of his life between the thighs of my friend.
I remembered our conversation a week ago: "So that's why I need you to fuck my husband."
"What in hell have you been consuming this morning?" Kane had always a way with words.
"Not fuck him 'fuck' him, just make him flustered and hot and bothered. Then he'll come back to me and we'll have the best sex of our lives."
"Your lives, ha. That's make two of you."
"I know right, the fact is seeing he's always been a little repressed even in the bedroom, I think it's his complex. Not to mention the sex had been drying up lately since he's been holed up with work more and more."
"Continue."
"I mean, I'm thankful for the money, but I kinda miss the old days when we would fuck like rabbits the whole weekend and go to work the next Monday, or -- sometimes -- not."
"And where do I come into the equation?"
"So, I want you to invite him out for drinks, whatever, in one of your clubs."
"I know, I have hundreds of those," Kane remarked sarcastically.
"And, I want you to kinda... seduce him. Make him hot. Be sexy. Enticing. Then send him home to me."
"Okay. You do know you're treading on dangerous grounds here with your instructions, but hey I'm a good friend. Fly your freak flag, man."
"I know you'd be a sport about it."
The weekend came, and as it turned out I had to cover for someone at the diner where I had worked for ten years, where I met Jack my husband, where he proposed. You'd expect I would have some sort of seniority there, but there had been no one else who was able to cover the shift at short shrift. I was the only one free.
I started the shift on high spirits, certain Kane would follow through with his instructions. I had sent a message to my husband, expecting him at Felix, a bar downtown we frequented. Our plan was to have Kane met him there and brought him bar hopping and gradually wear him down with drinks and dancing.
After an especially large order (an extended family gathering), I opened my phone to a flurry of messages. The first message was from my husband: "Kane's here, we're going to the bars. Love you xxx."
"Kane's really funny, wait till you hear the one about the priest in a titty bar."
"Kane's acting weird honey. Did the two of you set him up for this?"
Then, from Kane: "You never told me Jack is hung as fuck!" Oops, my bad.
"We're going to D'Zara!" Great. D'Zara was known as a place with a notorious cruise-y vibe. Maybe they could soak up the atmosphere -- quick -- and get home earlier than planned. Then I forgot to check my phone because there was a cops crew at the door.
The next time I was free it was already three a.m. -- one of the cops kept crying about missing his mom in faraway Seattle, and kept asking for more donut refills -- my phone was eerily silent. My last message was of them going to D'Zara. I pulled up the GPS locator of my husband's phone. Strange: it was firmly planted at our house.
I did not know why but that fact did not comfort me. It should, it meant my husband was back safe and sound in our house, probably half-drunk from alcohol. He was probably smoking his last cig for the day, his habit after being home from bar-hopping. He loved to smoke, but knew I did not tolerate them well, so only had them rarely when I was out of the house.
Suddenly unbidden a vivid picture came to my mind: Kane and Jack my husband dancing the night away in D'Zara. Both slightly intoxicated and warm from the alcohol running in their veins, sweaty from the heat of the dancing crowd, the glistening flashes of ropy muscles and musky pheromones clouding judgements of husbands and friends. I imagined them standing close together, the song probably one of those slow songs crafted to make couples sway gently -- my husband's favorite was Careless Whisper, with its sexy sax solo opening -- hands holding skin on skin, ever so slightly humid from the sweat, my husband holding Kane's bountiful ass, his big bubble -- a point of pride for the guy -- in my Jack's large masculine hands. I imagined them running their bulges across each other, my husband's gargantuan blob dwarfing Kane's, him smiling seductively at my husband at the sensation of bulge on bulge.
My shift's ending in fifteen minutes. I contemplated leaving early -- I had the kitchen cleaned, and people from the next shift were having their breakfast in the pantry room, but decided to be the good colleague. I sent off a message to Jack: "Hope you had a good time babe!" and to Kane: "Thanks honeybunch I owe you big xxx."