02

Ed./Auth. Note: This is my take on the theme of the conflicted, suspicious spouse. Big thanks to members tennesseered and rabblevox, whose feedback led me to make a couple of positive changes.

Please leave comments - I love getting feedback!

*****

Harmless flirtation, she tells herself, that's all this is.

She sees the signals he's throwing. The extra split second his eyes linger when they talk. The weak smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth when he offers a playful joke.

It's OK. She likes the attention. No reason to feel guilty. Definitely no need to tell Dan. There's nothing to tell. She's not crossing any lines. Except...

She feels the mild infatuation, too. There is a sensation that passes through her when she talks to him. He makes her laugh. When she finds herself admiring - despite herself, despite her every effort not to - the line of his jaw, there's a surge somewhere beneath her breastbone. And when those dark eyes of his lock on hers, there's a flutter somewhere lower. It's like he could look straight through her. Does he know? Does he sense it? Does his heart smile a little bit with the warmth of affection when she's around, the same way hers does in his presence?

Not knowing is a thrill. An innocent, little thrill.

---

I'm tearing through the house. I don't even know what I'm looking for. I am chasing the scent of a phantom.

I am rifling through the bedside table. Her side of the bed. For some stupid reason, I think to search for a diary.

She doesn't keep a diary, Dan. You know this.

But I have this vision in my head I can't shake. In it, I slide the drawer slowly open and see emerging from its shadowy recesses a right angle: one corner of a small book with a hard cover bound in pink fabric. I will grab it by that corner and slide it into the light, open it, and find inside it black ink flowing in a graceful script spilling out the secretly filthy thoughts that run through her mind.

I imagine her writing in it as a young woman, detailing the swelling between her legs the first time a boy kissed her with an open mouth, the feel of his soft lips warm against hers, the slippery sensation of his tongue writhing over hers and the thrill of being wanted causing her to ignite with the thought of being touched elsewhere. She annotates her emerging desire: the burning from her breastbone to the spot between her legs, the conflicted shame when she gets home and slips her hand down inside her clothes to touch herself only to find the crotch of her panties already wet with arousal.

She pens all this extravagantly, with a quill dipped in ink, like a virginal lass betrothed to a wealthy man in eighteenth century France. And now I know I've gone too far, drunk on my own wild fantasies. My mind returns to the present, to the dark wooden drawer before me, which holds naught but my disappointment personified in a few unremarkable belongings: lip gloss, jewelry, some Kleenex, and the remote control, set aside when we chastely went to sleep the night before.

I worship her. She is my goddess of love. When we sit on the couch and she rests her feet in my lap, my hands caress the graceful curve of her calf. When she sits in skintight pants at the dinner table, I admire her from the side, my eyes tracing the way the muscle of her thigh curves away towards the floor. When she stands naked in front of the closet as she gets dressed, I lust after the round contours of her ass. When she straddles me in bed, I gaze with something akin to awe and dread up at her eyes half closed in ecstasy, at her hands tangled in her own hair as her hips grind against mine like she were riding a horse, and at her firm round breasts, which I reach out to cradle in my palms in reverie.

She will be the end of me. Her warmth envelopes me and brings me to my dissolution inside her. Oh sweet explosion. My discrete surface opens up and I erupt forth. I die a thousand deaths. If she bestowed this on another, what would I do.

And yet, that is what I am picturing. I secretly long for her to lust after other men. I have never said a word to her of this. I see her as if in a fog. She is kneeling on a bed draped in a gauzy canopy. Her naked ass is pressed against her heels, her hands resting sweetly on her bare thighs, like an obedient schoolgirl awaiting to be told what to do. She looks over at me with a kind, but knowing smile. Not a word is spoken as her eyes meet mine, and as my eyes move away to see that she is sitting between the thighs of a naked man.

His face is hidden from me by a fold in the white lace cascading down to the floor. He is restrained by bonds tied from the four posts of the bed to his wrists and ankles. Directly in front of her, rising above the flat expanse of his stomach, is his cock. From my abstract vantage, I can tell: it is completely hard, and it looks huge to me. She turns away from me and reaches out to it and gently tucks the fingers of her right hand underneath it and pulls it towards her. She pulls it slowly, as if lifting a great and powerful weight, her grip encumbered by its stubborn rigidity.

I long for that wanton tenderness. My quest is like hunting in the forest for an elusive creature. You catch a glimpse of it flitting between the trees. You pursue. It flees. You flag, until you wonder if it was only ever a figment of your own potent imagination.

When our love was young, she held me like that. Her lips sought out mine. Her hand draped on mine with that slight pressure that asked for more. She teased me with her naked body beneath a raincoat at the door or a spontaneous striptease in the bedroom just to watch me grow hard.

Now, we make love. It is kind. It is compassionate.

The way she leans forward towards the faceless man's member is none of that. It is animalistic. She is hungry. She is on all fours, her ass bent roundly over, her lips hovering near the veiny surface of his dick. She turns to look at me one more time, lust in her eyes, before she parts her lips slightly as if breathing hard. It is the look they wear when she is suspended in the very instant when the tension that has suffused her body underneath my touch has reached its peak and is a mere moment from releasing her from her agony. Those same lips now turn and slide over the bulbous head of his manhood and down the length of his shaft. Her sex is visible from betwixt her legs, and as she slides her tongue up and down the burly surface of his cock, I see her drip down the inside of her thighs.

---

She's with him again. They are the only ones in the office.

"It's getting late," she tells him, "I need to go."

"Big plans?" There's that twinkle in his eye. There's the slightest upward movement of an eyebrow. He knows she's married. Doesn't care.

"I wish." As soon as she says it, she wants it back. It sounds like a complaint. "We're probably just going to watch a movie."

"Netflix and chill?" Oh smart man. Push the boundaries just a bit. See if she pushes back.

She plays it cool and plays it off. "Something like that. If that's what the kids are calling it these days."

"Well, it sounds better than 'VHS and fuck.'"

She knows she shouldn't laugh, but the juxtaposition of his frank turn of phrase next to the coy colloquialism catches her off-guard. By reflex, she reaches out her hand and touches his forearm.

The laughter stops, and she pulls her hand away. This is worse. They're looking each other right in the eyes in complete tense silence. And in that moment, he leans forward and kisses her. She wants to feel his lips against hers. She kisses him back. Her mouth opens and she breathes him in. She gives herself a moment to kiss him. The polite distance she had always assumed would be maintained is annihilated and for a second and a second more, she lets herself enjoy this before she reasserts polite reality and pulls away.

He's quick to apologize. "I'm sorry. I don't know what..."

"It's okay." She reassures him. It happened. It can't happen again. She needs to go.

She collects her things quickly and tells him she'll see him tomorrow. She all but runs to her car, opens the door and slides behind the wheel. The dome light goes out and she is plunged into the darkness of the deserted garage. She rests her hands on the wheel and sighs, her head tossed back. Her cheeks are flushed with guilt...and something else. She closes her eyes and tries to ignore the warmth rising up inside, but the more she tries, the less she succeeds. She puts the key in the ignition, but her hand wanders away. She reaches down inside her waist, beneath her panties to relieve the swelling between her legs. Her finger is only there to massage away the reflexive ache, but she is wet. There in the dark before she turns the key and drives away, she gives in to the desire - her own, real, all real - and touches herself, her finger sliding over the surface of her clit again and again until the tension grows and grows. The muscles of her stomach clench, her head rolls back and with a gasp, her mind explodes. Her guilty, guilty mind.

---

I'm done with you, night stand. You've failed me.

I turn away, deep in thought, hand to chin. Where do I suppose her laptop might be? Any chance she left her phone lying around? (No, no chance. Come on.) Even if she did, can I remember her password? She trustingly told it to me once.

Without a clear direction, my mania ebbs. I stroll along the bed aimlessly, past the open door of the closet on my way to an uncertain next target. My eyes fall on the hamper. I lean over to peer inside. Lying on top of a pile of drab laundry is a bright slash of fuchsia. It is a pair of her underwear. So alluring - dainty, clingy lace that cradles her lips and cleaves the sides of her ass so I might admire them.

I pause. What story might they tell? If I inspect them, will they hold the telltale signs of the desire I dream resides within the loins of my loving wife?

I reach down. I pick them up in a wad. The brilliant fabric - electric red and neon pink all at once - rests in my hands. All I have to do is untangle them, stretch the waist out to give them form and then glance inside... But I waver. I merely contemplate the pile of cloth, let the vibrant color drill into my eyes.

Really, Dan? Is this who you've become? A panty sniffer creeping through a woman's drawers? Why does this feel so pathetic to me? How is this violation any worse than any other I've envisioned? Intruding into her mind is OK, but perish the thought of intruding into her unmentionables?

You've come this far. Why pull back now? Embrace your pathos with unflinching courage, my friend.

They are slowly unfolded underneath my gaze. They form a squat 't,' then an 'o' as the waist is unfurled so that I might peer at the crotch.

There it is. The unmistakable trace of arousal. Hers and his? No, only hers.

I picture her in the dark. Turned on. Her body salivating...over what? What is it, my dear, that has you in this state? Whatever it is, I can see her reaching down between her legs and squeezing her finger up against herself and sensually, unhurriedly completing lazy circles around her clit until her very center squeezes around itself. I picture her head tilted back, her eyes closed, her mouth curled in exquisite agony until she lurches and gasps in release.

My own eyes are shut, I take a deep breath in through my nose. The panties drape across my one palm limply. My other hand has descended to wrap around my lust. My immense lust, hard with the thought of her hunger.

I won't give in to this madness. I will maintain it. Let it build until she re-appears.

---

I am patient. I am devious. To all appearances, it is a normal evening. Dinner is cooked. Dishes are washed. TV is watched. I listen for the sounds of the routine that says the end of her day has been reached. I wait until I believe she has made the short trip to slip beneath the sheets.

I approach from my side of the room. She is laying on her side, facing away. In the darkness without a sound, I remove my clothes until I stand naked beside the bed. If she could see, she would see me, erect, in the split second before I slide under the covers and sidle up to her.

She stirs ever so slightly. I tease her skin, my finger skipping along the exposed expanse of her upper arm and forearm. I squeeze myself closer to her. She does not protest. My hand wanders to her waist and up under her shirt. There is the slightest of touch from my fingertips around her belly button and over the smooth expanse of her stomach, up, between her breasts until I cup her left breast in my hand ever so tenderly. The soft "mmmm" she coos offers me encouragement.

I hold her for a moment. My lips nuzzle her ear, and she turns her head towards mine to be closer to me as my hand leaves her breast and begins to move down down down, retracing its path until I stop at the elastic that forms the final boundary between me and the heavenly touch of her soft warmth.

I want to keep going, but my tremulous fingers prolong the crossing of this threshold. I pull the band of her underwear away from her body and delicately trace the indent left in her skin. I'll reach down soon enough to find her still wet from some earlier temptation. I'm the private dick and the aggrieved spouse all at once, on the trail of an illicit tryst.

---

What, I wonder, was that about? What insanity has descended upon my dutiful spouse? He who can't normally be bothered to peel himself from the couch has cooked and cleaned and seduced and fucked. What changed?

He was oddly deliberate and intent. He came to bed naked and hard. I felt his turgidity against the backs of my legs and the timidity of his hand as it wandered over me in a sensual tease. Where has he learned such exquisite patience? His skin barely contacted mine, and the tingling touch on my arm, my stomach, my nipple, radiated out across the entire surface of my body. He lingered at my waist for what seemed an eternity, every touch of his hand making me yearn for him to touch me a little lower. My clit grew hard waiting, until his finger found its way between my lips and dipped into my pussy which had grown wet from his affections. He kissed me, and I rolled over towards him. His hand continued to massage my clit, until he paused to remove first my shirt and then my panties. He kneeled between my legs and pressed the head of his cock where his hand had been, slipping the tip of it into me until I could feel the corona grip against the tightest spot just inside me. I hungrily lifted my hips to take him in, and he sunk into me.

And then he fucked me with a methodical fervor I'd never felt from him before. His hands gripped my hips and held me down as he thrust in and out, feeling me, claiming me. In the near darkness, I could see his eyes stayed locked on the very spot where our bodies joined until he felt my body relax around him, just a quiver along the sides of his arrow. And when I came - when my back arched and my stomach trembled with the long crescendo that finally crashed in a series of gasps and the pulsing of my body, his emotions spilled over, too. I could feel his cock spasm as he collapsed onto me and I draped my arms around him.

What had caused this sudden creature to emerge? I want to know. I need to know.

He's still sleeping when I pounce. I am merciless. He wakes as I tie his hands to the bed. He looks confused.

"What are you doing?"

I am hovering above him. He can look down my shirt at my braless breasts. I finish my work and smile at him as I tug his boxers down his legs.

"Just having fun."

This is anything but. This fun has a purpose.

He is hard from the moment I hooked my fingers in his waistband. Old faithful one-track mind.

I bend down as his eyes watch me. He can see down my shirt again. He doesn't know where to look: at my mouth descending to his stiffened rod or on the smooth round contours of my tits. I take him in my mouth. Just the tip, between my lips, my tongue flattened out against the underside of his cock, smothering his frenulum, jangling his end-bulbs. It doesn't take long for his eyes to close and his head to lean back onto his bound arms. I hear his breathing quicken, and I pull away. He gasps in disappointment. The sequence had already begun. His dorsal nerve had started to sing, and now he feels his excitement abate.

I sit up between his legs. I hold his dick in my hand. I pull it away from his body. Like a spring, it pushes back, seeking to resume its position parallel to his body, parallel to the matching shape of the inside of me.

I consider it. I admire it. We women are not visual creatures, don't you know? That's a misunderstanding. We are visual at the right moment in the right situation. This moment, this situation. It is firm. It is animal. Its myriad veins wrap around its sides, reaching towards the cavern running up its length to the ridges that sweep upwards to its tip. I squeeze along its corpus until a clear bead exudes and rolls down to meet my thumb, which I slide over the spot where my tongue just was. I like the proof of how bad he wants it. Wants me. He cannot hide.

My thumb continues to slide slowly over the most sensitive surface of his most sensitive organ. It's more exquisite than the rapid motions of my tongue. Each slow motion causes a gradual swell of arousal, building and building with each pass of the pad of my largest finger. The hint of what's to come is impossibly tantalizing to him. It takes longer for his eyes to close, but close they do. With a score of movements more, his breathing quickens. When he moans, I know he's close, and I pull my thumb away. His dick throbs. He whimpers. It was almost there.

---

My mind having been full of the thought of her the previous night, I was already hard before I awoke, and now I am driven to distraction beneath her touch. My mind is at once as large as the sun and contained within the little patch of skin underneath her thumb.

I am her helpless prisoner, and I do not trust myself to keep the sanctity of my thoughts if this torture endures. Just a little sensation more and I will be freed of this torment and escape with my dignity intact. I will myself to explode in her hand. My dick pulses and throbs as I concentrate, but it's not enough.

She stops. My nerves remain in their state of agitation, but then I feel them claw back from the edge, my orgasm sneaking a few feet away, crouching just out of reach. I can think clearly. I stop picturing for a moment my hidden fantasy. Her pussy stretched over the cock of another man, me watching it, watching her lips wrapped around his veiny surface which is wet from her insatiable want.

Then it starts again. Her thumb sliding without resistance over the raw root of my desire. The feelings start, my raving begins anew. I can see it, so clearly, and I try to make it real so that I might race ahead and evade her, but she knows me too well. Her thumb stops. I am frozen in the space between excitement and explosion. Her sweet voice calls to me, "What are you thinking about?"

In my frenzied state, I have no guile. I want to share. I want her to know. In this moment, it's all I want. Every shameful thought running through my mind tumbles out of my mouth in a harried stream of consciousness.

"Your naked body on the bed your lips exposed to me your pussy wet your hands draped on his shoulders as his massive veiny cock draws ever closer and closer as if it will never reach the smooth surface of your cunt until slowly slowly the head spreads your lips apart and then slides inside of you where I want to be but I can't because my arms are tied the only way I would ever be able to let it happen because it is torture sweet torture I want to be in his place but I can't and I want to see you be taken and take him riding up and down the curvature of his erection so I can see your lips stretched out and the denial makes it all the more intense as you tease me until I explode from the torment of the distance between your warm wet embrace and my helpless throbbing cock."