This story involves consensual extramarital sex. If that bothers you, don't bother with it.
Lucy Stays II, Anne Too
by Miles Naismith
An icy hand gripped her heart when she entered the bedroom.
She had been cheerful as she entered the house that afternoon. Her work as a part-timer at an exclusive ladies shop had gone smoothly, and she later had been able to indulge the taste for Japanese food she had developed as a young girl when her father was stationed at Atsugi.
"If you like it so much, cook it at home," Fergus had gamely invited, "I'll eat it with you." She laughed at the thought of Fergus facing a meal that only began with sushi.
Her mood had been lifted higher by the note her husband had left for her.
"Get your glad rags on, honey. We're going out tonight. I'll be there to get you in a taxi, honey, better be ready 'bout half past eight. Now honey don't be late, 'cause I wanna be there when the band starts playing. Meanwhile, I'm dropping the kids off with the cousins," Fergus had said.
But laid out on the bed was a short white silk dress with a high front and no back, white bikini panties, white elastic top stockings and white pumps. It was the same outfit she had worn to her one and only night of infidelity. The same outfit Fergus had laid out that night, as if to offer her to her lover.
Her eyes shiny with suppressed tears, she wondered what this meant. She thought she and her husband were past that night. He had been wonderful, reassuring her again and again that he still loved her and wanted her, that he was not upset with her. She had finally allowed herself to believe it. And now this.
*I've tried to show him how much he means to me -- I've been as nice as I can be, I've tried not to criticize him, I've tried to give him all the sex he wants,* she thought, *what more could I have done? Why is he resurrecting this now?*
Finally she straightened her back and put her chin up. *I don't know what he wants,* she thought, *but whatever it is, I owe it to him.*
At quarter past eight she was ready. Her short brown curls shone from the recent shampoo, her body felt clean and smooth, subtly perfumed in intimate as well as conventional places, and the white dress set off her trim body to perfection. Dressed like this, knowing how sexy Fergus found a backless dress with unbound breasts, she would have ordinarily felt a twinge of delicious anticipation. Tonight she felt on edge.
Suddenly Fergus was there, bowing low in an extravagant gesture to kiss her hand. "My God, you are gorgeous, Lucy. I'd like to ravish you right here in the hall... but your carriage awaits, my Lady."
She anxiously examined his face and his posture for some clue as to what was going on, but she saw only the normal, goofy grin that he could not seem to lose when he tried to act a part. And when he straightened up, his tall body was relaxed, his arm extended for her to take.
Plucking up her courage again, she smiled and said, "Why, thank you kind Sir," and tried her best to "float" through the doorway, like the heroines of the romantic novels she read somehow managed to do.
Outside was no taxi, nor was it Fergus' car; it was a big black limo, complete with uniformed driver holding the door. One of those odd items that make the rich different bubbled up as she bent to enter the door: she remembered not to slide over as she took her seat.
And only dimly heard the door close as she stiffened in shock at the occupants of the rear-facing seats in front of her. Anne had a furtive, I-don't-think-I-want-to-be-here look on her face, but Charles grinned and greeted her warmly. Anne was also wearing the same dress she had had on when she had shared that night of infidelity with Lucy. Then Fergus was in the other door and the limousine pulled out of the driveway. Lucy and Anne exchanged worried looks and little shrugs of puzzlement as the men jovially poked fun at each other about some incident they had shared on their last golf trip.
Lost in her thoughts, Lucy's head popped up in surprise when she realized Charles was talking to her. "... to Lucy! Earth to Lucy! Hey, you looked a thousand miles away. Come back and join us. In fact, it's time to break out the Champagne, don't you think."
He opened a door beside his seat to reveal a bottle in a concealed ice bucket. Soon each had flute in hand, and Fergus intoned, "To a night on the town with the two prettiest women I know."
"That's right," said Charles, "To the ladies... Bottoms up!" Charles and Fergus laughed.
Uncertain how to respond, not knowing what was up the men, Lucy first hesitated, then decided for the umpteenth time to put her chin up and play along. "You wish, boys. You know, Anne, Fergus is going to have to actually dance with me if he wants to get my bottom up tonight."
"Why threats is it, lassie? You'll be singing a different tune when I flaunt me mighty caber afore ye, Mrs. MacFetridge."
Fergus' stage actor brogue made even Anne, who had cowered timidly in her corner to that point, laugh.
Joining in the spirit, Anne said, "Listen to you, Fergus. But I know what a man does with a caber... he tosses it off. I bet you'll be tossing off if you don't dance with Lucy - she sounded serious to me!"
The tension broken, the girls gave as good as they got in an amusing contest of double entendres until they reached the club. They had each been back since the night with Wade, the man who had seduced them, but never together, and not in these dresses.
It seemed to Lucy that the men were bent on unnerving her and Anne. Fergus had ordered Stingers in a terrible Cary Grant imitation, and then whispered to Lucy when she went to the bathroom that he wanted her to return without panties. It hadn't helped when Charles told Anne that Lucy's chore was one that Anne wouldn't need to do, she having left the house appropriately attired. It was another unsubtle echo of their night with Wade.
When Fergus had actually danced a couple of dances with Lucy, she was buoyed. He hated to dance. But then he had offered her to a table of single men, giving some lame excuse about an injury, and asking them to dance with her in his place.
And just like the last time, a few hands tried to roam. She put them in their place, but not before they knew there were no panty seams to be felt.
And once again, the guys seemed obsessed with spinning her around in the fast dances. Like once before, she was acutely conscious of the little bumps of her nipples weaving complex designs under the thin fabric of the dress. It was deja vu, and she was becoming very worried as the evening progressed.
Fortunately, there was no need for martial arts this time, when Fergus came to collect her from her dance partners. In fact, he seemed to know them.
*I'll bet he set this up on purpose, like the dress and the Stingers and the panties,* she thought. She didn't know why he was doing this. She didn't know whether to be mad or afraid.
The men joked and laughed on the way home, but the women were guarded. When the limo arrived at Lucy's house, she was surprised when Charles helped Anne out. She had been hoping to be alone with Fergus, to ask his forgiveness again, and to tell him how she loved him. Now, it appeared, that would have to wait.
Once in the house, Fergus and Charles picked up the coffee table in the middle of the living room, and put it against the wall. Then each retrieved a chair from the dining table, and put them side by side in the area where the coffee table had been, facing the TV.
"Please sit down, ladies," invited Fergus.
When they were seated, the television came on, and then the
DVD player whirred. The snow on the screen formed itself into a face, obviously staring up directly into the camera.
It was Wade. Behind him, Anne's bed was in evidence. His hand finished adjusting a track light to point at the bed, as he smiled at the camera. "Hello, Charles," he said.
Both of the women were pale as they realized what was on the tape. Lucy's hand went to her mouth and she bit her knuckle as the scene abruptly changed. A tear started as she saw herself, her legs spread widely over Anne's spread legs as she used her left hand to guide Wade's erection into her. The diamond in her engagement ring seemed enormous to her eye as watched herself hold him in her left hand.
Then Anne gasped as the scene changed again, showing Lucy stretched out on the side of the bed, apparently asleep, as Wade rhythmically plunged himself in and out of Anne. Then the screen went black.
Lucy turned to face Fergus. "Why are you doing this. I've apologized again and again. I've tried to be nice. I've tried to give you everything you want. What do I have to do? Will this be between us forever?"
"That's the point. It's past time to end this, girls," said Fergus. "You can see that Charles and I know the worst, whatever little details you may have omitted in your descriptions of your time with Wade. We let it go, but you keep treating us like porcelain dolls. As if any little thing will set me off. I want my wife back, not this other woman who lives in fear."
"Lucy, I've told you too many times now that I am not harboring any secret residual resentment over your fling. But you can't seem to believe it. So here are your options: either let it go right now, or you can choose to be punished for your imagined sins, and then I expect you to let it go, and get back to our life."
"Same for you, Anne, although perhaps your sins aren't imagined," said Charles.
Anne wasted no time, speaking with eyes downcast. "I choose to be punished. Do whatever you want. I need to do some something, to try to make it up to you, Charles. I just can't let it go when you've been nothing but understanding. I deserve to be punished."
"What she said," echoed Lucy.
"See, Fergus, I told you so. A good catholic upbringing needs penance as well as confession," grinned Charles.
"Okay, ladies, strip."
