We leaned against the hallway wall, recovering our composure after what we'd witnessed. Then, without a word we tip-toed away, back to the living room, where the post-party, post-orgasm silence laid on us like the dark. The apartment seemed vastly empty now. Barbara poured us both some wine, put "Workingman's Dead" on her stereo, and settled down with me on the sofa. The Christmas tree lights twinkled. The candles in the dining room cast a flickering glow. Garcia's ragged voice came forth: "She told me she cared, how was i-i to know-ow-ow. . ." . I smiled ruefully. She told me she cared. I told her what I wanted. How was I to know she really would go fuck another man? I wrestled inwardly with notions of possessiveness, jealousy and macho amore propre I called Jordan my wife--- but did that mean I owned her? Had she not fucked other men before me? Had I not fucked many a woman both before and after we were married? And had I not been fucking Barbara? Why shouldn't Jordan enjoy the same pleasures I did? Did our marriage vows make a difference when neither emotion nor commitment, but only lustful pleasure, was involved?
And what had I felt while watching her? Wasn't that the true test of my reaction? Barbara kissed me. Her words echoed the question in my mind:
"How do you feel?"
I shook my head. "Confused," I said. "Mixed feelings."
"You watched Jordan fuck another man, and it got you so excited that you came--- shot off. Nothing much mixed about that."
Idiotically, I said aloud: "Maybe shot myself in the foot."
She snuggled closer. "You don't mean that."
"No, dammit, I don't," I conceded. "Whatever else comes of it, I love her--- and loved watching her! Watching his prick slide into her! The look of lust in her eyes as he filled her! His prick glistening with her juice! Watching her thrash and cum on his cock as he shot up into her!"
"You're more afraid of the future than what's already happened."
"I can't undo what's happened."
"That's the beauty of extra-marital sex," she said.
Damn Barbara! She was always so fucking smart--- and (a voice in me reminded) vice versa! I was trying to conjure up the guilt I expected I should feel, but Barbara's encouragement was making me hot all over again. Her hand stole down to my cock. "Mmm," she said. "It seems you liked it quite a lot. Didn't you . . .?"
I gave in to my remembered hallway lust. "Did Clinton like Monica sucking on his schlong?"
Barbara's hand was more comfort than passion. We were sexual friends, and I needed a friend now. She milked my cock; I fondled her breasts, her nipples, then opened her jeans and diddled her pussy. Our lips were but an inch or two apart, but we didn't kiss. We talked in breathy whispers, still pleasantly stoned.
"Your pussy's a warm, wet swamp," I said. "Did you know that Paris was founded on a swamp?"
"You're stoned."
"So are you."
Barbara giggled. "Do I have to answer in the form of a question?"
I was marveling at the liquidity of her mouth. "No," I said, in my best Alex Trebekian Canadaquois. "That's why we call the fuckers 'frogs.'"
I paused. "Goooood to have you with us! Now let's move on!"
"The guy works for 'Le Monde,'" she said, and giggled again.
"Really?" I said. "Figures. Jordan loves French cuisine."
"Come on," she said. "Was it his cock? Was it bigger than yours?"
My breath came faster. "Bigger, yes--- but no, not the issue."
"Not jealous?" She plied my cock between her thumb and index finger.
"No," I said truthfully. "I didn't feel we were in competition. The French have never fielded a world-class athlete."
"In tennis they have."
"Tennis isn't a sport. It's a social class."
I smiled as my dancing mind followed that thread. Tennis balls. Furry French tennis balls. The fucking French are such collective assholes. It was a frog that fucked her? OK. Call it Lend Lease. Call it the Marshall Plan.
"So you didn't mind it when he sucked her clit?"
I flashed on the image: a French bath. "No, I loved it!"
"And when he brought his prick to the mouth of her cunt?"
"Poulet provencal!"
"And when he pushed it up inside her?"
"Paupiettes de Veau!!"
"And when they both came-- and you knew he was shooting his cum inside her cunt?"
"Stop it. It wasn't some anti-French thing."
But as I remembered her orgasm, the Marsaillaise went off in my head-- the trumpets, the clashing symbols, the crowd's roar! "Vive La France! Vive La France! Oh Fuck! Dont stop!"
Barbara licked my lips, rubbed her body against mine, and squeezed my cock. "Are we finished?"
I moved my hips against her hand and sighed my admission. "I loved it all, even if he was a frog. Tonight he was the handsome prince. " Then I remembered I was fingering Barbara's slippery cunt. "Besides, I loved feeling you up while we watched, feeling your hand jerking me off. . ."
Still stroking, then, she bent over me then, took my cockhead between her lips and laved it with her tongue. Her upward gaze met mine. "I always wanted to jerk off a Francophobe watching his wife fuck a frog," she said. She engulfed my flaccid, Lilliputian prick in her warm wet mouth, and my mind reeled.
"I'd like to see her do it again," I admitted, allowing myself a sly chuckle. "But preferably, with someone else, next time."
"Chacun a son gout," Barbara replied, her teeth raking my foreskin. "Bon appetit!"
I am a little uncertain of precisely what happened next. I suspect that I may have dozed off ---that the evening's mix of wine and hash and sex had briefly gotten to me. I know at some point I made my way to the bathroom, and when I returned, Jordan was back, dressed and dapper except for her messed up hair, ensconsed with Barbara on high-legged kitchen stools,slurping wine, and acting as if nothing whatever had happened. Okay by me, I thought. The guy she fucked was gone. A bien tot, mother fucker.
"The ghost of Christmas Past!" Barbara laughed as i appeared in the doorway.
"Bah," I replied, with more inevitability than wit. "Humbug."
Jordan's wet boots stood puddling by the air vent. She'd evidently walked her fucker to his car. Sure enough, when she reached out for me, her hand was as icy as the outside night.