Bob had decided on the dress: short and black, spaghetti straps. The underwear: black thong, no bra. The stockings and shoes: self supporting, three inch heels. And the jewellery: a simple silver chain around my neck, and a tiny silver stud in the lobe of each ear. We stood at the bar. 'Do I know you?' asked the middle aged businessman in the pin-striped suit and the expensive Gucci loafers, sipping his Martini at my side.
'Maybe,' said Bob, my husband, on my other side. 'Terri and I come here now and then.'
This wasn't true. We'd never been here before. This wasn't our city: part of the plan.
'So what are you good people doing here?' asked the businessman, eyes down the front of my dress.
'My cousin lives out of town,' said Bob.
Me, the wife, was now the cousin. Also the plan ... the plan for Bob to get a taste of how it would feel to see me, his wife, as a target for other men. Men we didn't know. For strangers to come on to me. And me to let them. So that Bob could feel what it was like ...
'Your cousin?' said the businessman, suddenly taking a greater interest and smiling at me with what I'm sure he believed was a winning smile.
'Yup,' said Bob, putting a cousinly arm around my waist and pulling me close. The hem of my skirt climbed my leg. The businessman's eyes took note.
'Pretty little thing like this. Better keep a good hold on the cute little sweetie,' said the businessman, reaching out a hand and patting my butt. I didn't react. I had a martini as well but without any gin. I wasn't too sure about this and didn't want to lose control of what might happen. I'd already told Bob it was risky. Dangerous even. To play the bait. For men. Like this. But Bob said as long as he was there to look out for me, what could go wrong? I wasn't sure. The businessman's hand stayed on my butt. Now he was stroking me there. Eyes on mine, to see what I would do.
I took another sip of my Martini.
We'd talked about this for months. Bob used the idea in foreplay, whispering what other men would like to do with me, and would I like them to, as he thrust himself eagerly into me. When you're out of breath, and hot, and squirming with arousal on the bed, it's difficult not to be turned on by the idea of even more hands than the two that belong to your husband, exciting you, wandering all over your body. In the throws of orgasm I'd said 'Okay!' then come, like a volcano.
'So where are you from, little poppet?' said the middle aged businessman, one of my buttocks now snugly in his hand. I wondered if I should move it. Or move away, perhaps. What was the form with these things? I didn't know.
'Will you excuse me, honey?' said Bob, from my other side.
He was acting to plan: see me set up with someone he'd like to see me set up with, then make an excuse and leave. Watch what happens from a distance. I nodded at Bob. Watched him make his way down the bar past a second middle-aged businessman. This one had a moustache. He seemed to be waving at me. I didn't know him.
'Jim!' called my new companion to the guy down the bar, fingers and palm slowly circling my back-side, gently squeezing what he held. My buttock seemed oddly at home in his hand. 'Look what I've found.'
'Whoo-ee!' said 'Jim' – the guy with the moustache whom I'd thought was waving at me – coming down the bar and hoisting himself onto the stool Bob had just vacated. 'Where have you been all my life you pretty little thing?' he beamed, full of confidence and bonhomie. I gave him a smile, as best I could, and looked beyond to see where Bob was. Couldn't see him anywhere.
'A chair for the little lady,' said the first businessman. I found a bar stool at my butt. Before I could stop him the moustache had picked me up, two huge hands round my waist, and put me on the bar stool. My hem rode high, but there was little I could do about it. It was a short dress. The bar stool was one of these tall ones. I wiggled my butt to get central on the stool. One of the hands that had got me there stayed where it was round my waist. The other had moved from my butt to my thigh – looking around as it were. I reached for both hands, lifted them off, and gave them back.
'Naughty boys,' I whispered, eyes hitting one then the other.
Both grinned. 'Where you from, honey?" asked the moustache, the bigger of the two. Both of them were larger than Bob – this was Texas, after all. I told him the name of a town in Alabama that Bob and I had agreed we'd say we were from. Then he asked my name,
'Terri,' I replied, happier keeping my own name.
'Cute name,' he said.
The other put his arm round my waist again. His stomach was pressing my hip. I was about to lift it off, again, when Bob came out of the gents. I could see him down the bar. But he didn't approach. I left the arm where it was. Bob spoke to the barman. A newspaper was handed across the bar. Bob approached with the paper in his hand. By the time he reached us the larger of the businessmen, the one called Jim, had his hand back over my butt. I left it there and caught Bob's eyes with a look that said, 'You sure about this?'
But all Bob said as he passed, was, 'Going to catch up with the news, Terri honey, you be Okay with these nice men?'