Unfaithful

Authors Note #1 This one could have fit in either LW or Mature, but I chose mature—mostly because that's how I pictured the characters.

Authors Note # 2 All constructive criticism welcomed and even encouraged. I had a king sized case of writers block for months. After a lot of false starts, with a disc half full of partially finished stories, I decided to finish this one come "Hell or High Water." Anyway, it is what it is—please read, score and comment constructively. If you say "It Sucks," at least tell my why.

*****

The four women chose a table near the door of Bistro 17, making a great show of settling down in just the right seats after shifting the table enough to enable everyone watch the door. Being able to see who entered was very important because the main entertainment for the 'Tuesday Night Ladies,' or TNLs as they referred to themselves was checking out and critiquing the outfits of every lady who entered. Of course on slow nights, when not many women were eating out, they filled in the gaps with general gossip.

The seats were not ideal tonight for, as the manger had warned them, the owner had a group of his friends playing poker in a little L shaped nook right behind them. He assured them they wouldn't see the men, but would probably hear them because, as he said, "You know how noisy a bunch of guys get when they start drinking." Luckily the boys were on their best behavior and the girls hardly knew they were there.

Leah Ann, the Grand Dame, if such existed in their little backwater town, always occupied the best position and since she was paying tonight, she got to choose the wine and the meals. Even if she wasn't paying no one would have objected for they had been together so long Leah Ann almost always knew what they would have chosen.

This was one of those slow nights, and truth be told, things were getting more than a little boring when "HE" walked through the door. Leah Ann, even at the ripe old age of sixty, couldn't tear her eyes away from this perfect specimen of the human male, and Rebecca—Rebecca actually dropped her fork halfway to her mouth, scattering her green peas to 'Hell and Back.'

There wasn't a female eye in the place that wasn't glued to the man as he strolled over to the bar, ordered a Bud Lite and spun his chair around so he was facing the TNLs.

"Wow!" remarked Rebecca, giving her long auburn hair a flip. "He can eat crackers in my bed any time he feels like it."

"Eat crackers nothing." Dear old Judy, who always had to 'one up' everyone, chimed in with, "He gets in my bed I'm gonna have him eating me."

This was followed by a three way discussion about how sex wasn't like it used to be with their husbands and how they'd like to have the thrill of a young lover again. This continued until the staff had cleared away the dishes and brought a fresh bottle in lieu of dessert. That's when Gale noticed Leah Ann hadn't joined in the conversation and asked her why she was so quiet.

Leah Ann sighed, took one sip then another before setting her glass back down. One by one she looked each of her friends in the face. "I know you're fooling—just running your mouths off, that you'd never do anything about it—except maybe you, Rebecca. Take it from an old woman who knows, never, never, ever cheat on your husbands. DOWN THAT ROAD BE MONSTERS!"

Leah Ann had her friend's full attention.

"Darn, girl, you sound like you know something we don't."

"Got that right," Leah Ann muttered.

"Well spill it. You can't stop now." Rebecca called for more wine before continuing. "We got lots of wine, it's warm and comfortable in here, and if we tried to go home we'd get soaked to the skin going to our cars, so enlighten us."

Amid a chorus of agreement, Leah Ann took another look outside where the rain was pouring down. Holding her glass for Becca to refill, she said, "Why the hell not—nothing better to do and it was a day like this when the whole thing started."

Taking another sip of wine Leah Ann began:

********

LEAH ANN'S STORY

Ever have one of those when nothing seems to go right? Well that's how it all started for me. I had driven into town to attend our monthly 'Wednesday Little Book Club' meeting and do a bit of shopping. As you all know, we live about ten miles out in the country, and I was about half way home when my two month old Cadillac gave up the ghost

"Leah Ann," I said to myself, after the car refused to restart, and I realized I had no bars on my cell phone. "This just ain't your day." I looked around, wondering what to do next. I knew my husband Jack, was at the White Pines church campground chaperoning the RA boys, including our son, Jack Jr. so, even if I could reach his cell, there was no way he'd be able to help.

Nope! I was on my own for few days. Time to pull up my 'big girl panties' and prove I wasn't just a helpless female. Just one problem though—I felt like I was just a helpless female.

I looked around, considering my predicament and wondering what my next move should be. That's when I spotted the mailbox beside a very rough road leading back through a head of trees. The box and post looked recently installed and suddenly it registered on me that this must be the place everybody was talking about—the place where the stranger from Charleston was building a 'Mansion.' I use the word mansion because that's what the girls at our book club meeting called it.

The size of the house wasn't the only thing they'd gone gaga over. Those who had met him agreed he was movie star handsome—sort of a cross between Brad Pitt and Richard Gere, but built like a NFL running back.

Frances, the biggest slut of the crowd, and our chairman, had finished the description of the latest addition to our area's list of eligible bachelors by stating, "He claims to be forty five, he looks ten years younger. The way the front of his pants bulges out he's either hiding a sweet potato down there or he's the answer to every woman's dreams. Honest, girls—I bet that darn thing would brush the tonsils of a petite little thing like Kitty there."

I'd loved Kitty's red faced retort, "If anyone would know about touching tonsils, it would be you."

Everybody had giggled at Francis' obvious discomfort at having her proclivity for collecting cocks spoken about so openly, but she wasn't to be outdone. "Got that right, Honey. I've seen some monsters that would split a little thing like you wide open—but Lordy—you'd go out with a smile on your face."

At that point the chairwoman banged the gavel and got us back to discussing the book of the month, "Lady Chatterley's Lover." I have to admit—the part where the heroine, Lady Chatterley, first got it on with the gamekeeper had turned me on something fierce. I was daydreaming about myself as Lady Chatterley succumbing to some handsome, rugged male and darn near missed it when Francis asked me to end the meeting with a prayer.

Now, after being greeted by darkening storm clouds and making a mad rush to the Piggy Wiggly, I had everything on my shopping list—only trouble was I was stranded on the side of the road about a mile from home.

"Damn! Damn! Damn!" I know a lady isn't supposed to curse, but...

A loud clap of thunder, followed by a streak of lightning flashing across the western sky, focused my attention back on my immediate problem. "Oh Crap! Not rain too!" I was sitting there, helplessly beating my fist on the steering wheel and mentally cursing Jack for insisting we trade my dependable old van for this piece of crap.

I could still hear his argument. "A Van just doesn't present the right image for the future chairman of county council." Ever since the fellows in his lodge had got the ball rolling on his run for council he had developed delusions of grandeur. So long story short, he got his way—as usual—and I was sitting beside the road in a disabled luxury car that would do everything a car should do—except take you from point A to point B. To add insult to injury, if I tried to walk back home I'd get soaked.

What was I going to do?

I was sitting there just cursing Jack, General Motors and Cadillac, and still no closer to an answer to my problem, when a sharp tapping on my driver's side window jarred me back to reality.

I looked up and almost lost my breath; I was staring into the prettiest pair of deep blue eyes I'd ever seen—and the face they belonged to wasn't bad either. Personally I thought he looked more like Richard Gere's but I wouldn't argue with the girls who said he looked Brad Pitt. This angel, and that had to be what he was—no mere man could possibly be that handsome—was motioning for me to roll down my window.

"Troubles?" he asked.

"Nope, just sitting here, waiting my turn in God's carwash." I motioned to the black clouds rolling in.

"Ha Ha! Well, if you can't drive this fine example of workmanship, maybe we better hightail it back to my place before that gully washer hits. We'll call for help from there."

"My Momma always told me not to follow strangers home." I was only partially teasing; I didn't know what I was scared of the most, following a strange man home, or the rapidly approaching storm.

"We can solve the strange man part," he said. "My name's Ross—Ross Ford—and I live just on the other side of that patch of woods." His sweeping arm indicated the thick old growth forest whose foreboding look was broken only by the mailbox standing beside the narrow dirt trail, it hardly seemed to qualify as a road, but I could see tire tracks where the dirt joined the highway.

Now I'm not in the habit of following strange men, especially older strange men, into the woods, but with the increasing thunder and lightning I sure didn't want to sit out here alone. So without another thought I piled out the car and tried my best to keep pace with his long legged walked. It was more like a trot, but who am I to complain? Constant glances into the western sky assured me we were in for a "frog strangler," as my Grandma used to put it.

The road, if you could call it that, was just about wide enough for a car and a bicycle to share and was surrounded on both sides by really tall trees. Glancing up at them I realized this was not the place to be in a wind or a lightning storm and it seemed we were about to get both.

I could see the house when we rounded a bend in the road. "Wow! No wonder they call your place a mansion," I said, but if he noticed, he didn't respond. Instead he grabbed my hand and started pulling me along. I could tell he was getting very excited—could he possibly be one of those men who are as afraid on lightning as I was?

Seconds later, if he wasn't afraid of it before, he had good reason to be scared to death of it; there was a sudden prickling of static electricity, a blinding flash of light, a deafening blast of thunder and the crashing of a giant oak not thirty feet behind us. I could swear I felt the falling limbs brush my back, and I forgot all about jogging and broke into an all-out run.

We were only about a hundred yards from the shelter of his big front porch, the house was so big and elegant he'd probably call it a veranda, when the first drops started falling. He dropped back to catch my arm, pulling me along at a pace I never thought I was capable of, and we almost made it.

I swear we weren't over thirty yards from shelter when the rain started pouring down. By the time we ran onto the porch, we were both soaked to the skin. Ignoring the possibility of water damage to his carpet, he led me through the house and back to his laundry room.

"Good thing I just washed towels and was too lazy to haul them upstairs to the bathrooms," he said, tossing me a rose colored bath towel.

I noticed he couldn't keep his eyes off me, and thought he must have at least thought I was passably pretty, and to be honest, I may have 'strutted my stuff' just a little more than normal while we were trying to dry.

"Here, take a dry one." He threw me another towel and stepped out of the room saying, "We need to get out of this wet stuff before we catch a cold."

Quickly skinning out of my soaked outfit, I dried off as best I could before wrapping the driest towel around me. It was just a tad smaller than it should be, but I had to make do with what I had.

"Your turn, good sir." With an exaggerated sweep of my arm I stepped out of the laundry room, allowing him privacy to get out of his wet clothes also. Minutes later the door swung back open and I had to agree with Frances; the Adonis it revealed surely didn't look to be in his forties. I couldn't help staring at him. The towel wrapped around him wasn't doing as good a job of covering that which we usually want hidden, as mine did.

At first he didn't say a word, but the smile he gave me was enough to make me temporally forget I was a married woman with a kid and a reasonably handsome husband.

"Nice outfit—really sexy," he finally said, grinning like the cat who just realized the canary's cage was open. Even if he hadn't said a word, from the way his tent pole was pushing on his towel, I'd have known he liked what he saw.

"Anything of yours needing special care?" he asked. "If not, I'll just throw this wet stuff in the washer together." When I didn't say anything, he dumped some detergent in before bending to pick up our clothes. When he did, his trowel slipped and I got a glimpse of what had been turning his towel into a tent.

From my one quick glance, I'd say it wasn't porn star size, but it would have qualified him for a supporting role. Certainly it was close enough to make any girl interested; and to be honest, I admit that for the first time since my wedding day, I was wondering how another man's cock would look and feel up close and personal.

I was still mentally flagellating myself for such thoughts when Adonis took my hand saying, "Come on, we both could use a drink." At the door to the Den he left me, "The sofa's comfortable and the coffee table will come in handy; why don't you grab a seat while I get some 'comfort food'"? With a promise to be 'right back', he walked away.

I walked around, checking out the paintings tastefully adorning the three of the walls. Being a fan of Harrison's Coco Cola paintings, I was impressed to see he had two originals along with three more low numbered signed copies.

The other wall was made up of sliding glass doors, which provided a view of the swimming pool surrounded by a flower garden fit for the Plantation Owners of old. The only snake in this picture of paradise was the steadily building storm raging just on the other side of the glass. I had just settled onto the sofa's plush cushions when my host returned.

"It must be five O'clock someplace," he said, placing a platter loaded with different cheese and crackers, along with, what looked like a reused wine bottle, on the coffee table. "Try some of my brother's home-made wine; it's really quite good." He poured for each of us then set the bottle aside saying, "There's more where that came from—and we might need it too. Even after this blows over it'll take a long time to get somebody to cut that branch out of the way so I can take you home."

As if on cue, a jagged flash oh lightning, followed by a deafening clap of thunder, announced a nearby strike.. The venting fans of the heat pump made a mournful sound as they wound down, announcing the loss of all electricity.

"Damn—there goes our clothes washing too." My host said.

"Not too bad for you," I replied, "You can always go upstairs and put something on."

"True, but what kind of a host would I be if I got comfortable while leaving my guest wrapped in a towel? Nope! As long as you're in a towel—I'm in a towel. So let's eat, drink and be merry, for soon the power may be back on

Thus began my first and only venture into the world of the unfaithful wife. As we sat, nibbled on the snacks, and sipped the wine, Mother Nature provided us with a floor show of her own. Looking through the floor to ceiling glass doors, the trees looked like they would surely topple at any moment as the wind violently twisted and whipped the branches. Outside lightning flashed and thunder roared, while inside I fought to control my fear of storms.

I know it's silly for a grown woman, especially one who's married and has a child, to be scared of a storm, but I couldn't help myself. Back when I was a child, a hurricane had partially destroyed our home and since then storms have made me as nervous as a long tailed tom cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I tried, unsuccessfully, not to show it but Ross picked up on my discomfort and grabbed a soft throw off the back of a nearby recliner. Sitting down beside me, he wrapped us both in it.

I resisted when his strong left arm slid around my shoulders, pulling me toward him, but another bolt of lightning lit up the sky followed immediately by thunder shaking the house so I knew that strike had been very close. Throwing modesty aside I slid over snuggling against his hard masculine body.

"It's okay ,Honey," he whispered, enveloping me in his arms. "It's just a lot to do about nothing—you're perfectly safe in here."

Strangely enough I did feel safe there, even though my mind was trying to remind me that for the first time since my marriage I was smuggling with a man other than Jack. Pushing those thoughts aside I told myself I had it all under control; that the storm would soon be over and I'd be on my way home. When I told Jack about getting caught in the storm, I just wouldn't mention this little incident.

Still the storm raged and the longer we sat hugged up together the more we wiggled and squirmed, trying to get comfortable. Of course this caused the towel to slip out of place and suddenly I realized my towel was all on the seat and the only thing covering me was that throw and Ross's hands, which were cupping my breast.

"I...I ca...can't." I tried to push his hands away, but his warm breath on my neck, his soft kisses on my ear lobe and those fingers toying with my hardening nipple all screamed YES YOU CAN, and my efforts to push his hands became feeble indeed.

"Just relax." He whispered in my ear, "You need this as much as I do." With that, he turned me so that I was cuddled in his arms, my breast completely exposed to his wandering hand and mouth, and I was quickly losing all thought of anything except the two of us and what those wonderful fingers were doing to me.

"But Jack..." I tried one last protest, but even I didn't want it to succeed.

"Don't worry about Jack." His mouth captured mine; his tongue flickering across my lips, seeking—probing—begging to be allowed to play with my own.

It was unsuccessful, until I once again tried to say "I can't." That's when his tongue darted inside my mouth where mine immediately tried to repel the invader. Alas, the struggle was brief, over almost before it started. In the battle of the tongues, mine was completely overrun but did manage to fight a delaying action by constant jabs as an overwhelming enemy explored his newly won territory. (At least that's the way I'm telling it should the need to explain arise.)

Suddenly his attack shifted from my mouth to my breast, enabling me to try one more feeble protest, "I...I... we shouldn't be doing this..." I was mumbling, my mind seemingly unable to compose a coherent sentence. "I'm...I'm married and ohhh dooonnn't...I'm Jack's..."

While his mouth was doing such wonderful things to my nipples, his hand had cupped my labia and a long finger was stroking deep inside.

"Didn't you say he's gone for the weekend? You're so beautiful—so sexy—so desirable, I can't help myself." As he breathlessly murmured these words, his mouth was switching from one breast to another while a second finger joined its mate's search for my g-spot.

"I need you so badly, Honey; please say you want me too—that you'll give me some of that pussy"