Alcohol is the most effective lubricant. Everyone knows it's fun to get just a little bit tipsy with your partner, and then fool around a bit more dirtily than usual. The asymmetric approach is even wilder: stay sober while your partner gets wasted, then have your way with him. But what most people don't want to admit is that getting drunk and letting your partner stay sober - that's where the real fun begins. And I don't just mean letting your casual fling act out whatever kind of depraved predatory fantasies he secretly harbours, I mean the kind of
insane
shit you can only get away with when you have a devoted husband, a belligerent boyfriend, and a conscience temporarily cleared with the aid of a mild buzz.
Steven appeared around through the door again, a fifty-dollar bill held delicately in his lips. As always, his eyes quickly darted to see me, then back to the floor. Yes, I'm still here. No, I'm not going to save you. He shuffled over to the two of us, chastity bouncing against his thighs, a painful reminder of the time constraint he was under. Presenting the money towards his enemy, he waited. David didn't take it. Desperately, he leant forward more, glaring, practically begging to be robbed of his cash. David gently grabbed it and flamboyantly stuffed it into his wallet.
"Great, halfway there," he sneered, "Just five hundred more to go!" He reset the timer on his phone and showed the cuck. This was the eleventh time now, and yet it still provoked the most intoxicatingly delicious reaction of rage and despair on Stephen's face. Maybe he'd thought David would call it quits halfway through, maybe he really did think it was just a joke after all. He hobbled away again to fetch another banknote.
"That's not funny," he'd muttered, when David first broached the topic of rent. Actually, at first, he looked cautiously pleased. He'd been relegated to the spare bedroom for a month now while some asshole fucked his wife on his bed, but now it seemed the jerk was willing to pay for the privilege. Once that confusion had been cleared up, they'd devolved into quite an argument. Well, I say argument. It was more of a roast. Obviously it was quite difficult to hold a balanced and civil discussion when one of the parties is heavily restrained and kneeling at the other party's feet.
"It's not fucking happening!" Stephen had eventually yelled, rising to his feet. This was after a solid ten minutes of David's infuriatingly specious logic about how he was the real man of the house now, how the market is unfair but it nonetheless dictates the cost of accommodation, how contemporary courts tend to dismiss squatter's rights. "It's my fucking apartment, you absolute dumbass!" He was shaking. David rose to meet him, grabbed his collar, and pulled him close, making him growl. I leapt to my feet, trembling.
"There's only one of two ways this is gonna go, cuck," David spoke simply. With ease, he dragged his quarry to the front door, expletives all the way.
"David!" I pleaded, as I followed. This was getting way out of hand. He'd told me he was going to play this little rent game with my husband, but I was unsure how far he was going to take it. He grabbed the door handle, and kicked out Stephen's legs from under him, still holding his collar.
"Now," David said shakily, presumably throbbing with adrenaline. "Either I toss you out right now and you find your way to the police station, and tearfully explain to them that I'm a big meanie and it's totally not your fault that you're now guilty of at least twenty counts of indecent exposure," he paused for dramatic effect. It was like he was reciting this, like he'd been practising. "Or, I untie you, you get dressed, and then you go get the rent money you owe me."
From the other end of the hallway, I wrung my hands and bit my lip. My husband's righteous anger had been replaced with fearful hopelessness, wordlessly looking at David, then me, back to David, back to me. This was quite a gambit to be taking. I don't know much about the law, but I was 99% sure that Stephen would be the victor here, if the two of them ever sat before a judge or whatever. But what an excruciating hearing that would be. David didn't have the guts to talk to
me
about what he'd been through so far, let alone a total stranger.
"Last chance, dumbass," David said, as he opened the door.
"You can't! You- I'll... Stop! Pay the- I'll pay... Sarah..."
"And that's 550!" David cheered, snapping me out my musings. Another timer reset, another silent retreat. I quickly knocked back another drink of beer. Stay buzzed, Sarah, just stay buzzed. Inhibitions will just get in the way, and spoil everyone's fun. I'm having fun, David's having fun, Stephen's having... Take another swig, don't think, just live. I side-eyed David and his shit-eating grin. He glanced back with a mock "The fuck did I do?" face. I frowned and tried again to justify our actions so far.
We waited in the hallway while hubby got dressed. David by the door, revelling in his perverted victory, and me across from him, nervously fidgeting with my sleeves. Stephen, in his t-shirt and sweatpants, tried to quietly brush past and I embraced him. He hugged back even tighter. We said nothing.
"I haven't got all day," I heard. Opening my eyes I saw that David wasn't smirking or otherwise gunning for a reaction. He literally just looked unironically bored. I glowered at him from over a shoulder, and hugged tighter still. He rolled his eyes.
Finally we broke away and he tentatively went to the door. David was blocking the way.
"How much are you fetching, boy?"
