The Excelsior Arms is a mid-70's apartment building in the crumbling downtown district. Its rooms are poorly insulated, drafty and therefore, cheap. There is a frequent turnover, and more than an occasional incidence of drama. I have written of one. This is another of those.
The man knew that Brady Cobb had been watching him and his wife. He'd been watching Brady, too; he and his wife had talked about seeing him with the Asian woman from the third floor, sneaking around after her husband and kids had left for work and school. They both knew what was up. It bothered him that Brady seemed unnaturally interested in his and Denise's comings and goings, but maybe that was just his imagination. The man seemed to always be around, watching.
Justin Holman was twenty-two; a bright, good looking guy. His wife Denise was pretty. Justin was always good with his hands, and worked as a mechanic at a car dealership until he got a job as a millwright at a factory three blocks from this place. Denise Campbell had been a teacher when they met, and was still teaching now, almost a year after their wedding. Due to Covid-19, her school was on half-days and a limited class size, but they had a good life, despite having to live here while saving for their first home. The current explosion in housing prices was depressing to them, but they'd determined to ride it out.
Their sex life had not been what Justin had hoped for. Denise had been very hesitant when they first met, a twice-a-week church-goer who could only be described as 'sweet.' Their dates were usually either church services, or dinner at her parent's house. She was loving, if not overly affectionate. He hoped that would come later. He proposed, knowing he would never meet another woman as pure as her, and she accepted immediately. They moved into his apartment after the wedding. Six weeks ago they moved into the Excelsior Arms, to be closer to his work and to save money. Denise commuted to the suburbs each day to teach.
Justin was overly protective; his guard regarding Brady was up almost immediately. The man was old, but apparently that had no effect on his sex drive. Denise seemed unnaturally curious about him, and told Justin she'd listened outside Mrs. Lin's door the second week they were here, while "those two were going at it."
"Honey, it sounded like he was killing her in there," she exclaimed. "I heard slaps, one after the other! And the more he slapped and called her names, the louder she moaned. It was disturbing!"
The Holmans lived on the fifth floor, at the other end of the hall. Justin didn't ask Denise how she came to be near that apartment, but he did ask Denise jokingly if she would mind if he spanked her? She was too shocked to reply. That night, however, while making love to his wife, he slapped her ass, on impulse. She seemed upset, but she was secretly intrigued by this new-found eroticism. What she didn't tell him was that when he smacked her ass she had an almost instantaneous climax. Unfortunately for him, he didn't know how to read those kinds of signs.
"That was naughty," she rebuked him sternly later, and was then secretly aroused by the shame he displayed. She didn't confess her orgasm to Justin. It became one of her little secrets, something she felt gave her some power over him if the need ever arose. Her mother had taught her to look for things like that in their marriage, in case of his disloyalty, or the need to control her husband came up. Mother had no idea what form these things might take, but Denise recognized Justin's weakness as opportunity, and seized upon it.
Over the next few weeks, Denise became obsessed with Mr. Cobb's sex life. Justin noticed that was all she talked about. Her hours cut to teaching just two classes, she was home long before Justin, and before the Asian woman's husband or children got home. Finally he asked her if she'd been spying on the couple. Flustered, she told him, "I'm no pervert! But when they're at it, goodness me! That's about all you can hear in this building!"
The memory of that slap on her ass never left her mind, and her past reared its presence in her dreams late at night.
Justin had nothing to fear from Brady Cobb, however. The couple's eventual problem was entirely accidental - emphasis on 'accident.'
Denise was on her way to school one Tuesday morning. As was becoming common lately, her mind was on Mr. Cobb and the Asian woman. She hoped to be home early enough to "catch" them at it again, as she had the day before. Though it didn't happen then, the sound of that initial SLAP! still echoed in her mind. She began to think, once again, about him spanking her bottom. No! That wasn't right. She should be thinking about
Justin
spanking her! Flustered, she noticed that her left hand had dropped from the steering wheel to the hem of her skirt, and had pushed up under it a couple of inches.
Denise should have been mortified with herself. Instead, she smiled. She had become more... what was the word? "Exploratory," she said aloud. She was simply 'exploring' things that she'd once known as a single woman. 'That was before the church,' she thought, 'but I'm married now. I can do what I want.' Her thigh felt as smooth as silk, and she let her hand wander over the skin, thinking about what it was that boys found so thrilling about feeling the inside of a girl's thigh. She'd once been one of those girls. She felt like one again.
"Mmmmm. That
does
feel good!" She spread her thighs as widely as she dared; as widely as her pencil skirt would allow, actually, and slid her hand down towards the seat, teasing herself. She would be wet by the time she got to school, she knew. She'd brought another pair of thong panties to change into; the pair she'd bought 'for Justin', and he'd never seen. They were now another of her little secrets, one of her sheer, barely-there secrets. She washed them in her sink each day when she got home, though Justin never did laundry. She enjoyed seeing the stains.
She knew her fingers would eventually contact 'that place', but she let them wander, delaying the inevitable. In her mind, she could already feel the sheer material against her fingertips. And the delicious sensations of her skin, just beneath. She hoped traffic would delay her getting to school, if only for a few extra minutes of pleasure. She hoped...
BAM!!
Denise's head jerked forward as she struck the black pickup's heavy rear bumper. Her seat belt yanked painfully against her chest as her body ricocheted forward and back, hurting her slender neck. Her head smacked the headrest as the whiplash effect threw her back in her seat.
"Oh, my God!" She could see the metal of her hood crumpled upward, and steam began to plume upwards. 'I hit somebody?' she thought, the obvious not yet registering fully. Her next thought: 'I hope they're okay.' Shutting off her car's engine, she threw the door open, but the driver of the pickup was already out, walking back to survey the damage.
"Omigod, I'm sooo sorry," she told the man. "I must have been..."
He immediately interjected, "What? On your phone? You fuckin' plowed right into me! I just got this truck!"
Denise halted before his explosive accusations, shaking her head. She wanted to tell him that she wasn't on her phone; that she resented anyone who did that while driving. Part of her wanted to confess what she
had
been doing, but in the next moment she caught herself. 'I can't tell him I was playing with myself,' she thought. 'Oh my Lord, who does that?' She spared a quick glance downwards, almost expecting to see a big wet spot on the front of her skirt. As it was, her fingers probably smelled like sex. She tentatively raised her hand to her nose.
The man was still going on. "Good goddam thing I got insurance yesterday," he moaned, "though it'll probably go up now. First fuckin' day, and my new truck gets hit?"
