Two Sides of Terri (13 page)

“But you love what he does to you.”

She hesitated. “I don’t know. I guess I do.”

“Why?”

“Oh God, Bill. What do you want from me?”

“I want you to be happy. It makes me happy.”

“Does it? Does it really?”

“I think so.”

“Think? Jesus, Bill, I need more certainty. I can’t have you come back and hate me for this, resent me, throw it back in my face.”

“Terri, this is new to me. I wish I had certainty, too. All I know is that all of this turns me on....” I paused. Hesitated. This was the hard part. “And hurts. Fuck, it hurts. Goddamn it, Terri, I wish all you wanted was me.”

She had tears in her eyes. “Bill, all I need is you. I swear.”

“I know. I know. I’m all you need. I get it. But I’m not all you want.”

“You could be.”

I shook my head. “No, baby, I couldn’t. I could never do to you what he did tonight. You know that.”

“He didn’t do anything to me. Nothing I didn’t want.”

I sighed. I knew that. Why was it so hard to explain myself? The reality was, I knew, at least in part, what she wanted, craved, if not needed. She got off on that feeling of being taken. Her parents seemed like decent folks, so it wasn’t fair to phrase it that way, but there was some daddy issue there.

Terri, for some reason, was turned on by meeting another man’s needs and desires. The problem was, my only need and desire was to protect and please her. There was nothing I wanted that she was not willing to give, but she seemed to need to make a sacrifice, whether dignity or physical comfort. She wanted someone to push her. And all I really wanted was to stay in her comfort zone. And that’s the killer. To meet her needs, I needed to realize I couldn’t meet them.

I’d been lost in thought so long that Terri grew concerned. “Bill, are you...are we okay?”

The image of Terri, naked, writhing in passion as Chucky sodomized her flashed through my mind. Jesus, he’d almost fucked her into shock. And all she seemed worried about was whether we were okay.

“Terri, baby, I love you. Yeah, we’re okay. Or at least, we’ll be okay. I think. I don’t know where this leads or ends. But it seems like we need to keep going. And in a weird way, I feel like we’re being honest with each other for the first time.”

She gave me a wan smile. “Maybe. But maybe honesty is more than it’s cracked up to be.”

“Do you mean that?”

“I don’t know.”

I knew where she was coming from. We were improvising, taking risks. I forced a smile. “I know you’re beat. Go to bed. I’ll finish off my drink and join you later.”

She nodded and slowly made her way upstairs. I poured myself another generous glass of scotch. I didn’t want this to end. Neither did she. But we both recognized the dangers. That, in itself, was reassuring. But would it be enough? I wasn’t sure.

--------

One day she texted me at work, said things were slow. She asked if I was free for lunch. I wasn’t. My meetings were stacked up through the afternoon. So she asked if I’d mind if she “had lunch” with Chucky. And sure enough, that evening, after the kids were in bed, she confirmed my expectations by graphically recounting that the only thing she’d eaten was him.

That was the first time she’d booty called him, and despite all that had already happened, it was still oddly gut wrenching, mostly because for the first time, it had been initiated clearly by her. She’d always been a willing participant, of course, but that reality had always seemed a little abstract as long as she was just responding to either my prompting or his invitations.

I’d wanted her to take responsibility, but now that she had, it bothered me. It shouldn’t have. The alternative was that she was somehow sacrificing herself to meet my needs. It shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did.

He initiated the next two meetings, one a straight-booty call that came in just as we’d finished putting the kids to bed, the other a date to meet at a happy hour spot.

The happy hour had resulted in new twist. After making out in the bar, he’d taken her home. He’d stripped her and then produced a set of handcuffs. With her wrists chained behind her back, he’d pushed her to her knees and made her service him until he finished in her mouth.

In bed after, she described it all. The way he’d wound her hair around his fist. How he’d pulled her off balance so that her mouth was impaled on his cock. How he’d used her mouth like a cunt, thrusting hard. It was so vivid, so slutty, so submissive, I came just from her running her fingertip over my shaft.

--------

I got a call out of the blue from Todd Arpel. A former neighbor, we used to grill out together. We were Facebook friends, but I hadn’t seen him in a couple of years. He invited me out for a beer.

He didn’t waste any time. The beers arrived, and he immediately asked, “Hey, how are things between you and Terri?”

“Great,” I replied honestly, albeit without elaboration.

He drained his glass and waved for another.

“Hey, I hate to be the one to do this, but look you’re a good guy. I saw her...with another man.”

I waved it away. “She has male friends. It’s okay.”

“Buddy, this guy was all over her. All over. Sucking face in a bar. This bar,” he added, nodding toward a booth in the corner. “I’m pretty sure he was checking the oil, too.”

It was dark. I hoped he couldn’t see me blushing, though my cheeks felt like they were on fire.

“You must have made a mistake. I trust Terri completely.” I stood and threw a ten on the table. “Thanks.”

I left the bar and stumbled outside. I realized I hadn’t taken a breath in a minute. I leaned against the wall and gasped for air, then again, and again, until I felt dizzy. I forced myself to calm down.

When I’d finally recovered my composure, I went down the street into a different bar and ordered a shot. Then another.

The shit had suddenly gotten real. This was no longer just some sort of private fantasy. Somehow, Todd’s witnessing it made it even more real, palpable. Jesus, my wife was now regularly fucking another man. And the fact that now other people, virtual strangers, were in on it made that much more concrete.

--------

I don’t like to talk about my job. It rates pretty low on job satisfaction, which I guess may explain why I was so vulnerable to disruptions in my personal life that added excitement to the daily grind. And indeed, thinking about Terri and her adventures was an effective way to add a little spice to a day that would otherwise be spent working through a stack of TPS reports.

But I’m good at what I do. Happily senior management sees it that way and pays me accordingly. I’ve tried to transfer, come to management with other job offers, and they always offer me more to stay in place. It is a case of golden handcuffs to be sure.

But the combination of often anti-social co-workers, tedious daily routine, and the burden of having to troubleshoot every new crisis often wore me down. What made it worthwhile was coming home to my perfect, albeit increasingly strange, life. Lovely home, beautiful kids, perfect wife.

It had been an exceptionally miserable day at work. Just the right combination of time-wasting meetings and unreasonable demands from management to make it one of those days where, despite the pay, I was just a twitch away from quitting.

On the drive home, I thought of Terri. We’d have to play at being normal for the kids. Make dinner. Play games. Put the kids down with baths and books. But I couldn’t wait to get her to bed. Hear her repeat her latest adventure with Chucky. Feel the passion flowing through her. Enjoy that wicked, addictive combination of jealousy and lust.

But when I got home, she was on her way out. Chucky had called and invited her out for drinks and some live music. She’d texted the news, but I’d missed it somehow in the rush of the day.

She was obviously looking forward to it. Her outfit was carefully calculated for the evening: skinny, painted-on jeans; suede, high-heeled boots; a loose-fitting black silk blouse with a lace camisole beneath; a wrist-full of hoop bracelets. Sexy, sexy, sexy, but appropriate for seeing a bar’s house band.

“You’re okay with me going out, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course. Have fun.”

She read something in my tone.

“Are you sure?” Then after a pause. “How was work?”

“Miserable,” I replied. “I’ll tell you later.”

She hesitated. I wished that she would stay with me, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask for it. I hoped she could read my mind. And I could see her debating it. Wondering whether she should go out.

“Okay,” she said giving me a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t wait up.... or do, and I’ll make it worth your while,” she said lewdly.

“Have fun,” I repeated a little listlessly, at least to my mind.

And she was gone.

I snarfed down leftovers, put the kids to bed. I couldn’t sleep. She knew I didn’t really want her to go out, but she’d still gone. Or had she known? She should have. In years past, Terri would have read my needs instantly. But we’d so complicated things that everything was up in the air.

Why did she go? Was she going for me? Because she knew this turned me on, and that after a bad day I’d welcome the thrill of a new experience for her to report? Or did she go for herself? Had she been thinking of it all day, of dressing up for Chucky, of playing with him, or giving herself to him? Or had she been worried about Chucky? Not wanting to disappoint him? Or worst of all, was it just that with another man in her life, she was less attuned to my needs and desires?

She got home late. I feigned sleep and she let me.

The stories from that evening were hot when we got to them. They’d actually made it to the bar. He’d played with her in public, through her tight jeans, under her loose top. She gave me all the details, as always. But for some reason, this time, it didn’t feel the same.

CHAPTER 10:
COMBUSTION

“We need to talk...”

Terri and I were in bed, naked. We’d just finished making love. Terri grinned and ran her hands through my chest hair.

“What do we need to talk about?”

She hadn’t been with Chucky in almost a week, so there was no immediate impetus, but the situation had worn me down—the realization that at any moment a text might arrive and Terri would leave me for him.

“So, where do we go from here?”

She grinned. “Where do you want to go?”

I shook my head. “Baby, I don’t know.”

She paused and regarded me carefully.

“So, what?” She could read my mood better than I could myself. “You’re suddenly freaked out?”

“
Suddenly
?” I replied in surprise.

She drew back, cold, hard. “Fuck you Bill. Don’t act like you’ve been unwilling throughout.”

She’d obviously been expecting a moment like this for a long time, and went zero to sixty when it arrived.

“Shit,” I sighed. “No, I didn’t mean that. But...”

“But what?”

“But...but somehow my vague fantasies turned into hard reality, and I’m not sure how it happened.”

She rolled her eyes. “How’d it happen? You fucking stalked Chucky. Virtually insisted I go on a date with him.”

“Jesus, I know, I know. And God damn it, even though it tears me up, I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” I said.

“So, what’s your beef?”

“I dunno. It just feels... I dunno.... It just feels like this is all out of control.”

She opened her mouth and hesitated. Her reply was gentle. “What’s so important about control? Isn’t part of the excitement that it is out of control? Crazy even? Or at least out of the ordinary?”

“Yeah, but—”

“And anyway, it isn’t really out of control. You know that, right?” She fixed me with a gaze. “You can end it whenever you want. All you have to do is say the word.”

“Really?”

She caressed my cheek. “Yes, really. I’m enjoying myself. I am. But I don’t want this to come between us. We went into this together, and we’ll stop whenever either one of us needs it to stop.”

I looked at her. She was saying all the right things, exuding sincerity. And in a weird way I resented her for it. Resented her reasonableness. Resented her unwillingness to simply let me off the hook.

The truth was, I didn’t want to have to confront my own responsibility in all of this. I would almost have preferred for her to dig in her heels and demand to continue to see him regardless of my desires. That too would let me off the hook, make her the bad guy, expunge my responsibility, allow me to be the victim.

That thought seized me. I imagined her laughing at me, refusing my entreaties to stop seeing him. I pictured her slipping off her panties, flashing me her bare bottom as she taunted me with her determination to continue fucking him, to continue acceding to his every whim, no matter how debauched. My head began to spin. My stomach fluttered. And my cock sprung to attention.

She frowned at me. “Bill, are you okay?”

“No,” I grumbled.

“So, should I stop seeing him?”

“No.”

She looked at me quizzically.

“
No, I shouldn’t see him anymore
? Or
no, I shouldn’t stop
.”

“You can continue seeing him.”

“
Can
?”

I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her on top of me. She tensed until she realized what I was doing, and then she relaxed, straddling me. I thrust upward hard, burying my cock inside her.

“I...want... you...to...fuck...him....” I grunted, punctuating each word with a hard stroke. “I...want...you...to...suck...his...cock... And...I...want...you...to...tell...me...all...about... it!”

I growled as I came inside her.

And then, as she lay on my chest, catching her breath, the fever broke again. And again, I was wracked with doubts. This time I kept them to myself.

--------

That weekend, Terri and I went out to dinner at a nice chophouse downtown. I was looking forward to a big steak and a nice Cab. We started off with cocktails, and talked about upcoming plans. My birthday was coming up and we discussed whether to have a party at home or go out. From outside, we seemed a model of comfortable normalcy.