by Ben Boswell
More kisses. Tongues flicking. More tears. Soft moans. Our fingers intertwined above her head. Then a croaked sigh and I felt her body shudder as she came beneath me. The sensation, as usual, too much for me. Her pleasure becoming my own, pushing me over the edge. I came inside her.
After a few moments, I rolled onto my back. She peered over at me... expectantly, I thought. But I didn’t know what she expected.
She’d apologized and so had I, but for what?
Were we apologizing for what she wanted and what I couldn’t provide? Or for how we each wielded cruelty in response to our frustrating lack of communication? I knew that, in theory, there were some words we could use to share our feelings, needs, and desires, but we hadn’t been able to find them. The gulf between us remained. If anything, it was growing wider, bridged still, but for how long, by a resilient yet slender connection of love. Of that, I had no doubt. She loved me and I loved her. But I didn’t think,that love was enough, not anymore.
I finished stripping off my clothes and we cuddled wordlessly, until finally, Terri rolled over and drifted off to sleep.
When I was sure she was slumbering, I rose and padded in my bathrobe to her study. There, by her mouse, was a notepad with an address. I typed it into my phone. It was a nightclub on the South Side, Heist. Probably some trendy dance place where Mike could show off my wife for a while before taking her home and fucking her brains out.
I stewed, but remained paralyzed. No, that is not quite right. I was not indecisive. I had decided not to act. There is a difference. The deeper we got into this, the more I realized I had little choice. Oh sure, I could walk away. But the thing is that as long as there was any connection left between us, I wasn’t going to give up on Terri.
Still, I could see the looming disaster ahead. She was working through something. I wished I understood better what that something was so I could help her, but I didn’t. It felt like it was something she just needed to confront. A little more time. A little more… craziness… and surely there would be a resolution. The question is whether my increasingly battered self-esteem would allow me to stay the course until then. I wasn’t sure I could.
CHAPTER SIX
It is also a fact that the madness was sporadic. Increasingly common, but still interspersed within the fabric of the ordinary. By the time I got back into bed, Terri was again in her PJs. And when I climbed in, she rolled over and sleepily cuddled with me.
The next morning, I awoke to find her in khaki Capris and a black vest over a flower-patterned, silk blouse. Casual and elegant. Sexy, because Terri was never otherwise, but almost demure. Updated Annie Hall. She was making eggs for the kids, teasing Braden about his missing teeth, and simultaneously reassuring Annabelle that, yes, it was okay for her to wear her princess outfit to school if she wanted to.
Normal. Adorable even. A caricature of domesticity. Almost enough to make me forget that this evening, after the kids were in bed, she was planning to go on a date with another man that would probably end with her handcuffed and fucked up the ass.
That thought was never too far from my mind. Fridays usually crawled by. This one flew past. Before I knew it, I was heading home. Before I knew it, we were having an early dinner. Before I knew it, we were putting the kids down. Before I knew it, Terri was coming down the stairs dressed for her date… or perhaps undressed is closer to the truth.
I’d never see that dress before. A cobalt blue, strapless, Bardot collar mini, cut so short that it barely covered her ass, which was particularly an issue because from my vantage I could tell that she was wearing at most a g-string, but more likely nothing, underneath. Four-inch, ankle-banded stiletto heels, matching diamond strand earrings and bracelet, and thick, dark-red lipstick had her walking the line between club attire and escort garb.
“Wow,” I gasped.
She smiled. “Think Mike will like it?”
It was like being punched in the face. I felt dazed.
She softened. “Sorry.”
That made it worse. I didn’t want her pity either. I know this sounds crazy, but I did have a perverse sense of pride in my ability to take it. Probably a twisted rationalization, but really, how many men could handle what I was going through without going completely insane?
“Don’t be,” I replied with as much bravado as I could muster.
“So you don’t mind me going out?”
As if I had a choice. I shrugged. “It’s not about what I want.”
She shook her head incredulously. “Well, good then.”
A car drove up.
“That’ll be my Uber,” she said.
“Be careful getting out of the car. You might flash someone.”
She smirked. “That’s the idea, Honey.” She strode toward the door. “Oh, and Bill?”
I tilted my head attentively.
“Don’t wait up,” she said as she walked outside.
The moment she was gone, I deflated. It had taken all my willpower to keep it together seeing her so dolled up. The exquisite care and attention that had gone into it an unavoidable reminder of how much she was looking forward to her evening with Mike.
I knew if I’d had more time I would have picked up on even more clues. The way she’d probably touched up her finger and toenails. Her pussy freshly shaved. Perfume strategically dabbed between her breasts and on her inner thighs.
I felt shaky. I wondered if I’d be able to stand it waiting for her. And then a moment later, I realized I couldn’t. Being stuck in the house would make me nuts. I had a reckless impulse to go out after her, and in moments that turned into a compulsion.
I was dialing the number before I even knew it.
“Melody?”
“Hey, Bill, what’s up? Everything okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, sorry to bother you guys, but I’m in a bit of a pickle.”
“What’s up?”
“Terri has a work event, and I just got a call from my boss. One of our biggest clients… audit… there’s a problem with the filing….” I was babbling and hoping she wouldn’t ask any questions. “Anyway, I need to go into the office for a while and I was hoping either you or Herb could come over and watch the kids.”
“Perfect,” she laughed. “Herb is binging on Walking Dead. As long as you don’t mind him watching zombies on your TV all night, he can do that at your place as well as ours.”
“Hehe. Great. Thank you.”
I paced miserably for the ten minutes until he showed. Then I got him set up and ran before he could ask any embarrassing questions.
I drove down I-94 and got off at Garfield. This wasn’t my part of town. It was a little less dicey than a couple of decades ago, but still not the best place to be at night. I drove past liquor stores with steel grates out front, check-cashing businesses, and pawnshops. Cars with young black men blasting hip hop. Cop cars parked at intersections like an occupying army.
Heist looked glitzy at night, but I knew it would look tawdry by day. It was a squat, boxy nightclub centered in the middle of a parking lot. Escalades with spinners, Mercedes with tinted windows in the valet section. It looked more like a strip club than anything else, though in fairness, I’m not the most adventurous person in terms of night life. I’d only been to one nightclub in the past decade, that night a little more than a year ago when the craziness had begun.
I parked and strode to the front door, feeling awkward and out of place, and hoping I wouldn’t get turned away despite my schlubby khakis and polo attire. I wasn’t. I paid the $40 cover and slipped in, staying close to the wall by the door until I got a lay of the land. The last thing I wanted was to walk headlong into Terri.
My self-consciousness was heightened when I realized I was one of the relatively few white people in the club. Not really all that surprising given the location, but even still, another source of dislocation for me. They were really beginning to pile up.
As I scanned the crowd, I noticed that, of the Caucasian people in the club, most of them were wom
en, out on the dance floor, almost all of them dancing with black men. Several were blond, decked out in party dresses, and I scanned each to see if she was Terri.
“Which one is yours?”
I startled at the voice next to me.
A man had snuck up on me. He was short and stocky. Built like a fire hydrant. Solid. About my age, black, dressed all in black, he was almost invisible in the dark. I noticed a curly wire leading from his thick neck to his earpiece. Security of some kind.
“Huh?”
He glanced over his shoulder. I followed his gaze and realized I wasn’t the only white man in the place looking out over the dance floor. There were two or three others, all wearing a similar expression of angst and anticipation. I groaned to myself, realizing what I’d walked into. While most of the patrons were just there having fun, this was also obviously a club where some white men brought their white wives to watch them dancing… and probably more… with black men.
“Your wife,” he said simply. “That’s why you’re here, right?”
I felt my cheeks redden with humiliation, and was happy for the fact that it was so dark that he was unlikely to have noticed. The only consolation was that I couldn’t see Terri out there.
“No. My wife’s not….”
I trailed off as I spotted her. Not on the dance floor, but at the bar.
He followed my gaze now.
“Oh, that one,” he said admiringly. “You’re not going to need my help.”
“What do you mean?”
He chuckled. “Some guys, they need an assist. Wife’s a mess. I got a couple of boys who I can call. They’re not real picky. Married, white pussy and they’re all over it. But that little honey,” he said nodding toward Terri, “she had the room on her the minute she walked in.”
Indeed, I noticed that she had a drink in front of her and was speaking to a young, black man, slender, with corded muscles and cornrows, a gangbanger or at least trying to convey that impression, oozing menace, the kind of bad boy for whom my wife had a weakness. In that environment, with the lights and the drinks and the pounding music, it was much easier to imagine her fucking him than not.
“I’m Darren, by the way.”
We shook hands.
“She can do better,” he added.
I looked for Mike, wondering what his game was. Did he want to watch her with another man? I didn’t know him, but from what had gone down between him and Terri so far, that didn’t seem like his scene. Probably something darker. Like he’d ordered her to fuck a random black guy to earn his cock or something.
“There we go,” my Darren said.
I watched as another man approached Terri and the young gangbanger. He was tall and very well built, wearing an expensive charcoal grey suit over a silver-grey silk shirt. Rich, confident. A pro athlete? I didn’t recognize him, but he carried himself like one. The skinny guy tried to stand his ground, but the new arrival easily shouldered him away and cornered my wife against the bar.
“Figures. Shaun always gets the pick of the litter.”
“Who’s he?” I asked.
“Owns the place, man. Producer. Mixes some of Joey Purp’s shit, you know.”
Actually I didn’t know. But I nodded nonetheless.
Shaun was leaning in close to Terri, talking to her with a fierce intensity. She seemed almost overwhelmed by the attention, but not wholly in a bad way. She was obviously at least a little uneasy about him, and yet intrigued with whatever he was saying.
Several times, she cast a glance around, looking, I presumed, for Mike. But she didn’t seem able to locate him. I wondered if they’d met earlier, or if he’d just directed her to the club. She seemed a bit uncertain about how to proceed.
Shaun, though, didn’t seem conflicted. He loomed over her, talking, joking, gesturing. Failing to find Mike, she seemed to give in to Shaun’s efforts to monopolize her attention. After another few minutes, they moved out together onto the dance floor, and people parted to let them through.
From a distance, her dress seemed even more scandalously short, the whole of her long, slim legs on display as she moved to the beat. He was confident, not trying too hard; moving close to her, but not too close; his hands grazing her hips, her shoulder, not pawing at her, and yet undeniably laying claim to an intimate familiarity. Compared to the other couples grinding around them, they looked positively chaste, and yet, the backdrop of writhing eroticism seemed more a harbinger of the future than a study in contrasts.
When the DJ shifted the beat, Shaun leaned in and spoke to her. She nodded and began to turn toward the bar. He took her by the arm, and pulled her in the opposite direction. She resisted for a moment, and he spoke again. She nodded again, this time more reluctantly, but still allowed herself to be half-led, half-dragged away from the bar and deeper into the club.
“Showtime!” Darren exclaimed.
I jolted. I’d almost forgotten he was still there with me.
“What do you mean?”
He smiled. “He’s taking her back to one of the VIP rooms for a little privacy.”
This was going so fast. And where was Mike?
He must have noticed my shocked expression because he added, “Don’t worry man. Shaun shreds ‘em, but he always leave ‘em begging for more.”
Terri must have suddenly realized what was going on. She leaned back and tried to stop, but her heels just skidded on the dance floor as Shaun continued to pull her along. I took a step forward to help her, but a strong hand on my shoulder held me back.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Terri was still struggling, shaking her head, but also apparently unable to stop her progress toward the VIP rooms.
“She doesn’t want to go. She needs my help.”
“The only thing she needs is a big, black dick in her little, white ass.”
“Let me go,” I growled.
He just gripped me tighter. I noticed another bouncer approaching from the other side. I was perilously close to getting thrown out on my ass.
“Nah uh. I’d don’t get paid to let white boys with cold feet cockblock Mr. Shaun.”
“But….”
I trailed off as Shaun hustled my wife through a set of heavy curtains and out of sight. I thought desperately. If I could just get close enough, I might be able to stop it.
“Look, man, I just want to watch,” I said.
He hesitated and then smiled widely. “Why didn’t you just say so? I wouldn’t mind getting a peek myself.”
I nodded.
Still gripping my arm painfully, he led me around the dance floor. I looked around desperately for Mike, or for anyone else who might make common cause with me, but I was out of my element. I figured, if I had to, I could make some sort of scene. But first, I needed to get closer to my wife.
He pushed me through the entrance. The VIP area was a warren of curtained-off rooms, booths, and alcoves. Not quite as crowded as the main area, it was still surprisingly busy and loud. It was definitely anything goes back there as well. As he led me forward, I peered into the various cubbyholes -- a topless, black woman in a red skirt snorting a line of coke off a glass table; two bleached blondes, strippers from the looks of them, making out, surrounded by an interracial crowd of young men; a table lined with bottles of expensive champagne and vodka. We stopped at another set of thick black curtains, cracked open just slightly.
I heard Terri’s voice, “No, I don’t want this.”
I felt a strong grip on my neck, felt cold, sharp metal spikes on my forearm.
“Say anything and I’ll zap you,” Darren said in my ear.
I looked down at a stun gun digging into my flesh.
“Please,” Terri whined.
Darren helpfully maneuvered me so I could peer through the gap.
It was a larger room, empty, with a closed-up bar, a mix of arm chairs, and surrounded by video screens playing an unsettling array of images -- snippets of black and white historical stills, blinking ey
es, and flashes of colorful basslines. It created a disconcerting, strobe-light effect.
Shaun had Terri pinned against the far wall, holding her wrists in a firm grip above her head. In that position, her too-short dress rode up, exposing her bare, shaved snatch. He pressed his knee between her thighs, spreading her legs apart. All he had to do was pull out his cock and he’d be free to walk it right into her defenseless pussy.
“I’ll scream,” she threatened.
“Go ahead,” he taunted. “No one’s going to care what I did to a cheating, white slut with an itch for black cock.”
He flicked at her nipple through her dress. She squirmed.
“Please, no,” she said again.
I realized he was chuckling, enjoying her discomfort.
“You don’t know how hard it gets me to hear you say that,” Shaun taunted.
“What are you going to do to me?” she asked.
He laughed. “I’m gonna fuck your cunt until you tell me you love me…. And then I’m gonna pass you around to my boys.”
Terri groaned. The bouncer elbowed me in the ribs, and I saw he was rubbing his own cock through his pants.
“But first,” Shaun continued, “I’m gonna fuck you in the ass to show you who’s in charge.”
Terri struggled and managed to free a hand from his grip. She lashed out at him, but he easily deflected the blow and effortlessly spun her around and shoved her hard into the wall. He pinned her in place with his forearm across her shoulder blades and then reached down and caressed her bottom.
“You can’t let him rape her,” I hissed.
“I’ll help him before I stop him,” Darren replied.
He dug the tip of the stun gun harder into my arm to punctuate the point.
“Don’t,” she pleaded.
Shaun laughed. He was palming her tight, little ass like a basketball, his middle finger lodged between her cheeks.
“If you ask real nice,” he taunted, “maybe I’ll just fuck your cunt.”
She struggled again. He leaned his weight on her until she grunted and ceased her resistance. But he didn’t break her spirit.
