I shook my head. “I don’t think our marriage would grind to a halt for any reason,” I insisted.
“Why, then? Why do this?”
I refrained from answering her as the waiter approached to take our order. Then, “I want to,” I said.
“I don’t understand.”
I shrugged. “I don’t think I fully understand myself,” I said. “I just like the idea of Izzie being free to date other guys.”
“But it’s not just having her be free to date other guys,” Marie pointed out, insightfully. “The other night you were actively wanting her to be with other guys.”
Another shrug from yours truly. “It just… you know… gets me going. To think of her going out, having fun. Being naughty.”
“Cheating on you.”
“Uh-huh,” I sipped my water. Gone were the days of journalists having boozy lunches and then rolling back into the newsroom to finish an article fueled up on alcohol. “Only, I wouldn’t really call it cheating if she knows she’s allowed to.”
Marie bit the end off a breadstick and crunched it. “But what is it that actually… gets you going… about her cheating on you? You’d want to be there when it happens?”
“I don’t know. I guess so. But I wouldn’t have to be.”
“Jesus, I was horrified to even think that Gerry might be plugging someone else, but to catch him in the act… I just felt sick. And so angry…”
“I like the idea that she gets to have fun with other people,” I said. “She’s not doing it behind my back, she’s not doing anything malicious. If she has the hots for some guy, she can have some fun with it… and in my eyes… I don’t know, it just kind of enhances her attractiveness.”
“You are crazy,” Marie said. “I always thought so.”
“You think she’ll do it?” I asked Marie.
She thought for a moment or two, those large, soulful eyes of hers flicking all over my face, constantly trying to read me, trying to search for any clues that I might be trying to trick her, trying to lead Izzie into some strange kind of trap in order to win some kind of divorce settlement.
Then she said, “I think she would, if she was a hundred per cent certain you were really wanting it to happen.”
“How can she not be?”
She shrugged. “It’s a weird concept, you have to admit. There will probably always be doubts. She just needs a little reassurance. And maybe for the right guy to come along…”
She grinned, and I returned it.
“Is there a right guy out there?” I asked her. “Someone interested in her?”
Marie rolled her eyes. “Now you want me to be your spy, huh?”
“Don’t you want to be?”
“Of course, but aren’t you supposed to be working off clues she provides you? Isn’t that the whole point of your Game thing?”
The waiter brought our food out, and we got stuck in for a few moments, allowing time for our privacy to resume.
I said, “If she tells you anything, she’s got to suspect you might tip me off from time to time. So it’s a kind of clue.”
“I’ve been her friend for ten years and more,” Marie declared. “I would never…”
“You would,” I said. “You love a bit of gossip. And in our Game, I’m supposed to find out about what Izzie’s up to — otherwise she starts feeling guilty about what she’s doing.”
“I guess so.”
“So tell me what you know,” I demanded.
She glanced around us, checking we were not being monitored, in a very melodramatic way. Playing the spy. “It’s fairly early days,” she said. “There’s a couple of guys she knows… who might be… interesting.”
“Who are they?”
“Guys from her past.”
“From college?”
Marie nodded. “They were always just Facebook friends, you know? And I always said it was a bad idea to friend your exes…”
“They’re exes, then?”
For a moment, Marie looked awkward, guilty, perhaps. As though she’d said too much. Then she took a deep breath, accepting that if she was going to be a spy, she was going to spy on her friend, and that was part and parcel of it all. “Yeah,” she said. “She told me she doesn’t really like the idea of dating a complete stranger — not at first. I keep telling her it’s safer.”
“I guess it probably is — in terms of keeping the secret, anyway.”
Marie nodded. “I’m going to take her out again tomorrow night, you know that?”
My heart skipped another beat. “Again?”
She grinned. “I’ll make sure she flirts with some hot guys,” she insisted. “And since you want it, I’ll make sure she gets laid…”
My manhood throbbed into life at that assertion.
“If she wants to,” I said, but something in her assertion posed questions in my mind. I asked, “You’re against her seeing any of her exes?”
She swallowed a mouthful of pasta. “I love you guys too much as a couple…”
I raised my eyebrows at that. “You think they’d be a threat to our marriage?”
Marie shrugged. “Back then… Izzie liked a different kind of guy,” she said.
“What do you mean? What kind of guy?”
Again, Marie glanced this way and that, making sure we were safe in our secret conversation. Then she said, in a slightly hushed voice, “She liked guys… powerful.”
“Powerful? What, like athletic? Sporty?”
“Uh-huh. And… large.”
“Large? Big guys?”
Marie nodded, “Big… where it counts, if you know what I mean.”
She flashed her eyes, emphasizing the wickedness of what she was saying. The caution in her voice made me feel she hadn’t really wanted to tell me any of this, to avoid embarrassment on my behalf. It made me wonder how much Izzie had talked to Marie about my particular size.
Hey, I was average size, perhaps a little larger. I’d never had reason to feel small.
“She went with a lot of guys… like that… in college?” I asked Marie.
She nodded. I’m not sure why, but I had to shuffle in my seat a little, to give room for the burgeoning erection in my pants. It was hot to think of my Izzie having a sexual past, to think of her dating a string of guys back in college — and, strangely, that she had gone for guys with big dicks.
“But those guys weren’t exactly good for her,” Marie said. “Trust me, I know. It’s why I’ve always been so in love with you two guys as a couple.”
“She never said anything about being into… big guys… when we were dating,” I said.
“You really think she would?” Marie laughed. “You’d have run a mile.”
“Why weren’t they good for her?” I asked. “They hit her?”
The petite dark-haired woman shrugged again. “Sometimes. But it was more like how they treated her. Like property. And she was into that. Back then, at least.”
“So now you don’t think it’s a good idea for her to see any of her exes again?”
“No. If we can avoid it.”
“I’m not sure it’s my place to tell her who to date,” I said.
Marie’s eyes widened. “You’re her husband!”
“That’s not really how the Game works. It’s not for me to tell her who to see…”
“And if she fucks somebody you don’t like?”
I sighed, quietly. “If she likes him, that’s the main thing, right?”
Marie rolled her eyes. “So it’s up to me,” she said, nodding like the most responsible woman in the world. “I guess someone has to do it.”
“You are her best friend.”
She nodded. “Then I’d better make sure she gets hit on by lots of cute guys next time, huh?”
Chapter Eight
I was busy for a few days — a major corporate scandal and a large merger took up most of my time, leaving me almost camped out of the office. I hardly saw Izzie, except when I got home in the dead of night, and
even then she was asleep.
The pressure to succeed at work, with the feeling that job cuts were on the way, even pushed Izzie’s new social life out of my mind.
And then I got home on the Saturday night — at 9pm, comparatively early after that intense period — to find Marie’s car parked in our driveway behind Izzie’s, but when I went inside the house, it was empty, silent, dark. It suddenly all came back to me with a thump.
Izzie and Marie had gone out.
They must have taken a taxi, and that meant they were both planning on drinking and having a good time.
Standing there in an ominously quiet house, I felt a touch of nausea. It felt like I’d missed the boat, or that I was late for the most important meeting ever. And yet as I forced myself to calm down, doing my utmost to relax and let the maelstrom inside my head — and the butterflies in my stomach — peter out, I told myself that this was simply the way it was going to be.
Marie and Izzie weren’t going to invite me on their girls’ night out. They were both heading to God knew where to party and have a good time — and, I had to face it, to get laid — and it wasn’t really place for a husband to be.
I hadn’t really missed anything other than sitting around our house wondering what Izzie was up to for a few hours. And it wasn’t as though anything much would happen before 9pm anyway.
I slumped on the couch, I flipped on CNN, I tried to tell myself to relax. I couldn’t concentrate on the TV, but at least I reconnected with the idea that this was, after all, what I wanted. I wanted Izzie to be like a single girl again, free to go out and party with Marie or whoever she liked, so long as she came back to me.
I wanted her to be naughty and sassy and sexy and perhaps even meet somebody who would sweep her off her feet, and tempt her home with him.
Some day — maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon — Izzie would want to go home with someone, and she wouldn’t come back to me until the morning. I had to deal with that if it happened, I knew that. If I was giving her free rein to do as she pleased, she wasn’t just going to bed guys and then sneak off home late at night.
I was curious, though, to know as much as possible about how it was going down. She was, by the rules of The Game, supposed to leave me some clues.
So. Firstly, there were two glasses on the kitchen counter, both bearing traces of lipstick on the rims, along with a nearly-empty bottle of Chablis and an almost-finished bowl of kettle chips. Izzie and Marie had warmed up nicely before grabbing their taxi out of here, it seemed. There was hint of perfume in the air, even this long after they must have left in their taxi.
Upstairs, there were a couple of black dresses laid out across the bed, and numerous items of lingerie on the bed and on the floor. It looked to me as though Izzie had been having some kind of fashion show. Perhaps Marie had been helping her decide on what to wear for the evening.
All of the panties that she’d taken out of her drawers were thongs or g-strings. The dresses lying out on the bed were both fairly tiny. I got the gist of what Izzie — and presumably Marie — were looking for.
It was also clear she’d been trying on a few different pairs of shoes before choosing the right pair for the night. It didn’t take me long to realize she must have been wearing the black stilettos. She hadn’t worn those in a while — since I teased her about them being ‘fuck me’ shoes. But she was no doubt rocking them right now.
I tidied her clothes away — I’d have to sleep in that bed later anyway. The various items of make-up strewn over the chest of drawers, and our window sill, and the bathroom sink, I left for the most part — noting that she’d obviously paid attention to making herself up for the evening.
In the bathroom, five condoms were missing from the box in the cabinet. It horrified me at first, since the first conclusion that sprang to mind was that she must have used some of the condoms she’d already taken from the box. But I knew Izzie hadn’t been with anyone yet — if anything from the way she’d been when I’d witnessed her night out with Marie. Maybe Marie had urged Izzie to be more optimistic for the evening, though five was stretching things in my mind. Maybe Marie had taken a couple of condoms for her own use.
It was actually hot to sit there on the bed a moment or two, imagining the two of them getting ready for their big night out, Izzie busy asking Marie her opinion on these panties or those panties, on this dress or that dress. My beautiful wife preparing herself to go out and seduce other men.
As I was sitting there, my phone buzzed in my pocket - a text message.
I was a little surprised to find it was from Marie.
>Having a fantastic time — it’s just like we’re in college again! Lot of credit to you, hubby ;-)
If my cock had been semi-hard as I’d casually imagined my wife getting ready for her night out, it was suddenly at full strength. I sent an immediate message back to Marie:
>Tell me what’s going on. Where are you guys?
But then she replied:
>Think you have a few more clues to find, sweetie xx
I sighed at that. What was the point of having her as my spy if she wasn’t going to spy for me? I did have to accept that she had double responsibilities, however. And her priority was more likely to be for Izzie to get what she needed, not for me to get what I wanted.
I headed back downstairs, searching for something I’d overlooked. Izzie didn’t have her “Find My iPhone” app on at that particular moment, so I had to look for some other clue as to her whereabouts.
In the recycling box in the kitchen I found a cardboard box that I was fairly sure hadn’t been there that morning. The shipping note was still inside it: two carnival masks, which had been shipped to Marie’s house. So they were headed for some kind of masked ball?
The butterflies stirred up in my stomach. Wearing masks would only boost their confidence in flirting and dancing with men, I figured.
There was nothing else obvious for me to find. I was getting to the point of sending another text to Marie when I laid eyes on our desktop computer. I’d failed to check up on any of Izzie’s emails or messages online recently. I’d been busy. But I could hardly beg Marie for more insight without doing the basics myself.
When I came to fire up the Dell, I found it was already on — it was just asleep. Waking it up, I found another clue sitting ready for me. At some point prior to leaving the house, Izzie and Marie had printed off tickets for their masked ball. So here it was, all the details. It wasn’t just any masked ball, either. It was a masked ball at the US Naval Academy, Annapolis.
I did think about printing off a ticket for myself. It was only an hour or even 45 minutes up to Annapolis, after all. It only took a moment for me to picture what might happen, though. I’d get there, only to find everyone wearing masks — duh. How was I going to identify my wife, let alone monitor her progress?
I could have begged the assistance of Marie, but I felt certain Marie would prefer me not to be there. And if she didn’t want me there, she wouldn’t help me in any shape or form. And perhaps she would sour to the whole thing of being my spy.
I did text Marie, just to show her my progress:
>So you happen to like Navy boys, huh?
It took five minutes for her to reply:
>God, yeah. Who wouldn’t? And your wife seems quite taken with them… ;-)
I felt flames stoked up in my stomach. The thought of Izzie dancing with college guys — and military ones at that. She could pass as a college girl, even at 32.
Thinking about her dancing with a Navy guy also felt strangely reassuring. If anything happened, it seemed to me that Izzie would at least be safe. Those guys were honorable, had to be.
Nevertheless, that didn’t stop the nerves. I sent Marie a text stating firmly:
>If she looks too drunk, or tired, or she’s not looking entirely safe, you will pull her out of there, won’t you?
She wrote back:
>Don’t worry, sweetie, I’m keeping a firm eye on her.
<
br /> She sent a slightly blurred photo taken from her phone, which showed various dark-clothed people dancing in a large ballroom. It took a moment for me to realize that the auburn haired girl in the center was Izzie.
Jesus. A thunderbolt shot through me.
Izzie was dancing close with a young black guy dressed in uniform — as most of the guys around them were, also. He was a powerful guy, seemed like he could pull off Izzie’s tiny dark blue dress with one of his pinkies. Izzie was holding one of his hands as they danced, while his other hand encircled her waist. It seemed perfectly civil, but she was grinning from ear to ear, and clearly having a lot of fun with the midshipman, whoever he was.
Naturally I had visions of Izzie sneaking back to the guy’s dorm room later that night. I did half wonder if Navy guys could do that with girls, however. Seemed to me security at a Naval Academy would be tight.
After Marie sent that picture to me, I felt more relaxed, for some reason. I was less scared about losing her, about her coming to harm, and more hopeful that she would find the courage to stay out, to enjoy herself fully. To go home with someone, perhaps. I couldn’t just watch TV, though.
I sat back at our desktop computer, and found myself logging into Izzie’s Facebook account. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to find, but after lunch with Marie, I did wonder if I might be able to work out who her exes were from college.
I’m no expert with Facebook, but it was easy enough to click through to the list of her friends from college. She had a lot of male friends from college, it appeared. Marie said Izzie had only recently started friending her exes, but I couldn’t find a way for Facebook to tell me when she’d friended people.
In her messages, though, were exchanges with two guys listed among her college friends, Ben and Anthony. Both exchanges seemed fairly lengthy, having started with Izzie declaring that she didn’t realize they were on Facebook — a little white lie if ever there was one.
I skipped through the messages as Izzie caught up with the two guys. Ben had been with Izzie on the college newspaper back in the day, and had since become a photojournalist — a fairly impressive one judging by the shot he’d posted on Facebook. Anthony had his own car dealership in Buffalo, and was now twice divorced. Ben was single, but from what he wrote, traveled too much for his work in order to settle down and actually date anyone.
The Game (A Hotwife Adventure) Page 7
