After that, she’d tease me while we were out, suggesting that maybe she’d go off with this guy or that guy on the other side of the room. And later, as we made love, she’d find the physical proof of just how that idea excited me.
But fantasies are one thing, reality is quite another. I mean, Bridget always had a fantasy of having sex in a shop window on Fifth Avenue at night, so people could watch. Didn’t mean she wanted to actually go and do it.
More and more, I think Bridget did get into the fantasy. It wasn’t a question of whether she’d be okay sleeping with other guys, but whether I was really certain that turned me on, and why, and whether the reality might actually hurt me more than thrill me. As the years passed, though, and the fantasy still got me going whenever we brought it up, her occasional reading around on the subject eased her concerns.
I had actually made it clear that if she ever wanted to have a little fun on the side, I’d be open to the idea, if only she shared the details with me.
But I don’t think either of us really thought that it would ever really happen. We were happy enough with the fantasy, I think. The reality just seemed to complicated, too bewildering, too ripe for disappointment.
Bridget didn’t like the idea of finding a stranger online to fulfill the fantasy — she felt it would be little more than a random selection, that it might be overly risky, fraught with anxiety. She also didn’t like the idea of hanging out at a bar on her own trying to get lucky. I don’t think I was entirely comfortable with the possibility that her safety might be at risk. But then the thought of trying something with a friend or colleague terrified her — there was no way she was going to risk a rumor spreading that we were in an open relationship.
Anyway, we left it as a exciting little possibility if ever the chance arose, and were both happy enough with that. If she ever had the opportunity or the urge, or preferably both, she could. And if that happened, I would be beyond happy.
It wasn’t until seven years into our marriage that the opportunity presented itself.
*
It was a long drive down from Bridget’s parents’ house after Christmas, and the weather was foul. By the time we got past New York, the snow was so thick the traffic was crawling along at walking pace.
Then it got worse, and we found ourselves sat in a temporary parking lot for four hours. The local radio stations were warning us at ten minute intervals that the storm was only just beginning — and that if we were on the roads, we might find ourselves stuck for the night. That was a mildly terrifying prospect, even after a week with the in-laws, facing constant not-so-subtle digs about why we weren’t popping out kids already, like Bridget’s sisters.
But then there was a short period where the snow fall paused, and a number of SUVs managed to get around those cars that had already run out of gas or bogged down in too much of the white stuff — and they cut enough of a path for us to follow along the road and out at an exit.
Our ten-year-old Volkswagen did us very nicely, despite its lack of four-wheel-drive. But off the highway, we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere, and no prospects for getting home any time soon. There was, however, a Holiday Inn not far from the highway.
Cold and hungry, the two of us booked one of the few remaining rooms in the place, and it was quite a relief to get into our own little space knowing we had a bed for the night and a hot shower. Bridget took the first shower, and the plan was for her to shoot down to the restaurant to secure a table for some dinner, while I finished up with mine.
*
I’ll concede that I took a longish shower. What can I say? We weren’t in a particular rush, and although I was pretty hungry, the warmth of the water streaming all over me felt so unbelievably good after being stuck in a car for so many hours.
When I got down to the smallish bar-restaurant by the hotel lobby, I found that Bridget had bagged herself a decent table. Actually, there weren’t too many people in there — I thought judging from the full parking lot outside that this place would be heaving.
I also found that my wife looked oddly flushed as she sat there poised over a menu.
“Hey, everything okay?” I asked her.
She looked at me, startled. Even shocked. “You just missed a guy… hitting on me…” she said under her breath, though I don’t think anyone could have heard her at normal volume.
“Hitting on you?”
She looked around us, checking for unauthorized ears. “I think he might have thought… you know… that I was a hooker or something.”
I felt the burn of jealousy and desire fighting for position inside my chest, and my pants were suddenly much tighter on me. Jesus.
Bridget was wearing a black t-shirt that looked a trifle tight on her — and, true enough, she hadn’t bothered with a bra for this casual unexpected dinner at a hotel restaurant. You could see the points of her nipples pressing out against the thin cotton. She was wearing skin-tight jeans, but it was hardly the hotel hooker look.
“Aren’t hookers supposed to wear tiny dresses and stockings?” I said, trying to make light of it while my heart thumped hard in my chest.
She said, “Maybe this is the New Jersey version.”
I looked at her hard nipples and her flushed cheeks, and I think it surprised me that she had raised the subject of the man hitting on her at all. If she batted away some kind of sexist comment or chauvinistic approach, she’d usually clam up for fear of triggering my occasional temper. Even in this day and age, it surprises me and horrifies me what women have to put up with from certain dimwits.
But this time, she looked… less than disappointed by the occasion.
“You liked him?” I said, more curious than anything, but it came out sounding semi-accusatory.
Still looking surprised, and slightly embarrassed, she said, “He was very apologetic when I quietly told him I’m just a humble marketing exec caught by the snowstorm.”
It amused me that she was defending him. “But he did try to buy your services?”
She shrugged, “He was divorced, lonely, caught in the snowstorm just like us. Said he messed up because he’d never hired an escort before, didn’t really know how it went.”
She shifted a little awkwardly in her seat, and I swear I saw the faint look of pride in her face, and a playful excitement. Whatever he’d said to her, she’d taken it as a complement. Was she actually imagining what might have happened if she’d agreed that she was, indeed, an escort?
“This guy have a name?”
“Kurt.”
“Kurt. So what happened?”
“I showed him my ring, he said it was a shame. Invited me for a drink up in his room anyway.”
“He assumed you were traveling alone?”
“I think so.”
Oh, I love my wife. Her long blonde hair and trim body, her pretty face and frequent smiles — I could understand someone mistaking her for a professional rather than an amateur sex goddess, even in a pair of jeans. But hearing of another man making moves on her, and the surprising way she talked about him — inferring that were she single, she might even consider it — had the strangest effect of enhancing her attractiveness in my eyes, if that was possible.
I guess it just stopped me taking her for granted, since my subconscious was now certain I had competition for her affections.
“He was attractive?” I asked. My mind was reeling. In all the years we’d been talking about the quaint little idea of Bridget sleeping around, she’d never once told me about another guy even casually flirting with her. Suddenly, here was a guy who’d tried to buy her, and she hadn’t denounced him as some kind of misogynistic creep.
She blushed like a school girl, and that was enough of an answer for me. “He was… in good shape,” she said after a pause. “Clean-cut, dressed nice. Wouldn’t normally stay in a place like this, but you know…”
“The storm,” I finished her sentence. “He must’ve been disappointed you turned him down.”
She nodd
ed, “Gave me his room number, in case I changed my mind.” Then she suddenly looked at me in the eyes, nervous, as though she’d betrayed me for hearing the guy’s room number, for remembering it, though it must have been simple enough to remember.
I couldn’t tell her how I felt for a moment or two as the guy came to take our order — and I hadn’t even chosen from the menu yet, although it didn’t take me long to fix my eyes on the cheeseburger option.
Then I looked at her and smiled. I paused for effect, taking my time in dealing with her anxious need for forgiveness, giving myself a few more moments to comprehend that I really did want her to feel free in situations like this to go with her own desires.
“You know, I always said you could… you know… if opportunity presented itself,” I said, finding myself breathing deep and slow, even quivering a little, as the enormity of what I was saying swept through me.
“Opportunity?” I don’t think she quite knew what I was getting at, having expected me to chide her for not slapping the guy or demanding that the hotel eject him from the premises.
I took a deep breath and said, “You could go up there, have a drink with Kurt. You know, if you wanted.”
The restaurant was getting fuller now, as more and more people escaping the highway came down for the reward of something hot and calorific. But somehow, sitting there at the table, we blocked out all other sound. It was almost as though we’d stopped time so that we might be absolutely clear about this.
“You’d want me to go up to his room?” she said, amazed at what I was saying, but not horrified.
“If you wanted to. It wouldn’t be up to me.”
“And I’d just say, what, I am a hooker after all?”
“You could just say you’re feeling a little solitary yourself this evening. Felt like some company.”
She gave a little nod. I could see her beautiful blue-green eyes flicking around my face, analyzing me for any hint that I wasn’t serious, that this was some kind of joke, prank or test.
“And if he wants to do more than just have a drink or two?” she said quietly.
“If you wanted to do more than just have a drink or two…” I replied, stressing the ‘you’ to imply that it would only be her say on the matter, not his, “…it would be your call. If you felt safe, if you wanted him… I wouldn’t see why not.”
She looked so shocked, and excited, and nervous, and hopeful. And her nipples were harder than ever. Bullets straining against her t-shirt. “Are we really doing this?” she asked, totally incredulous at what was going on.
“It’s completely up to you,” I said. “I’m with you whatever you want to do.”
She just sat there in silence for a moment or two, gazing at me, astonished.
Our food came, and I tucked into my burger, though my insides were all churning around. Bridget just stared at her chicken caesar, and prodded it with a fork.
“Okay, but what if you suddenly decide, while I’m up there, that you can’t handle me sleeping with him?” she said under her breath, ducking over her food as though her words might be sheltered from eavesdroppers by a lower facial position.
“He told you which room he’s in?” I asked.
She nodded. “2401.”
“So I’ll just ring up there to stop you. Pretend I’m reception with a message or something.”
“And if… if I’ve already gone through with it…?”
I shrugged, “Then I can hardly blame anyone but myself. But I can’t see that happening.”
I could see her wrestling with the plusses and minuses, I could see her shallow, rapid breathing, her pale face but flushed cheeks, the goose bumps on her arms and her upper chest where it was visible above the neckline of her t-shirt. I didn’t like to feel as though I was pushing her into this, but she did seem aroused, did seem to want this herself.
“Look, it’s just one night,” I said, reassuring her. “If you don’t, you don’t. We’ve not lost anything.”
I chuckled, “We can even go upstairs after dinner and imagine I’m him, if you like.”
Then I added, seriously, “But if you want to — just for this one night — step out and see what it’s like. If you like him, if you want him… I’m just saying it would be alright with me. Just so long as you come back to me afterwards.”
“Of course I’d come back to you afterwards,” she said.
I smiled, and felt my hard cock throbbing in my pants at the thought of her coming back to me afterwards.
“I don’t have another change of clothes,” she complained, and suddenly made it seem that much more real. She was really looking for the final reasons not to.
“What do you need another change of clothes for? You look great in that. He thought you were a hooker, right?”
She took a deep breath, said: “I’d have to fix my make-up.”
Her make-up already looked perfect, of course, but never mind. My head was clamoring with various blasphemies — was she really going to do this?
“There’s a restroom right over there,” I said, pointing to the sign on the far side of the restaurant.
She looked at me one last time, long and hard. Said, “You really mean this?”
I nodded. “But this is all up to you. Don’t do this just because you think it’ll turn me on. And if you want to turn around at the last minute and come back, just do it.”
She rose, and flicked her eyes over to the restroom. “I’ll just be a few minutes.”
“Of course.”
I watched her traipse through the tables carrying her little bag, and disappear down the little corridor to the restrooms, and both of us seemed to be gripped by startled disbelief. No matter how we’d played this over and over in our little kinky sex games, this was completely new territory for us. Much as I obsessed over the idea of Bridget exploring her sexuality with whoever she wanted, I didn’t really know if I could cope with the reality.
While she was in the restroom, I continued to debate the situation in my head, but curiosity is a powerful motivation, and at the end of the day I just wanted to see what this would be like. I tried persuading myself that if, indeed, it went badly, we might be able to forget about this whole night — and act as though there had never been a snowstorm, and we’d simply driven on home to our sleepy DC suburb.
*
I had finished my burger by the time Bridget emerged from the restroom, but I don’t think I really noticed it going down. I looked up to see a vision of loveliness, Bridget’s normally pretty face made exquisite by the careful application of make-up that highlighted her stunning eyes and her voluptuous lips.
I felt a sudden burst of envy, that she had put such effort into her appearance for this stranger I’d never met.
The way she walked over to our table again, seeming suddenly a little more upbeat — excited again, rather than afraid — reassured me and yet deeply frightened me. She really did intend to go through with this, then.
As she reached me, she flashed me the kind of million-watt smile that in itself almost seemed reward enough for my allowing her to sleep with someone else. She opened her little bag to show me inside, hiding it from the rest of the world with her body.
There inside was a small box of condoms.
“There’s a vending machine in the restroom,” she said. Jesus. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
“Good,” I said, wondering how I’d overlooked the whole issue of protection thus far. I guess I’d assumed that if the guy had been hoping Bridget was a hooker, he would have his own protection available. But maybe guys who would procure a hooker were not the kind of guys to think about protection, particularly if it was his first time, as this guy seemed to infer.
“You’re sure?” she said, one final check.
I looked her in the eyes and said, “Have fun, honey. I love you.”
*
I sat there for a while, just taking in the weirdness of the empty space opposite me at the table. I never really thought it could ever come to this. Of
course, I’d always had a small glimmer of hope — what’s the point in a sexual fantasy if there’s not some faint chance that it might one day come true? But I’d file that in the same category as winning the lottery — it would be nice if it happened, but I’m not going to go buying up hundreds of lottery tickets to try to up my chances.
But now, here it was, and I was perched opposite an empty seat. Her chicken caesar salad was still sitting there on the table, almost untouched.
Bridget had gone, and she’d taken a box of condoms with her. She was on birth control as well — we never used condoms ourselves — but this was something else entirely. Protection, because she was fostering the intentions to potentially sleep with a stranger.
I felt a little too shocked to be entirely turned on just then. It was too weird.
“Everything okay, sir?” the server was suddenly hovering at my table, noticing my empty plate and the apparent loneliness of my booth.
“Uh, yeah,” I looked up at him, and suddenly felt the need to hide away in my own little space. “Can I get that in a box to go, please? My wife got called away…”
*
Time just seemed to tick slowly by as I proceeded upstairs, to lock myself safely in our room to wait. To start with, I was relatively relaxed, accompanied by nothing much more than a gentle flutter in my stomach. I guess I felt it would take some time, at least, for Kurt to make the moves on my wife.
I stripped down to my boxers and slipped under the bedsheets to watch a movie on the small TV afforded to our room.
I even managed to find distraction in the movie, up to a point.
Then, perhaps forty minutes or so after Bridget had taken her leave of our dining table, I felt this sudden burning hot feeling in my stomach, as though someone had just filled it with molten lead, as the thought hit me that if she was still there with Kurt, something might very well be happening right now.
Wives with Benefits: Volume One Page 11
