A couple of teenage boys who were staring at her flicked their eyes at each other and sniggered, each teasing the other for their obvious lustful thoughts about my wife. They weren’t alone. Most male eyes, and many female ones, too, were looking over there to admire her.
My stomach squirmed to feel the desire of men around me.
Courtney spotted me, her face lighting up in a smile that faded just as quickly. She crossed the room, her brow already crumpled in apology. She tucked a strand of hair that has escaped her bun back behind her ear. “I’m sorry, John, but I’m going to be a little late.”
We kissed—a soft, familiar, and public kiss. I took in the fact that she wasn’t wearing her white coat. Even though she’d just told me I wouldn’t be driving her home, she was sporting a little black dress, no less. She was all made up, too—eye liner, eye shadow, scarlet lipstick. Hair down loose, cascading over her shoulders.
My stomach squirmed. I tasted the bite of jealousy, the hopelessness of insecurity, and, as always, the dizziness of arousal.
“John.”
He must have come in while my attention had been totally taken up by the vision of loveliness that was my sweet wife. Around thirty, flecks of gray in his short, buzzed hair, clean shaven face, military bearing. Jesus.
“Hey Harry.”
Though I’d watched him having sex with my wife via a camera, it seemed so shocking to greet him in real life, face to face.
“You’re looking well,” he said, though whether out of politeness or not, I couldn’t tell. I had joined a gym since my wife had started regular dates with another man, a man whose pure physicality did make me feel more than a touch guilty about my lapsed relationship with regular, demanding exercise.
“You too,” I said, remembering that the first time I’d seen him, he’d been wearing a sling. Nothing like that now.
“For that, I have your beautiful wife to thank,” he grinned, but despite his acknowledgement of her status, he now stepped forward to take her arm in his.
I felt eyes training themselves on me, trying to work out why, if I’d kissed Courtney earlier as though I was her spouse, she was now interlocking her arm in that of another man’s. A man who was wearing similarly smart clothing, as though ready to go on a date.
I kind of liked the sense that something shocking was going on. It was. That shock only turned me on more.
“Harry’s shipping out tomorrow,” Courtney said, squeezing the man’s arm in hers, full of pride.
“Congratulations,” I said to him, though if I’d been in his place I’d have hardly felt that being sent back out to Afghanistan or Iraq or wherever it was he was going was something to be congratulated for. “I know how much you wanted this.”
He smiled warmly, trying to conceal a very satisfied grin that would have been just a little less than military-grade cool. Then he said, “Hey, you fancy... coming for a quick drink before dinner?”
I looked at Courtney. She revealed a hint of surprise, but also curiosity and approval for the idea.
And just like that, Harry and I were strolling out to the parking lot like old friends, Courtney walking on his other side. “Afghanistan, is it?” I asked him.
He chuckled. “I can’t even tell you that much,” he said.
“Black ops,” Courtney said, that pride flaring up in her voice again.
“Not supposed to say even that much,” Harry said, perhaps feeling a trifle self-conscious that he’d revealed such a thing in pillow-talk. “But I’m serving my country, exactly what I always wanted to do.”
It seemed surreal to climb into the back seat of that sleek, black BMW of his. A car I felt like I’d stalked in order to keep track of Harry and his relationship with my wife. The conversation was surprisingly bland on the way to the bar, considering what was going on between the three of us.
A man.
His wife.
Her lover.
“I hate O’Hare. Just chaos. And my flights are always delayed.”
“Better than Dulles. You ever tried to eat there? Jesus.”
Talking about airports. Well, I suppose it was early in the evening, early for their date. The thing we all really had in common was that we were both fucking her. You didn’t discuss that kind of thing before the alcohol was well and truly flowing. I watched the two of them sitting up there in front, and my interest was in their comfortable body language, their ease of conversation, rather than the topic of their conversation.
“SeaTac, now that’s an airport.”
“Denver’s nice.”
I did notice Harry’s hand subtly reaching over to touch Courtney’s leg once or twice, hinting at things to come. Those little signals gave me a buzz. Made me want to hold out, stay there with them on their date as long as I could before they kicked me out.
Later, at the bar, once the drinks were handed out, tongues got a little looser.
“I like Atlanta. What’s that one called?”
“Hartsfield-Jackson. You only like that one because one of your college lays lived down there.”
Okay, I’d sort of gotten the full story from Courtney about her past sex life, but not quite every detail. There always seemed more to learn, more to enjoy, and these days my wife seemed more open than ever with her past.
“I only slept with him three times.”
“You went all the way to Atlanta to see him at least twice.”
“Well... he had a nice... personality.”
“Cock, you mean.”
Harry looked at me as though teasing me about Courtney’s past might actually irritate me, or even make me jealous. I just lapped it all up. The thought of my wife, all bright-eyed and bushy tailed still in college, flying all the way down to Atlanta simply to grab another night or two in the sack with some well-hung stud—that made me hard, right there in the bar.
But here on his last night in the States before another tour, Harry wasn’t trying to be mean to me. When Courtney excused herself to go to the restroom, he leaned into me and said, perfectly earnestly, “You know... I always wanted to know... what makes guys like you... you know... tick.”
“Tick?” I grinned, seeing that he was genuinely curious. I suppose that while he’d been my wife’s go-to friend-with-benefit through college, he’d never actually hung out with any of her actual boyfriends before.
“Why d’you do it?” he asked. “Why d’you like it?”
I shrugged. Kind of a huge question to answer. I said, “Because she’s gorgeous.”
His raised eyebrow suggested my explanation had certain holes in it.
I tried some more. “Maybe it’s because... when we started dating, I was so paranoid about losing her. Because she was so much better looking than me. Somehow it morphed into this...”
“You’re afraid of losing her... and that turns into something you’d risk for kicks?” Harry said.
“Maybe... the more I came to trust her, and believe she would never want to leave me, the more my brain turned that original fear into some kind of... turn-on.”
“Weird.”
“I don’t know. I can’t fully explain it. It just turns me on. Thinking about her being with someone else, but then coming back to me, all buzzing and fizzing with energy from just being fucked...” I looked over at the restroom door, saw my wife emerge from it, glancing around the lively place.
“I like the thought of her being naughty,” I said. “I like the thought of her enjoying herself with no limits... and after she’s done it... I have this uncontrollable urge to take her back for myself.”
“I bet,” Harry said.
Courtney was at the bar, now, taking the opportunity to buy another round of drinks. Boy, did she look good. Better than good. Her poise, her sparkle, her confidence ever since we got into this consensual adultery stuff. I glanced at my watch. Ten o’clock—getting late. I thought they were going out to dinner, but it seemed too late for dinner now. Why hadn’t they told me to go home? Why hadn’t they left this bar to find s
omewhere more intimate for dinner?
Had they forgotten about my presence on their date?
Harry didn’t seem in the least bit annoyed that I hadn’t excused myself from their date yet. He was the definition of chilled. Seeming to enjoy my company.
I said to him, “But you must feel something similar.”
“Similar?”
“All these years... you’ve shared her, too.”
The thought startled him, more than a little. He said, “But she was never mine. I just... you know... banged her when I felt like it.”
“Or when she felt like it,” I corrected him. It didn’t seem to me that Harry had ever had the choice when he got to sleep with Courtney—he had been hers to use when she’d been in the mood.
“But you know... I just took her from some other guy... had some fun...”
I nodded. Up at the bar, Courtney was already receiving some attention from a couple of guys. That dress of hers did not leave a huge amount to the imagination. Waiting to be served, she seemed to be enjoying flirting with them, too. Stroking her hand through her hair, flashing them that beaming smile the whole time—laughing at some joke that was bound to be lame. Giving them the kind of eye contact that said she was available, even if she was stunning to look at, and the person least likely to be single in this whole establishment.
“But you knew she’d just come from her boyfriend... she’d go back to him straight after... you were taking her, but you were sharing her, right?”
He seemed stunned by that revelation.
“It wasn’t that serious,” he insisted. He’d gone pale, even in the limited light, I could see.
“You’re going to take her to bed tonight,” I said to him, what had to be one of the strangest things a husband could say to another man by society’s standards. “But you know as soon as she’s done... later... or in the morning... she’ll come back to my bed.”
He shrugged. “While she’s with me, she’s mine.”
“And you know she’s been sleeping with me all week before she sees you?” Okay, I was being a little cruel by now. Rubbing it in. If I was weird for sharing my wife, he was just as weird for sharing my wife, too. It might just be one-off hot sex with some hot babe in his eyes, but it was one-off hot sex with some hot babe who was getting regular sex from another guy, me.
And now she was twirling a strand of her hair with the tips of her fingers against her chest, perilously close to the dip in between her breasts. Licking her lips as she gazed at one of the men trying to reel her in.
“You see her flirting with that guy?” I asked him. “How does that make you feel?”
He chuckled. “Hey, she’s not mine. She can do what she likes.”
“When you ship out, she’ll start dating some other guy,” I said. “Maybe that guy.” Sure enough, we could both make out the sight of Courtney writing her phone number on the back of the guy’s hand in ballpoint. I felt a little throb between my legs at the thought that she really might take the guy out on a date some time, once Harry was gone hunting bad guys in the desert.
“I suppose so,” he said, sounding distinctly less than comfortable. I felt a little sorry for him by now. He’d always wanted her—wasn’t that why he’d come back to find her? There were other sports injury specialists who would have helped him on the QT.
Now she turned on her heels and wove her way back through the throng toward us. Trying to put a little swagger back into Harry’s demeanor, and perhaps slant my explanation toward his alpha-male type of persona, I said, “You know... at the end of the day, I guess it makes me feel more of a man if there are other guys desperate to date my beautiful wife... but she always comes back to me. I suppose... she kind of always comes back to you, too.”
He nodded. “Something like that.”
And here she was, beaming from ear to ear, a distinct sparkle in her eyes after chatting up another guy at the bar. “Hey, what are you two discussing so deeply?” she giggled, noticing in particular the serious expression on Harry’s face.
“Oh nothing,” I said. “Just the fact that you’ll probably be dating that guy at the bar pretty soon.”
“Oh, Marc?” she grinned. “Never say ‘never’...”
There was no dinner, other than a little tapas at a Spanish bar. Mostly, we drank more. I stayed out with them as more and more drinks were sunk. No hint they wanted me to leave. Harry and I were getting on like a house on fire, somehow during the evening his attitude toward me had softened, and his view of what I was doing with Courtney had genuinely transformed. I don’t think he was genuinely trying to change to be more like me. But in trying to comprehend what I felt for Courtney, he was clearly trying to deal with the fact that he would be losing her.
“What about him? Would you date that guy over there?”
“The guy in the blue shirt? Sure. Dresses well. Drinks bourbon. Nice smile...”
By the time I came back to the table with the second round of drinks in that Spanish place, Harry was already asking Courtney which guys around us she would consider dating, since he was shipping out to a war zone.
“You like Asian guys?”
“Of course. Don’t you?”
“To date. To fuck.”
“It wouldn’t be an issue. If he’s nice, respectful, in good shape...”
“Good in bed?”
“Well you’re never sure about that until it happens...”
It seemed to me that she did mean more to Harry than just an occasional fuck buddy. As I sat there with them, trying to engage in the conversation while at the same time feeling contented just to observe them as they chatted and flirted and prepared to go home and sleep with each other, the sheer closeness of them, the fact that this wasn’t pure and simply about the sex, somehow only made the strangeness of being around them on their date all the more intense.
The risk, after all, of losing Courtney was part of what strengthened my desire for her.
By the time it got to midnight, and the two of them had their hands all over each other, and it seemed only too obvious that it wouldn’t be much longer before they called a taxi to take them away to some suitable bedroom, I was feeling giddy, nervous, and distinctly sober.
When the taxi did finally arrive, I found myself there on the curb wondering why Courtney wasn’t hugging me and telling me goodbye, telling me she loved me, not to stay up too late waiting for her, that she would text me when the deed was done, that she was so grateful for me allowing her to go home with this guy.
But she just hopped in the taxi after him. I just stood there feeling a little snubbed—oh, sure, excited that she had just clambered into a taxi to go sleep with another guy, but still, somehow I’d been forgotten in all the commotion. It felt as though we were parting at the airport with one of us going on a long trip, only she’d skipped off through security without saying goodbye, and without turning at the last minute to wave and blow me a kiss.
Only, the door to the taxi stayed open a fraction too long, and then there was Courtney leaning out of the vehicle just far enough to catch my eye and grin like a saucy little minx, and tell me, “Get in!”
Well, it was nice of them to give me a lift home, presumably on the way back to Harry’s base. I felt a little like a third wheel with the two of them whispering sweet nothings to each other along the way. Courtney giggling and batting away Harry’s wandering hand from her thighs—before ultimately giving in, allowing him to subtly paw at her while I was sitting right next to her on the other side.
Naturally enough, I was hard as a rock. This was foreplay going on, right under my nose. Every moment it went on seemed more and more clear cut to me that these two were not going to finish the night before sleeping together, before properly consummating the date.
And I might not be there to see it happen, but being cooped up in a taxi with them, my senses buzzing with the stimuli from this other man seducing my wife in front of me, it seemed to me that I wouldn’t have to do much to imagine what that full con
summation would be like.
*
The taxi drew up at our apartment building, and as I climbed out, Courtney followed me. I actually felt disappointed—that the night was over, that their date was over, that my wife was going home with me instead of her lover. Then after paying the driver, Harry climbed out, too.
I don’t know, I should have just asked them their plans for the rest of the night. But even if I felt sober, I wasn’t, and I wasn’t in the right frame of mind for entirely rational thinking. I didn’t want to appear somehow weak by querying what was going on. Far cooler just to go with the flow.
Another resident of the building joined us on the way up to our apartment—an old man who lived on some floor above us—and so Harry and Courtney had to keep their hands off each other. Nevertheless, the sly looks they were giving each other all the way up helped to keep up my optimism that they were destined to be together this night.
When we were finally on our own, wandering down the hallway to our front door, the two of them were laughing and stumbling over each other, the drink easing their way no doubt. As Courtney unlocked the door to our apartment, Harry put his big hand on my shoulder.
“You’re gonna let her bring dates here?” he asked me.
“Uh... sure,” I said, feeling the butterflies trembling inside my stomach. Though I was certain my wife was about to sleep with this guy, somehow the way Harry spoke suddenly made it real that after he left the country, Courtney would be free to date other guys entirely.
“I don’t think I’d do that,” he said. “Not my own home.”
I shrugged. “I don’t see the problem.”
Courtney turned to smile at me, loving that I was embracing the idea of her dating other guys once Harry was away. “Thanks, honey,” she said, leaning over to kiss me.
Inside, the front door closing on its heavy spring behind us, I had sudden visions of Courtney coming back here with guys I’d never met... maybe a blond guy... maybe a black guy... maybe a tall guy... maybe a buff gym bunny. Strangers... dates. And I’d be in the spare room, I guessed. Or away camping out at a house I’d been renovating. Wasn’t like I had a shortage of roofs for my head.
Out of His League: A Hotwife Novel Page 15
