Game Changer

by Max Sebastian

  Her conversation with Jake went on regardless. Chatting, interspersed with some light giggles. I sighed with relief and padded quietly to the bedroom door. The door was open a crack, which was different than previous nights. Hanna had forgotten to fully close it. Was she getting careless after so many nights without any apparent risk of me waking?

  I glanced at my watch. Was it slightly later than usual, too? Hadn’t she normally signed off with Jake by now, and started her post-conversation masturbation?

  I was suspicious.

  In my mind, the longer she talked with Jake each night, the stronger their romantic bond would be—and the stronger their romantic bond was, the longer they would want to talk to each other each night. I edged closer to the door, silently clutching the doorframe so that I could safely peer through the gap.

  She was lying on the couch, this time in the far corner nearest the windows, facing back toward me and the bedroom door. I would have been instantly discovered, I think, except that the way she was sitting—lying, virtually—her view was entirely blocked by her laptop, which sat on her stomach.

  ‘No, you have got to be kidding,’ she said. ‘Seriously? Why do they do that?’

  The tone of her voice set me at ease. It also, truth be told, took some of the excitement out of my sneaking about. They were chatting, as usual, like they were simply friends.

  ‘God. If it were me, I would run for the hills.’

  I couldn’t hear what Jake was saying, of course, but it was obviously nothing significant.

  Had he not told her about our little talk? About the fact that I was interested in him seeing her again? That I would risk their romantic bond if it meant relighting the fire at the heart of our marriage?

  As I listened to half a conversation that was about as riveting as most reality TV shows, I had to conclude that Jake needed time to think about everything. He had some pretty heavy issues to get through if he was to start seeing Hanna, start properly dating her. Maybe it was too much to get over, and he was already thinking it would be best to keep things platonic with her.

  I watched as Hanna closed up her laptop, the call with Jake over. Then, instead of putting it down on the floor so she could indulge in a little personal pressure release, she picked the laptop up and pulled herself up to her feet.

  I had to flee, as silently as I could, as it became clear she was simply coming straight back to bed.

  I lay awake, pretending to sleep, while she got comfortable and slipped off to real sleep herself. For a while, I couldn’t sleep myself, my thoughts whirling round and round my head. Hanna seemed to sleep perfectly peacefully, and then in the morning as we both readied ourselves for work, she didn’t seem in any way downhearted. Perhaps she had accepted that things were not going to get sexual again with Jake, and had stopped fantasizing about it.

  I was disappointed.

  A few days passed. Almost a week.

  I had stopped waking myself up to monitor her little chats with Jake. Oh, they were still talking regularly, but the remaining few times I caught it, it was purely platonic—and afterward, no masturbation from Hanna.

  After a while, I left them to it. Oh, I still woke up occasionally, because my body had become accustomed to waking up at that time, but if I didn’t go straight back to sleep then I would merely listen for the quiet sound of Hanna chatting with Jake, and then drift off back to sleep, entirely unthreatened. The tone of their conversation never reached beyond friendly banter.

  Life went back to normal, at least on the surface. Under the surface, I felt a little embarrassed. That I’d admitted everything to Jake, that I’d bared all my secrets. He would think me a pervert, now. A freak. He could no longer be my friend, I was sure of it, and that made me feel awful. And how could I possibly socialize with our other friends if he was around?

  *

  Then, a few days before Jake was due to return from Japan, Hanna woke me up in the middle of the night.

  I would tell you it was my body clock again—when I adjust sleep patterns, like I had done trying to monitor Hanna and Jake, it takes me a while to get back to normal—but this time I was jolted out of sleep, and when I got over the initial disorientation it was Hanna, out there in the living room, who I heard quite clearly.

  In the still of the night, I could hear her heavy breathing, I could hear her sighing, I could hear her letting out quiet little moans. I could also hear an odd little buzzing sound, as though some guy was getting a military haircut in the next apartment.

  It didn’t take more than a moment or two for my kinky brain to work out what Hanna’s heavy breathing meant, coupled with those silky sighs and soft moans. I was almost instantly hard. My wife was touching herself again.

  I looked at the bedside alarm clock—3am. Had she been talking with Jake? It was on the early side for one of their conversations, or at least for the end of a conversation so she could masturbate afterward. Perhaps he’d gotten home early. For a while I just lay there in bed and listened to her, trying to figure out why, after so many days where Hanna had apparently given up touching herself after her chats with Jake, was she now back in full flow? And this time, apparently throwing caution to the wind in terms of how loud she was being while touching herself. I guessed that as far as Hanna was concerned, she’d tested the solidity of my sleeping over enough nights to be confident I wasn’t going to wake up, however loud she was being.

  So what had driven her back to touching herself like this? Had the two of them talked about the possibility of her seeing him again? Had Jake mentioned that I’d gotten in touch with him? Had it dawned on her that her sexual desires for him were not all for nothing?

  Hope bloomed inside me along with pure, searing arousal—and, I’ll admit, a sliver of fear, fed by my paranoia over where things could lead.

  Of course, there were still other possibilities to explain what was going on. Hanna could have just had her period, and for the past however long, she simply hadn’t been in the mood for any self-loving like this. Perhaps nothing unusual had happened with Jake, and tonight Hanna was simply returning to her ‘normal’ pattern of responding to her conversations with Jake.

  I was about to hop out of bed, to take a little peek through the doorway for my own little kicks—and then I heard her voice.

  ‘Yeah... it feels really good...’

  My blood ran cold. She was talking to somebody? She was talking to Jake while she touched herself?

  I stifled a gasp.

  Jesus. My heart was pounding. I had to be careful to keep my breathing quiet, even though it was suddenly heavy, my chest rising and falling as I drew in enough air to cope with the shock I was feeling.

  ‘Oh man... I wish... you could be here... right now...’

  My heart seemed to stop for a few moments, seizing up with a painful jerk as the horror took hold of me. She wasn’t just flirting with Jake, she was having cybersex with him. Did people call it ‘cybersex’ anymore? God, it seemed like ages since I’d even heard the term. People in newspapers used to debate endlessly whether cybersex was killing society, whether it was ruining relationships—even whether it was actually cheating or not, if you weren’t doing it with your partner.

  This definitely felt like cheating to me. Hanna knew I was turned on by the thought of her sleeping with another guy, and yet she was doing this in the middle of the night, while I was oblivious. She was keeping the mutual pleasure of such an encounter to herself, despite knowing I would have loved to watch her doing this with Jake—even simply knowing that it was happening would have been a turn-on for me.

  Did she feel that, after our argument in Slovakia, I was against her continuing to see Jake? That I was never going to allow anything like this because of her feelings for him? Is that why she hadn’t alerted me to her resumption of sexual activities with Jake? In which case it really was cheating.

  And Jake... after our conversation, he knew how I felt about the potential for him to date my wife. As far as he was concerned, I was

not only supportive of him seeing her, but I had also made it clear I didn’t mind that she had feelings for him. So how come he hadn’t told me about their nightly conversations? How come he hadn’t said anything in the past few days about considering cybersex with her.

  I hated the implications all this had on the trust I had in my wife. And yet... it was so hot, even just hearing her.

  ‘You’re so hard... God... I love your cock...’

  I took a deep breath. Told myself that perhaps something spontaneous and unexpected had happened when Jake had finally told Hanna that he and I had spoken. Perhaps the sexual arousal between them had simply exploded out as soon as Jake had mentioned the fact that I was ready to let her see him again as a lover.

  But as I climbed out of bed, and tiptoed over toward the doorway, the fact was that even if the two of them were actually cheating, it was a colossal turn-on for me. The thrill even overwhelmed my concerns about trust issues, at least for this moment.

  The door was open. Not just a crack this time, it was open by a good couple of feet. She was really getting careless—or else she was really trusting that I would sleep through anything. The bathroom fan wasn’t even on to cover her noise.

  Hanna was lying on her back along the couch in a startling state of undress. Her head was propped up against the cushions at the arm of the couch, her nightshirt was pushed up so far that most of her breasts were also visible, and she didn’t seem to be wearing any panties at all. Oh God, she’d shaved her pussy again, completely bare. All for him.

  Her laptop lay between her parted legs, just inches away from her completely hairless pussy, which she was rubbing with a rounded white plastic object that suddenly explained that buzzing sound. A vibrator. I could see the white wire of her headphones trailing down from her ears, over her chest, her stomach, then down over one thigh to her computer.

  ‘Oh... oh... Jake... yeah...’

  She really was talking with Jake while she did this.

  I was careful as I peeked around the door jamb to see her, although in the darkness of our apartment it was quite clear that her attention was on the bright laptop screen between her knees, when she wasn’t laying back and pressing her head into the cushions, her eyes tight shut as the sensations from the vibrator surged through her.

  It was certainly the hottest thing I’d seen since we’d returned from Europe. She was so wet, I could see her pussy glistening in the light from her screen. I could smell her arousal. It drove me wild—I couldn’t help but squeeze my throbbing erection through my PJ pants.

  As I watched her, it was quite clear she was totally absorbed by whatever was on her screen—Jake, I imagined, in some similar state of undress no doubt. It made me relax, a little more comfortable in peeking out to watch her.

  At one point, she slowed the stroking with her vibrator, then leaned down to retrieve something from the floor beside her, saying to Jake: ‘Hey, check this out...’

  It was another toy—bigger than her vibrator.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said softly, ‘I bought it online... it’s the same size as you, honey...’

  She held it up, briefly, in front of the laptop. A realistic-looking dildo, quite large. I felt the jealousy burn inside me. Was he really that large? From what I remembered, watching the two of them in the chalet living room, I had to concede that he probably was.

  Now she lay back again and slipped the tip of the thing inside her open pussy, uttering little groans as she slid it in, then withdrew it, and slid it in again.

  She kept the vibrator pressed against her clit while she penetrated herself with the huge fake cock, and now her moans became louder still—gasping cries. I could hear the wetness of her pussy as she fucked herself with that thing.

  Then for a moment, she paused, looking down at her computer, smiling at something Jake had said.

  ‘No, it’s okay. Seriously. He’d sleep through a fire alarm.’

  So she really was unconcerned about the possibility of being caught.

  Now she switched off her vibrator and abandoned it to concentrate on her dildo, and the penetration she clearly imagined to be by Jake. She panted, she cried out, and I was starting to wonder how she couldn’t be concerned about waking the neighbors, far less her sleeping husband in the next room.

  She was rocking the whole couch as she fucked herself, stretching her legs as far apart as possible, lifting her hips as she jammed that thing into her. Jake had to be getting a pretty amazing view.

  Then, as her cries reached fever pitch, she pulled that big cock out of her pussy and just clamped her hand over her mound, her body shaking and convulsing as she cried out one more, ear-splitting time, her orgasm crashing through her.

  Wow.

  I ducked my head back into the bedroom, fearful that she would look up from her computer, to double-check I hadn’t woken up. The sudden silence that came from the living room seemed to confirm that she was listening for signs that I was no longer asleep.

  Then, at last, there was a giggle. ‘I told you he wouldn’t wake up.’

  Then, after a pause, ‘You could use a towel there, huh, buddy?’

  It made me think that Jake had come too, and messily so.

  I didn’t come, however. There was no way for me to do so and continue to avoid detection. I had to try to calm myself down, to keep myself from the brink. I returned to bed, though I kept listening.

  She said, ‘Stay a little longer,’ she said quietly, pleading. ‘I really miss you.’

  My heart burned with a mixture of jealousy and—oddly, given how terrified I was getting about this real infidelity—excitement.

  Then she said, ‘I know... you’ll be home very soon. And I get to see you, right? As soon as you’re home.’

  I felt a jolt of pain shoot through my chest. Jealousy, only a grade more than I’d felt before. The two of them were planning to meet up?

  She said, ‘As far as I’m concerned, he’s said he doesn’t have a problem with me seeing other guys... so what’s the big deal?’

  My heart was freezing up. I felt nausea—and, worse than that, I felt genuinely upset.

  She would really do this? She would really cheat on me, and not tell me it was happening?

  I couldn’t believe the woman I married could be so cruel. What had I ever done to her to warrant it?

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I think I was in denial by the time Jake returned to the States. I started telling myself that if Hanna wanted Jake, and did not want me, then she would have left me already.

  On successive nights, I woke up at the same time to catch Hanna chatting with Jake, Hanna taking her clothes off for Jake. Hanna exposing herself, touching herself, playing with toys for Jake. Hanna telling him how much she wanted him.

  It turned me on, watching her preparing to cheat on me. As much as it sickened me, the loss of trust, the wickedness of it, the sexiness of her as she did it, even the risk that I would lose her to him in the long run seemed deliciously thrilling. It pleased me how happy she always seemed in the mornings following a long session with Jake overnight. It was like the best possible Hanna, after she’d spent time with him. She was happy and satisfied and optimistic.

  I thought a lot about all the implications. About whether my marriage would survive this. My mental process was pulled this way and that—one moment, by my depressing paranoia, the next moment by my sexual fantasy. In the end, though, my kinky side always came out on top. I let them do it. I watched them do it—or at least, I watched her do it. And when I got up in the morning and showered, I pictured them in my head doing it while I tugged on my hard cock.

  On the Thursday night/Friday morning, I was woken at midnight—three hours earlier than usual—by Hanna bringing herself to orgasm in front of her laptop. She really had no cares about waking me. Did she have some speech all prepared in case she did wake me? Did she even care anymore?

  And yet her secrecy remained. As the two of them talked, after the sex stuff died down, it was clear that Jake was about to head to the airport. It took me a while to get my head around the time zones and flight times—was he really returning to the States already? Early Friday morning in Brooklyn would be Friday afternoon in Tokyo, and a flight on Friday evening from Tokyo would get into New York on Saturday evening.

  ‘I’ll come pick you up at the airport,’ Hanna was saying, her affectionate offer making my jealousy well up so that it felt like my heart was being squeezed in a vice.

  It shocked me, how casual she seemed to be about blowing me off so she could go pick up Jake at the airport and, no doubt, go back to his place to take their recent online chats into full physical passion. Did she not think I’d miss her that evening? Then I remembered that she was due to go out that night with some of her old work buddies. She’d been dropping hints to me about it for ages.

  ‘Okay, but after you’ve showered, I can see you then?’ she suggested, and I guessed that Jake had torpedoed her idea about picking him up from the airport.

  ‘Nelson’s... I know it. That would be perfect.’

  My blood froze as I recognized the name of an English-style pub about five blocks away—a place Hanna and I often hung out with our college friends, including Jake and Hayden. It seemed so shameless that she’d go there for a date with Jake. Wasn’t she worried about some of our friends being there?

  ‘Okay, hot stuff. You have a good flight, right? I can’t wait to see you...’

  That day we did what we often did on a Saturday—we had a wander around a farmers’ market, did a little light shopping. Hanna found some new perfume after testing a few on me. Kind of sexy, actually—not her usual kind of thing.

  I didn’t put two and two together until later that evening, when she started to get ready for her night out with the girls from her old job. She’d bought that perfume to impress Jake!

  She left the bedroom door open as she was changing after her shower.

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