Tempting Terri (Terri Trilogy Book 2)

by Ben Boswell

  “Terri –“

  “Bill, don’t beat yourself up over everything like this. I love everything about our life together. Including the married-people-sex.”

  I shook my head skeptically.

  She smirked. “And anyway, that’s what our deal is for, isn’t it? In case I do decide I just can’t live without.”

  I nodded. I felt my dick twitch beneath my towel.

  “You’re still sure, right?” she persisted.

  “Yes.”

  “Then, everything is perfect, isn’t it? You don’t need to worry about me anymore. I’m all taken care of. You just need to tell me what you want. And if that is married-people-sex, that’s great. And if it is something different, that’s fine too. As long as it doesn’t involve farm animals.”

  “Catherine the Great used to have sex with a horse,” I noted.

  “And it crushed her and killed her,” Terri grinned back.

  “Okay, no farm animals.”

  She grinned. “Okay then.”

  She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek and then made her way into the bathroom for her own shower.

  I dressed and snuck out of the house silently to avoid waking the kids. I stepped out into the cold, dark winter morning and began my commute into work.

  ***

  I had to work late and only arrived home after our usual dinner time with the kids. I had resigned myself to heating up some leftovers, when Terri told me she’d fed the kids early so that we could have a rare, mid-week, adult meal together. The good news continued. She’d made one of my favorite dishes, flounder with a cilantro-curry topping over a bed of fragrant jasmine rice. When I asked for a second helping, she stopped me.

  “Save some space for dessert. I have a special treat for you.”

  She was giving me a crooked smile, and I wondered if she was making a sex reference that I was totally missing.

  “Um… okay.”

  “Let’s clean up the dishes and put the kids down and then I’ll bring it out.”

  I was tempted to search the kitchen while she was upstairs with the kids, but I resisted the urge. I wasn’t sure what Terri was up to. After the misfires of the last couple of evenings… or more precisely, my incredible lameness in the face of my wife’s invitations to kink it up… I was a little worried about what she had planned. Though… dessert… we’d never done any food play. The idea always seemed a little creepy, but then again, it might be fun to eat some whipped cream out of her snatch. I could probably pull that off without too much prompting.

  I jolted as she slapped my ass. “Your turn, Big Boy.” She gestured upstairs, and I faintly heard the kids clamoring for my attention.

  With the kids tucked into bed, I came back downstairs.

  “I’ll be right out,” Terri called from the kitchen.

  I sat down at the dining room table. She appeared a moment later, carrying a… pie.

  “I doubt it’ll be as good as Melanie’s, but….”

  It looked as good. A golden crust and delicious aroma, sweet with a hint of cinnamon.

  “Smells great,” I said. “You didn’t need to go to all that effort.”

  “You know I’d do anything for you.” She paused. “I decided not to risk berries. I can never get those to not come out runny. So I went with apple.” Another pause. “You’ve got to play to your strengths.”

  I looked at her curiously. “Um… are we talking about pies? Or something else.”

  She shrugged. “You want ice cream on top?”

  “Sure.”

  She smiled. “It is a nice little extra, even though a pie is good enough by itself.”

  “Um… Terri…”

  I trailed off as she disappeared into the kitchen. I plated two slices of pie. She returned with a container of vanilla ice cream, and added a scoop on each. I took a bite.

  “Wow, this is good,” I exclaimed.

  She smiled. I hoped she’d say something, but she didn’t.

  “So... um… Terri? What is this about?”

  She shrugged again.

  “Okay, now I know you’re up to something,” I said.

  Another shrug.

  “Please stop that.”

  She hesitated and then shrugged again.

  “Maybe you should see a doctor about that shrug.”

  She chuckled. “I don’t think I need a doctor. I think I’m fine.”

  “Oh, and I’m not?”

  “Bill, Bill, Bill, did I say that? Oh the places your mind goes. You do realize how much is just in your mind, right?”

  I ate some more pie. “Look, Terri, I’m not saying that you don’t do nice things for me just ‘cause. You do. All the time. Really and truly, I know that, and I appreciate it. But you can’t pretend that you don’t have some agenda here. What’s the deal with the dinner and pie and the… riddles?”

  She hesitated. “Okay, Bill, I guess I was just thinking we need to finish off that conversation we started about Melanie.”

  “Huh?”

  “At Thanksgiving? I got the story… finally… but we never explored it.”

  I groaned. “Must we?”

  She nodded. “I think we must.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, the more I think about it, the more I think it has something to do with the conundrum you’ve built for us.”

  “I’ve built?”

  “Mmmm, yes.”

  “Even though you’re the one with --”

  “The uncontrollable libido?”

  “Something like that.”

  “The same kind of uncontrollable libido that it turns out Melanie had?” Terri proposed.

  “I’m not sure that --”

  “Well, that is what broke you two up, right? Turns out Melle Mel was addicted to the D as well.”

  “It wasn’t… wasn’t quite like that.”

  “How did it make you feel to hear her screaming in passion?” she asked.

  “Look, I told you. I’m not even sure it was her.”

  Terri shot me a skeptical gaze. “Really Bill?”

  I sighed. “Okay, look, I… I don’t know. I told you it was weird. You know. I… It… Oh fuck it, Terri, okay, fine, I’m a sick pervert. It sort of turned me on, and --”

  She shook her head. “No, no, Bill, that’s not what I mean.”

  “Then what do you mean?” I grunted.

  She took a bite of pie. Buying time. Slowing the discussion. Allowing my emotions to cool.

  “Let’s leave that aside, for now,” she said, “as well as all the shame and self-loathing that comes with it.”

  “I don’t --”

  She held up her hand to stop me. “Bill? Just do this for me, okay?”

  “I don’t know what you want from me.”

  “Just for you to talk about your emotions for a bit. Look, I’d think that was a pretty traumatic moment. You were dating this girl, and she’d met your folks, and then suddenly…”

  “I… I don’t know, Terri. I guess I was angry, and --”

  “What do you mean, you guess you were angry? Were you or not?”

  “Well, yeah, I mean, she was cheating on me….”

  “So, what did you do? Did you scream? Punch a hole in a wall? Call her dirty names?”

  I shrugged. “No. I don’t know. Maybe…. Maybe angry isn’t the right word. I don’t know. It was a long time ago.”

  “But it still feels like just yesterday, sometimes, doesn’t it?”

  I shrugged. “I… I guess. I mean, it isn’t like, you know, I was thinking clearly. I was angry. But, I don’t know, it’s… you know… I was surprised,” I concluded finally.

  I realized I’d never really explored the issue. She was right. There was a lot of shame. Denial too. That weird excitement of it. And….

  “Terri, it’s… weird, you know. I don’t know that I was really angry. It was more like I thought I should be angry. Except… I wasn’t. Not so much. It was more this weird disappointment.”

  She t
ilted her head. “In her?”

  I took a deep breath. “Yeah. I guess. In part. You know, disappointment that she’d gone off with that asshole…. And…. I guess, disappointment in myself because, well, I’d never… could never….”

  “Make her scream like that?”

  I nodded.

  She looked at me, her expression tender and sad.

  “Okay, so what would you have done differently?”

  I laughed. “What? If I could go back in time?”

  “Sure, why not.”

  “Kept her away from Toby.”

  “And that would have accomplished what?”

  I shrugged. “Nothing. Sooner or later she’d have found another guy.”

  “And you’re just resigned to that?”

  “What do you want me to say, Terri? I mean, look, it’s not like I wasn’t trying to keep her. I was. It’s just… she wanted more than I could give.”

  “In bed?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I think you’re selling yourself short,” she said.

  I snorted. “Says the woman who has more kink in her little finger than I have in my entire body.”

  She nodded slowly. “Hmmm.”

  I backtracked. “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t about you, and --”

  “Of course it is. I mean, that’s why we’re talking about it, right? It’s not about me, but it’s… about me.”

  “I don’t know. Is it?” I asked.

  “Is it?”

  I didn’t respond.

  She answered for me. “It is. Because you think… and correct me if I’m wrong… you think that just like Melanie, I am hardwired to want more than you can provide.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Something like that?”

  “You do realize that is something of an insulting characterization?” she asked coldly.

  I felt a rush of anxiety. I didn’t want to hurt her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean --”

  She stopped me. “Let’s… let’s posit that Melanie was, in fact, the girl you imagine her to be. What makes you think I am like her?”

  I smiled grimly. My mind filled with images, real and imagined, of Terri with other men.

  “Is it that obvious?” she asked.

  “Isn’t it?”

  “It doesn’t really matter what I think. It matters what you believe. But I’d ask you to explore that. Both about you and me.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “It means, Honey, that a lot of what goes on in your head, particularly as it concerns me and my sexuality and you and your sexuality may be just that. In your head.”

  “And what if it’s not, Terri. What if, I’m the one who sees things clearly, and you’re the one in denial.”

  “Then, I guess we’re in for a bumpy ride.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I have to admit, I didn’t really know what to make of the pie conversation. I didn’t quite understand what Terri wanted from me. Ultimately, facts were in my favor, weren’t they? She did have, if not an overactive libido, then at least a healthy sex drive. Which is fine. Great even. Except for the fact that it seemed to me to make her vulnerable to the attention of other men.

  How much so? I didn’t know for sure. I only had her word to rely on. But even though I resisted the urge to peek at her cell phone when a text came in or surreptitiously explore her Facebook messages when she left her computer unattended, I had a pretty good idea of what I would find.

  I mean, of course, there was an endless series of guys trying to get into her pants. Who wouldn’t? High school classmates just catching up. Work contacts inviting her to networking lunches. Inboxes full of innocent messages that were just polite ways of offering dick.

  She didn’t make it easier on me. I kept expecting her to come back to the Melanie conversation. We hadn’t really resolved anything. And if we hadn’t gone to bed that night angry, we’d gone to bed in an unsettled mood. So much so that after about an hour of each of us silently tossing and turning, and knowing I had an early morning, I took a handful of Benadryl and went to sleep on the sofa.

  Did I want to continue the conversation? No. Not really. At least, I never initiated a renewed discussion. But, on the other hand, I was surprised that Terri seemed to let it go.

  Then again, Terri just seemed generally… off. Not so much distant as… hardened somehow. Had I hurt her more than I realized in accepting without dispute the comparison to Melanie? I didn’t know. But I also didn’t see how it was fundamentally wrong. Yes, Melanie had gone behind my back, and Terri’s adventures had been in front of my face. That is an important difference, particularly in how I felt about it, but ultimately, how was it different in terms of what it meant for the future?

  That’s the thing. Regardless of how she felt about it or how I did, it was simply reality that Terri was into other dudes. And whether I just reflected on what had already happened or on what might, it didn’t change the reality of it.

  ***

  I don’t want to make it seem as if I were thinking about Terri banging other men nonstop. It came, as it always had, in waves. Each one higher and more thrilling than the last, until finally one came that was so high and so thrilling that it was terrifying.

  Herb, for whatever reason, was the first one that really made me reconsider things. I had invited him over to have sex with my wife. And even now, that vision of them going at it could leave me shaking.

  Yet at the same time, I was so grateful that nothing had happened. That cooler heads -- well, Terri’s cooler head had prevailed. Because Terri was right. The likely outcomes were an impressive range of epic disasters. Herb was just too close, and the consequences too difficult to contain. Maybe that’s part of what made it exciting to me. It’s not as if, stolid, wide-faced, domesticated Herb was a particularly likely stud. Indeed, once the fever broke on that, I didn’t obsess about him and Terri anymore, although I have to admit that it did amuse me to think about how he’d react if he knew how close he’d come to knocking off a piece of my wife’s ass. I’d caught him sneaking a peek often enough to suspect he’d be kicking himself about the missed opportunity.

  So, like me, she’d pulled back. Terri was playing it cool. But why? I got the sense that she too was worried that things had nearly gotten out of hand again, and she wanted to tamp down my fantasies and expectations. I knew she still had some stories to share about Jean-Pierre and Brian and maybe even Chucky, but she was keeping those under wraps even as our lovemaking remained firmly grounded in married-people-sex territory.

  Nonetheless, I thought there was something in her still trying to fight its way out. I’m not even sure she was doing this on purpose, but what continued and even accelerated was the special care she put into her appearance. There was always something about her that hinted at more than met the eye. It became sort of a game for me to find because it shifted day by day.

  Terri spends most of the day on the go between client visits in their homes or medical facilities or going to various workshops and seminars. So it did strike me as odd when I noticed her wearing three-inch heels as she went out the door one morning. Nothing major. Nothing that would have people staring and pointing fingers and whispering “slut” as she passed, and yet it was something that in a Sherlock Holmes novel would be regarded as a meaningful clue.

  Then there was that long, silver pendant she paired with a tight sweater. It hung in such a way as to accentuate ample breasts and prompted visions of her delightful cleavage. Again, subtle enough to be deniable, yet sexy enough to make it onto one of those hot girl/cute cats image sites online.

  Sometimes, it was things that were only visible to me. At least, I assumed so. I’d peek into her closet at the clothes she’d laid out for the next day and notice that rather than her usual, cute, but utilitarian cotton underwear, she was planning a matching lace, demi-cup and thong set. Another time, when she had laid out plain, sensible bra and panties the night before, I looked in after she’d left for work to f
ind the panties, alone of the all the clothes she’d prepared, left behind on her wardrobe. Had she just changed her mind and worn a different pair? Did she know I was checking up on her that way?

  I assumed she did, and that this was more of her demonstrating to me how all of our sexual experimentation was grounded more in my fantasies than hers. That, of course, had been the point of the games she’d played when she went out and pretended to get picked up in a bar and when she led me to believe she was hot for Herb. I was determined to play it cool. If she could control herself, then so could I.

  Except, it was hard. In bed, our married-people-sex weakened my resolve. The feel of her luscious body, her hot pussy, short-circuited my brain. I wanted to be in the moment, and yet, each moan and gasp in my ear, every tickle of her nipples against my chest, every contraction of her orgasming pussy on my prick formed associations with those little breadcrumbs she’d been leaving behind, breaking my resolve, pushing me closer and closer to asking the kind of question she seemed to want me to ask. The kind of question that would allow her to weave a seductive tale that would soon drive me to distraction.

  And then she broke me.

  It took me a while to notice it. I had peered in at her wardrobe the night before and seen nothing out of the ordinary. When she came down to breakfast, she looked wonderful, as always, but actually quite conservative in a blue business suit. I knew she was in an all-day conference, which explained the fashion choice, and was also the reason I was both taking the kids into school and picking them up. She leaned in to kiss me goodbye. I caught a slight, respectable, whiff of perfume. She kissed the kids as well and then briefcase in hand walked out of the door. It was just as she passed through the threshold that I noticed it. Just above her burgundy pumps with the sensible one-inch heels, a glint of gold on her right ankle, a thin chain with a little heart charm.

  I looked up. Our eyes met. She smiled. And then, she was gone.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Now, I know many women wear anklets. They can be just a fun little piece of jewelry that maybe calls attention to some cute shoes or a shapely leg. But Terri had already told me that she’d done research, as she called it, into our, my, whatever, fantasy so she surely had to know that an anklet was also, sometimes, a visible symbol of a hotwife on the prowl. I knew then that she had been leaving me clues.