I needed to go. The babysitter could only stay until nine, and that had been the agreement between us: that I would get just a taste of her teasing. It was better that way, to just get a taste of it, just for fun.
But I had a hard time tearing myself away.
And still, I felt unsatisfied.
I went home, paid the sitter in a daze, and then lay down in the bed. My fantasies grew, and bloomed, and took on enormous, fantastical, filthy proportions as I lay there.
My mind was to full of images of Laura's mouth around Nate's cock, of Laura bent over on the sheets of a bed, clutching handfuls of sheets and moaning wetly while his cock moved in and out of her dripping cunt, to focus on the thing I really wanted to get to the bottom of:
How could I get Laura to really do it?
F URTHER
LAURA
I was taking things farther than I ever had before with Nate.
Conrad's eyes, so determinedly affixed to the TV, as though he wasn't watching any of this, are what made me do it. I could feel him following us when we weren't looking in his direction. I could feel his stare, hungry and burning, from across the room, as I smiled at Nate and touched his arm. As I stood waiting by the line for my food, and I nudged him gently with my hip.
Nate, as I suspected, was getting sucked in by it all. His eyes were glittering with the idea that he had a chance now, a real chance. I could tell he was imagining what was under my shirt, wondering if an older woman really had some magical powers she had acquired over so many years of sexual maturity. To to give an amazing blowjob, or perform some acrobatic feat he didn't even know about.
I liked this about guys, really. Men never lost this sexual hopefulness. All guys were big, imaginative dreamers when it came to sex. They all really believed in their heart of hearts that there was something left to be done that the internet had not made raw and real in an amateur porn video, and they would get to discover it someday.
I felt myself getting wet, tingling with excitement. My fantasies ran two ways: one to Nate, to feeling, finally, the hard muscles that contoured his shirt. I knew his skin would be hot, hot with that raging metabolism of youth. I wanted to place my palm on his hard ass and dig into his unyielding flesh as he fucked me against a wall. I could almost feel the wall on my back, cold and hard. I could almost feel his body, just a shade softer, slapping against my skin.
Then there was the more tangible fantasy, the one I knew I would really have and make real. There was Conrad, who was going to wait for me at home. Conrad who would be sitting on the bed, waiting to ask me what I had done all night.
I fantasized about telling him a lie. Making up a fantastical story about actually crossing the line. Seeing how he would take it if he thought it had really happened. I could feel his fingers probing me, finding my pussy as wet as it was now, maybe wetter by the time I got home. I imagined smiling at him, teasing him. Telling him to taste me if he wanted to know the truth.
Or maybe I wouldn't let him. Maybe I would just get his cock inside of me, and tell him how Nate and I had fucked in the bathroom of Ziggy's. I could give him details, drive him wild.
There was another current of fantastical thoughts, in which I actually gave in to Nate. Maybe in his car. We would stare at each other, all the evening's flirting sizzling in the air between us. He would look over at me once, twice, and then pull the car over on the gravel road, unable to hold himself back. Maybe the same turn-around where I had secretly put on my make-up. Maybe right I the field where Conrad and I had done it that night months ago.
Maybe that's just the story I would tell Conrad.
I started doing my sidework early. The place went dead around eight-thirty and Lorraine cut me, but I lingered around, doing things slowly, because Conrad was still there.
We exchanged a knowing glance when he left. I was walking out of the kitchen and he brushed by me. We came within a few inches of each other, and I said, “Excuse me.” I saw him smile beneath his cool exterior.
It gave me a thrill to be playing this game with Conrad. As though there were something illicit now about our relationship. His fingers briefly brushed against mine, and the heat of his touch crackled through me.
I lingered long after getting cut, because I wanted to make Conrad jealous, wondering where I was. I knew he wanted me to do it, too.
Or maybe because I didn't want to go home just yet.
Was it possible for both things to be true at the same time?
Nate was getting bolder. He stood next to me where I was slowly rolling silverware, and placed his muscled arm against mine. The heat of his body rippled through me, and my breath escaped in a little puff. I no longer had any idea what it was that was turning me on the most: Nate or Conrad. The game or the reality.
He nudged me a little. “You're taking a long time to wrap these silverware up,” he joked.
And then his hand moved over mine. He made a pretense of “helping,” folding the knives and forks into the paper napkin with my hand, but it was all pretense. He wanted to touch my hand, wanted me to feel his fingers over mine. “You up for Ziggy's tonight?”
He turned toward me to say this, close to my ear, and his breath was hot on my skin as he did. He might as well have asked me to fuck him, right there, because that's how it sounded to me.
I paused, because I knew that even though no real words were being exchanged here, about anything except going or not going to Ziggy's, that the question was more than that.
And so was my answer.
A knife turned in my stomach.
“Yes,” I breathed.
Conrad had known, after all, that we would go out after work. It was all part of the original plan. I wondered if he knew that my flirting with Nate would push him to make this kind of move, though.
But I didn't know how to put the brakes on any of it.
And I didn't really want to.
We were walking across the parking lot, together, without talking. Both of knew something would happen, and who knew what it would have been if we had only ended up at Ziggy's. I was picturing getting closer and closer, until we ended up in the car together.
But first I would text Conrad, I had decided. Just to give fair warning. Or give him a chance to stop me, if this wasn't really what he wanted.
Or would I?
I don't know. I had no idea what I was doing. I was in a little bit of a trance as I crossed the parking lot.
Deep down inside, I felt like Conrad wanted me to do it. To go all the way. He had met Nate, he knew who he was. He had seen him in the flesh and he had left for home without saying, “hey, that's my wife.” That meant he was still into this game, right?
But without saying anything to each other, I knew I needed to tell him first. Ask him, in fact. Make sure this is what he really wanted.
And I wasn't doing that. But Nate's eyes were burning into mine and the way he had touched me in the restaurant had done something to me.
Who knows what would have happened, if all of that played out?
My reverie, however, was broken, when Jamie, the scraggly short-order cook, who was also a parolee who wore and ankle bracelet and who had to be home by ten, jumped out in front of us. From somewhere behind the same car, the wan waitress Anna appeared, plume of smoke first, long ash-blonde hair next, and finally her thin limbs and long, pretty face.
“WHHHHHAZZZZAAA!” Jamie yelled.
We stopped and stared at him.
“Going to Ricardo's,” he said, and held his arm out to encircle us. Meaning, so were we.
Nate was already shaking his head. “No way man. Ziggy's.”
I looked at Nate, confused. He mouthed “strip club” in my direction and shook his head some more. “Moms here has to be home by twelve anyway,” he said, as soon as he could see that Jamie wasn't having it.
I rubbed my forehead with the back of my thumbnail. Nate occasionally called me “moms” when he needed an excuse for something and wanted to use me, and it really got under
my skin.
So, engaging in one of my worst habits, which is to do things I don't really care to do myself just to piss other people off, specifically in a situation like this one, I said:
“I'm game.”
Nate's eyes grew wide. I couldn't tell if he was impressed or horrified.
The other convenient thing about this was that the weird spell between Nate and I was broken.
I looked down at Jamie's ankle. “Aren't you under house arrest or curfew or something?” I asked. I really did have a mom tone of voice and it made me cringe.
“Nah, Moms, I cut it off.”
“Okay,” I said, shrugging. God, young guys really were so stupid.
Nate looked at me. “You really wanna go?”
I was thinking fast. Actually, the idea was somehow becoming more appealing by the minute, because I had thought a few moves ahead: I could say I wanted to change my clothes, I could talk to Conrad personally, and I knew that if he went for it, it was going to drive him even wilder that I was going to a strip club.
“If we're going to such a great establishment,” I said, having no idea where or what Ricardo's was, but assuming that like most strip clubs the designation would be a good piece of humor, “then I need to go home and change.”
Jamie raised his eyebrows at me. “I dunno. You look pretty good to me.”
I was thankful, suddenly, for an earlier accident: barbeque sauce stained my jeans. I held my leg out for him to see.
Nate was staring at me. But the idea of having me in the strip club, dressed up, and the fact I would go home to do it, seemed to circulate pleasantly in his mind. He warmed to the idea. It rose from the bottom of his face to the top like a filling bathtub.
“I'll drive you?” he asked.
Since I had started going out with Nate to tease Conrad, Con had started dropping me off at work. No sense having to deal with picking up the car the next morning.
For fun – because it was fun, wasn't it? - I winked at him and said, “We have to be sneaky.”
I could see the ripple of pleasure it gave him. We were off.
“S NEAKING AROUND”
CONRAD
Laura held up two dresses. “You have to choose quick,” she whisper-yelled. One was a red dress from years ago, a cocktail party for her work. Unforgettable. But a bit too fancy for a place like Ricardo's.
My mouth was dry. I raised a hand to point at the simple black dress. There wasn't much to it, really: short, tank sleeves, clingy material. It could look casual or fancy. It would look incredible on Laura.
She had come home earlier than expected. She ran up the stairs without turning on any lights. She was breathless.
I had looked out the window. Nate's car was across the street, which is why I hadn't seen him pull up. The lights were out and the car was parked at a distance that seemed sneaky or underhanded somehow.
But Laura was not sneaking. She was flushed, excited. She crouched next to me at my desk, where I was staring at the screen and fantasizing about Laura and everything that had happened at the restaurant. She looked up at me, her arms on my thighs.
“Okay,” she had said. “This is the deal. We ran into Jamie, he's the kid on parole, I don't think I told you about him, but it isn't important, anyway, he cut his ankle bracelet off and he wants to go to a strip club and I said I would go but I said I have to come back here and change so I could talk to you about it.” She took a breath. She was talking a mile a minute. “So I told Nate I would sneak in, change my clothes, you'd probably be sleeping. He thinks you don't know I'm going.”
It had sent such a shiver of rapture through me, to hear that. My head was trying to catch up with the story.
“So what do you think?”
I thought...what? I felt myself nod. Laura with Nate, going to a strip club.
She took me by the hand and told me to help her pick out her outfit.
So here we were. My hand pointing at her black dress.
Laura stripped.
I looked at her underwear.
“What's with the crappy underwear?” I asked, amused. Her bra was held together by a safety pin.
She looked up at the ceiling. “Oh god. Okay. So...I wear this stuff so I won't be tempted to...you know.”
I blinked.
She looked at me, a mixture of annoyance and laughter crossing her face. “So I won't have sex with Nate!” she whispered loudly.
This sent a ripple of emotions through me, and all of them seemed to crash together right in my groin.
She lowered her arms, which were halfway down the torso of the dress, to pull over her head.
And then she was suddenly serious. She put a hand on her hip, and cocked her hip slightly.
Now her comical, lighthearted voice was gone. She went stone-serious. “Should I change them?”
I felt like someone had grabbed my chest and squeezed it very slowly, and very hard. We both knew what this question meant.
Right?
I could feel my pulse quickening. A hot stain of fever was creeping along my cheeks. This was it. This was the moment where I could give my wife permission to have sex with another man.
I looked at her underwear. They were so bad. I thought she should change them just...because they were so bad.
But if I said that, would she take it to mean: go ahead?
But isn't that what I really wanted?
I stood up and moved to the drawer. I found a pair of black underwear, silky and lacy, and I handed them to her.
“You're sure?” she said.
I wasn't. I was. I wanted this, and I didn't.
Which one was pulling on me harder?
I knew that I wanted to say yes. Go ahead. God, I wanted that. But there was something inside me that insisted on telling me that this would change things forever.
That's probably why it was so appealing.
Risking everything.
I moved my head slowly up and down.
She stood close to me, and her lips were next to mine. She placed a hand on the back of my head, and turned on her sultriest voice. “I want to hear you say it, just so there's no confusion.”
The fist that was gripping my insides squeezed hard. I could see now that Laura was all-in, and it was searing hot. But it also troubled me, because it seemed like just hours ago that I had been pondering how I would get her to go all the way.
Did it bother me that she got there by herself?
Should it? Wasn’t the outcome the same, no matter what?
“I want you to wear these black underwear,” I said, noncommittally.
Laura smiled, but she was still wired with the serious tension of sex. “Say it, Conrad.”
Her fingers raked the back of my head, down to my neck. I shivered.
“I want you to do whatever you want to do,” I said, my voice low.
Her eyes fluttered a little, and she moved her hand down my chest. There was a quality to Laura now that was different. Something inside of her that she never had before. Maybe a new-found sense of power, or a self-possession. Her lips moved closer, and she brushed them against mine as her hand stroked my cock through my sweatpants. “What if I want to sit on his lap and watch the dancers?”
“Okay.”
Fuck, she was driving me wild.
“What if I want to kiss him?”
“Fine.”
She drew a bit of my lip into her mouth and nibbled it with her teeth. “What if I can't wait until I get home, and I want to suck his cock?”
“Oh god, Laura.” My cock was so hard that it hurt again, and she was trailing her fingertips over it, through the fabric, only making it harder and teasing me more.
“Well? Do you want me to suck his cock, if that happens?”
I closed my eyes. “Yes.”
We kissed. I pressed up against her, and I moved my hands down to her bare tits.
“Anything else?” she breathed in my ear.
I knew what it was now, Laura knew she had me by the b
alls. That she could wrap me completely around her finger now, with this fantasy. Laura could always have done that, before, she just never seemed to act on it.
“Can I do anything else? Or is that as far as I can go?”
The rush of blood to my cock seemed to have actually robbed my muscles of enough oxygen to move. I sort of felt like I was going to collapse.
“Just that,” I managed to say.
And Laura pushed away from me. “Okay. Get me a sexy bra, then,” she said, and she bent over to slide her underwear on.
I watched her, transfixed. Paralyzed. I watched the black lace as she used her fingers beneath the elastic to smooth out the wrinkles and lay the lace precisely and beautifully against her skin.
I never took the time anymore to appreciate Laura's lingerie. I wondered why. The boy-cut panties framed the delightful tiny round of her belly, the sweet curves of her hips, and her muscular thighs perfectly. In the mirror I could see the fabric, just above the swells of her buttocks, showing them off.
She laughed, and I realized I hadn't fetched her bra from the drawer. She pushed me aside and did it herself, and I watched her put it on, tucking her breasts into the matching lace and satin, plumping them until they were, like her ass, perfectly framed. They were round and seemed fuller.
“I have to hurry. Remember, I'm sneaking around.”
She slipped the dress over her head.
When it was on, the dress clung to her figure. She gave me a whirl.
Then she leaned in to me, and strangely, did not ask for any final confirmation.
“Don't wait up for me,” she said. She grazed my lips with hers.
And then she left, leaving me standing in the room with the most intense hard-on I'd ever had.
I managed to look over my shoulder, out to the street. I saw Laura skipping along. Her feet were bare, she held her shoes – a pair of high, sexy heels – in her hand. She hopped into the car, and Nate, that little wife-stealing shit, drove away without turning on his headlights.
But the joke, I suppose, was on him.
The Hobby Job: A Romantic Wife-Watching Novel Page 13
