He decided to avoid the two-and-a-half hour speed bump between New York and Boston that they call Connecticut.
She hadn’t said a word since breakfast with Mark and Jill and remained indifferently mute as he entered the Taconic Parkway north—longer ride, better scenery. But since it was late fall, the trees were already bare. The slate gray sky matched his mood.
He wished she would say something.
“You want to stop someplace for coffee, or something?” he ventured.
“No. I’m okay.”
He waited. She gazed straight ahead, silent.
She must want to talk, he thought. He wanted to talk it out, and maybe talk it away. But he didn’t know how to begin. In the cold gray light of that Sunday morning, he could scarcely believe it had happened.
“I guess you’re never too old to surprise yourself,” he said, and gave her a sidelong glance, “especially when you’ve got a good buzz on.”
“Yeah, blame it on the booze,” she said, swiping an errant lock of hair away from her eye and staring down at her lap.
It wasn’t the reaction he’d hoped for, but at least it was something.
“Well, yeah, I was feeling pretty mellow. Weren’t you?”
She looked up, but not at him. “Yeah, I guess I was.”
“I mean, we probably wouldn’t have done it if we weren’t—you know—feeling so good.”
Finally she looked at him, her lower lip forming a mild pout. He didn’t know how to read her expression: regret?
He pressed on. “I don’t know how the conversation turned to fantasies …”
“It was Jill,” she said, “confessing she had a secret crush on you.”
“Oh, yeah. That got Mark talking about sex fantasies.”
She pressed her hands in the soft vice of her thighs. He noticed.
“As buzzed as I was, I still couldn’t believe it when Mark said he’d fantasized about having sex with you. Well—not even that so much—but that he sometimes pretended that Jill was you when they were …”
“Fucking.” She said it matter-of-factly, but pressed her thighs against her hands even tighter.
“Yeah. Poor Jill, I don’t think she was prepared for that.”
“Well, you certainly made it all better for her, didn’t you?”
Her remark struck him like a slap. “What’s that supposed to mean? Jesus, I wasn’t the only one there, you know.”
“I know, I know—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to sound that way.”
He patted her knee below the hem of her skirt. “I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s just—I don’t know—so crazy.”
“Yeah, I guess,” she said, and a faint smile traced her lips. He felt a little better.
“Jess, did it—did it turn you on? You know, knowing Mark wanted to—have you?”
Her lips parted and she seemed to gaze down the highway looking for a signpost to her thoughts.
“Did it turn you on, knowing Jill wanted you?” she replied.
He wanted to say, I asked you first. But, it was too trite. This was important.
“Yeah, sure. I mean, Jill’s a pretty girl. Tell me about some guy who isn’t turned on when a woman says she wants him—any woman. We’re easy, how many times have you told me that?”
She chuckled, but her eyes went to her lap again. “Well, it—it was nice. I mean, we’re married almost ten years, two kids, living the good old domestic life—yeah, I liked knowing a man still desired me.”
He frowned.
He had put another couple of miles behind them when he said, “How in the hell did we end up—you know?”
“It was Jill again. I think—I think it was all about Mark and Jill, and we were just the pawns.”
“Huh?”
“It’s like, I thought she was trying to get back at him, almost like she was daring him when she said ‘Who wants to live their fantasy?'”
His frown deepened. “Yeah, but it isn’t like we put up any resistance.”
She nodded. “No, I guess we didn’t.”
“Mark just took you by the wrist and led you into the bedroom. You didn’t even look back.”
“I—I know. It was just—it was like I was watching myself, like I was watching some other woman let Mark take her into that bedroom.”
“Yeah, well, I followed Jill like a goddamned puppy. When I watched you go with Mark, it was like, okay, I got my own part to play. I suppose that sounds stupid.”
She put her hand on his as he continued to caress her knee.
“There’s a diner up ahead,” he said. “It’ll be the last one before we hit the Thruway and the Mass. Pike. Want to get a bite?”
“Yeah, okay.”
He pulled off the parkway into the diner’s lot. They held hands as they walked from the car. Inside a plus-size red-haired waitress in a red-checkered apron greeted them.
“Hi, folks. Something to drink?”
“Coffee,” they replied in unison.
“Coming up.”
She tossed two menus on the table. He didn’t open his. “I’m just going to have a chicken salad sandwich.”
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
Waiting for their order, they scanned the few customers.
“Do you feel like everyone’s peeking at us?” he asked.
“Jeesh, you too?” she said. “Hey, everyone, check out the swingers.”
He winced. “We are not.”
Then they both tried to suppress a nervous laugh.
“God,” she said. “Are we? It isn’t like we planned it.”
He was about to reply when the waitress brought their food. She gave them both a wink.
“She knows.”
“Stop it!” she said, trying again to suppress a laugh.
They ate quickly and left, glad to be back in the car and the anonymity of the highway. They left the Taconic and entered the short stretch of the New York State Thruway to the turnpike.
“Was it different?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“Was it different—you know—with Mark?”
“Different?”
“You know, than it is with me?”
“Michael, let’s not go there, okay? Don’t ask me how you stack up against Mark.”
“Okay,” he replied, chastened. “It isn’t like I’m asking for a freaking tale-of-the-tape, it’s just …”
“I don’t think I should give you a blow-by-blow … Aw, shit, that didn’t come out right.”
“Did you?”
“Aw, geeze, Michael—Okay, did Jill blow you?”
“Well—yeah, first thing.”
She grinned like she was in on a private joke.
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s just something Jill told me once.”
“What?” he persisted.
“I shouldn’t. You’ll say I’m just being catty.”
“C’mon, what?”
“Well, once Jill told me she had to transfer from the first college she went to because she got to be known all over the campus as ‘cocksucker mouth’.”
“What? Jesus, that’s awful. Poor Jill.”
“What’s with the ‘poor Jill’ again?”
“That sucks. Oops, I mean—stop laughing—that’s a lousy thing. A girl has a talent for oral and she gets branded.”
“Oh, so are you saying she lived up to her reputation?”
“It was—nice.”
“Better than me?”
“Who’s asking for comparisons now?”
Her chin dropped, then she nodded. “Okay, okay, you got me.”
“Jess, it isn’t like I want to know whose dick is bigger. It’s just …”
“What?”
“I heard you.”
“Oh.”
A few more miles passed in silence.
“I—I had never heard you say the things—sound like you did when …” He couldn’t finish.
A knot began to tighten in her stomach as she tried to recall whatever she may have said, cried or moaned that past Saturday night.
She smiled nervously. “Well, Jill was pretty noisy too. I wondered why all the glass in the place didn’t shatter with one of her shrieks.”
He looked straight beyond the windshield and the lightly traveled turnpike. She tried to read his expression: hurt?
“He shouldn’t have called you ‘baby’.”
“Huh?”
“God, Jess, you were crying, moaning. You were amazing. Then he said, ‘Are you my baby?’ And you said—you screamed it out—’Yes!'”
“Oh, Michael. I don’t even remember, I was pretty far gone, I could have said anything. And it wasn’t that it was Mark, it was the whole situation … it wasn’t who I was doing it with, it was what I was doing that was so arousing, that put me over the edge.”
“I understand. It’s just—it hurt. It’s crazy. Christ, I’m listening to my wife get amazingly fucked by another man, and it only bothers me when he calls you, ‘baby’.”
She rested her hand on his thigh. “I heard you too. I could hear your thighs slap against Jill’s ass. I knew you were taking her doggie style. You’re going to think I’m terrible.”
“Huh, why?”
“Cause all the time I’m thinking, ‘Yeah, fuck her, Michael. Fuck the little tramp’s brains out.”
His grin lit up his face. “Huh? You did?”
“I don’t know, I guess I was proud of you somehow. There’s my man giving Jill the best fuck she’s ever had in her life.—See? I told you you’d think I was wicked.”
He shook his head and smiled. “Damn, I was proud of you, too.”
“You were?”
“Jess, I don’t know how to explain this. Hearing you, every cry, every whimper, God, you sounded so—beautiful. I’m thinking, of course men want to fuck her, she’s so sexy and desirable. I’m listening to the most sexually exquisite creature in the world. And then it hits me; he calls you ‘baby’ and you respond. It was like a slap in the face, someone else is screwing my wife.—Well, I guess I took it out on Jill’s ass.”
“So, that’s why she was sitting on the cushion at breakfast.”
“I’m serious, Jess. I know some guys get off on other guys fucking their wives. That’s not what I was feeling though. I don’t want you to think you married some kind of .”
“Don’t say it, because you aren’t, or else we both are.”
The miles passed behind them, along with the exits. They left the pike and were traveling familiar suburban roads.
She leaned over and laid her head on his shoulder. “Let’s never do that ever again. Once is enough.”
“Once is plenty. But, Jess?”
“Yes?”
“Things aren’t going to be different between us now, are they?”
She pressed her cheek against his shoulder. “Yes, I think they are.”
She felt his body tighten. “I’m afraid there are some things I want you to do before we make love again.”
Dread filled his chest. “What?”
“I want you to lick my entire body, right from my toes, and up one side and down the other. And the next time you lick my pussy, I want you to rub your nose over my clit, kinda like you’re giving it Eskimo kisses.”
“Gosh, is that what he …”
“Shhh—is there anything you’d like me to do different to you,” she asked in her best bad-kitty purr, drawing her knees up on the seat and letting her skirt ride up her thighs.
“Uh, yuh,” he said thickly. “Before you blow me, hold my balls tight, kinda like you’ve captured me, and you’re entirely in control.”
He felt his face burn and his pulse drummed in his ears. He could see their driveway and was grateful he wouldn’t have to control the car much longer. He pulled in behind her parents’ car.
She grinned. “Jesus, Michael. I’m soaked.”
“I’m going to burst right out of my fly.”
He leaned over and lifted her t-shirt and sweater over her breasts and hungrily kissed them as she giggled.
Her father stepped onto the porch and quickly retreated back inside.
“Well, is it them? Are they home?” her mother asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll tell the kids.”
“Not yet, they’re not coming right in.”
“What do you mean?”
“Dear, our son-in-law is jumping our little girl’s bones.”
“In the driveway?” she said, holding her palm to her mouth.
Her husband nodded.
“Hmm, do you think we’ll get another grandchild?”
He shrugged.
© 2003 Robert Buckley. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.