Chapter 2

The next three weeks were perfectly normal. We slipped back into our normal lives as if nothing had ever happened — almost. I cleaned my laptop of all of the stories I had collected. I wiped my links to story sites. I cleared the alt. newsgroups out of my news reader. And I stopped going to my home office and surfing while Suze fixed dinner.

The first couple of times we made love were a little awkward and stiff. We were both pretty tentative. But we seemed to get over it and our love life went back to normal. Once in a while, the memory scrapbook I had of the our anniversary would open up. Sometimes it spurred me on and charged our sexual play a little extra. Other times, it hit me like a sack of cement., forcing me to struggle to finish the act. Things seemed to be settling down, though, and I was happy that our anniversary nightmare didn't look like it would have a lasting negative affect on our lives.

Then, three weeks to the day after our anniversary, I got an e-mail from Suzanne directing me to meet her at the bar of the Hilton after work. I tried calling her but only reached her voicemail. My mind raced. I didn't know what was going on. It seemed like everything at work conspired to keep me late, but in reality I was out the door a bit early.

When I got to the Hilton I found Suze in the same seat she had been in before. She was in the black dress and looking great again. This time, though, she was alone and drinking water. She kissed me and ordered water for me as I sat down.

With a fair amount of trepidation and a bit of a shake in my voice, I asked, "What's up?"

She melted my heart with a smile. "I thought I'd give us a mulligan on our anniversary. Not so much to drink and no funny business this time, though."

Relief flooded through me. "You mean... I mean... another night out and then finish back here?" I asked.

"Back here alone together," she replied brightly.

I drank my water and smiled.

Dinner and dancing were great. We laughed and talked and had a merry time. We were dancing one last dance before heading to the hotel when Suzanne lifted her head from my chest and said, "I'd like you to do something for me, honey."

I held her close and murmured, " Anything, angel."

"When we get back to the hotel I'd like you to be more... in charge. "

"Huh?" I didn't understand.

"When we get back to the room I want you to be more forceful with me. Make me satisfy you. I'd like that." As she whispered in my ear, she pressed her body closer. I felt her rub against me.

I was paralyzed. On one hand, this was pretty much the type of behavior and play fun I had hoped for when I started it. On the other hand, it was John who had been 'in charge', not me. I wasn't sure how comfortable I was with taking charge. After a moment of thought, however, I decided to do as Suze asked. I didn't want to throw cold water on a happy time together, and besides, this might turn out to be fun.

"Ok, baby. I can do that," I told her.

It is too embarrassing to relate all the details of what happened when I tried to play the dominant hand. I turned into a robotic moron. I was so clumsy that I even accidentally elbowed Suze in the ear. When she suggested I hold her hair and force her to go down on my I kept pulling her off of me and checking to see that she was ok. I felt silly the whole time, and I could see the frustration building in Suzanne.

After a while, she said "You know what? Lets just make love. These games are pretty silly."

This was better. I made passionate love to my wife for the next two hours. I stroked, licked, and caressed her beautiful body. I kissed her and cherished her. It was sweet, hot, romantic sex. We both had orgasms. We were both sweaty and tired by the end. We fell asleep tangled in the sheets and each other.

Waking in the morning was the opposite of my post-anniversary morning. I was recharge, happy, and physically sated. I popped through a shower and ordered breakfast. Then I woke my sweetheart with a kiss on the cheek. She woke with a smile and a stretch. I told her, "Breakfast is on the way! Get it together or you'll miss out."

Room service had just left when she joined me at the table. "You are certainly chipper this morning." She said reaching for her juice.

"Yep. Last night was super. At least... most of it was." I felt myself blush. "I had a great time with you last night. Dinner, dancing, and sweet lovemaking in the moonlight..."

Suzanne smiled at me around a bite of croissant. "Yes. It was nice. You are the sweetest, kindest, most considerate lover I could ever imagine."

Something jarred in me. She had just given me an incredible compliment. I could see the love her eyes when she said it. Yet — there was something there that was off. There was nothing that anyone who didn't know her intimately would have even suspected, but there was something that told me that what she said wasn't the whole story. It was almost as if there was a telepathic "but..." on the end of her last sentence. I gave her a quizzical look, trying to draw out the rest of the story without actually saying something to her.

She concentrated on her food in reply. I let the silence hang.

"You know..." she began, " last time. I mean when we... were here before?" She paused looking for my understanding.

I nodded to her and thought, 'yeah when you were abused and fucked like a slut off the street.'

"Well there were aspects of what we did... what I did that night that were satisfying. Something that night filled a need or desire in me that I didn't even know I had."

I nodded again, feeling anguished. This morning was the opposite of my last wake up here. Last time I woke up miserable and things got better. This time it looked like my life was circling the bottom of the bowl. I prepared myself to hear Suzanne tell me she didn't want me anymore and that she was leaving me.

"Not just the sex," she continued, "the whole experience was so intense. I can't begin to describe how enormous it all was for me. I discovered something in me that is powerful. It draws me. And then... well... last night kind of proved my fears. "

"What?" I asked.

"Rich, you are so sweet natured, so kind and caring that it isn't in you to be forceful or controlling. I love our sex and love together and never want to be without you, our love, or even the sweet loving we share. But there are things I've discovered I desire that I just can't imagine you doing. These things... I'm afraid that if I don't explore them somehow, they will build up. Unanswered, they will build up and eventually poison our lives together. I don't want that... I haven't thought about anything but that night and us since that night three weeks ago. I feel something building in me that I have to respond to."

"Okay, I think I hear what you are saying. But, where are you going with this? What do you mean?"

She took a breath, then looked me in the eye, "That night, before he left, John and I exchanged e-mail addresses. He will be back in town next week and I want to see him."

"I don't want to see that person again," I said as forcefully as I was capable. "I can't go through that again. I don't want it."

"I didn't say that I wanted US to see him."

My jaw dropped. "You mean you want to have an affair?"

"No. I don't want to do anything behind your back. I want your permission to explore this side of me. It is something I feel a strong compulsion to try. I know you care fore me and want me to be fulfilled. I'll share it with you in any way you want. If there were some way you could give me... some way it was within you to be less sweet and loving and more in control... then I wouldn't ask this of you. You can come watch, participate, stay home and I'll tell you all the details. Whatever makes you happy."

I felt like I was driving a car going downhill on an icy street, I was trying to get a little control or slow down, but inertia and gravity just kept sliding me along — no matter how hard I stood on the brakes. Looking back, I think I started down the hill the day I opened that first newsgroup story. Somewhere along the line, right about the moment we let John in our hotel room, all control was lost.

"Look, I know I encouraged the dress up in public stuff, but I never wanted any of the other. I don't want it. I don't like it. I'm not some kind of twisted perv that wants that sort of thing." As I said that I flashed on all the stories I had read over the internet. They had excited me. I had been excited most of the time with John. It was in the cold light of morning that I wasn't excited by the reality of doing stuff with others, but I wasn't about to admit any of that to Suzanne.

"But, what if I am?" She asked me.

That kicked off an argument that lasted for hours. We both reasoned, yelled, cried, and shouted. It didn't get us anywhere. I expressed the opinion that what had happened was a terrible mistake that should be spackled over, painted, and forgotten. Suze was positive that not investigating what she felt would cause her desires and interest to fester and would eventually ruin us. It didn't help when I said it would surely ruin us now by doing what she wanted or it might ruin us later if we didn't. Finally, we dropped it when checkout time approached.

That evening at home, after tucking in our daughter, we sat at the table, shared a glass of wine, and tried to talk some more. We had had a few hours to calm down and think.

"I'd like to set a baseline," I started. "I love you and want to share my life with you. I am pretty sure you feel the same way."

"Yes. I never want to lose you or us. No matter what."

Okay then, I guess the next thing is how do we not damage that and still find a way to accommodate or eliminate these strong feelings you have..."

"I don't think it is quite so simple. I don't think this is something that can just be switched off. What I felt, physically and emotionally, that night was so intense, so deep, that I can't begin to tell you. "

"Do you mean..." I bit off the rest of the sentence, but it echoed in my head 'his cock so deep in you, or your tongue so deep in his ass?' "Never mind. I'll just accept that you have a need to explore this thing — okay?"

"Okay. It isn't that I don't want you. It isn't that our sex life isn't good. It is something different — separate — from all of that..."

I sighed. This was painful. "What if I try to learn to fill that role?"

She was shaking her head as I said it. "We tried last night. I think we both agree that it is something completely contradictory to your personality."

"Maybe I can learn..." I started.

"No. I've been thinking a lot about this. Not only is it not in you to do it, I don't think it is within us for you to pretend or act that way. I don't think either of us can put ourselves out of the roles we have with each other. I couldn't... let go... like that with you even if you could act that way convincingly. You are the love of my life, my life partner — not my..." she blushed and looked into her wineglass, "... master."

An icy blade through my stomach wouldn't have felt worse. I was speechless for a minute. The silence that hung between us seemed to have physical weight. Finally, I said, "I don't think I can be part of anything like... that."

"I know."

"But I know you need to explore your feelings. I think I understand what you said about them festering if we ignored them."

"So... what do we do?"

I spoke without thinking, "I don't want to see it, hear about it, know about it, anything — at least not until I hear from you that it is over. I won't stop you or leave you. I don't want our normal lives disrupted or destroyed. As far as I'm concerned, this whole thing can just cease to exist."

She may be shy, but she wasn't stupid. She saw what I was offering in my desperation. She even made it better. "Okay honey. I can do that. And in six months, we'll talk again. Maybe by then I will have exorcised whatever this is."

"Fine," I looked at her. "Nothing happened. Nothing will happen."

She stood and poured us more to drink. With and ironic smile she gently said "Don't ask, don't tell," then she left the room.

Denial is a powerful thing. It works for me. In the week after that discussion, life went back to normal for me. My loving wife seemed unchanged. My daily routine was comfortable and unchanged. Even our sex life was pretty much unchanged. Sex was a mutual expression of love. Aside from an occasional gut plunging frisson of something running through me over the reality of things, it felt like that whole episode had been a bad or at least a very weird dream.

Then, Friday afternoon, Suzanne called me at work. "Hi honey. I wanted to let you know that going out with some of the others from work tonight, I'll probably be pretty late."

I was frozen. What did the call mean? Was she going out on one of those team building dinner celebration things they did all the time in her office — or was this something else? "Uhh... What's up?" I asked. Then I slapped my forehead. I really didn't want to ask that question.

She was quiet for a moment, then said, "Oh, you know, just one of those things. I can tell you where if you want to ask."

"No, no. Have fun. And don't let the office rah rah stuff get to you."

I listened to the phone hiss for another second, then she said, "Right. They can get carried away..."

We were mutually building (or maintaining) a delicate alternate reality for me. I tried to grab hold of it and shut out the rest. I tried to convince myself that the feeling deep in my chest was just the result of one cup of coffee too many today.

I couldn't concentrate that afternoon at work. Eventually I gave up and headed home. I stopped to pick our daughter, Kim, up from the neighbor she stayed with when Suzanne couldn't be home in the afternoon. Kim and her friend Jenny, her 'best friend in the whole world', were deep into playing an old board game. Jenny's mom and I were hit with a double barreled ten year old sleepover request... I was thankful that it was okay with Jenny's mom. I really wasn't up to playing Mr. Mom that evening.

Once home I dropped the mail off on my desk and checked my home e-mail. Nothing exciting there - just penis extensions and Viagra deals. Then I did it. I went to one of the adult stories sites that I hadn't visited since our anniversary night a month ago. I reread some of my old favorite stories. Then, I had an idea. I found an old back up DVD of my data. Stashed away on it were all of the saved stories that I had deleted off of my hard drive. I restored them and spent the next hour reading about wives having sex outside of their marriage.

My cock was hard and I was extremely excited at what I was reading. Then I sat back and let that alternate reality collapse. I knew down deep inside that there was no team building thing that would keep Suze out tonight. Tonight was one month to the day since our anniversary. John said he came to town once a month for business. Suze had to be with him right now. I flipped through my memories of the scene in our hotel room on our anniversary. I wondered what they were doing at that very moment. I imagined Suzanne with her legs spread and his fingers deep in her pussy. That is all it took — I came all over myself. Surprisingly, my orgasm didn't relax the tension of excitement in me. I cleaned up and looked at my watch. It was only 6:30. I'd forgotten that I'd left work so early. Maybe they weren't together right now.

I was in a thrall to the sexual tension. The stories had wound me up. All the negative feelings I had about Suze being with John seemed to be burned away by the lust I was feeling. What was left was a burning curiosity combined with a slightly sick feeling of fear. I don't really understand how I can feel so strongly against something and be attracted to it at the same time. Maybe I'm just self destructive and plain nuts. The more I thought about Suze and what she would be doing, the more excited I became. Finally, I just gave in to it completely. I hopped in the car and made tracks for the hotel. I hoped that they would be meeting there.

As I drove I wondered about what they would be doing later. Would it be a full out B&D thing with black leather, whips, and torture? Would he make her do some of the unspeakably nasty things I had read about in the newsgroups? Would she be reluctant or eager? What if she got scared and wanted to stop — would he respect that? Mostly, though I had a picture of Suzanne straddling his hips, riding his cock like a PBR cowboy on a bull. My cock was hard at the thought. My heart was sick at it, but it wasn't in charge at the moment. That part of me was packed off in a compartment... effectively walled off by lust.

I hesitated at the door from the parking garage into the lobby. I had to be careful to not be seen by Suzanne. The potential for misunderstanding, difficult explanations, and severe marital strife was too high. I peeked around the lobby and only saw the normal to and fro of the hotel guests. I went in to the little sundries/news stand. From there, I could see across the lobby and into the bar. Under the guise of looking through the books and magazines in the rack, I searched for my wife. It was almost seven and my guess was that they would meet here at the same time and place as before.

I was right — at least, I was partially right. John strolled through the lobby and into the bar. My stomach lurched at the sight of him. I watched as he sat on a bar stool and turned to survey the crowd in the bar. He looked completely at ease and was completely self possessed. His relaxed confidence showed in every move he made.

Then I saw her! Suze came in from the parking garage and crossed the lobby and entered the ladies room. She wasn't wearing what she had on when she left for work. This new outfit was, especially for Suze, pretty outrageous. It was like an outfit on one of the girls in an old Robert Palmer video. Short skirt, dark stockings, silky top. Wow! She looked like a Hollywood star out for a night of being chased by paparazzi. When she came out of the ladies room, she looked even more so. She'd pulled her hair back and put on some pretty heavy makeup. She looked ready to play.

Except... I saw her pause before she turned the corner to go into the bar. One hand was on the wall for support, the other arm crossed her body. He posture changed. She looked like she had just discovered she was naked. She looked around a moment. I could see incipient panic on her face. Then, she looked down and I could see her drawing deep breaths. She was either girding herself for the upcoming evening or preparing to back out. Maybe she was doing some of both. I was pulling for her to head back to the garage.