I lay back on the bed with my hands behind my head, wearing only my boxers, gazing at my wife through the open bathroom door and feeling generally content. Watching Cindy is always a pleasure, even when she's performing such mundane tasks as brushing her teeth. The way the muscles in her long, tanned legs flex as she rises up on her toes to reach the toothpaste, the way she casually tucks her dark, shiny hair behind an elegant pink ear as she leans over the sink, even the little spitting sounds she makes as she rinses her mouth are a pleasure. For me, anyway.

Finally she came out of the bathroom and, as usual, pretended to notice for the first time that I was staring at her.

"You looking at me?" Cindy likes to do impressions, a habit she picked up from yours truly. Annoyingly, she's now better at them than me. Try to imagine the irate little mobster played by Joe Pesci in 'Goodfellas, ' skillfully interpreted by a willowy brunette wearing revealing silk pajamas:

"You lookin' at me?!"

"Yeah, I'm lookin' at you ... you wanna make something out of it?"

She gave me a smile, the one that never fails to make me feel like a lucky guy. "I guess I'll let it go this time. So how's the writing going? Any response from your latest story?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. Good response."

"I thought so - you're looking awfully happy with yourself over there." She sat on the end of the bed and started brushing her long hair.

"Am I? I thought I was just relaxing. Since you asked, "Adrenaline Games" was rated the #3 story for November by the main reviewer. And I've finally started getting more email from readers."

"Is that right? Any of them like the story?"

"Ha ha. They loved it. One of them even compared me to Poe."

"Poe? Is he the one that writes those long 'Family Fun' stories?"

I sighed and shook my head. "You really have it in for me tonight."

"Poor DG..." Actually, she doesn't really call me DG, I'm inserting my pen name. "In a few minutes you're going to forget every mean thing I just said about you, so I'm taking full advantage."

"Oh? And why is that?" As if I didn't know.

She looked me in the eyes and pouted her full lips. "Because I'm going to come over there and fuck you, that's why." God I love it when she talks dirty.

"Is it the third Tuesday of the month all ready?"

"Hah! If I put you on a once-a-month schedule you'd explode."

"Very true. Getting back to the email, there was one in particular I thought you would find amusing. I even printed it out."

I took a sheet of paper off the nightstand and handed it to her. Here's what it said:

(useless header stuff)

DG:

Just finished your "Adrenaline Games" story, and it really turned me on! I loved the combination of danger and sex - very cool. I think I'm going to have to go into the bedroom and do something to relax myself now ;). By the way, I'm in the sex biz too - I do phone sex on the side.

I would love to get you off on the phone - maybe I can make you as hot as you just made me ... so if you want a freebie, email me and let me know and we can set something up... :)

Desire

I'm not sure if I like to think of myself as being in the "sex biz," but apart from that minor detail this was just the sort of email that warms the heart of a praise-starved hack like myself. I wasn't sure Cindy would enjoy it quite as much, though.

"What kind of name is Desire, anyway?" she asked, somewhat anticlimactically. "Or is it 'Desiray, ' and she can't put the thingy over the 'e' in an email?"

"I'll be sure and ask her," I said casually. Maybe a little too casually.

"You'll do no such thing!"

"If that's your Nicholson impression, it needs work."

"Actually, that was my Lorena Bobbitt impression."

Ouch. "Good one, sweetie."

"Why would you want to have phone sex, anyway? That's for lonely old men and horny college students who can't get a date, not for guys who have a wife who's willing and ready."

"I guess I don't, really," I lied. "I just thought it was a nice email, that's all." I let a tiny note of hurt creep into my voice. "I work hard on my stories, and most of the time I don't get much feedback. I know the writing is supposed to be its own reward, but still, when I get a response like this it makes me feel good. I didn't realize you'd feel threatened by it." Take that, Ms. Bobbitt.

She gritted her teeth for a moment, and then said "Good one, honey." The beauty of the "feeling threatened" remark, of course, was that she couldn't respond to it without making it seem true. "It is a nice email, I suppose. I'm glad people are enjoying your stories, DG."

"Thanks, babe. Can we cleave unto each other now?"

"You betcha!" This was in a perfect Minnesota accent, like in the movie "Fargo." Cindy would make a terrific actress. Of course, in way she already is.

She turned out the overhead light and sensuously stripped off her pajamas. Actually she just took them off, but it seemed pretty damn sensual to me. In the soft light of the reading lamp, I could just make out the tan lines from last summer's bikini - daringly narrow strips of white across her hips and breasts. The lower strip was noticeably whiter than the upper strip. Cindy enjoys flaunting her slim, aerobicized figure, an inclination I heartily approve of.

She set her pajamas aside and crawled up along my body, leaving a trail of warm kisses along my stomach and chest, and then our mouths met in a nice, long toothpaste-minty kiss. As much as I enjoy our little verbal sparring matches, forgiving each other afterward is even better.

She allowed her warm breasts to dangle against my chest, tickling me with her stiff nipples, and I slid my hands up between us and delicately trapped each nipple between a thumb and forefinger, making her gasp and break the kiss.

"Mmmm, that feels good ... harder." I rolled her nipples slowly between my fingers, feeling my cock grow until it was straining inside my cotton shorts.

Cindy would be perfectly happy to have her nipples stimulated indefinitely, and would eventually have an orgasm without my ever touching her below the waist, but I don't have the patience for such nonsense except in special situations, like transatlantic flights. I released one tender little nub and reached down between her legs. She was already moist, and I quickly opened her up and worked my middle finger into her with one confident thrust.

"Well, hello there," she said. "Getting impatient are we?"

I responded by withdrawing the finger and then putting it in my mouth and groaning with exaggerated pleasure. "Delicious ... pure nectar," I said between slurps.

"If you say so," she said, a little doubtfully.

I had a sudden idea. I slid the finger back into her and worked it around to get it good and coated, and then I took it out and put it up to Cindy's lips. She wrinkled her forehead and pulled back a little, but didn't exactly recoil in horror.

"Go ahead - it's yummy."

"You aren't going to put this in a story, are you?"

"Of course not."

She licked the end of my finger tentatively, and I slid it into her mouth before she could change her mind. Good sport that she is, she sucked it clean and then gave me some erotic tongue swirls for good measure.

"Not bad," she concluded.

"Tastes even better right from the source."

"What am I, a contortionist?" I often drop tiny little hints about how Cindy might enjoy an experience with another woman, and she always lets them sail right over her head.

She helped me pull off my boxers, and then she took my swollen shaft in her fist and moved it around in slow, lazy circles.

"I can't wait to feel your cock jammed all the way inside me." Her voice was husky and her cheeks were flushed. She closed her mouth and smiled at me, working her cheeks in and out. Then she put her mouth over my cock and let a mouthful of saliva dribble all over it. She gave it two hard, juicy sucks for good measure, to make sure it was well lubricated. This procedure wasn't really necessary, but who was I to complain?

"There, that should do nicely."

"I'll say."

She straddled me and then impaled herself on my cock with one delicious plunge. Our favorite position is to have her on top. Cindy enjoys the freedom to control the pace and feels like she gets more stimulation, while I enjoy the view of her sexy body gyrating on top of mine. She's a real lightweight, so it's not like I'm in any danger of being crushed.

I never get tired of watching her face while we have sex. I can tell when she first feels the orgasm start to tickle somewhere deep inside her, and I can track its approach by the expression on her face and by the little sounds she makes, which rise in pitch as she gets closer. The arrival is announced by a few seconds of silence, and at this point I usually reach up and squeeze her pretty little breasts, as I did this night.

"Oh, DG..." she said, arching her back to press her breasts more firmly into my hands. Her eyes closed and she ground her hips forward and back, and the climax finally hit. When the huffing and puffing and adorable high-pitched squeaking ended, I was conveniently ready for my own climax, and I slid my hands down to her hips and started really pumping away. Cindy leaned forward and whispered sweet words of encouragement into my ear, and it was all over a short time later.

Afterward, as we lay in each other arms enjoying the afterglow, she said "Did you want to try that phone sex thing? With your adoring fan?"

"Not if it would upset you. I mean, it's no big deal. Like you said, why take a correspondence course when you have an Ivy League college in your bedroom?"

"I don't think those were my exact words, but that was the gist of it."

"Although..."

"Although what?"

"It might be a good research experience for my writing." This was pretty lame, and I didn't really expect it to fly. But she thought about it and then said "Maybe you're right."

"Really? You wouldn't mind?"

She turned her head to look at me, and I caught a whiff of her perfume, or maybe it was her shampoo. Something nice.

"Well, I'd hate to think I was stunting your development as an artist or anything, and I'm kind of curious about this phone sex thing myself. I hear it pays pretty well. Tell you what: why don't you go ahead and do it, and I'll listen in."

"Listen in? But..." I felt like I had been neatly outmaneuvered.

"But what?"

"I don't know ... it would be like I was jerking off in front of you."

She laughed. "So? I've seem you do more embarrassing things than that. Remember the time in Mexico when you ate that bad enchilada, and-"

"OK, never mind, " I said hastily. "I wouldn't really be embarrassed, I guess. But wouldn't it be unfair to Desire to have someone eavesdropping?"

Cindy gave me a withering look, and I gave up.

"OK, OK, you can listen in. But let me warn you, I probably won't even be able to get it up with you hovering over me like the Gestapo." If you can't win on logic, just turn up the rhetoric, that's my motto.

"I'm sure you'll do just fine, honey. Nightie-night."

"Nightie-night."

So that's how I found myself pacing back and forth in the bedroom a few nights later, waiting for the phone to ring. Cindy was sitting in the comfortable French armchair with a slightly amused expression on her face, leafing through a magazine. She was still dressed up from our earlier activities that evening, wearing a short black cocktail dress set off by a strand of natural pearls I gave her for her birthday last year. I was in my boxer shorts again.

At eleven PM sharp the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Hello, is this DG?" The woman's voice was low pitched and had a sort of pleasant hum to it. It made me think of those cat food commercials where the upper-class female cat chows down out of a crystal goblet.

"Yep. You must be Desire."

"Yes, I'm Desire," she said, pronouncing it 'Desiray.' "How's it going? This is kind of unusual, me calling someone else. Usually the customers call me."

"I've never done phone sex before, so it's unusual for me too," I said truthfully. "Are you in an office somewhere or something?"

"Oh no, I'm at home. This is a personal call for me. Just for fun."

"Well, I appreciate it. I've been meaning to do this sometime anyway. You know, for research."

Cindy snorted at this, and then motioned towards the phone.

I said "Desire, do you mind if I put you on speaker?"

"Not at all, honey, not at all. You're going to want to have both hands free."

I punched the button and set the handset down. "Can you hear me OK?"

"Loud and clear. So what's your pleasure, DG?"

"Um, I don't know. What are my options?"

"I try to be a full service phone slut," she said with a chuckle. "Do whatever it takes. Lots of guys want the dominatrix thing these days - they want me to order them around and yell at them and basically humiliate them. That sound interesting?"

"Sounds great, I guess, but I get that sort of thing all the time at home." Cindy gave me the finger, but she was laughing. "How about if you just describe what you would do to me if we were together. You have a very sexy voice, by the way."

"Why thank you. Do you want to know what I'm wearing, what I look like, that sort of thing?"

"Hmmm, I don't know. Do you normally tell the truth about that?"

She chuckled again, a very pleasant sound indeed. "No, but not because I'm ugly or anything. I usually try to get an idea of the guy's preference and then sort of match that. And I always make my clothes sexier than what I'm actually wearing. Not much point in my getting all dolled up for real, is there?"

"For three ninety-nine a minute I would expect spike heels and a leather bikini," I said. "But since this is a freebie why don't you just tell me what you slouch around the house in at night."

"I'm wearing a pair of black cotton sweatpants that are really more like tights, like dancers wear. I used to do ballet, so I got into the habit of wearing them. On top I'm wearing a yellow t-shirt. I'm also wearing matching green bra and panties."

"You wear a bra around the house? That doesn't sound too daring." Desire had a sort of playful lilt to her voice which suggested she wouldn't mind a little teasing.

"Well DG, the thing is, I have these big boobs ... that's why I had to give up the ballet, actually. Too much bouncing. I don't want them to start sagging, so I wear a bra most of the time."

"Fascinating. I really love big breasts..." Cindy, who is barely a b-cup, gave me a dirty look. "Can you tell me a little about the rest of you?"

"Well, let's see. I'm a big girl, five-nine and about one- thirty or so. I work out a lot and I think I have a damn good bod for thirty-three, but I'm not exactly a playboy bunny. My ethnic background is mostly Greek. I have long black hair, and my features are often described as handsome - meaning sort of strong, I guess."

"Like a dominatrix."

"Yeah, I guess, but my personality isn't like that at all. I'm really more of a feminine type, not a ball-buster."

"You sound very nice," I said reassuringly. "Now, how about some sex talk!" Cindy rolled her eyes, and Desire laughed. I think she found me charmingly eccentric or something.

"All right. I want you to take off all your clothes and lie back on the bed, with your eyes closed."

I looked at Cindy and she winked and gave me a thumbs-up. I dropped my shorts and made myself comfy on the bed. I was still a little apprehensive, but I was looking forward to it too. Desire seemed very sexy, and the idea of masturbating in front of Cindy was actually turning me on - I hadn't done that since our honeymoon.