Chapter 4

The first light of morning was a pale wash across their bedroom floor, illuminating dust motes dancing in the stillness. Jake lay awake, the cheap fabric of Lily’s discarded Foxhole costume a crimson smear on the armchair. He watched the slow rise and fall of Lily’s bare shoulders under the thin cotton sheet, the curve of her hip a soft shadow. His mind kept replaying her words from the car: “I think I got what I wanted too, Jake.” A cold thrill, sharp and illicit, still pricked at his skin, followed by a queasy lurch. What had he wanted? And what had she truly found in that seedy club, amidst the grasping hands and hungry eyes?

Lily stirred, a sigh whispering from her lips. She stretched, her body arching like a cat, the sheet pulling taut across her small, firm breasts, the nipples clearly defined, puckering for a moment against the fabric. Her eyelids fluttered open, dark lashes against pale skin. She turned her head on the pillow, her gaze, clear and direct, finding his.

“Morning,” she murmured, her voice husky with sleep. A small, knowing smile played at the corners of her mouth. “Sleep well? Or were you too busy dreaming?”

Jake swallowed. “You ... you seemed to handle all that ... attention ... pretty well last night.”

Lily pushed herself up, propping her head on her hand, the sheet falling away to expose one perfect little breast, the areola a perfect pink. She didn’t bother to cover herself. “Handle it?” She chuckled, a low, throaty sound. “Oh, I think I did more than just ‘handle it,’ Jake. There’s something ... powerful, isn’t there? Having all those eyes on you. Feeling them want you. Knowing you can make them practically beg.” Her eyes, dark and luminous, held his. “Especially when they’re all so ... pathetic. Don’t you find that strangely ... exciting?”

He could only nod, his throat dry. The image of her on that tiny stage, her body slick with sweat under the lurid lights, the men’s faces contorted with lust, flashed through his mind.

Lily shifted, the sheet now pooling around her narrow waist, her stomach flat and smooth. “Take Mr. Harrison,” she said, her voice soft, almost conversational, as if discussing the weather. “He could barely string two words together. So flustered. But his hands ... oh, his hands weren’t shy at all when he thought no one was looking.” She tilted her head, watching Jake’s reaction with an almost academic curiosity. “It was ... fascinating. To have that kind of effect on someone. To see that raw need in their eyes. He actually offered me an extra fifty for a ‘private moment’ in the back. Can you believe it? Fifty dollars.” She laughed again, a sound that was both amused and a little cruel.

The air in the room grew thick. Jake could feel the blood pulsing in his temples, a familiar heat spreading through his groin. He watched the slight tremor in her hand as she brushed a strand of dark hair from her face, the way her nipples stayed tight and prominent in the cool morning air. This wasn’t the Lily who feigned reluctance. This was something new, something sharper, something that met his gaze without a flicker of shame.

He reached for her, his hand covering hers. His thumb brushed against her knuckles. He leaned in, intending to kiss her, perhaps to reassert some semblance_of his old dominance, to remind himself this was his wife.

But Lily met his advance with an unnerving readiness. Her lips were soft, yielding, yet there was a new assertiveness in the way she kissed him back, her tongue meeting his with a bold confidence. Her free hand came up, fingers tangling in his hair, not gently, but with a surprising strength, pulling him closer. As their bodies pressed together, she whispered against his mouth, her breath warm, “Show me what you liked so much last night, Jake. Show me what you want to see.” Her hips moved against his, a slow, deliberate grind that was both a promise and a demand. He felt himself responding on a visceral level, his own carefully constructed fantasies being met and then surpassed by her willing, almost predatory, embrace. It was hotter than anything he’d dared imagine, and as she guided his hands to her body, her own touch confident and exploratory on his, a shiver of something akin to fear traced its way down his spine. This wasn’t just his game anymore.

Later that afternoon, the apartment hummed with a deceptive quiet. Sunlight, now angled low, cast long shadows across the living room. Jake sat hunched over his laptop, the glow of the screen reflecting in his glasses. Lily was on the floor a few feet away, moving through a series of slow, deliberate yoga poses. Her thin tank top was damp between her shoulder blades, clinging to the curve of her spine as she arched into a backbend, her small, high buttocks perfectly framed by the tight shorts she wore. Each stretch seemed to accentuate the lean muscle and graceful lines of her dancer’s body.

Jake, under the guise of “TruthSeeker82,” had Barry’s chat window open. He needed to hear it, to taste the sleaze from another man’s perspective.

“Hey BigBear71,” he typed, his fingers flying. “Saw some chatter online about The Foxhole last night. Sounded pretty wild. Heard Lily really brought the house down. You must have had a prime spot for that.”

Barry’s reply was almost instantaneous, laced with his usual brand of crude confidence. “Prime spot? Buddy, I was the damn show she was performing for. That girl knows who really appreciates her. She was practically dripping for me. Not like that useless husband of hers, just standing there with his thumb up his ass.”

A familiar jolt, part shame, part intense excitement, went through Jake. He leaned closer to the screen. “Damn, that’s hot,” he typed. “She always did have a thing for older guys who know what they want. She was even saying this morning how much she loved the way you...” He paused, trying to recall a specific detail from Lily’s earlier, almost nonchalant recounting. “ ... the way you kind of rested your hand on her hip when you were talking to her at the bar, so casually, like you owned the place. She said it was ... bold.”

There was a distinct pause in Barry’s replies. The usual rapid-fire typing ceased. When the next message came through, the tone was different, sharper.

“Funny you should mention that, ‘TruthSeeker’,” Barry typed slowly. “That little detail. Her saying it was ‘bold.’ That’s not something she’d just tell any random fan. That’s ... specific. Like something she’d tell her husband, maybe.”

Jake’s breath caught. He stared at the words.

Barry continued, each word landing like a small, precise stone. “You really enjoyed watching her last night, didn’t you, Jake? Just like you enjoyed watching her dance for me in your apartment. That hidden camera was a neat trick, by the way. A little obvious, but it did the job.”

The room seemed to shrink. Jake could hear the soft sound of Lily’s breathing as she moved through her poses, completely unaware of the digital snare tightening around him. He felt exposed, stripped bare by Barry’s casual, damning observations.

“It’s okay, Jake,” Barry’s next message appeared. “No need to play games with me. I get it. A woman like Lily ... she’s something else. It’s a rush, seeing other men look at her, want her. Watching her bloom under that attention. You like to watch. You like knowing they want her. I saw it all over your face last night, and when she danced for me.”

Jake’s fingers hovered over the keyboard. Deny it? Log off? What was the point? Barry clearly wasn’t guessing.

He finally typed, his own words feeling like a confession. “She ... she really seemed to enjoy the attention last night.”

Barry’s reply was quick, a hint of something new in his tone – not quite camaraderie, more like a predator recognizing a fellow traveler, albeit a more timid one. “She did. And she’s going to enjoy what I’ve got planned for her next even more. I’m thinking of talking to her about a little artistic photoshoot. Very high-end, very exclusive. I’ll run it by her, of course. And don’t you worry, Jake ... I’ll make sure you get your front-row seat. Us guys who truly appreciate a woman like Lily, we need to stick together, right?”

The chat window went quiet. Jake leaned back, a cold sweat on his palms. Barry knew. Not just about the watching, but about him. And he was already planning his next move with Lily. The thin veil of anonymity had been ripped away, and Jake felt a terrifying, undeniable thrill at the raw exposure.

Hours seemed to melt away in a daze of anxiety and illicit anticipation. Jake had tried to work, tried to focus on anything other than Barry’s knowing words and the impending “artistic photoshoot,” but it was useless. Lily, after finishing her yoga and a long, hot shower from which she emerged smelling of lavender and something else, something muskier that was uniquely her, had changed. Now, as the late afternoon sun cast long, lazy stripes across the living room floor, she was draped over the sofa, one long, bare leg dangling over the edge, her foot idly tracing circles in the air. She wore a pair of Jake’s old boxer shorts, faded and soft, that barely covered the curve of her bottom, and a skimpy, bright pink lace bralette that did little to conceal the swell of her breasts or the light pink aureoles that were clearly visible through the delicate fabric. Her dark hair was piled messily on top of her head, loose tendrils clinging to her damp neck. She was scrolling languidly through her phone, a small, contented smile playing on her lips.

Jake sat at the small desk in the corner, pretending to work, but his gaze kept drifting back to her. The way the light caught the fine hairs on her thigh, the gentle jut of her hip bone where the elastic of the boxers dug in slightly, the subtle rise and fall of her chest with each breath. He was still reeling from their intense morning, and from Barry’s blunt, knowing messages. The air in the apartment felt charged, thick with unspoken things.

Suddenly, Lily’s thumb stopped its casual scrolling. Her smile widened, a flicker of something knowing and a little dangerous in her dark eyes.

“Well, well,” she murmured, her voice a low purr. She held up her phone, angling the screen towards Jake. “Look who decided to slide into my DMs.”

Jake leaned forward, squinting at the screen. It was a message from “BigBear71.”

The message read:

“Lily, my little star, it’s Barry. Still buzzing from your incendiary performance at The Foxhole. You have a fire in you, girl. I’ve been thinking ... I have a professional proposition I’d absolutely love to discuss with you. Purely artistic, of course, but with massive potential to showcase your unique ... assets. When can we chat? This could be big for you, sweet thing.”

Lily lowered the phone, her dark eyes gleaming as she looked at Jake. The small, contended smile had transformed into something more predatory, more excited.

“‘My little star’,” she repeated, her voice laced with amusement. “And he wants to discuss a ‘professional proposition’ to showcase my ‘unique assets’.” She stretched again, her back arching, the pink lace of her bralette straining. “Sounds ... promising, doesn’t it, Jake? Barry seems to think I’m quite the commodity.”

Jake watched her, a familiar knot tightening in his stomach – that uncomfortable, thrilling mix of jealousy and arousal. Barry, already making his move. And Lily ... Lily looked anything but displeased.

“Barry?” Jake managed, trying to keep his voice even. “What kind of ‘artistic proposition’ could he possibly have?” He tried to inject a note of skepticism, of husbandly concern, but it sounded weak even to his own ears. He already knew, didn’t he? Barry had all but spelled it out.

Lily swung her legs off the sofa, landing lightly on her feet. She padded over to where Jake sat, the old boxer shorts riding up, revealing the smooth, pale skin of her inner thighs. She leaned against the desk, her hip brushing his arm, the scent of her skin – warm, slightly musky – filling his nostrils. The delicate lace of her bralette was inches from his face.

“I don’t know yet, do I?” she said, her voice a low tease. “But I’m certainly going to find out.” She tapped her phone against his cheek playfully. “He wants to chat.” She paused, a sly, knowing glint entering her eyes that Jake was beginning to recognize. “Maybe this is it, Jake. My ‘big break’,” she said, the slight emphasis on the words making it clear she wasn’t naive about Barry’s true intentions. “Time to move beyond just those little online dance clips, don’t you think? Explore some new ... artistic avenues?” Her eyes, dark and direct, held his, a challenge glinting in their depths. She wasn’t asking for permission, nor was she deluding herself; she was informing him, daring him to object, and perhaps even inviting him to acknowledge the true nature of the “opportunity.”

He looked at her, at the eager anticipation lighting up her face, the way her nipples pressed against the thin lace, hard and prominent. He thought of Barry’s knowing messages, the crude desire in the man’s eyes at the club.

“Well...” Jake began, his voice a little hoarse. “If you think it’s ... worth exploring, Lily ... I suppose you should hear him out. Just ... be smart about it. Don’t let him take advantage.”

Lily’s smile widened, a flash of white teeth against her full lips. It was a smile that held no innocence. “Oh, I’m always smart, Jake,” she purred, leaning closer, her breath warm against his ear. “And I always get what I want.” She straightened up, turning back towards the sofa, her hips swaying with a newfound, almost insolent confidence.

She picked up her phone, her thumbs already flying across the screen. Jake watched as she typed, the faint clicking sounds loud in the quiet room. After a moment, she looked up, a satisfied glint in her eye.

“There,” she said. “Sent. Told him I was ‘intrigued’ and asked when and where he wanted to talk.” She flopped back onto the sofa, stretching out again, one arm thrown above her head, the bralette riding up to reveal the underside of her breast. “Now we just wait for Mr. BigBear71 to set the stage for my grand artistic debut.” She giggled, a low, throaty sound that sent a shiver down Jake’s spine. He felt a sense of inevitability, like being caught in a current, pulling him towards something dark and exhilarating, with Lily at the helm, navigating them both into uncharted, dangerous waters.

The reply from Barry came within the hour. Lily read it aloud, her voice laced with a playful, dramatic flourish. “‘My dearest Lily, your enthusiasm warms this old bear’s heart! Let’s meet tomorrow. The ‘Grindhouse Cafe’ on Elm, say, eleven? It has a certain ... ambiance. And bring your charming husband, Jake. It’s always good to have the supportive spouse present for these initial artistic discussions. Can’t wait to explore the possibilities with you, sweet thing.’”

Lily looked up from her phone, her eyes sparkling. “The Grindhouse Cafe. Sounds ... suitably seedy for an ‘avant-garde’ art project, doesn’t it?” She winked at Jake. “And he wants my ‘charming husband’ there. That’s you, in case you were wondering.”

The Grindhouse Cafe lived up to its name. It was a dim, narrow space, smelling of stale coffee, burnt toast, and a hint of something vaguely chemical, perhaps industrial cleaner. Most of the tables were small, rickety affairs, but Barry, when they arrived the next morning at eleven, was already occupying a booth tucked away in the darkest corner. It was one of those old-fashioned booths with high, dark-stained wooden sides that rose well above seated head height, creating a pocket of relative seclusion. The worn vinyl bench seats were cracked, and the Formica tabletop was scarred with ancient cigarette burns, but it offered a significant degree of privacy, especially for anything happening below table level.

Jake found himself sitting across the wobbly table from Barry. Lily slid in beside Barry on the bench seat, looking radiant and completely out of place in her chosen attire. She’d opted for a thin, white, almost sheer ribbed tank top that clung to every curve of her torso, making it abundantly clear she wore nothing underneath. Her nipples were two distinct, light pink pebbles pressing against the fabric. Her jeans were low-slung and impossibly tight, outlining the swell of her hips and the curve of her backside as she’d walked in, a sight Barry had openly, leeringly appreciated with a low whistle.

Barry, by contrast, looked even more rumpled and greasy than usual, but he had an air of smug importance about him. He’d ordered them all watery coffees – already waiting on the table – and was now beaming at Lily with a proprietary fondness that made Jake’s skin crawl. The high sides of the booth seemed to amplify their hushed voices and create an intimate, almost conspiratorial atmosphere, despite the cafe’s general seediness.

“So, Lily, darling,” Barry began, leaning forward conspiratorially, his large hand resting a little too close to her thigh on the cracked vinyl booth seat, comfortably shielded from casual view by the high side of the booth. “Jake. Glad you could both make it.” He paused, his eyes gleaming with a kind of lecherous enthusiasm. “As I mentioned in my message, I have this idea for a truly ... special project. An artistic photoshoot. Very exclusive, very cutting-edge. We’d feature you, Lily, as the central muse. And it won’t just be me behind the lens; I’ve got a few discerning friends, connoisseurs of beauty and raw talent like yours – Mr. Harrison, for one, and a couple of others – who are very keen to capture your ... essence.”

Lily’s eyes, which had been regarding Barry with a cool, appraising look, suddenly sparked with a new, more intense interest at the mention of multiple men and cameras. A faint flush rose on her cheeks. “A photoshoot?” she repeated, her voice a low, intrigued murmur. “With Mr. Harrison ... and others taking pictures? That sounds ... like quite the audience, Barry.” Her lips curved into a slow, provocative smile. “You think I can handle all that attention?”

Barry practically preened. “Handle it, sweet thing? You were born for it! They’ll be captivated. We all will be.” He then pulled a battered tablet from an equally battered satchel. “To give you a clearer picture of the kind of ... impact we’re aiming for, I’ve put together a few visual references. Just to give you a feel for the kind of ... raw, artistic expression we’re aiming for.”

He tapped the screen, and it flickered to life. Jake leaned in, a knot of dread and sick anticipation coiling in his gut.

Barry angled the tablet primarily towards Lily, though Jake could see the images clearly enough. They were not, by any stretch of the imagination, “art.” They were crude, amateurish photographs, likely pulled from the darkest corners of the internet.

“Alright, so for the first look,” Barry said, his voice taking on a professorial tone that was absurdly at odds with the image on screen. It showed a very young-looking woman, her face pale and wide-eyed, wearing a short, white cotton dress that was soaked through, clinging to her small breasts and revealing the dark smudge of her pubic hair. She looked both terrified and vaguely inviting. “We’re calling this ‘The Innocent Muse.’ See, Lily? The raw purity, the vulnerability. The hint of what’s just beneath the surface. We can even get a little spray bottle on set, for that authentic, dewy, just-emerged-from-the-lake look.”

He swiped to the next image. This one featured a woman in a stark white, oversized man’s dress shirt, unbuttoned almost to the navel. She wore nothing else but a pair of black lace French knickers, stretched taut and high on her hips, revealing a shocking amount of bare skin. Her hair was messy, her lips parted, and she wore a pair of severe librarian glasses pushed down her nose. “This one, Harrison is particularly keen on. ‘Academic Deconstruction,’ he calls it. The intellectual facade, you see, stripped away to reveal the primal desire beneath. He thinks the gallery crowd will eat this up. He mentioned something about the juxtaposition of innocence and ... well, you get the idea.”

Lily’s breath hitched almost imperceptibly. Her own nipples seemed to grow even more prominent under her thin top.

Barry, oblivious or perhaps deliberately ignoring Jake, swiped again. The next image was a jolt of raw sleaze: a woman with heavily made-up eyes and unnaturally blonde hair, poured into a microscopic red vinyl bikini that barely contained her spilling flesh. She was oiled, straddling a large, gleaming motorcycle, her expression a caricature of aggressive, come-fuck-me sexuality. “And then, for a change of pace,” Barry said, a new, guttural excitement in his voice, “we explore ‘Primal Instinct.’ This is about raw, unapologetic female power, Lily. Almost animalistic. We’ll get you some killer thigh-high stiletto boots to go with this. Imagine those long legs of yours wrapped around a machine like that. Pure fire, sweet thing.”

His voice dropped to a near whisper as he swiped to the final image. It was a woman in a black lace bodysuit so sheer it was practically invisible, her body contorted into a pose that left absolutely nothing to the imagination, her legs spread wide, the cheap feather boa she held doing nothing to conceal the explicit view. “And for the grand finale... ‘Nocturne in Lace.’ The mystery of the night, the body as pure form, glimpsed through shadow and texture. We’ll capture your very essence, darling. Every curve, every shadow, a masterpiece of temptation.”

He finally looked up, his eyes, alight with a feverish enthusiasm, fixing on Lily. “So? What do you think, my dear? Inspiring, isn’t it?”

Lily’s gaze remained fixed on the tablet screen for a long moment after Barry finished speaking. The crude images still glowed there – the soaked dress, the splayed lace, the glistening vinyl, the exposed flesh. A faint flush had crept up her neck, staining her cheeks, and her lips were slightly parted, her breathing a little quicker than before. Jake watched her, his own heart hammering against his ribs. He could see the dark points of her nipples straining against the thin white fabric of her tank top, almost vibrating with a suppressed energy.

Finally, she lifted her eyes, not to Jake, but to Barry. A slow, deliberate smile touched her lips. She reached out, her fingers surprisingly steady, and tapped the image of the woman in the red vinyl bikini.

“This one,” she said, her voice a low, husky murmur that seemed to caress the air. “The vinyl. It leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination, does it?” Her eyes, dark and heavy-lidded, met Barry’s. “Very ... direct. I like direct.”

Barry practically purred, leaning even closer, his large frame crowding her in the booth. His knee was pressed firmly against hers now, a deliberate, insistent pressure. “Exactly, sweet thing,” he rasped, his voice thick with desire. “Direct. Just like you. You’d look magnificent in that. Far better than her.” His gaze dropped from her eyes to her mouth, then lingered, hot and possessive, on the swell of her breasts, clearly visible beneath her top. “You have that spark ... that willingness.”

As Barry spoke, his hand, which had been resting on the table near hers, slid casually off the edge, disappearing beneath the worn Formica. Lily’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly, a tiny, sharp intake of breath the only outward sign. But she didn’t pull her leg away from his insistent knee. Jake, transfixed, saw a new light enter her eyes – not fear, but a dawning, almost feral excitement. Barry continued to drone on about “artistic angles” and “capturing raw emotion,” his voice a hypnotic rumble, but his eyes had taken on a glazed, far-away quality, his focus clearly elsewhere.

Under the table, hidden from Jake’s direct view but electrifyingly present in the charged space between them, Barry’s hand found Lily’s. He didn’t just take it; he enveloped it, his large, warm palm closing over her smaller, cooler one. Then, with a surprising gentleness that was almost more shocking than crudeness would have been, he guided her fingers downwards. Jake saw Lily stifle a tiny, almost soundless giggle. Her eyes flicked to Jake for a fraction of a second, a spark of pure, illicit mischief – a shared secret with Barry, flaunted right in her husband’s face – before returning to lock with Barry’s.

Barry pressed her hand against the front of his trousers, against the unmistakable hard ridge of his erection. Through the thin fabric, Lily could feel its heat, its surprising length and thickness. Her fingers, at first tentative, then with a growing, brazen confidence, curled around him. She began to stroke, a slow, deliberate rhythm. Jake could see the subtle movements of her forearm, the slight tensing in her shoulder. Her lips were still slightly parted, a moist sheen on them now, and her breathing was a soft, shallow counterpoint to Barry’s increasingly ragged sighs. He kept talking, his monologue about art becoming more disjointed, punctuated by little gasps and moans he tried to disguise as thoughtful pauses.

Lily, meanwhile, seemed to blossom under the table. Her eyes never left Barry’s, a strange, intense connection forming between them in this illicit, tactile space. The giggling mischief was replaced by a look of focused, almost predatory sensuality. She varied her pace, sometimes slow and teasing, her thumb brushing against the sensitive tip through the fabric, sometimes faster, her grip tightening, milking him with a knowing skill that made Barry squirm in his seat. A sheen of sweat broke out on Barry’s forehead, and his face was flushed a deep, mottled red.

Then, with a subtle shift of her hips and a newfound boldness, Lily, unprompted, took things further. Her small, nimble fingers deftly found the waistband of Barry’s trousers, already loosened from his earlier fumbling. With surprising ease, she slipped her hand inside, past the rough denim and the softer cotton of his underwear, until her warm palm and searching fingers made direct contact with his bare, heated flesh. His cock, already thick and straining against the fabric, now pulsed with an even greater urgency against her skin. She enveloped him, her touch slick with her own faint moisture mingling with his pre-come. Her thumb found the hypersensitive underside of his shaft, stroking with a slow, agonizing pressure, while her fingers wrapped around his full, impressive length, squeezing and releasing in a rhythm that was both exquisitely torturous and unbelievably arousing. Barry let out a muffled groan, his eyes rolling back slightly, his whole body tensing as Lily’s intimate, skillful exploration sent jolts of raw pleasure coursing through him. She wasn’t just stroking him; she was learning him, her touch confident and inquisitive, her small hand a furnace of illicit delight, hidden just inches from Jake’s own oblivious leg.

After what felt like an eternity to Jake, but was probably only a few minutes, Barry, his eyes glazed and his breathing harsh, suddenly broke off his rambling monologue about “composition” and turned his full, dazed attention to Jake. A lewd, triumphant grin stretched across his face.

“Jake, my friend,” he panted, his voice thick and slurred. “You ... you have no idea. Your lovely Lily ... she has the most incredible... touch.” He let out a low groan as Lily, under the table, evidently gave a particularly artful squeeze. “Right now ... under this table ... she’s working absolute magic on me. Such talented ... eager little fingers. You should feel how hard she’s got me. Rock solid. Almost ... almost ready to burst for her, right here.” He chuckled, a wet, self-satisfied sound that echoed obscenely in the quiet cafe. “She’s a natural, this one. A real natural at pleasing a man. Aren’t you, sweet thing?”

Lily slowly, almost languidly, withdrew her hand from beneath the table. Her cheeks were flushed a becoming rose, her lips looked swollen and damp, and her eyes shone with a brazen, almost ecstatic light. There wasn’t a hint of shame or embarrassment in her demeanor, only a kind of radiant, wicked satisfaction.

“Just helping Barry with his ... artistic inspiration, Jake,” she said, her voice a sultry purr. “He seemed a little ... tense.” She gave Barry a sweet, almost innocent smile that was utterly, devastatingly contradicted by the knowing, shared gleam in their eyes.

Jake just stared. His coffee had long gone cold, untouched. The sounds of the cafe – the clinking of cups, the low murmur of other conversations, the hiss of the espresso machine – seemed to recede, replaced by a roaring in his own ears. Barry’s crude, satisfied pronouncements, Lily’s sweet-venom reply, the lingering, musky scent he could now definitely detect clinging to the air around her ... it all coalesced into a suffocating, electrifying reality.

His wife. His beautiful, innocent Lily – or so he had thought – had just given another man, a crude, pathetic man like Barry, a handjob under a cafe table, practically in public, right in front of him. And she hadn’t just done it; she’d reveled in it. The giggling conspiracy, the focused sensuality, the brazen lack of shame in her luminous eyes afterwards.

Barry, still basking in the afterglow, his face slack with pleasure, finally seemed to remember the original purpose of their meeting, beyond his immediate gratification. He straightened up slightly, though his eyes still held a dazed, possessive fondness as they lingered on Lily.