Chapter 3

I suppose I imagined that afterwards, we would engage in some sort of discussion or recap—quiet consultations, maybe, or furtive references, or even just conspiratorial glances ... you know, some acknowledgement of this elephant in the room. So I wasn’t prepared for what did happen, which was that Jennifer acted like nothing had occurred between us at all. I didn’t see her around Feinman for a couple of days, and then when she did drop by my office again (to consult about a mutual student) she left the door open, and shared a few pleasantries and bits of office gossip, just as she might have done a month or a year earlier. I tried to see if I could detect an expectant glow about her, but she just seemed her usual cheerful self. It was almost as if our evening of baby-making had been no more than one of my jerk-off fantasies. Although I was surprised by this radio-silence, it wasn’t a big deal to me. I could comfortably return to the way things were, and I’d always have the memories. I only hoped her behavior didn’t signal regret over what she had done. Still, I didn’t think it was my place to bring the matter up, since she clearly did not want to discuss it. Maybe it was easier for her to handle the whole thing through denial.

So, we continued on this way—chit-chatting before faculty meetings, brainstorming a grant proposal, discussing my kids’ preschool (!) while heating lunch in the department lounge. Yet, as the time since our erotic rendezvous stretched to three weeks, and then four, an itch began to develop in the back of my brain. I found myself trying to juggle two distinct and incompatible ideas. On the one hand, I was resigned to the fact that I would never have the chance to fuck Jennifer again—that either she was pregnant, or had thought better of the experiment, and in any case planned to go on pretending that it had never happened. On the other hand, I also had the feeling that I really ought to start preparing myself for round two, on the off-chance that Jennifer might decide on a repeat performance after all.

In response to this latter idea, I began to ‘save myself’—the better to fill Jen up should the opportunity arise. This wasn’t terribly difficult, since Taylor had recently allowed Maisie to start sleeping in our bed, over my objections. The only tough spot came one Saturday morning when Maisie had gotten up early to play with her Pretty-Ponies, and Taylor initiated some sleepy, half-hearted, and (I presumed) guilt-induced, lovemaking. It was the first time in my life that I’d faked an orgasm, but I guess my performance was credible enough, since she seemed to buy it. I felt a little bad about holding myself back from my wife—certainly it’s not something I could or would have sustained for long—but anyway, I told myself, there was some blame to go around for the state of our sex life.

I also had one other thing in mind, which was a bit more complicated. Although I had lovely images of Jen burned into my memory—her tantalizing honey-dark bush; her body bent over, cunt open, waiting patiently for me to enter; my cock thrusting between her ass cheeks—I wanted something a little more tangible to hang onto. Many years earlier, I’d managed to talk Taylor into recording some action-packed ‘home movies’ and these had been a real consolation during our subsequent dry patches. Drawing inspiration from these, I became determined to record any future tryst with Jen. Not for nefarious purposes, you understand, but just so I could better re-live the experience of penetrating her, fucking her, possessing her, impregnating her, for the rest of my life.

Of course, I supposed that not only would Jen refuse such a request, but it would probably put an end to our liaisons, if not our friendship. So, it would have to be done surreptitiously. This essentially ruled out a hotel room—it would be far too hard to arrange there. No, the only viable place I could think of was my office in Feinman. It wasn’t a four-star hotel, but it was clean, updated, and on the largish-size. I thought it could be pressed into service. I ordered a ‘home security suite’ of high-end wireless nanny-cams, and undertook a quick ‘tidying’ of my office—ensuring, as I did so, that artifacts and personal mementos capable of concealing a camera were positioned in strategic locations around the room.

Preparations made, all I could do was wait and see what would happen next. Probably nothing, I thought.

Then Thursday rolled around, on the fourth week since I’d fucked Jennifer. Thursdays were my busy days, and I had been dashing around campus from 8 to 5, classes to meetings to consultations. I had just locked up the center and was heading home for the day when Jen intercepted me in the hall. Her movements had a furtive overtone, and she wore a flustered expression on her face—obviously she’d been waiting to catch me. Pulling me aside, she addressed me with a low, insistent tone, speaking close to my ear. “James,” she rasped, “I’ve been looking everywhere for you today. You haven’t been in your office ... I took a pregnancy test, and got a negative reading. This is our window to try again.”

Hmm, that was interesting. I, as you know, had been horny for a second encounter with Jen for some days now, and had taken preparations accordingly. Yet, at the same time, even if we were fated to fuck again, I had not seriously expected her to summon me this soon. My logic went as follows: I knew over-the-counter pregnancy tests had come a long way, but I was pretty sure that they still couldn’t be considered truly definitive after just three or four weeks. Ergo, Jennifer would err on the side of caution and wait for another full ovulation cycle, and a conclusive reading, before deciding her next move. To expect her to come calling after only four weeks was mere wishful thinking. (Not that I wasn’t wishing!)

And yet now, here she was. She’d thought there was enough chance that she was pregnant to take the test. It had given a negative indicator, but surely one that was subject to doubt. Even so, she had decided to open up her body to me again. Now, whether this meant she was trying to maximize the chance of fertilization, above all other considerations, or whether some part of her secretly embraced the notion of another round of sex with me, I truly could not guess. But either way, this married woman was inviting me to fuck her, despite the fact that it might very well be redundant—inviting me to fuck her, even though she had no idea whether it was really necessary. I found this a pleasing thought.

“So, same plan—tomorrow night?” she continued.

I matched her low tone of voice, but tried to maintain a more relaxed posture and demeanor, to avoid raising the suspicions of any faculty or staff passing by. I had already prepared my story, of course. “Um, I think we’d better change things up a bit. For one thing, there aren’t any evening events scheduled for tomorrow. So we need to think about the timing. But the other thing we need to consider is the paper trail. One hotel bill can be explained—I could say I paid for the visiting speaker and the department was reimbursing me. But if someone [meaning Taylor] were to notice a pattern on the credit-card statements, that could be a disaster.”

“OK ... so, what are you suggesting?,” she asked cautiously. “That I should pay this time?”

“No, I think we need to take hotel bills out of the equation altogether. I think we should meet in my office tomorrow afternoon.”

This took her aback. She gave me a quizzical look, speaking quietly but intently. “But that’s much more dangerous—surely we’d be caught!”

She wasn’t entirely wrong on this point; and, to be honest, it made the notion of fucking her in my office even more appealing. It was conceivable that we could get caught—that someone might hear us banging and know that I’d made a conquest right in my office; that someone might make out, dimly, the lines of her naked body as it pressed up against the frosted glass of the door; that someone might open the door and find her on hands and knees, tits a-dangle, peering up through tousled hair, while I kneeled behind her bare ass, cock buried in her cunt—and that possibility made me red-hot. In truth, there probably were twenty people with a master key, any one of whom might choose that moment to drop off some paperwork, or deliver a package for the center, or simply check up on odd noises in my office. With all that being said, however, I didn’t actually want to be compromised that way either, not for real, and I believed the chances of it happening were low.