His name was Jack.

It might as well have been Joe, for he knew he was average. He also knew that this gave him two options in life. One was to regret he was average. That he was not the proverbial tall, dark and handsome stud, turning female heads wherever he went. The other option was to be thankful that he wasn't fat, short, bald and ugly.

He was Jack Mumsford, a mildly attractive man of 36 with a full head of dirty blonde hair. He had calm gray eyes, a stature of almost six feet and a trim body. He kept in shape by running a lot. He also refused to eat fatty foods or drink six-packs of beer while watching TV.

For a job, Jack Mumsford was a bean-counter.

He was good at that. He also hardly ever said no to a task given. Because of that Jack was averagely successful. He made averagely good money, so he could live in an averagely decent neighborhood.

But Jack lived in a well-to-do neighborhood.

He lived in a huge home built with tasteful and expensive architecture in an affluent neighborhood. It had a magnificent garden, a swimming pool and two BMW's. That was mostly because Jack had Suzanna Lyndon. She was his very successful wife. She owned a travel agency with branches throughout the state, and beyond.

Jack loved Suzanna. He loved her just as much now as he did ten years ago, when they first met at her travel agency. (It was quite a bit smaller back then. And not hers yet.)

Jack was also sure that Suzanna loved him as much now as she did when they married, eight years ago.

Suzanna was his love.

He usually called her Sue. Most people did. She was 33 and looked as successful as she was. She stood only two inches shy of Jack's six feet and wore her blonde hair up to emphasize her height. She had a good body, which she most often kept concealed in stern business suits. But she couldn't hide her glorious legs, even when she refused to let her knees escape the hem of her skirts. She also always wore heels. Let's say that she loved 'striving upwards.'

Suzanna was a decent, modest, hardworking professional. And that is exactly how she wanted the world to see her.

There were days - or more precisely nights — when Jack would have wished Sue looked less decent. Maybe she could look a bit more like the women in his fantasies. But Sue called those women sluts, on the rare occasions they met one.

Thank God, Sue was a good bit less decent in bed. Though they never did experiment a lot, she was quite passionate. She had no trouble achieving orgasms. And she usually got Jack off in the most satisfying ways.

Jack and Sue had no children.

I would love to have said, no children yet, but that would be cruel. Suzanna couldn't conceive. A few rather upsetting test results in their fourth year of marriage had closed that future for them.

They'd had a bad time for a while.

There had been crying. There even had been accusations. But they came out of the crisis stronger. At least that's what they loved to tell each other and their friends. Out of loyalty, Jack had even offered to have his tubes cut. Sue had said he shouldn't be ridiculous. Which Jack didn't feel he was at the time.

But anyway, that was all in the past now.

Ever since that sad time Sue had dedicated herself to the art of climbing. So had Jack, though with less adventurous strides. They had become a hard working, socially active couple. Especially Sue. She believed strongly in building an ever-growing network of friends and acquaintances. Their lovely house, garden and pool were hardly a weekend without guests. Except when Sue was away for business, of course.

Lately, business seemed to take her away more often. In fact she was gone at least one weekend out of every month. Sometimes more. On weekdays she often visited her growing branches as they multiplied throughout the state. And beyond.

She never invited Jack to accompany her.

Not that he hadn't asked her to. He had dropped hints, for sure. Especially when she started going away during weekends. When she didn't seem to pick up on them, he dropped his efforts. It hurt, yes. But he had his pride, he told himself. He wouldn't embarrass her or himself by begging. He started taking up golf and went fishing with colleagues. But he only discovered that he hated both activities. And some of his colleagues.

Lying in his bed on Friday and Saturday nights, he didn't like it one bit being there alone.

He asked himself if people who loved each other so much should be apart so often. And why. He asked himself if Sue would feel as alone as he did. He also asked himself how mere job-satisfaction could beat being in the arms of the one you love.

When in the end sleep refused to come, he went to his den. He poured a brandy and asked himself if he was a fool.

Jack did that many weekends.

Then he realized he was indeed a fool. So he confronted Sue. She shrugged and told him she didn't like it any more than he did. She also let her well-manicured hand flutter around her. She asked him if he thought this house in this neighborhood could be financed by love alone.

He watched her carefully. Maybe he hadn't looked into those eyes close enough lately. But he knew they had changed. They were as calm, clear and blue as ever, but colder. There was a steely sparkle in them. They had definitely changed. And so had the lines at the corners of her immaculately painted lips.

He dropped the subject. She didn't seem to mind. That night they skipped lovemaking. It was the first time they did that on the nights Sue returned from being away.

She told him she had a headache.

The bar was filling up nicely.

Jack nursed his scotch. He looked around. Sitting in hotel bars, watching people was a nice pastime, he thought. Have a good meal as a foundation. Then a slow sip for an hour. Carry on some light conversation with other guests. Who knows where it might take you.

Jack didn't have a job that took him out of town often. To be sure, it had been over a year, not considering the occasional seminar. But those had mostly been in his hometown.

This trip didn't amount to much, time wise. He'd had to visit a client three towns over. He could have dealt with it on the phone. He also might as well have driven back after the meeting. But lying on top of Sue's vanity he had found a little matchbook that told him he might as well book into a certain hotel for the night.

Ah, and yes, Sue was out of town, this weekend. So what was the point in going home?

The man next to him had an opinion on baseball that wasn't his. He knew they'd never agree, but the disagreement was pleasant enough. He even got in so deep, that he didn't see the woman enter.

He must have been the only one to miss her coming in. She certainly wasn't the type to walk into a bar unnoticed. The man he talked to looked over his shoulder with widening eyes. That was when he first noticed something was going on at all. He turned on his stool and saw her through a throng of beer drinkers.

Stunning is a word.

So are sexy, hot and outrageous. The woman was all of that. She walked in a halo of red curls that danced on her bare shoulders. It was an erotic little dance they shared with her tits. They bounced with every step, not hampered by a bra and hardly by the flimsy dress she wore.

The dress was a shining green satin-silk. It highlighted the curves of her body, before spectacularly ending halfway down her thighs. Thighs that belonged to legs that seemed to go on forever. Until they ended in stiletto heels bound to her feet with just narrow straps and laces.

"A whoring slut," Sue would have said. He guessed she was right in this case. Deliciously right.

The woman winked at the barman.

Then she went over to a couple of young men. She kissed them long and easy on their mouths. Her laugh was deep and throaty. She soon had a glass of champagne in her hand and a male hand up her dress.

"Isn't she something?" the man next to Jack hissed.

Jack had to agree.

"Is she a hooker?" he asked.

"Guess not," the man said. "Seems she is just another hotel guest. I hear she is a regular, though. I saw her here before."

The woman by now had two sets of hands all over her body. Jack had the impression a lot happened below bar level, but she didn't seem to protest.

He felt his cock swell. It shrunk his pants.

Damn, she was sexy as hell. He envied the guys feeling her up. Or should he call it plain jealousy? It made him a pimple-faced teenager again. He remembered ogling the prettier girls in high school, knowing they would never notice him.

They never did.

To be sure, there had not been a truly sexy girl in his life until Suzanna. And he'd never understood why she had been even interested. Oh yes, he had grown up in the meantime. He didn't even look bad anymore. He remembered the last school reunion. With quite some satisfaction he had watched the bald heads and potbellies of the once awesome jocks.

It had made him smile. But the insecurity had never left him. It was like wearing this mystic cap. The one that renders you invisible. He owned it. And nobody seemed eager to steal or buy it from him.

But Suzanna had looked right through it.

She'd struck him dumb when she started talking to him that time at the travel agency. It had felt agonizingly awkward, just like it always did. He just could not believe what happened. Not even that it happened.

Not to him, surely.

At first he felt all elbows and knees, big feet and giant ears. But that passed. To his amazement it passed. And what was left was a weightless, blissful feeling of freedom. He had started talking and she had laughed at his little jokes. Even the ones he usually had to appreciate on his own.

Damn, then he had asked her out. Just like that.

And she hadn't said, "Yes." She had said, "Oh yes! I'd love to!"

She had certainly loved it. And God, had she loved him. She made him feel ten feet tall. The world was his. It was a feeling to last a lifetime for sure. Well... ten years at least. Or maybe less?

Tonight the feeling of loss returned to Jack.

It had announced itself often this past year. It had whispered in his ear when he was alone at home. It had yawned at him when he waited for a phone call that might come. And so often didn't.

Of late the feeling had even been there when she was around.

She had allowed the magic cap to come home. Her eyes had turned annoyed and indifferent. Of all people she - the woman who had once torn the cap off his face and saved him — had rendered him invisible again.

He stopped musing and looked up. He noted that the woman had left. So had the two young men. He cranked his head and saw them at the elevators. Two huge hands were on her tight and shining ass.

He heard a giggle.

"God, she's hot," the man next to him said.

"I know," Jack answered and asked the man what he wanted to drink. Then he tried to get the barman's attention.

It took him a while.

Time did what time does best: it moved on.

For Jack the swiping hand seemed only to erode. It never restored what he was losing. Sue was away from home more and more. Sometimes she didn't even bother to tell him anymore. And if she called, it was for practical reasons. Reasons that always were for her benefit only. Like finding forgotten papers. Or looking up a telephone number.

One day Jack had asked her if she wanted a divorce. She had first looked shocked. Then she had laughed. What a silly notion, honey. Why? Wasn't their life perfect? And besides, she didn't have time to discuss it now. She had to leave for another branch visit. We'll talk later, sweetie. Peck on your cheek. See ya!

The next weekend she was away, Jack thought about the woman in silk. That wasn't surprising. He had never stopped thinking about her. Neither had his cock. At least once everyday it had found its five-fingered lover and throbbed to the feverish images Jack painted on the bathroom tiles.

He saw her exposed tits bounce under a sea of red curls. He saw the hard nipples push through the shining satin. He saw the large male hands on her ass. He saw her mouth gasp in ecstasy as he felt the boiling semen soar through his shaft. It splashed against the shining wall.

That Friday night he once more sat at the bar in the hotel three towns over. It wasn't as busy as it had been the first time. There was the same bartender. He also recognized a few of the visitors. The two young men who had gotten lucky last time, weren't among them. Nor was the guy he had discussed baseball with.

It got late.

His head started buzzing with the mellowing effects of his three whiskeys. He had spread them as thin as he could, and when he started sipping his fourth, he knew it ought to be his last.

The bar was almost empty by now. The barman had started cleaning up in the way barmen do when they think you should finish your drink and leave.

Jack sensed her perfume before he saw her.

It was a sweet, rich scent. It made his nostrils flare, and his cock stir. He also heard her. The metallic clicking of her heels.

"Hi, darling. All alone?"

Her voice was as deep and dreamy as he remembered. It swam in a pool of breath. It made the little hairs on his neck rise.

Long fingers touched his hand that hugged the glass. The nails were a deep shining red. He looked up and straight into her green eyes. She was so close that her riot of red curls almost caressed his face.

She chuckled.

"I saw you last time, you know? Thought I didn't? I did. I remember how your eyes almost popped out to roll down the counter."

Her fingers made a merry trip down the bar and over it. When she did she laughed and leant forward. Her tits were as creamy and exposed as in his loneliest dreams. They pressed against a tight little black dress with flimsy spaghetti laces. Her mini-skirt crept up when she slid on the stool. Her legs never ended.

With a shock he realized this wasn't a dream. He struggled himself free from the buzzing clouds and asked her what she'd like to drink.

She laughed.

"The usual would be fine, darling," she said.

She had found a little round mirror in her tiny purse and started inspecting her immaculate lips. One long fingernail pushed a delicious dent in the silk pillow of her lower lip.

"That, eh, would be champagne, I guess?"

He didn't even have to lift a finger to get the order across. The sparkling wine was there in a flash.

"You here often, honey?" she asked, putting away the mirror.

"Now and again," he said. "Business, mostly."

He liked the sound of that. She had taken the slender stem of her glass and sipped the bubbly wine. Her lip left a half moon of dark red on the crystal rim.

She asked him what business he was in, so he told her. She seemed interested. She kept asking and commenting. It had been such a long time since anyone had been interested in his life. It made him hesitate. Was she pulling his leg?

She seemed interested, though. She really saw him. Her green eyes were alive. They were as alive as he had seen only once before. And that was a long time ago. Her mouth laughed an easy smile.

And she did it at all the right moments.

She also was very physical. She touched him at every opportunity. She touched his hands, his shoulder, even his face to remove an invisible hair. And once she touched his knee.

She told him she was here for business also. And, ah yes... weren't these stays at hotels just too boring? The lonely rooms, the impersonal atmosphere. Yes, she said and chuckled, one has to take every opportunity to defeat hotel-depression and make the best of it.

It was a matter of survival, she insisted.

Of course his fourth drink could not be his last now. He ordered a new round. They were sitting very close, almost hugging. A cloud of ease and comfort had sunk over them, shutting out the world.

It invited back all kinds of long-forgotten feelings.

Before he knew it his hand was on her lower back and hers on his thigh. She whispered words into his ear. And then they were kissing. His lips found the weakest, most yielding mouth ever. A long and sinuous tongue slid past his lips. It met his in a slow and arousing dance.

The world ceased to exist.

After long and exhaustive kissing, they slid off their stools and walked to the elevators. He didn't even feel embarrassed by the swollen bulge in his pants. It was all just perfect. The doors had not yet closed before his hands were on her tits.

Their creamy softness made his head spin.

In her room he had unzipped her dress the moment they entered. She pushed the jacket off his shoulders. Her fingers busied themselves with the buttons of his shirt.

Jack saw her tits fall free from the tight black silk. They were as white and round as Sue's, he thought. But somehow they seemed softer, more generous. The nipples seemed darker, too. And maybe a bit longer. God, it had been so long. He leaned in and took one in his mouth.

It aroused him to suck on it.

It aroused her even more. She moaned and pushed herself against him. Soon they were on the bed. He had pulled down her dress. Now he licked and kissed every inch of her skin. He tasted her. He curled his tongue into her deep belly dimple and made her giggle.

Lost feelings rushed back to him.

Feelings he once had and had taken for granted. Feelings that had slipped away from him. They were the overwhelming feelings of first and unconditional love. Silly schoolboy nonsense, he knew. This woman must be fucking every man she pleased.

"What's love got to do with it?" to quote Tina Turner.

He took off her black thong. Her pussy was bare. Every hair had been shaved off its mound. He loved it. It looked so vulnerable. So innocent. He had asked Sue once to do it. She had called him a pervert, he remembered.

The shaven skin felt great under his tongue. It was soft and slippery. He touched her slit and found how very wet she was. He also felt how she pushed herself up. It made his pointed tongue slip between the swollen lips. God, she was hot to his tongue. He started lapping.

Gushes of juice ran into his mouth, tasting salty.

She moaned and gasped. Could it be that she had already orgasmed? He looked up and saw how her blood red fingernails tweaked her own nipples. She started humping, demanding his attention. So he went down on her again.

He sucked her and licked her.

Her hands were on his head now to pull him deeper into her. She became very vocal. She urged him on and used a language that would have upset Sue very much. She wanted him to fuck her cunt with his goddamn tongue. To make her fucking cum. To make her his damn whore. To give the slut what she deserved.

He chuckled while pleasing her over and over. He felt like a teenager. It must be the effect of doing the forbidden thing. It must be the taste of cheating. Look at me, he thought. And look at her now. A glorious slut and she is mine. At least for now, at least for this tiny stolen moment.