Mei Mei stretched up and kissed me on the cheek. “Thanks, David. Tell Ruth I’ll call her. You were both wonderful.” She waved as she went out the door. Standing naked, spent and confused, I waved back, trying for a smile.
Ruth slept for 20 minutes. I covered her with a duvet. I knew I should have been angry with her, she’d treated me very badly, but I also knew that I deserved it.
We’d really loved one another once. Then, two years ago, I spoiled things. I had an affair, less than an affair, a one-night stand with an old friend I’d met by chance. I didn’t think to use a condom. I never imagined that I might pass on a disease to Ruth that would rob her of the child she had always wanted and rob me of my wife’s affection.
In Ruth’s eyes I had rejected her as a lover and destroyed her as a mother with the one act of betrayal. Her promiscuity started as a means of punishing me. Now I’m not sure what drives her to it. We’ve made an accommodation of sorts, people always do, but there is an undercurrent of regret and anger and guilt that could sweep us away at any time.
“I don’t know what you’re looking so glum about.” Ruth said, when she woke. “You just got your rocks off twice in one night. That must be some kind of record for you. I’m going to get a shower. Then I’m going to sleep.”
I knew what that meant. I made my way to the guest bedroom. Laying there, replaying the sex in my head, I wondered what it was that Ruth really wanted and whether or not she’d found it.
Mei Mei didn’t come back to the house again, but I knew that Ruth had stayed at her house at least three times over the next two weeks. Ruth didn’t share the details with me. She seemed a bit distracted. Her smile was brittle and she was drinking more than usual. I avoided asking questions. I’d long ago lost the right to hold Ruth to account.
Then this morning, the pattern changed. Ruth couldn’t quite hide the tension in her voice when she said, “We’re going to Mei Mei’s house tonight. It will be a lot of fun.”
Even staying quiet doesn’t always keep me out of trouble. Ruth stepped close to me and said, “I’m sick of your wimpy silences, David. You should be glad I’m including you. I hope that, for once, I can depend on you to behave properly. Do you understand?”
I nodded my head and she pushed me up against the wall and kissed me. It was a wild kiss, almost a bite. When it was over she said, “Don’t let me down, David. Not again.”
So now I’m standing way too close to a large Swedish guy and watching my wife undo the buttons on Mei Mei’s dress. I should be having a good time but I feel like an impostor in their company. I’m the sort of guy who reads CD titles in the kitchen at parties. I’ve never felt comfortable hanging out with the cool kids.
Lars lifts his arm off my shoulders, but things get worse when he taps my bum and says, “Let’s get out of these clothes and show the girls why a woman needs a man like a fish needs water.”
The “girls” stop fondling each other and watch Lars as he pulls off his T-shirt. His chest is completely smooth, he has a six-pack stomach and oh my God he has nipple rings. That’s enough to make my balls retract. I hate the idea of being pierced.
I’m still unbuttoning my shirt when Lars climbs out of his jeans. I don’t want to look at his cock but I can’t help it. He’s not erect yet but it’s already clear that he’s longer and thicker than I am. And the bloody man shaves his pubes. Even on his balls.
I stop getting undressed. I’m not at all sure I want to be here.
Lars pulls the foreskin back on his cock. His fist is wrapped around it below the head but there’s plenty of meat still visible.
“OK, who’d like first lick?”
Something in the way he says that makes me certain that I’m included in the invitation. He grins at me. I look away. I’m relieved when he walks towards Ruth and Mei Mei, his cock bouncing ludicrously in front of him.
“Into position, girls. You know what I want.”
The women have slipped out of their dresses. Mei Mei kneels on the sofa. In a move that looks practised, Ruth sits astride Mei Mei’s thighs, facing her and then lays back with her head over the edge of the sofa. Mei Mei lifts Ruth’s legs so that Ruth can hook her knees over Mei Mei’s shoulders. With a smile, Mei Mei lowers her head and starts to lap gently at Ruth’s sex.
“Don’t they make a pretty picture, David?” Lars says. “Push your tits together, Ruth, and let’s show David the new tricks you’ve learned.”
I’ve already realised that they’ve fucked before. This is where Ruth has been spending her time.
Ruth’s eyes are on me as Lars straddles her. He pushes his obscenely large cock between her breasts and she presses them tightly together for him. Then, slowly and deliberately, she lifts her head, extends her tongue and starts to lick his arsehole.
I can’t read the expression in her eyes. It’s not pleasure, or fear. It looks more like resignation.
“You know, David, it’s impolite to fuck a man’s wife without asking his permission.” As he speaks, Lars is pushing backwards and forwards between Ruth’s breasts. Ruth is doing her best to find his anus or his balls with her tongue.
“So I decided to show Ruth how a real man fucks. Seems like she hasn’t been fucked properly in a long time. In fact, when we met, I don’t think she’d ever had it up the arse at all.”
I move closer to them, not sure what to do next. I’m trying to figure out what Ruth wants. I’ve been trying to figure out what Ruth wants ever since I betrayed her.
“Did you know that Ruth is good at deep throating? Well, I guess in your case it wouldn’t really be that deep, would it?”
Lars steps back a little. Ruth lies with her throat in a straight line, her eyes on me, her mouth wide open. Lars grunts as he slides his cock into her throat. He does it four or five times. Ruth really can take all of him. She doesn’t gag but her eyes seem moist. I don’t know if this is an involuntary reaction or an emotional one.
Mei Mei has stopped licking Ruth now. She is looking at me. She seems sad.
“Get ready for it, baby,” Lars says. He is out of Ruth’s throat now, fiercely stroking himself in front of her face. Ready to spray all over her, like a dog marking territory.
I am still holding my half empty bottle of Bud. It doesn’t break when it hits Lars, but it is very effective at knocking him out.
Mei Mei scrambles to Lars’ aid, pushing Ruth out of her way.
I reach down and help Ruth to her feet. I wrap her dress around her. She is shaking.
“You hit him.”
“Yes, I suppose I did.”
She is under my arm. We are heading for the door.
“You might have killed him.”
“Yes.”
We stop. She looks at me, searching for something in my face that she seems to find.
“Thank you,” she says, and wraps her arms around me.
As I bundle her into the car I let myself hope that I may finally have become someone that Ruth wants.
Cat by Anya Wassenberg
The cell always rings when it’s hardest to get at, not just driving, but turning some tight corner or in the middle of an intersection. Here I’m trying to get into this goddamn parking spot at the golf course and it shrieks from inside my bag.
“Hello?”
“Cat? It’s Jimmy.”
“Jimmy? So what’s the good word?”
“Not just a word, Cat. I’ve got a special proposal for you today.”
“Just hang on a sec.” I steer with my left hand into an empty parking spot by the exit, setting the phone on the passenger seat while I manoeuvre the car into place. “OK, shoot.”
“This one’s video.”
“Video?”
“Cat, honey, I know what you think, and you know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t something special.” Jimmy hesitates. Fucking videos, it’s no better than when I was working for the Agency, for Christ’s sake – I told him I was sick of giving blow jobs to ugly jerks. “This one’s a threesome, Cat, you and an older guy and some young chick. It’s $750 US for about three hours’ work, and the guy blows his load nowhere near you.”