to see how far they would go. If they were kissing, perhaps he suggested they take their tops off.
Either way, my wife’s tits were on display for him.
Then, Good God, Tamara suggests he whip his cock out. I pictured him displaying a big hard-on as it came out of his pants. I thought of him standing, his hand stroking his cock, looking down at my topless wife.
Then Tamara had to go and drop that verbal nuclear bomb, “Which one of us do you want to fuck?”
Could she have been any less crass, bold, and blunt? Or realize my wife wasn’t to be offered up like some A or B coin toss?
I started getting wobbly, just thinking about it.
I had the afternoon at work to get through, and focused on that, walking back to the office.
****
Ashley and I were meeting another couple that night for dinner. We sat at the bar, waiting for them to arrive.
After I came back from the men’s room, the bartender was chatting up Ashley. I quickly took my seat next to her, and the guy went to serve another customer, but it made me uneasy.
I’d seen my wife hit on before, lots of times. It had never bothered me. My friends had made cracks about wanting a crack at Ashley, and I’d always laughed it off, as “in your dreams.”
Two months after getting married, Ashley and I were having dinner at a restaurant in Florida. When I left for the men’s room, some guy from another table went over to her and gave her his number. Ashley showed me the napkin when I returned in a “can you believe this guy” kind of way.
****
I was just glad when I spotted our friends coming through the door. We were having dinner with the Morrisons. Kim could be OK after a couple drinks, but her husband Jim was a bore who fancied himself an intellectual—the absolute last guy who should have the name Jim Morrison.
Dinner proved to be more painfully boring than I imagined. Ashley playfully kicked me in the leg twice during the most excruciating parts. She has a knack for catching me when I’m conversationally zoning.
During the cab ride home, Ashley said, “Well, that was a big fat dud, huh?”
“Um, that would be a yes.”
“I don’t know why Kim was so quiet tonight. I thought you were going to lose it when Jim went on and on about that movie.”
“Well it was freaking ridiculous,” I said, “I mean, I know he’s Mr. Irish heritage boy, but he spent thirty literal minutes describing the plot of that movie. And he’d back-track, and re-explain stuff and give pointless details about the architecture. Like the architecture is a freaking Hollywood set. I wouldn’t subject people to a ten-minute story. But if I did, it would be a real life experience story. Not retelling the plot of a movie that sounded freaking totally dumb and boring in the first place.”
Ashley smiled and said, “You had this ‘give-me-a-gun so I can blow my brains out now’ expression at one point that was priceless.”
“Hey,” I said, “if anyone ever recommends that movie to me, I swear to God, I’m going to tell them to royally go fuck themselves.”
Ashley burst out laughing and leaned into me.
It felt good having her beside me, and she fell asleep in the cab.
I rightly assumed sex was not in the cards that night.
And within minutes of arriving home, I was conking out myself.
CHAPTER FOUR
Saturday morning and we were off to visit my parents in Westchester.
We had made the earlier train, so we decided to surprise them by walking from the station and just showing up at their front door. The walk would take twenty minutes—tops. We started up a sleepy suburban street, the kind you imagine block parties and kids on bicycles. Just past the first house, it started to drizzle. We had no umbrellas, and started walking faster. Another minute later, the drizzle turned to rain. Ashley and I took cover under a tree on someone’s front lawn. I called my parents