Reluctant Cuckold (12 page)

“Well, that’s why we needed my platypus friend. He would have gobbled it up like a super-sized Happy Meal.”

“Well,” I said, “remember that spider web you had me knock down last week? He might have nabbed him.”

“Oh please, this bug was a monster. That mini-spider would have said, ‘What, are you crazy? He’s all yours, guys.’ ”

“You never know,” I said. “He might have seen it as a challenge. A spider is cunning.”

“That would have to be one helluva spider” Ashley said, “and I’m not talking Charlotte.”

“Yeah,” I said, “maybe a team of spiders could have gotten Mr. Jumbo bug.”

“OK, I’m with you, like they join forces and go after the really big bugs.”

“Well, why stop with bugs?” I said. “They could have even larger blue-sky aspirations, right?”

“Sure, they just need a spider leader who gets them spinning one collective massive web.”

“Yeah, and the leader would say, ‘We’re going big time, guys. We’re gunning for small dogs, bratty little kids. We’re gonna bag the old crabby lady out in her garden.’ ”

Ashley broke out laughing, and it made me feel good.

“You know that stupid job interview question,” she said, “I’ve never been asked it, but the one where they ask, ‘If you were an animal, what kind of animal would you be?’ ”

“Yeah,” I said, holding her close.

“I’d say a spider.”

“Well a spider’s not an animal.”

“It’s a stupid question,” she said, “so I’d ask for some leeway.”

“I got you,” I said, “so, you were saying—”

“I might not tell him that I’d bag old ladies, but I’d say, ‘I’d be a spider.’ And he would look at me funny, but nod for me to go on, so I’d continue, ‘Because I’m a leader, a team builder, and a visionary. I’d persuade other spiders to join the cause. We’d build a web that was the spider version of the Great Wall of China, and we’d go for broke. No ambition is too high. We’d get our feet wet with raccoons and squirrels, just to get the kinks out, and then, you name it: coyotes, pit bulls, pot-bellied pigs, wild bores, we’d bag them all. What do you think?”

“Mrs. Martens,” I said, “in all my years of asking that question, I’ve never heard such a thoughtful and outside-the-box answer. We need a young go-getter like you running our team. You’re hired. When can you start?”

Ashley laughed and held me tight.

Yeah, I thought to myself, you’d say all that with your tits upfront, and your pearly white smile, and you’d land the job on the spot. Me, if I ever said that in a job interview, I’d be taken out by security and blacklisted.

“I think I’m going to grab a drink with Tamara tonight.”

Ashley might as well have just kicked me in the balls, when she told me that as I sat in my office the next afternoon.

“That’s cool,” I said, “so will you still want dinner when you come home? Should I make something?”

“No, we’ll get a bite to eat, I’m sure. I can call you later in case you want to meet up with us.”

I wasn’t sure if that was even a real invitation, but I couldn’t imagine why she would think I’d “want” to meet up with Tamara.

“Well,” I said, “I’ll probably stay in. I have some work to do and it’s Yankees-Mariners tonight.”

Goddamnit
, I thought, as I said, “Have fun” and hung up the phone. What the fuck would Ashley be telling Tamara tonight? I started pacing, first in my office and then later at home. I knew they talked at work and went to lunch together, but now I pictured them toasting over margaritas and having closer one-on-one time.

“Really?” Tamara would exclaim, smiling, “so you told Dave the truth about what happened at the party?”

“Yeah, I came clean, I was honest,” Ashley might reply.

“How honest?” Tamara would come back. “You told him Jim fucked you?”

“Yeah, I told him we had sex.”

“And what did Dave say?”

“It was weird,” Ashley might say, “he was all nervous, stumbling and bumbling, but mostly he just thanked me for being honest.”

“He didn’t get mad or look like he was going to storm off?”

“Not at all.”

“Ashley—you admitted to fucking Jim, and he didn’t have anything more to say other than ‘Thank you for being honest’?”

“Well, it seemed like he already knew, but he looked a little nervous and shaken. He wanted to know if I still loved him, and I said I did.”

“That’s great,” I could hear Tamara replying. “You didn’t even need to explain yourself? I guess he’s wrapped around your little finger.”

“He asked a question about Jim.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Well, after I admitted it—”

“Yeah,” Tamara would break in, “after you admitted to your husband that another man fucked you, yeah? He asked what?”

“He asked if he was bigger.”

“That is too funny,” Tamara would laugh. “Tell me, how did Dave say it?”

“He stammered and sweated and then asked if he had a bigger penis.”

Tamara would have a belly laugh over that one.

“Were you honest with him? Did you tell him ‘Oh fuck yeah he was bigger’?”

“Of course not. I couldn’t tell Dave that. I just told him that he was.”

“Did you tell him how much of a better fuck he was?”

“I didn’t rub it in by going into specifics.”

“I know, you’re so nice,” Tamara would say. “So, how did Dave react when he learned his cock in no way measured up?”

“He quickly changed the subject.”

“So there were no consequences? Dave gave you no grief?”

“No, just stuff about how he understands getting caught up in the moment.”

“Wow, he’s more of a pussy-whipped doormat than I even imagined.”

“There’s something else,” Ashley might say.

“Oh do tell, girl,” Tamara would reply.

Then Ashley would tell her how I creamed my boxer shorts from a lazy handjob. “He was pretty red-faced embarrassed about it,” she’d say, “so I didn’t say much afterwards, but I was barely stroking it and he ejaculated right into his boxer shorts.”

If ever there was an uproarious laugh from Tamara, I pictured it coming then. “What is Dave, like a pubescent boy?”

Fuck you, Tamara, I thought.

I got on my laptop and went to the porn search engine. Among the assortment of recent videos on the main page, I saw the heading “big cock stroking.”

Looking at other guys’ cocks hadn’t ever been my thing. I never sneaked a peek in the locker room or gym showers. I just wanted to imagine what Ashley had that night with Jim Murta.

The guy in the video had the camera zoomed up close to his cock, pointed up at the ceiling, as he sat in a chair. He never let his face show. He had a cock any man would be proud of, which is why he was probably filming himself and uploading it for the world to see. He was at least eight inches, probably nine.

Trent Reznor began singing, “I want to fuck you like an animal” in the background and the guy started stroking.

I began stroking myself.

The slit on his head would tilt down to the camera, before jerking up with the rhythm of his hand.

That’s the kind of cock that fucked my wife, I thought, the kind Ashley watched being stroked in front of her, that she wanted in her pussy, bare, despite knowing I was right outside. I’m looking at Jim Murta’s cock.

When the scene switched to him stroking hard over a wooden table, I knew he was about to cum. He had the camera on the other side of the table. His cock pointed directly at it. He removed his hand for a moment, letting it dangle and pulsate. And then it exploded in trajectories like fireworks. One shot went past the camera, but the rest splattered the wooden table. Then, finally, a few last bits just seeped out of him.

I replayed the cumshot in slow motion thinking, That’s what you gave Ashley, that big cock, and that fat fuck load of sperm. Fuck you, Jim Murta!

And then I came myself.

After I wiped myself off, I felt sick and disgusted. I could rationalize what I’d done. I was simply imagining that I was looking at the cock that fucked my wife.
But good God
, I thought,
if I were ever to be busted jerking off while looking at something like that, what a dubious and convoluted explanation that would be
.

If Tamara knew my reaction to the two of them being out tonight was to masturbate while watching another guy blow his load—imagining it was Jim Murta’s cock—she would laugh so condescendingly hard that it would echo in my brain for weeks. She’d have the satisfaction of knowing she had accomplished much more that night than she ever could have imagined.

Ashley texted me that she was still out drinking with Tamara but would be back in an hour.

I went through Ashley’s photo album, looking for photos from last summer on Cape May. We had rented a beach house for the week with friends. Tamara had joined us the first weekend.

That first day at the beach, Tamara had unveiled a new thong bikini. She had tried to talk Ashley into buying one with her, but Ashley had demurred. The suit showed off her spanking tight, toned ass and attracted major attention on the beach.

Teenage boys were ogling while she ordered drinks at a snack bar. Where was her modesty and sense of decency, I’d wondered at the time.

In the third album I found the photos from that week. There was one of Ashley and Tamara holding drinks and posing by the pool in their bikinis.

I pulled the photo from the plastic and took it into the bathroom. After checking to make sure the bathtub was dry, I sat down in it. I wanted to better imagine how they looked to Jim Murta that night.

I stared at the photo, going back and forth over their tits in their bikinis. Jim Murta would be standing, towering over them, staring down at two sets of nice big tits.

I wondered exactly how Tamara phrased her suggestion: “Why don’t you whip it out? Why don’t you show us what you’re packing? Why don’t you show Ashley your cock, Jim?”

“Ashley,” I pictured her saying, “the look on your face when you first saw Jim’s cock was priceless.”

I imagined him pointing it close at her as she watched it throbbing towards her.

Who in hell did Tamara think she was, offering up Ashley’s pussy to him?

Did Jim Murta even hesitate? Sure, Tamara was hot, but opportunities to fuck a married co-worker with her husband outside didn’t come along every day.

I stood up and sat on the sink. I imagined the moment when he slowly slid inside her.

“Oh my God,” Ashley my wife would say, “it’s so friggin’ big.”

“Bigger than your husband’s, Ashley?”

“Oh my God, Jim, there’s no comparison.”

“It’s still got a few inches to go, Ashley, but it will all be in you soon.”

“Oh my God.”

“Oh yeah, Ashley, it’s going all the way inside you.”

Jim Murta was off to the races now. He was getting his Jim Murta fuck on.

“Oh hell, yeah,” Tamara might egg them on, “ride that big fat cock.”

“Shh,” Ashley might whisper, “David’s outside.”

“Fuck David,” Jim would reply as his cock pumped deep inside her.

“Oh my God, I’m about to cum.”

“Say ‘Fuck David,’ Ashley.”

“Fuck David.”

“Say ‘Fuck David, fuck my husband.’ ”

“Fuck … oh God. Fuck Dave … David … fuck my husband.”

I stared at the photo of Ashley, dropping it onto the counter as I came.

Ashley came home an hour later, a little buzzed, saying “I’se gots to pee.”

When she came out, I asked her about Burning Man and she said, “Now she’s talking next summer” and told me Tamara said “hi.” She checked her email before asking if I’d mind if she called her Chicago friend Camilla, who was coming into town Friday.

I went into the bathroom and my stomach sank.

On the sink, right next to the tissues, I had left the photo of Ashley and Tamara in bikinis.

My heart started racing as I wondered how I could have been so stupid as to leave it there. Perhaps Ashley in her buzzed hurry to pee hadn’t noticed. But what if she had? Why would I have taken a photo from her album of them in bikinis into the bathroom? What explanation was there, other than that I’d jerked myself looking at it?

If she had noticed it, why hadn’t she called me out, saying, “What’s this doing here?”

I put the photo in my back pocket and prepared myself for questions. Lame as it was, the only excuse I could come up with was, “I was on the phone with my mom tonight, and she mentioned the reception hall we had for our wedding. Well I got out your photo album, and I was flipping through it in the bathroom—well, obviously, I got the wrong one—and then the picture of you and Tamara fell out. I was still talking to my mom, so I just left it on the sink to return it later. And then my brother called, and well, which album are our wedding photos in, anyway?”