"Do Me"

"Usual, ma'am?" Tabitha's masseuse said softly.

"Mm-hmm," she answered.

I tried to focus on the music, and the deep, hard tug of massaging palms and fingers. The girl was so good, it felt like she had pushed through my skin and was working individual muscles and organs.

Tabitha moaned a little and I ignored her. But when she breathed, "Yes." I had to see why.

Reflected above us, Tabitha's masseuse had slipped her attentions immodestly under the modesty strip. Little lumps were doing insistent things between legs. The masseuse worked with a brisk rhythm while she stared glassily at Tabitha's wringing feet. Tabitha, however, her chest rising and falling like a swelling tsunami, had trained smouldering slits on me.

My whole body pounded, my skin flamed. I could not tear away from it. Was this it, was this infidelity? Just an inability to shift your gaze?

My masseuse leant to my ear. "Distress, sir?" I flinched from her, my head spinning. She nodded to Tabitha. "You like to de-stress with your wife, yes? Happy ending?" Her strokes slid under my silk, circling my hips and the tops of my thighs, awaiting instruction.

"Yes please!" nodded my meat.

"Yes please!" Tabitha ganged up with it. "Do us together!" She nudged her hips against her masseuse's movements like a needy cat.

"I'm... I'm good thanks," I said.

Tabitha grunted and seemed to let go. She shuddered. Her silk joggled quickly up and down as the masseuse performed some concealed coup-de-grace and Tabitha arched off the table and froze, clawing her breasts... then flopped, breathless, as the intimate massage slowed, and spiralled outward around her hips. Tabitha dissolved into hysterics that had the masseuses grinning like Cheshire cats. They clearly loved to see her happy. Mine patted my chest and said something in Thai and they all laughed. Tabitha muttered something back, surprisingly in their language, while she pecked grateful kisses all over her masseuse's hands. Much more hilarity ensued.

You would not have recognised Tabitha as the same downcast woman from earlier. Sex suited her very well. My stomach twisted with the urge to bring happiness to her again. And again. And to keep bringing it, all the time.

The women bowed and left the room. As they closed the door behind them, an ingenious hourglass door-handle on the back of it inverted. Did this mean we were locked in? I had the skin-tingling sense of being trapped with a lioness. Jemima' first orgasm only ever left her turned on, especially if it was achieved by fingers alone. She described it as, "the lovely itch for more." I both hoped and dreaded that Tabitha would be the same.

In this context, Tabitha's long, blissful hum was like a rumbling growl of warning. She stretched out, spreading all her fingers and toes. "They said it's your wife's job to de-stress you," she said to our reflections.

"Indeed?" I spat.

That did not go unnoticed. A frown flickered across Tabitha's brow. She turned onto her side, twisting under the silk which still maintained the conceit of covering her modesty.

"And they really do think we're married." She spoke to her fingernail, tracing a pattern around her nipple. "They think that I should... um..." She trailed off into contemplation.

I toyed with leaving, but that would be a rather rude response to a stranger's intimacy. I wondered how long I had on the hourglass if I had to ride it out.

She tucked loose hair behind her ear. "So... what do you think?"

I closed my eyes to shut out my temptress, and tried to shuffle myself comfortable on the table. But relaxation is hard to find with a lump of rock sticking out of you.

"Come on, who's to know?" she said, still sotto voce, as if it doesn't count as infidelity if you whisper. "It's just a sexy accident that we're both here and that we both... you know... want it. And we've been given 20 secret minutes where nothing else is expected of us. Let's seize it. Have some fun."

I shook my head. Tabitha slumped, and her pall of hopelessness did more to loosen my resolve than any flirtation. Frankly, all I wanted was to make her hoot with abandoned joy again. A task I would preferably perform with every part of my anatomy. And just because that was denied me, did not mean I wanted to cause her pain. Now I wished I had climaxed with her when they wanted me to, and I could have blamed the masseuses' coercion. My feelings would be a lot less tangled.

"We would know," I said. "So, our spouses would know."

Tabitha brushed the idea aside. "I split from my husbands months ago. I only wear the ring to keep creeps away."

"Husbands?"

"A throuple, a three-way relationship. But Pete and Jeff 'found each other' and came out."

"God. I'm sorry."

Tabitha shrugged. "It's cool. I'm glad I opened that door for them I suppose..." Her face slackened a little. Then she inhaled deeply. "Whatever. Back to the slutty proposition! How about I do this." She tossed her silk and wriggled her hips under the involuntary dart of my eye to her neat black tuft. "And you... de-stress yourself? That allowed? Tell me how come you're married, yet in such a state?"

"I'm not in a state!"

"Oh, come on. I've never seen a man so... in need. Go on, I'll watch. Keep the silk on if you like. That's not cheating, is it?"

"What would that achieve?"

"Extreme pleasure hopefully! I'll even put a show on for you." She swung a knee up and to the side, presenting florid lips, still puffy from her orgasm and glossy from the massage oil. She fluffed at her fuzz and I wondered why she waxed the rest of her sex, but left that bit. Though again her womanliness was - I'm ashamed to say - an enticing contrast to what I was used to.

I toyed with mentioning Jemima's tattoo, but then that seemed rather inappropriate. Tabitha's fingertips tickled lightly over her crinkles and creases. When I looked back at her face, she was staring at me with a look that was simultaneously doe-eyed and all-powerful. A look that knew I liked what I saw, and liked that I liked.

"I don't need to cum," I said. Through clenched teeth.

Tabitha waved her knee, twisting to admire her reflection above us. "You're like this with your wife, I can tell."

"Like what?"

"Holding back."

"I don't—"

"You think it's a display of strength. Withholding how much you want me. Your wife, too."

"But—"

"I bet you don't even jerk off alone."

I grabbed the silk in both fists and for an inflamed second utterly intended to rip it off and rub myself into a fountain just to prove my lust for her.

Her eyes widened.

You know how it is when you're married, and whenever you're alone and something remarkable happens, you think how much your spouse is going to enjoy hearing about it? This exact thought crossed my mind at that exact moment. And I realised I would happily tell Jemima about everything that had happened so far. In fact - once we'd made up - she would love the story. We might even be closer after. But if I tossed the silk away, now. That would be intent. That was cheating. If I removed that thin barrier between Tabitha and me, where would I stop? In moments, there would be nothing between us. In moments, I would be inside her.

So, I puffed it out, turned onto my front and wondered if a marriage had ever owed so much to something so flimsy as a piece of silk.

"Of course I cum on my own," I grumbled. "I have to."

"So fucked up." Tabitha turned onto her front, too, and kicked her feet in the air behind her like a frustrated cat's tail. She had trapped a hand beneath her hips. Her bottom shimmied at it.

"Aren't you done already?" I said.

"Nope," Tabitha drooped her head onto her forearm and gazed at me.

"You're as greedy as my wife."

Tabitha shrugged. "And that's a problem, how?"

I described Jemima's historic bisexuality and her recent addiction, though I stopped short of our arguments over children and our terrible night.

"My kind of woman," Tabitha said finally.

"Let's say you would certainly have more fun if she was here and not me."

Tabitha's jaw dropped, theatrically. "There's something in my body language that suggests I'm not having fun?"

I sniggered. "Even more fun," I emphasised.

"Hmm ok. So, Jemima... she's like, pretty? And don't say 'she is to me'."

"She turns heads. Petite, platinum, great big eyes. She describes herself as 'Gothic Tinkerbelle'."

Tabitha pondered. Was she imagining what she would do with Jemima, that she wasn't with me? I wished her thoughts were as transparent to my eye as mine were to her. At that exact moment, she shot a finger at me. "You're actually imagining us together!"

I raised my hands.

Tabitha pondered a little longer, and then covered her eyes. "Aw, now my head's full of... head. Damn it." Her bottom tipped up and gyrated in wider circles. The thought of her picturing my wife's sweet mouth down there - where her fingers made soft sticky noises in the absorbent quiet between us - made me pulse against the upholstery.

"I'd quite like to try a girl," she said to herself. "And you'd let her play with me? Even though you wouldn't?" She swallowed. "A loyalty that I'm finding very fucking sexy by the way."

"It's trust. Just as she would trust me not to ravish you, now. I trust that she loves me, no matter who she's sexually attracted to. And she makes no secret of that. I don't know how many polite parties we've been ejected from because she's persuaded some woman to snog her. "

Tabitha snorted. "I bet that's resulted in a few other party invitations, though."

"Yes," I said rather too earnestly, "but who would go to those?"

Tabitha laughed; bawdy and husky, throwing back her loosening hair. When she calmed, her eyes were burning coals. I gulped.

"God," she gasped. "I can't believe I'm lying here naked and playing with myself for a guy - a stranger - who is massively hard for me, but he won't act on it. Ever. So even though I'm completely open to him, I'm completely safe."

That got a laugh out of me. "I will never understand what arouses women."

"Fuck. That's sexy too."

I felt like I couldn't do anything, then. I conjured my wife again to see if she might defend me. "You know, the day I met Jemima, before she even knew my name, she announced that for her sex was like a good meal: 'Oysters for starters. Sausage for main. And every now and then, a little cream for pudding.'" My throat constricted. I took a moment. "Now she fulfils her needs with porn. Not me."

Tabitha did not rise to my maudlin outburst, instead she smiled wickedly. "It looks like you're not doing anything she doesn't do already, then. Just watching strangers cum."

I had to agree with that. At least my attention did for a moment, lingering on the sinuous waves her torso made and the glimpse of diligent digits in the dim whenever she raised her hips.

"Though I think you are missing the point of her porn habit," she added, sliding a knee up to tilt her hips and ministrations toward me.

"There's a point?"

"Well, people usually turn to porn for things they don't get at home."

I was flabbergasted she could be so blunt about my inadequacies. "You think I don't know that? That I don't satisfy her?" I bit down hard but irritation surged right from the root of my starved erection. "Have you ever had to compete with these prurient videos and toys? Underlining what someone else can do that you can't? How much bigger and harder and better you could be?"

"Hey. Chill. That's not what I meant. It's not about the... mechanics. You could be the buffest, lickiest, pistoniest fucker on the planet and your wife would still do porn. And by the way, women have had to compete with that since men first learned to paint pussies and tits. I competed with it when my first hubbie discovered his love of dick." Another long breath, this time with a little shiver. The woman had turned multi-tasking into a performance art. "You need to look at this stuff with her eyes. With her needs."

I clawed my head. "What does that even mean? She logs onto this blasted 'Pussycat's Purr', or whatever it's called, and drools over a cat-woman licking or shagging people. You tell me what she needs from that."

"Same site all the time?"

"Appears to be, unless someone else does the same arty claptrap."

She frowned. "Arty? How is licking and fucking arty?"

"You might ask why more than how. The videos are in oil painting tones. Sepia. Short little clips."

"Cumshots." Tabitha dangled her feet off the either side of the table. Spreading in a wide 'Y'. She puffed shakily.

"No, that's the thing, each session from beginning to end, lasts less than a minute. People arrive. Settle. Cat-woman does her thing and pop. Man or woman, it doesn't matter. They climax. She has some secret trick."

"Well it seems pretty clear to me." Tabitha's bottom picked up from a slow roll, to a trot. "You don't get it? That Jemima wants what these people have? This cat-girl doesn't have any special technique. It's in her partner's heads, they want her so badly they just lose control. Jemima wants to be desired like that. The way we desire each other, right now."

"You're very sure of yourself."

"How long would you last if we actually fucked?" She quaked. "I know... I..." She seized up. Her hips twitched and toes clenched and she eked a long high-pitched squeak. After the histrionics of the masseuse's orgasm, this was a tiny, contained implosion. But it still left her hissing a quiet little laugh. My heart ached. I shifted some of the weight off my throbbing organ.

She gathered herself, briefly sucking her glossy fingers, then turned onto her side and pulled her knees to her chest. I supposed the display of flushed and puckered flesh was for me. Not that I looked. She wrapped her arms around her knees and her coolness settled back over her, even before the blush had left her cheeks.

"When was the last time you lost control with Jemima? Like just—" she starfished her fingers "—pop."

"Why would I tell you my most shameful moment?"

"Because your voice makes me wet. So you will keep talking because you care about my happiness and that, too, is sexy as hell?"

Her black disks shone, I couldn't determine if she was serious or not. But decided her advice might be more useful to me than my voice was arousing to her. At least that's what I told myself.

"Years ago. The night we first kissed, naked in her bed. I lost control then. I came all over myself, even before she touched me."

"Sweet!" she said. "From one kiss?"

"Don't rub it in."

"Was she revolted?"

"She laughed."

"At you?"

"No..." My skin tingled as the afternoon flooded back to me. "No not at all, now you mention it."

"Tell me what happened next. It was something naughty, wasn't it? You're humping the table." She leant around her bottom and traced fingertips along her groove. Her sexual rhythm was startlingly similar to Jemima's.

I turned onto my side. "What happened next was rather gross."

"Gross like this?" She opened the lips of her sex, and worked the sides until a drip glistened and oozed from the pink dim.

"Stop, OK. OK. She... she played with it. My sperm. She wrote "J heart V" on my belly with it."

"That's it?" She reached between her thighs and slid a finger knuckle-deep into herself.

"Then she licked me clean. Like a cat. And sucked me until I grew hard again. And we made love for the rest of the afternoon."

Tabitha's eyes screwed shut. She tumbled onto her back while her finger pumped between her legs. She twitched, jaw thrust and mute, and for a few spasms it was as if her hole had attacked her and wouldn't let go. Finally, she managed to wrest her fingers free of its ecstatic grip and locked it away behind both hands. She rolled back to me, hair swathed across her glowing face.

"Holy fuck. Sorry. I'm on a bit of a roll." She cleared her throat. "So. Your lost afternoon sounds like the opposite of shameful to me."

"True."

"Did she dump you?"

"Well, obviously not."

"So that worked out all right, didn't it?" She unfurled, pulled back her hair and re-tied it, rather badly. "And the sucking you back to hardness thing? That is the best test of devotion a woman can set a man."

"Again. You mystify me."

"Oh, come on. Look, when you suck off a guy. He's done. I mean for days. If you need a fuck straight after you've sucked him, you can go down again and get him up for a little bit maybe? But it's not worth the 'eww' factor, believe me. But a guy that really adores you? He'll be so touched that his one-true-love wants him that much he'll be up the rest of his goddamn life."

I would be lying if I told you this didn't paint some distracting pictures. The thought of Tabitha's exquisite mouth working so explicitly at a lover made me want throw off my silken chain and bury my member in any warm, wet orifice that would have it.

I decided that her excitement was clearly beyond being increased by the sight of mine by now, so I sat up, hanging my legs over the edge of the table. My draped member looked like a national monument about to be unveiled. "I suppose this is living proof that your theory works," I said.

Tabitha sighed. "It never actually worked for me, though. I did my first husband, Paul, all the time because he always came so quick. Which was great, but afterwards, he'd only get up for like seconds. I could get off on it, eventually, but it was hard work. Suck. Fuck. Suck. Fuck. Then when we met Jeff, it was awesome, at first, because sexually they were both into me more than each other. They were bi, but it was definitely their desire for me that kept us together. God, I loved that. You must think I'm quite a narcissist."

"If I was you. I'd never even get out of the house." A little flirtation was OK. Just to lift her spirits.

Tabitha gave me a flat smile. "Then one day, after they'd both cum, and I hadn't, they sucked each other so we could keep going. And it worked. I mean really worked. And it was sweet they did it for me, but cocks don't lie. I could never get them hard as that. I knew our days were numbered." Again, she glazed over. Again I struggled with the urge to close the gap between us. Lips first, then velcroing together, chest to chest, belly to belly until I slotted deep into her and her heels dug in my backside and I kissed her throat as she howled at our coppery reflections.

Tabitha sat too, feet up and cupping her toes. "You look so uncomfortable, why don't you just cum? I'll even avert my eye if it helps?"

"It's ok. I can wait till later. But this is just silly." I threw away the silk. The fabric was not the reason that I would not give in to Tabitha.

She locked on to my lap like a cat with a mouse; she even gave a small croaky cheer that sounded a lot like a meow. Then my meaning must have sunk in, because she dropped her head onto her knees.

"When you get home, I hope you'll show your wife how much you desire her." Tabitha's voice was hushed and almost monotone. Any progress I had made in uplifting her - all that cheeky, hopeful joy - had been stripped away with the silk, it seemed.

"I would. But I think our problems run deeper than that. Yesterday we had a very big row."

"About sex."

"During sex."

"No." She lifted her head, wrinkling her brow. "Howcome?"

This. This broke my heart. Even after being rejected so openly by me, Tabitha cared. I felt ashamed that I'd been found to be such a withholding bastard, by one of the most giving people I'd ever met.

"Oh, you must be bored with my whining by now."

Tabitha rolled her eyes, leaned back and butterflied her knees flat, a position that opened her tendon-poppingly wide. I suppose she meant to remind me - with the glimmering between those rude lips - that she really (really) liked to hear me talk, but to my mind, her protruding labia were a mocking tongue: "You can't kiss me!"