It's Just a Game

"What?"

"He gets off on humiliating married men. That's why he wants to meet us in the end. That's why he insists to have all of the women, without exception. That's why he threatens you to call the whole thing off if Annette doesn't participate. He won't appreciate me being present at the party and being totally un-cuckolded. I guess he'd see this as some kind of personal defeat."

"That's ridiculous." But she seemed at least pensive.

"Count me out, okay?"

"Frank, I'll really make this worth your while." She tried to sound seductive, but it was as genuine as a smiling shark.

"Why?"

"Frank, he's unbelievably beautiful. Wait..."

She extracts a photo from her purse. The guy was extremely muscled and good looking, I had to give him that. But just that arrogant grin made me dislike him immediately.

"You understand now why this is so important?" To be honest, I didn't. "It's our once in a lifetime chance to have sex with a guy like this. He is what every woman dreams about."

"So all of the wives get one night with their dream man?"

"Right. At the very end, after all of the husbands have received their reward."

"And afterwards the women have to spend the rest of their lives with their inferior husbands?"

"What?" This caught her a bit off guard, but she recovered quickly. "No, you don't understand..."

"I don't? I do understand that you're systematically destroying marriages here. Are you really sure that everyone will be happy to be stuck with their spouses afterwards? The women all had this hunk to compare their husbands to. And the husbands had the chance to compare their wives with a few other women. How many intact marriages do you expect to find afterwards?"

"Well, it has worked pretty well fine two times. You're just too insecure for it, it seems. The other husbands didn't have your worries. Angela, Paul, Carla and Tom seem to be happy."

"Maybe they don't care what their wives think of them. Call me weak, but I do. I will be worried that she will keep thinking about her wild night with a guy I can't compete with. The ghost of this silly game will stay in the background for our whole marriage."

"That's nonsense, Frank. This is just an adventure, there are no emotions attached. It will just spice up everything. She loves you, you win hands down."

"My answer is still no. The risk is high while I don't even see the benefit. I don't want to have sex with another woman anyway. And I don't want Annette to have sex with another man. We're married and that means something to me."

"Frank, your behavior is what might ruin marriages here. Some husbands had their adventures, others didn't. We need to balance the scales or everything will collapse. And he plain refuses to continue if Annette isn't on board. A few other wives refuse to swap partners if they don't get their Mario experience. The whole thing will go to hell in a handbasket if you chicken out."

"That's your problem. I think this whole shitty affair has boiled down to a fight between me and this Mario asshole. He wants to destroy my marriage for his entertainment, I want to preserve what's left of it."

"Frank, please, be reasonable. You're blowing this out of proportion. Frank, I'm begging here. I haven't had him yet, and I need to. Frank, I need to experience this at least once. Please don't let me down. This has grown to be some kind of obsession for us. It will be a one-time thing for Annette, I promise."

"I know. He's not interested in you or in the other women. Having sex once with each woman is enough to achieve what he wants, which is to cuckold us husbands. You and even the sex are just a means to and end for him."

"Yeah, but that's a good thing, isn't it? He won't be a threat to our marriages. No chance of a repeat performance."

"Forget it. You've even admitted that it has become an obsession for you, still you want to convince me it's totally meaningless for Annette and my marriage. You have to make up your mind, which is it?"

"Okay, I see. I've tried my best, Frank. I've really tried. But don't you think this is over, Frank. This is far from over." Her voice was almost threatening, but I couldn't imagine how she could force me to consent.

xx

We had just had a delicious dinner and had planned to just mindlessly stare into the tube for a while. While I went over there, Annette stayed weirdly close to my side. And I was glad she did and supported me a bit as I suddenly felt a bit dizzy.

I opened my eyes and was looking at a wooden ceiling. This was weird, we didn't have a wooden ceiling. I had never seen this ceiling before, I thought, while I inspected the details of the wood structure in a calmly interested way. Very peculiar lines over there. Hey, these knotholes look like a face. Why does my mouth feel so dry? I'm still quite tired. The urge to close my eyes again is quite strong.

"This is weird." Who is this? It's a nice female voice, but it doesn't seem familiar.

"This is plain weird. I haven't subscribed to this shit."

"What... Who..." I was still a bit dazed. Where was I? How did I get here? Who was this, admittedly quite attractive, woman?

"You have no idea, have you?"

I had an idea that she had long, wavy and dark hair, just like I liked it. She was as beautiful as Angela or Bea, maybe even more so. But what really got me was the way she somehow exuded class and elegance.

"Shit, shit, shit. This isn't what they told me."

Which was for some reason not reflected by her rather mundane usage of language. She seemed a bit agitated.

"Where..." I tried again, still befuddled.

"I don't know where exactly we are. We're in some kind of cabin. They drove me here and it took an eternity. We seem to be surrounded by a huge forest. I didn't want to do it anyway, it seemed too risky. But those ladies talked me into it, told me that the customer is the original nice guy. If the money wasn't so damn good, I'd have refused nonetheless."

"Money?"

"Aw, shit. You really have no idea, right?"

"Not much of a clue, to be honest."

"Okay, how do I explain this? This is just plain weird. I hope I won't get into trouble for this somehow."

"Just start at the beginning, okay?" I was fully awake by now and really quite interested in hearing what had happened to me.

"Okay. To put it plainly, I'm a high class escort girl." That made sense, she certainly had the looks for it.

"These ladies came to hire me. Four of them, to be more specific. They came up with a job I really should have refused. They told me about this lonesome, nice and even good-looking guy that spends a week in a remote cabin, just relaxing and having a good time. And they wanted to top it off for him by sending me there to help him relax and enjoy things. It is dangerous for a woman of my profession to do something like this. If a single male had asked for it, I would have dismissed it right away. But four women? Seemed unlikely there was some rapist or killer lurking in the woods. One of them even claimed she was married to the client."

"Oh, I see. Straight brown hair down to her shoulders?"

"Right. A bit mousy, isn't she?"

"What?"

"No offense. But you're quite a bit out of her league, aren't you?"

"Well, I love her. That should be what's important." I was still a bit pissed off by people continuing to make such comments about Annette. Everybody seemed to feel the urge to compare her to me or to run her down. "Well, at least I used to love her. Things are a bit difficult... Oh shit, I don't know."

"So your wife really hired me to spend a week with you?"

"It seems so. My wife knows that I have this week off. And somehow I ended up... Damn, I think she drugged me to get me here."

"Yeah, guessed that much. You were pretty much out of it when I arrived."

"So they hired you and brought you here?"

"Yes, I know it sounds crazy, but the money for this job is awfully good. And I guessed I could study a bit whenever we're not having sex."

"Study?"

"Yeah, I'm about to get my university degree. I didn't have much time to work recently because I had to prepare for my exams. That's why I needed the money even more urgently than I usually do. And this seemed perfect, a week of combined studying and earning money. Some kind of lucrative parting kiss to my old profession. So I took it. Damn me."

"Why? Am I that repulsive?"

"Oh no, not at all. I'm just afraid someone will be getting into trouble soon. I mean, you've been drugged and you're here against your will."

"Someone will indeed be in trouble soon, but it won't be you."

"Glad to hear that. Now shoot."

"What?"

"Your story. I have a feeling that it will be quite interesting."

"Oh, that. Yeah, interesting is the right word. A bit too interesting for my taste." It sounded as bitter as I felt.

So I told her about Annette's game. About her desperate need to get fucked by this hunk. About their failed attempts to convince me. After I finished my sad tale, she sat there with an astonished look on her face.

"Seriously? I've seen those women. Some of them aren't exactly ugly."

"Not at all, but what does it matter?"

"I'd say they are a lot sexier than your wife."

Damn, why kept everyone annoying me with that kind of shit? "I don't like to compare people, especially not my wife."

"Still you refused to take their offer."

"Sure, what good would have come out of it? She would have broken our wedding vows, I would have broken them, we both would have had sex with other partners. We always would have compared our most intimate moments with what we have experienced with others. Our marriage would have been soiled somehow."

"Wow."

"Wow?"

"You are what everyone is talking about."

"Sorry?"

"You are one of the truly good guys. They do seem to exist and now I've even met one of them. Wow."

"What?" What was she talking about? I'm just a normal guy.

"Anyway, what is going to happen, now that we're here?"

"Can't we get away from here somehow? I need to have a serious discussion with my wife."

"We don't have a car, that's for sure. And we're in the middle of nowhere. We have supplies for a week. I guess I could use my mobile though... Shit. They seem to have swiped it. Those bitches..."

"I seems we have quite a bit of time to kill."

"Yeah. Well, if you don't want sex, would you mind if I study a bit?"

"Not at all. Can I help you?"

"You would?"

"Sure."

She looked at me for quite an unnerving long stretch of time with an unreadable expression. Then she suddenly unfroze. "Wait, they asked me to show you this message in case you were reluctant to have sex with me."

"Oh, no." I had a bad feeling about this. A really bad feeling. I was afraid I was about to receive a set of photos showing her having sex with this Mario guy to motivate me to have sex with this woman. Luckily, it was just a simple note.

'Have fun, honey. Remember, it's just a game. Just some harmless fun without any emotions attached. Just enjoy your time with her. I love only you, whatever you decide to do. If you refuse to have sex with her, we'll drop the whole thing. I won't do anything foolish without your consent.'

"Fuck." Although I should have been relieved, this message brought home again what had happened so far. My wife tried to force me into swinging, even drugged me and provided a hooker to convince me to take the first step. This was not what a wife was supposed to do in my books. This was not how a marriage was supposed to work.

"You want to?" she asked, intentionally misunderstanding me.

"What? No thanks. So, what about your study?" I needed to distract myself, so I spent the morning testing her knowledge. Keeping the circumstances in mind, we even had a reasonably good time.

xx

We spent the following days with the following: brooding about one marriage in trouble, studying, cooking, taking walks through the woods, sulking, looking incredibly beautiful, being depressed, sitting in front of the fire place and talking about everything under the sun. Of course, we didn't both do all of those things.

xx

The week was almost over, we knew the group of connivers were about to pick us up in about an hour. We sat on the deck, having a last cup of coffee in companionable silence.

"By the way, I'm Lisa."

"Frank."

"Nice to have met you."

"My pleasure."

No more words were exchanged until the car arrived. My anxious looking wife literally ran up to where I stood, her arms outstretched expectantly.

xx

It's Sunday morning, my mood is relaxed after a very pleasant night of making love to my wife. The unfortunate events connected to this silly game are mostly forgotten by now. It was a hare-brained idea from the beginning, Annette clearly saw the errors in her ways and I have to say I'm completely over it. Yes, I can honestly say that I have completely forgiven her. It wasn't easy, but I had external help and I'm looking back on it without holding a grudge. It sure helped that she never actually had sex with this Mario guy. Hey, more than often I even have to smile when I think about it. In the end, it didn't harm me at all and I think my marriage is even better now. A lot better, actually.

My wife shuffles into the kitchen, still half asleep.

"Coffee, honey?"

She just nods and I hand her a mug to bring her back into the world of the living.

"Quite a wild night, huh?"

"Yeah, quite a wild wife I have."

"You're not chopped liver either, mister." Lisa playfully punches me. We both grin. All is good with the world.

"I love you, Frank."

"I love you too."