The Lodger from Hell

A word of warning before you start reading, this tale is possibly even more strongly cuckold oriented than my previous effort. This story was written about twelve years ago so some of the values mentioned may seem a little low at today's prices.

*****

I met Jane just before I got my degree when she too had almost finished with college. We dated for six months, lived together for eighteen and then, on the strength of a marvellous job, got married and bought a house. Jane has blonde curly hair framing her face, I think she is beautiful and many other men seem to concur with my opinion. At just over five feet two inches tall, she has a dream figure and her face can melt my heart but it was really her character that I fell in love with. At times she is very feminine and almost helpless and yet at others can be determined and extremely stubborn. One day in the flat, after a very enjoyable afternoon sex session, I reclined contentedly and asked, "So what was it that first attracted you to me - my high intelligence or these rugged good looks?"

"What rugged good looks?" she came back with a laugh, " - and how can a person with supposed high intelligence even consider asking a question like that?" That was the other thing I liked - her healthy sense of humour.

"Seriously though - why me?"

"If you must know - it was because you were the first guy to really talk to me as a person before trying to get into my pants."

These days no guy can really expect to find a girl still pure and unsullied and I had hardly been a monk so, our previous sex lives had been left undefined by mutual agreement but her remark triggered a niggle of curiosity. "How many did get into your pants?" I heard myself asking.

"A whole lot less than would have liked to," she said sharply and that was the end of that conversation.

I got a job working in electronics on a rather fantastic salary but it meant moving to another city. Jane got transferred within her insurance company and at that time was earning roughly half as much as me. The house we bought was near the limit of the five times combined salary equation but we both had excellent prospect for promotion so the initial hardship was not likely to be of long duration - we thought. I admit that we also ran up some substantial credit furnishing the house but the future looked good. A year went by. I will not name the firm I worked for but can offer a couple of clues - it was named after the inventor of radio and its stock market value famously plunged from over thirty billion to under one billion is less than a year.

Inevitably there was major rationalisation and my job was one of the first to go. I was fortunate to quickly find new employment in an office but my wage was now slightly less than my wife was earning and this meant we could only afford two thirds of our mortgage. Although house prices were rising nationally, my ex firm had been a major employer and in consequence there was a glut of houses for sale in my area. The net result was that a year further on we were three months in arrears on our mortgage payments and had already received notification of possible repossession of the house, if the debt remained outstanding. I was regularly working the whole of Saturday's as overtime but this was doing little more than delay the inevitable.

It was this dire situation that prompted Jane to come up with her big idea. "In my first year at college I lived with an ordinary family," she said. "Their daughter had recently married so they rented her bedroom to me for £50 per week and I had a very happy year. I don't see why we can't do the same."

This seemed the answer to all our problems so we put a card in the local newsagents window that read, 'ROOM TO LET FOR FEMALE STUDENT. £200 PER MONTH.' After a fortnight with no response, the newsagent informed us there had been a complaint that our advert contravened the sex discrimination act and asked that it be rephrased. So we wrote, 'ROOM TO LET £200 PER MONTH. SUIT STUDENT - FEMALE PREFFERED." Jane took the new card down to the shop that Sunday afternoon and she had hardly got back when the doorbell rang.

Standing outside was a man and he was holding our card. I heard my wife say, "We really wanted a girl but you had better come in anyway," and the next moment she came back into the room followed by a male figure. I stood and politely offered him my hand. The stranger looked to be aged in his middle to late thirties, was a couple of inches taller than me and appeared to be about twenty pounds heavier. He had a handsome face spoiled by a hardened look and I had the impression that he was ex military of some sort.

I didn't like him. It was hard to put my finger on what was wrong because he was smartly dressed, looked intelligent and when he spoke it was with a reasonably cultured voice. On the other hand, he stood kind of loosely, seemed to glide when he walked and had far too much self-assurance for my peace of mind. I think the real reason for my dislike was the way he looked at Jane - but then lots of men look at her that way and I suppose that it is understandable. "I'm sorry but we did specify a girl," I said.

"I understand that," he said with an easy smile. "I'm no longer a student and I most certainly not a girl but having no financial constraints I will happily pay £300 per month for the privilege of sharing your lovely home. I'm working in this city for the next six months and would far prefer to be somewhere like this rather than anonymous hotel rooms."

Jane was already starting to smile at him so I jumped in quickly to say, "No - I'm sorry. My wife and I did agree that we only wanted to take in a girl."

My wife grabbed my arm, begged to be excused and bustled me into the kitchen. "You weren't seriously going turn down £300 a month were you? Whatever is wrong with you Dave - we need that money?"

I could give no valid reason for rejecting the man so I resorted to saying lamely, "We did agree right at the start that any lodger would have to be female. Anyway, we only actually need £200."

"You really are a selfish bastard," Jane hissed. "You were thinking we might get some dolly bird for you to ogle and hopefully catch wandering about only partly dressed. I was happy to go along with that but now a rather dishy guy turns up and because you think I might fancy him you try to put the block on it - never mind that he is offering one hundred pounds more than we asked for."

"There is something not right about him," I mumbled, but then, seeing the look in her eye, I conceded, "- but OK, if that is what you want."

"Right or wrong I'll take a chance for that kind of money," Jane stated but then magnanimous in victory she grinned. "We will get a nice bit of crackling for you to pant after next time - I promise."

We returned to our prospective lodger and gave him the good news. His smile was for Jane as he said, "I take it that I have you to thank for the change of heart - if so I'm very grateful. I'm Max by the way, Max Flemming."

A cup of tea was in order so we sat around while he told us a bit about himself. Max was so friendly, educated and apparently respectable that, by the time he left to fetch his things, I had almost forgotten my initial reservations. Every day he left for work slightly before and returned shortly after we were both home - except for one Thursday when I was delayed and walked in to find them chatting at the bottom of the stairs. He was no trouble, keeping mainly to his room except for two evenings when he came down by invitation to watch TV with us. I still did not like the way he looked at Jane but had to admit that in his position I would have done exactly the same - especially if he had been the hoped for nubile girl student. So the first week passed without incident until the Saturday morning, after I set off alone for my overtime stint.

At five o'clock, I came out of the front door of the office building where I work and turned left towards the lot where I always parked my car. Only a few paces along that route there is a small park containing one bench and as I approached a female figure rose from it and started hurrying towards me. It took a second glance to see that it was Jane. Her shoulders were hunched and she a hand just under her chin, clutching her cardigan tightly closed across her chest. It had been a fairly warm day but now with the sun gone it was turning decidedly chilly and my wife looked rather cold. "What are you doing here sweetheart?" I asked, surprised but still very pleased to see her.

"I've been waiting for you, I've been waiting a long time," she said unhappily. "Something terrible has happened and I need to tell you about it before you get home.

She was trembling so much, either from the cold or what she was about to impart, that I gently shepherded her back to the bench and got her seated with my jacket wrapped around her before asking, "What happened - tell me?"

"It's Max," she said, "Not long after you left this morning, I came out of our bedroom and was walking along the landing when, just as I passed his door, it opened and he was standing there facing me. I was so startled that I stopped and looked at him. He looked back at me for quite a long time and then he said, 'I want to fuck you', just like that."

"He said, "What?" I shouted, even though I had heard the words used quite clearly.

"The worst thing is that he was completely naked," Jane went on. "He was very aroused and he has a simply enormous penis."

"That is terrible - you must have been terrified."

"The really terribly thing is that I wanted to let him," my lovely young wife told me bluntly.

My whole body seized up as I immediately expected to hear a blow by blow account of how he had seduced her. "What did you do?" I asked, unable to keep the tremor from my voice.

"I turned and ran. I ran right out of the house and then I walked all the way into town. I came to this park. It's a good job that I had just put my shoes on when he appeared like that or else I would have had to spend the day wearing my fluffy mules. I couldn't ring you because of your new firm's rule about personal calls and I daren't risk you losing your job."

I can't describe the feeling of relief that flooded over me knowing that my darling had not been molested. Putting the confession about her reaction to one side for the moment, I clutched her shivering body against mine and showered her face with kisses. "Can we go to a café please?" she begged. "I ran out without any money so I haven't had anything to eat or drink all day - that's why I had to walk into town because I hadn't got any bus fare."

"I'm taking you to the car," I told her firmly, "It will be far better for you to have a drink and get warm at home - we will be there almost as fast as finding a café."

"No," she disagreed urgently. "We have got to talk about it before we get home. I'm frightened of Max now and I'm also frightened of me."

Realising that argument was futile, I took her to a café that I sometimes used at lunchtimes and after allowing her a few sips of her hot coffee, I asked, "How do you mean you are frightened of yourself?"

"I'm frightened of my reaction. It would have been so easy to let him have what he wanted and I desperately don't want to cheat on you again."

"AGAIN? When did you cheat on me before?" I asked loudly, realising too late that we now had the interested attention of all the other café patrons."

"Three years ago after our big row," she whispered back holding up a hand to shield her face from curious glances. "I told you all about it."

"You told me fuck all about anything like that," I hissed, using coarse language to her for the first time ever in other than a sexual context.

"I did tell you," she started to insist but then hesitated. "I started to tell you but you must have cheated on me as well - so you stopped me and said that we should forget all about it."

I remembered. It was when we were just living together a year before the wedding. That was our first and only real row but it was a lulu and the sad thing is that for the life of me I can't now remember what it was about. We had both stormed out of the flat shouting that we never wanted to see the other person again. It was a Saturday, so that night I went out to drown my sorrows and somehow got hooked into the stag partly of someone I had known at school. The early hours of Sunday morning had found me bollock naked and balanced on top of the fountain in the town square and pissing an arc of accumulated beer, with the others betting on how far I could reach.

Unfortunately, there were a couple of patrol constables among my audience and they were not applauding. I was arrested, kept in a cell overnight and then charged with being drunk and disorderly, exposing myself in a public place, gross indecency and vandalism. The rest of the week I spent with my parents, expecting a custodial sentence but on the Friday was given a conditional discharge with £25 costs. Deeply ashamed, I left the court and went back to the flat intending to take one last look at my loved one's clothes but found Jane already there, her face buried in one of my jackets and weeping heart-brokenly.

After a great deal of kissing she pulled away saying that she had a confession to make and that when I knew what she had done, she was sure that I would not take her back. "It's what happened last Saturday night and I'm so ashamed," she said. Nothing could be worse than my shame. I could not bear to tell of my humiliation so instead I said that I did not want to hear any more and that we should both pretend that the previous weekend had not happened.

"I know what I said then but I want to know now," I told her.

"I was very angry with you," Jane began, already partly excusing her actions. "I rang an old girlfriend to cheer me up and she took me along with her to a party. I started drinking a lot to make me feel better but I only finished up drunk. I was dancing a lot with the guy who's party it was and he managed to get me upstairs without me realising where we were going but when we were in a bedroom I let him fuck me."

At that point my wife paused and threw a quick glance to judge my reaction before continuing in a less dramatic tone of voice, "By that time I had persuaded myself that it served you right so I was more of a slut for him that I have ever been with you. We had been doing it for quite a long time when there was knock on the door so he hid me under some coats and things then went to see who it was. Anyway, when he let me out, his best friend was there so I screwed him as well and by the time that was over, the first guy was aroused from watching and wanted to do it again. I was at that house all night and it was not until I woke up that I realised what I had done. After that I felt that I didn't deserve to be in your life any more so I stayed away until the following Friday when I had to have one last look at our lovely little flat - and that's where you found me. I felt terrible until you told me that you had done something similar and then I felt a lot better. What exactly did you do - was it as bad as me?"

"It seems trivial now compared to what you did," I said and went on to tell her the details of my misdemeanour as related above. When I had finished she gave a little laugh and asked what the vandalism had been. "I'm not sure," I confessed, "I always assumed that it was polluting the water of the fountain with urine."

Jane was acting as if our respective nights of shame were equivalent but in my mind they definitely were not, so with my stomach cramped in jealousy, I pressed for more details about her night of rampant infidelity with two complete strangers but Jane shook her head. Putting her hand on mine she said gently, "I will tell you everything that you want to know but please leave it till later love - the important thing now is to decide what we are going to do about Max."

"There is nothing to decide. We go home now and tell him to leave - the bastard can hardly expect to stay after what he has done."

Jane was still unsure. "What if he won't go? I'm worried about my reactions because he does have a strong effect on me. Dave, this is all my fault. You were right when you didn't want to let him stay in the first place but I was silly. I could understand exactly why you didn't want him in our home but I found him rather exciting and different and because I was intrigued, I persuaded you to let him take the room."

"I'm not sure that I understand what you mean by reaction."

"Dave, when he spoke to me, if I had not escaped at that very instant I would have finished up doing everything that he wanted me to do - I know I would. It wasn't hypnotism because he didn't give me any orders but I wanted so much to walk into his bedroom, knowing exactly what would happen if I did. It took every bit of will power I had to break away and run."

"You were alone in a house with a naked man who was propositioning you so it's no wonder that you were affected. It will be completely different now - I will be with you for a start," I told her firmly.

"I'm not sure that will be enough."

"Jane, this is the twenty-first century but you are talking as if the guy had some kind of voodoo power. If it will make you happier we'll take the police with us. We can say that Max has been offensive and ask them to evict him for us."

"That won't work. I doubt if the police would go with us in the first place and even if they did he would deny everything. I can even imagine that he would admit that I had accidentally seen him naked and then say that knowing what he's got between his legs I want him out of the house just so I won't be tempted. The police would have a good snigger at my expense and then go off leaving him with us." Jane was digging her fingernails into my hand from the urgency of her argument. "If he has not actually done anything that we can prove, I don't think we can legally get him out of the house until his month is up."

"There is another way of looking at this," I suggested, trying a different tack. "He was probably as surprised as you when he opened his door and found you outside. In an embarrassing situation like that, you can either apologise profusely or try to brazen it out. What he said was probably just a bad taste joke. He very possibly feels as badly as you do and we are getting the whole thing way out of proportion."

"You don't know what you're talking about, you weren't there," Jane insisted bluntly. "I'm convinced that he opened the door deliberately and that it was all planned. You can't imagine the electricity that was passing between us. He wanted me and I'm terribly afraid that if we go back home now he's going to finish up having me."

"So what do you suggest?" I asked, having no idea of my own.

My wife shook her head helplessly. "I just know that I don't want to go back there now. Couldn't we go to a hotel for the night - at least it would give us more time to think things through."

"Darling you know that we can't afford a hotel room and anyway, it wouldn't do any good because this time tomorrow we will still be in exactly the same boat - only poorer. What happens for the rest of the month?"

"We could split up and go to stay with our respective parents for the month."

"Even if we stayed with the same parent, the nearest is over a hundred miles from here so how could we possibly get to work without running up massive train or petrol bills?"

"If it is going to cost money whatever we do, perhaps he might leave if we gave him his £300 back."

That was a good idea - or at least it was an idea and I clutched at it like a drowning man. "I'll stop and get the cash out of the mini bank," I told her with a surge of hope, "It will clean us out but at least we do have the money available to hand over."