The Wager

The wager was made after several rounds of whiskey. It was a serious bet made after our protagonist asked for an up or down vote on the "fuckability" of various women colleagues. Thumbs up, thumbs down. There was no office slut as such, but there were the flirty ones, the busty ones, the long-legged short-skirted ones. There were a few disagreements, voices raised in alcoholic dispute. On one question though there was consensus. Young Susan, the new girl in production was "totally fuckable" but no one present could imagine her betraying her husband. The ring on her finger, the gold cross at her throat, the dumpy clothing, acted as a wall, blocking the male gaze, intercepting the male approach.

Our protagonist was a well-known Romeo among his friends. Women found him "interesting." His companions found his exploits exciting in the retelling and yet also annoying. It was too easy for him. The Monday morning description of the weekend bar pick-up contrasted to their own nuptial boredom or, worse, their failures and rejections. While they eagerly crowded around his computer to view the Facebook page of his latest conquest, asking after the size of her tits, the wetness and tightness of her pussy, they also felt the bile of their resentment.

The challenge was thrown out by Darren, the most married, most resentful of the drinkers. "I bet you can't fuck Susan."

"What do you bet?" our protagonist riposted.

"What do you want?"

"An evening alone with your wife."

We should note here that our protagonist was not especially attracted to Darren's wife. But he suspected Darren suffered certain illusions about how married he really was. It would satisfy him to cuckold his colleague.

Darren, we should also note, was angered by the arrogance of our interesting man. However, Darren was a man who prided himself on his calculating mind. The probability that Susan, the prudish Christian office waif, would succumb to a sordid affair was remote. And even if she did, he was confident his wife, having only a passing interest in sex, was very unlikely to allow herself to be bedded. Two remotes combined and multiplied made for a sure bet, at least in Darren's mind.

They agreed that emails and photographs would be the standard of evidence. They solemnly shook hands and invited their companions to be their witnesses. The whiskey had dislodged the usually hidden and ancient need to stand taller than the next man. And so a wager was made, a die cast, a future plotted.

At this time Susan was seated alone on a couch in her tidy home, a Netflix series streaming while she played a game on her ipad. Her husband was a bookkeeper, although he always introduced himself as an accountant. He was engaged with a spreadsheet in the tiny office space at the back of the house. This room he kept neatly arranged, each stapler, pen, and file assigned a place. The only suggestion of disorder was the locked bottom drawer in which he kept his grandfather's World War Two pistol, and a few sentimental items commemorating a life only partially lived.

A wife is a curious being, but Susan's husband, like most men of his type, lacked curiosity. Our protagonist though is a curious man and he knew that below the surface of every wife there lies a woman, that most unpredictable of God's many creatures. A woman marries to settle a question. Susan's question was "Will I always be alone?" Marriage answered that question in the negative - she had found someone who could not, would not, reject her. And she was correct - the bookkeeper was as dogged in his commitments as he was in balancing ledgers. The problem though, as many a wife has discovered, is that once a question has been answered it leaves room for a new question. To succeed in his quest our protagonist has to find the woman hidden beneath the wife and be the answer to her new question.

The next Monday morning Susan sat at her desk in the noisy production room intent on her computer screen while her fingers raced across the keyboard, editing the clunky prose of her colleagues. Our protagonist noticed her indifference to his presence in the room, she barely offered a glance in his direction. He was wise enough to know that his usual initial ploy of sitting on the edge of a desk, offering the distraction of silly banter, would not work with Susan. He knew that in her eyes he was man without substance, a flirt, someone who is looking to fuck. His reputation, although often an advantage, was now a distinct liability. He needed a new strategy.

The following afternoon he sent an email to Susan asking for a favor. He used a business tone but indicated the matter concerned something requiring discretion. Susan's reply was brief, equally business-like, but betrayed her curiosity. (The fly is in the water.) They met in the corridor outside the elevators.

Our protagonist explained that he was writing a proposal for a charity project and he needed help editing it. He explained that his charity work was a private matter, unknown to his colleagues, and he wanted to keep it that way.

"Of course," said Susan, relieved that his request was so innocent, given his reputation for hitting on women.

"It's just that I've heard such good things about your work and I guessed that you would keep my secret."

Susan tucked the manila folder under her arm and returned to her desk. That evening she spread the sheets of paper across her kitchen table and begun editing the pages our protagonist had randomly downloaded earlier in the day, checking only that it was poorly, but not too poorly, written. Her mind wandered from her task, trying to reconcile the man with the reputation for womanizing and the man who proposed charity projects to help needy children in remotest Africa. She concluded that office gossip was poisonous and that people are too quick to judge. She shared her newly acquired wisdom with her husband who grunted his assent before returning to his own longwinded story. But something sat uneasily with her, something she was unable to fully bring into view. The fact was that he had the reputation of a womanizer and, well, she was a woman, and yet she detected no interest from him towards her, apart from her editing skills. She was suddenly thrown back to a time when she looked with envy at the pretty girls, the desired girls, the girls who got fucked. She recalled her teenage nighttime sobbing that racked her flat-chested torso - but this soon enough gave way to a more romantic quest - to find love, a less sordid solution to the problem of her self-esteem. If she was not a girl who got fucked, she would be a girl who found love. This is how love became the answer to her question - Will I be alone? But now that this fear of being cast into solitude had been addressed, her teenage fear, the fear of not being desired, reemerged. Perhaps, after all, she thought, I am unfuckable, unranked in the league table of available pussy. Whereas before, her nerdy, bespectacled, flat-chested self was invisible to the boys who fucked, now her dowdy, bespectacled, wifely self was invisible, even to the office womanizer.

All she wanted was to be noticed by him, seen as a woman. Nothing more. Besides, as she told herself, as she adjusted the tighter-than-usual sweater over her above-the-knee skirt, he is a good person really.

She waited nervously all day for a reply to her email telling him her editing work was complete and that she was ready to go over the changes with him. Ten minutes before quitting time his reply came and fifteen minutes after that she was using her phone to find the bar he proposed for the meeting. It was a dark, masculine, place with wood paneled walls and rich red upholstery. It took her a moment to adjust to the light before she saw him, relaxed and already with a drink in his hand.

He eyed her up and down as she approached, taking in her newly revealed dimensions. He smiled with what seemed approval as she sat down. He nodded to the barman who minutes later delivered her a cocktail.

"I thought we were working," she said, taking her first sip.

"We are," he said with a boyish grin.

She suddenly felt manipulated, conned by the office womanizer.

"I didn't come here for that."

"For what?"

"I'm married, happily married."

"I can see," he said nodding towards her left hand. "But really, I'm here because of the charity proposal and, well, I thought I would thank you by buying you a drink. Nothing more."

"But this place," she said. "It feels like an assignation"

He laughed. "Well, you're right I suppose. It is an assignation ... of a sort. I used to bring my dates here because it's discreet. I also need to be discreet about this," he said, indicating the pile of papers Susan had disinterred from her bag onto the leather embossed table. "I have a reputation to maintain," he laughed again, the same charming, boyish laugh.

Susan found herself both relieved and angered by his conversation. He wasn't manipulating her into an unwanted assignation but he was, once again, thinking of her as a wife and not as a woman. Her new question was now an urgent one. Am I desirable? What if the office womanizer, even in a place like this with cocktails in hand, didn't see her as a woman, as desirable?

Our protagonist noted the flush across her cheek and at her throat. He leaned in closer and spoke softly enough that Susan had to set her drink down and lean in too.

"I know what they say about me around the office. And, if I'm honest, I haven't always been, shall we say, a good boy. But I'm trying to reform, I really am. I recognize the need to change - I can't live my life hopping from one woman to another. I got involved with charity work so that I could start thinking about other people, not just about myself. These changes are not easy, old habits are hard to resist. Even when you walked in ..."

"What?" she asked, matching his whispered voice.

"I don't know, it was just habit to, you know, check you out."

"Oh, I didn't notice," she lied, blushing nonetheless.

Our protagonist smiled to himself, leaned back, and with a deep breath said "Shall we commence the editing?"

She lied to her husband that night - an innocent lie it seemed to her. He hadn't seemed interested in her story of helping the office womanizer the first time and so, she reasoned, why trouble him a second time? To her surprise her husband did ask about it a few days later, but by then the lie had been told and a new lie had be spoken to protect the first. All wives lie, of course. However, there is a scale of lying and Susan knew, without need of instruction, that her lies belonged at the high end of wifely deceit. She also discovered that even a lie that makes the heart race in the telling will, after a few days, settle in comfortably and require very little further attention.

Days passed and, despite her earnest scanning of her inbox, his name refused to appear. She became distracted, nervous, and irritable. Was she really so unattractive, so uninteresting? All she wanted was for him to make a move, express a desire for her, anything really, even something crude. A dick pic would be enough. Then, she told herself, she would know. And then she would be able to rest again, resume her wifely existence. She became angry with him, rehearsing her rejection of his advances, anticipating the look of disappointment in his eyes.

Meanwhile our protagonist calculated the interval between the cocktail and the next contact. Usually he relied on instinct because his usual conquests were as familiar to him as prey is to a predictor - their every move anticipated in advance. With Susan he felt much less sure. He noted the blush across her cheek and throat when complemented her looks and this gave him some confidence. But, there still remained a great distance between her ass and the flat palm of his hand, between her mouth and his tongue, between her cunt and his fingers. The cross at her throat, lodged comfortably in her suprasternal notch, symbolized her unavailability. Instinct told him to wait. And then wait some more.

Susan flopped down on her marital bed. It was Sunday and the only sound was the murmur of the Golf Channel in the room below. Several years before she had happily abandoned her attempts to enjoy her husband's sports interests. He seemed not to care either way. In the low light of an early spring afternoon her thoughts returned to her dilemma. It had been more than a week since the fateful meeting. Several times on Friday she drafted a message enquiring about the charity project, but however innocent the message sounded, she knew how he would read it. She wanted to be desired, not to grovel for attention. She would be as worthless as the other women he casually used. "Dignity," she whispered to herself, she was not going to compromise her dignity.

Her mind wandered but always returned back to him. The women he slept with, the women without dignity, who could not resist his silly charms and his fake boyishness. She guessed the sex with these women was pornographic and she played with these images in her mind, imagining him using these women like a stud in a filthy movie, moving from one to another, endlessly hard, thrusting, gripping, slapping, biting, cumming over and over again. Whores, that's what they were. Whores.

When she heard her husband clattering about the kitchen she quickly buttoned up her jeans and wiped the string of pussy juice off her fingers. Her breathing slowly subsided but she was left with a bright red blush across her chest and throat. Her husband called up from the well of the stairs, asking her whether she wanted coffee? She resented the question, the imposition, the assumption of placid domesticity. She answered irritably in the negative.

Our protagonist grew tired of the question - "Have you ... yet?" - and the implied accusation of failure. He resented Darren's smirk as he passed in the hallway. The self-accusations were the worst of all. He should have written an email sooner, he should have made a play at the bar ... but he came back to the same argument. She was like a young deer, curious but ready to bolt in an instant. Patience on the trigger, slowness of breath, and a steady arm were the only options.

To take his mind off her he went to a club on the outskirts of the city. It was located in an abandoned factory, its bustle and jobs long transferred to a country with better weather and cheaper labor. He felt his age as he walked into the cavernous hall, stripped down to its beams, bare brick, and useless pipes. To him it had the ambiance of an abattoir but the cunt was usually plentiful and often desperate. He didn't want to have to work too hard. He didn't have the heart for it.

He took up a station at the bar form where he could survey the dance floor and the makeshift booths that surrounded it. He hunted for groups of women, parties of three and five often offered the best prospects - a birthday celebration, an engagement party, a reunion of old friends. There was always one left out of an odd-numbered set, someone not grinding on the dance floor, someone not in tears being comforted by a companion, someone alone, and resentful of the success and companionship the others had.

His prey crossed his line of vision - an awkward-looking girl, uneasy with herself and a little drunk. She approached the packed bar trying, unsuccessfully, to get the attention of the busy barman. Our protagonist smiled and beckoned her over, making room for her at the bar counter. She mouthed a 'thank you' and inserted herself between him and the bar. She was close enough that he could smell her perfume. He looked down on her naked shoulder, faint brown freckles visible on her pale skin. She seemed frail, fragile. Still the barman ignored her, attending to only to the loudest and tallest.

"Let me get you a drink," he said, his mouth close to her ear.

"It's okay," she said, a faint smile visible.

He leaned over her, touching her, and caught the eye the barman.

Soon she had a plastic cup filled with vodka, Red Bull, and ice.

He guided her through the throng to a quieter area, near the restrooms. Quickly, he established her situation. Her friends were paired off and she was alone. She was getting her associates degree, part-time. She wanted to be cosmetologist. Her name was Autumn. She leaned against the wall, telling her story, her smile was less forced, her grey-green eyes diffused by the amount of alcohol she'd consumed. He had relieved her of her awkward aloneness, the shame of the unpartnered, uncoupled, woman.

The pounding music started to irritate him. He didn't care enough to keep up the pretense of interest in Autumn's limited conversation. He pulled the trigger - it was too soon, he knew, to make a move, but regardless, he placed his hand on her hip as he leaned in to better hear her tale of limited ambition. The risk of an early shot paid off and he tightened his grip. She showed no resistance. It was easy to read her now - she wanted a story to tell her friends, she needed to be included, and be the adventurous one, for once. The rest was going to be easy.

He bundled her into a stall in the men's bathroom and slammed the flimsy metal lock shut. He could see she was terribly drunk, her eyes glazed, her mouth slack. She sat on the closed lid of the toilet as he unzipped, her hands fumbling in his underwear, his hands lifting her firm young breasts out of her bra. All around, the sound of men pissing and talking - the main door opening and closing, releasing the thumping sound of dance music into the echoing bathroom. There was an ad for a theme night at his eye-level showing two girls, arms linked, smiling, stepping into a brightly lit foyer. He thought the brunette looked his type, a note of intelligence in her eyes, perhaps a knowing smirk on her lips. He wondered what she would be like to fuck and he felt, at last, the first response of his dick in Autumn's mouth. He pushed his fingers through her hair and balled it into fist, enjoying the whimper her stretched scalp caused. He was hard, her tits looked great, he was going to fill her stupid mouth with something better than the empty words that bored him earlier. Still he couldn't cum. He focused again on the brunette, statically smiling, statically cheerful, permanently present - a mere facsimile of a woman. He was losing the moment - he could hear the talk, the sound of faucets splashing, the sudden, blasting sound of dryers, the constant opening and closing of the door. Fuck.

Then Susan. Yes, Susan. He imagined Susan here, sat on a toilet, sucking cock, slurping, her spit running down his now hard shaft, her eyes raised - Yes, now he could cum, now the world narrowed, now, now ...

Our protagonist was brought back to his situation by the sound of Autumn spitting out a mouthful of stringy cum onto the dirty tiled floor the bathroom stall. He zipped his pants and waited for her to arrange herself before exiting the stall. They crossed the line of urinals to the sound of foul language directed at the young girl. Protectively, he escorted her back to the dance floor and to the company of her friends. As a gift, he waited with her a few minutes so her accomplishment could be verified by his presence. Then he left, the ghost of Susan still in Autumn's mouth and still on our protagonist's mind.

In the dim light of the marital bedroom Susan reached for her phone. Her husband lay motionless beside her, a familiar, gentle growl issuing from his sinuses. As had become her new habit she first checked her email, her heart steadied for disappointment. Instead his name, bolded and patiently waiting, headed the list of mundane work and family emails. She noted it had been sent in the early hours of the morning. She could see the first few words ... "Dearest Susan, I wanted ..." She stared at the unopened email. What did he want? Did he want me? Desire me? She considered his wants and whether she could fulfill them. The lump that was her husband shifted in his sleep, bringing her annoyingly back to her situation. She eased herself out of bed taking care not to disturb him. Like a thief she silently closed the bedroom door and snuck into the second bathroom. She sat on the edge of the tub, her finger hovering over our protagonist's bolded name.