The Wager

He lay cursing the noisy commotion that pulled him from a restless sleep. The crows yelled to one another from their treetop perches, level with his bedroom window in an apartment block on the other side of town from Susan. For a moment he thought it had been Susan in the bathroom stall since his very first thoughts were of her and his conquest the previous night. But the persistent cawing of the crows helped waken him further and disentangle the previously merged thoughts. He had already forgotten the bathroom girl's name (Audrey ...?). He did, however, recall his late night email to Susan and, feeling inexplicably nervous, felt around for the shape of his phone. The dull glow of the screen showed him an email from Darren. He opened it, anticipating its content but underestimating his negative reaction. Darren informed him that the wager was over, that he had lost the bet. Darren went on to say he was a fucking loser and that no one would believe his bullshit Valentino stories anymore. Our protagonist could almost see Darren's jowly spiteful face as he wrote these pitiful words. Usually he would have brushed it off, evidence, if more were needed, of Darren's nasty, small-minded nature. However, self-doubt, an unfamiliar feeling, arose steadily until he tossed aside the phone. The feeling, however, followed him to the kitchen where he prepared a pot of coffee.

He was forced to reflect on his sense that he was too old to be at the club, that he didn't fit in with the youthful crowd swirling around him. Even worse, he was forced to remember that Amber's mouth was not enough to keep him hard and that without the brunette in the picture and without the fantasy of Susan he probably wouldn't have been able to stay hard long enough to cum. He brought his coffee back to the small bedroom, opening the shades on a dreary Sunday morning. Unable to shake the feeling that Darren's email had evoked, he promised himself he would get his bike out of storage and start riding again. He would also rejoin the gym. He wasn't too old. He'd just let himself go recently - too much time spent at work and too much time drinking with assholes like Darren. His phone buzzed an alert and he saw that Susan had emailed back.

Susan had puzzled over the meaning of his email. He "wanted" to meet her for "drinks" to "thank" her for her work on the charity project. He had appended a winking smiley face. There was nothing improper in the email except for that winking face. But, at first she rejected its implications. She reasoned it would only be courtesy to thank her, nothing more. He had probably put off writing to her to avoid the trouble of having to thank her. But he didn't need to take her out for drinks if that was true - simple thank you would have sufficed. Perhaps he felt guilty about waiting so long to reply that he felt he "ought" to offer her at least a drink. But, then there was the wink. The wink meant something, she was sure. She composed several replies, deleting each one in turn. Eventually, she wrote:

"You were up late last night"

Within a minute a chat box opened and he replied:

"Went dancing with friends," he lied.

"Oh, that's nice. It's ages since I've been dancing," she replied.

"Every girl deserves to dance ..."

She smiled at his description of her as a "girl"

"I wish"

"I would take you dancing," he replied. "In fact, I was thinking about you last night"

"You were??"

"Yeah, your pretty face popped into my mind"

"Awwww, now you're teasing me"

"No, seriously, I was thinking that I really wanted you to be there"

" You know I can't," she wrote.

There was a long pause. She sat on the edge of the bathtub in the silent house staring at the screen. Doubt crept back in - why would he be interested in someone who can't even go dancing? She pictured him at a sophisticated cabaret dance club, laughing at a table, crowded with beautiful people. She felt a familiar sense of worthlessness. The screen lit up again ...

"What are you wearing? ... ;)"

"Just t-shirt and underwear," she replied. "I just got up," she explained.

"mmmmmmm, I bet you look fucking gorgeous ..."

"lol"

"Seriously"

"Don't be silly - My hair's a mess and no make up"

"Well, I wasn't thinking of your hair exactly ... ;)"

"Oh yeah???"

"Yeah"

Again she paused, uncertain about what to say next. She listened the silence of the house, her husband just across the corridor. This was just a game. No harm to anyone.

"What were you thinking of?" she asked.

"Do you really want me to say?"

"Yes"

"Even if it's dirty??????"

"Yes"

She could see that he was writing and could feel her heart thumping against her ribs. Her hand reached up to the gold crucifix attached to the chain necklace.

"The first thing I ever saw of you was your ass, bent over one of the production guy's desk, the fabric of your pants stretched tight."

"And what did you think?"

Susan's breath was now audible in the small bathroom as she waited, the phone trembling in her hand.

"That you were totally fuckable, that there was a new piece of pussy around ..."

No had ever spoken to her like this before. She was shocked and at the same time she felt a delicious warmth spread across her skin. She whispered the word "fuckable" to herself. Our protagonist's next text lit up her screen.

"That was before I started my charity work of course ..."

She smiled.

"I'm not judging you," she wrote, "I like it that you are someone who is such a good person and also someone who appreciates women in a sexy way"

She pressed "send" and immediately felt embarrassed about how awkward her text sounded. There was a long pause.

"Send me a pic"

"Why?"

"Because I'm thinking of you, how gorgeous you are, how fuckable you are in your t-shirt and panties. I'll delete straightaway, I promise."

The first pic she sent showed Susan reflected in the bathroom mirror smiling, her tangled hair awry, one hand pulling her t-shirt down to cover her panties, her nipples clearly hard and pressed against the thin cotton.

"OMG ... fuck, you're so hot. Send me another one ...

"I shouldn't"

The next one showed her, back to the mirror, twisted around, smiling, coyly bent over, exposing her ass, snugly embraced in tight blue cotton panties, and the length of her firm white thighs. They went back and forth several times before Susan agreed to slip off her panties and t-shirt and spread herself on the edge of the bath, snapping her wet pussy and hard nippled breasts.

A sudden noise from the bedroom ended their chat. Susan lunged guiltily for her clothes as she heard her husband call her name, asking where she was.

"I'm in the bathroom," she reported. She heard him stop outside the door.

"Why are you in the guest bathroom?"

A fury arose in Susan's chest. "I'm in the damned bathroom, what do you think people do in the bathroom? Why do you ask such stupid questions?"

"Sorry," her husband murmured before plodding slowly downstairs.

A few minutes later she could hear the familiar noises of breakfast being prepared. The last thing she wanted was her husband's kindness but reluctantly she pulled on sweatpants and joined him in the kitchen. She rebuffed his attempts to make conversation and they ate in silence.

While Susan ate breakfast our protagonist uploaded the photos to his computer and then attached them to an email addressed to Darren. This would wipe the smirk from his fat face and remind him that it was a bad idea to badmouth our protagonist and, especially bad to take bets against his prowess as a seducer. For the first time in days he felt good about himself. He still had the magic. Sluts at the club, pussy at work - he could do it all. He took the luxury of reminding Darren of the terms of the bet. Now that he was sure the prize was close to hand, he told Darren how much he looked forward to making use of his wife.

Susan's angry frustration only grew as her husband clanged around the kitchen clearing away their plates. "I'm going to yoga," she announced, standing up and quickly leaving the room. Ten minutes later, dressed in her yoga outfit, her mat and water bottle on the backseat, she drove aimlessly around her neighborhood. Pulling over, she took a deep breath and typed a plaintive "hi" into her phone. Soon she was nervously steering her car through the streets of downtown, anxiously checking her progress on googlemaps. The large brownstone apartment blocks looked ominous and foreign to her suburban eyes. The autumn wind pushed leaves and an occasional piece of garbage along the sidewalk. Susan felt out of place, her anger at her husband and her frustration with herself slowly dissipating as the chill entered the now parked and silent car.

Why shouldn't she visit a colleague? Why must she explain herself? Must her whereabouts always be known? Why did her husband make her a prisoner? Couldn't she do something for herself just once?

The concrete steps of the brownstone were dusty, and the building had an air of neglect. Susan located the buzzer for our protagonist, her finger hesitating for a moment before she pressed it. The sound of the buzzer jolted our protagonist who was standing on a chair setting up his computer so that it could take a video of the bedroom. The angle wasn't perfect but placing it high on the shelf would best conceal it, as long as he kept Susan from poking around. He'd placed a small strip of sticking plaster over the light. Even if she did notice the computer it would be easy enough to explain its position.

It would be wrong to assume our protagonist had no hesitation when setting up his trap for Susan. In fact, he considered not bothering with video taping her at all and letting Darren have his victory. He knew setting her up was wrong. But he also convinced himself there would be no real harm to Susan since she would never know. And, besides, Susan was making her own choices. He wasn't forcing her to do anything. This internal moral discourse was abruptly halted by the certainty that Darren would never let it go if he didn't succeed with Susan. The cost of failure would be high. Nevertheless, on the other side of the moral debate, there was something about Susan that charmed him. She was pussy of course - like the rest of them. Just not the kind of he was used to. He'd found himself thinking of her, not only during masturbatory fantasies, but also on other occasions. There was something about her that reached him. Perhaps it was how her earnestness, her thorough good-girl-ness, could instantly dissolve into a flash of playful, conspiratorial, laughter. Her tendency to blush that betrayed a hidden, intriguing, inner life. And now her body, so recently crudely revealed, displayed needfulness and promised pleasure.

Our protagonist's small twinge of shame at the messiness of his apartment was soon replaced by his delight as he followed Susan down the narrow apartment hallway. Her ass was perfectly displayed by the tight, stretched fabric of her yoga pants as she advanced towards the kitchen. He recollected her shy smile as she stood awkwardly at his front door and combined the two moments - ass and smile - into a rush of anticipatory pleasure. Yes, it was wrong to trap her in this way, but how well he had played such a difficult hand and how sweet would be his victory. Another combination of images popped into his mind - Susan, legs spread, pussy exposed and Darren crestfallen and humiliated. He felt good again.

Susan felt as if she had crossed into a foreign land. It was both alarming and exciting. She sat on a hard wooden chair at a table beside the kitchen window overlooking the street. She noticed the sink full of dishes and the garbage bin stuffed full of pizza boxes. She fought an impulse to clear up the mess and set things straight. They made several attempts at conversation, each died quickly and the silence lengthened. Susan kept returning to the thought that nothing had really happened yet and she could easily return to her car and resume her previous life. It would be her secret. The thought that something could have happened would sustain her in the years ahead.

He offered her a drink and she requested a glass of water. He led her to the lounge, assuring her she would feel more comfortable. Her eyes alighted on his bookshelf packed with novels and she stepped closer to read the titles. He was taken by the way she suddenly seemed absorbed and momentarily unaware of his presence. He was also aware that she was the first person to have taken an interest in his books. Susan pulled a book as asked him what it was about. He offered a quick summary of the novel Dangerous Liaisons that she then returned to its place. She stretched up onto her toes to see the top shelf and with her back to him asked:

"Did you like the photos I sent this morning?"

"I liked them very much," he replied.

"Really?"

"Yes, really. I also like watching you move and I like hearing your voice."

"Do you like my yoga outfit?"

"It's perfect. You're perfect."

Susan turned and walked towards his outstretched hand. He pulled her in close. He felt the warmth of her body and she pressed, almost fell into him. Her eyes were raised, her lips slightly parted, and her eyes shone brightly.

"Our secret?" She asked.

"Of course," he lied. "Of course."

"I've never done anything like this before"

"I know, I know."

She whispered his name and locking her eyes with his said:

"I want you to fuck me. I want you to fuck me like you fuck all those other women. I want you to do everything you do with them. Everything. Do it dirty."

He smiled and pointed her towards the bedroom.

"Wait for me while I get us drinks," he ordered.

That evening Darren sat alone on his couch, a empty Bud Light cans scattered on the table before him. The Patriots game inched towards its inevitable conclusion. His wife was nattering on the phone to her sister in the kitchen. An email with an attached zip file appeared on his phone. Its subject line read: "Now, you fucker, I get to bang your wife."

Soon after, behind the closed door of the home office, Darren clicked "play" and our protagonist's bedroom came into view. He fast-forwarded until Susan came into the room. She undressed, pulling the stretchy yoga outfit off, and naked, she flopped face down on the bed. Darren's cock stirred at the sight of her perfectly rounded ass, tits that bounced back into place, flat stomach, and shaved pussy. It was extraordinary to imagine that such a fuckable body had been concealed beneath her frumpy outfits, that such a perfect piece of pussy was hiding in plain sight.

He watched our protagonist pull Susan's ass cheeks apart and run his tongue in the crack of her ass. Darren hard-on pressed against his pants as he paused the video to look more closely at Susan's saliva-ed, vulnerable asshole. Resuming, he heard her squeals subside into groans as our protagonist fiercely fingered her willing pussy, the sucking sounds of her wetness audible as he rammed her cunt with his fingers.

Darren listened for the telltale creak on the stairs to alert him to his wife's presence as he unzipped his pants and started jerking off to the sight of Susan's inexpert but enthusiastic cock sucking. He edged himself closer to orgasm watching Susan bend over the bed to receive cock, her face perfectly framed in the video as our protagonist slipped into her hot, wet, married pussy. Indeed, each episode of Susan's fucking was choreographed to give Darren the best view.

Susan gave a violent gasp and shuddered to her first orgasm, her knees shaking so much she collapsed onto the bed. With no time to recover her breath she was roughly pulled around and our protagonist shot a thick, arcing loop of bright white cum through the air to a splattering halt across Susan's face and hair.

They paused and sat side-by-side on the bed. Susan's face still dripping with cum, her one eye sealed shut. The video grew dim as the afternoon light faded. Darren watched them drink and whisper to each other, unable to hear what they were saying, but noticing the intimacy between them. Susan, flushed by her orgasm was playful and Darren watched our protagonist respond with his own laughter.

After she was fucked again, this time in a plain missionary position that obscured Darren's view, the corruption of Susan was complete. Darren watched her later, alone in the bedroom, wipe away cum from her face and neck and watched her dress. He also watched her hide her panties beneath our protagonist's pillow - a small gesture of affection, and perhaps the hope that she would return. Soon after that the video ended.

Darren pondered his difficult situation as he wiped up a stray spittle of cum that had fallen on the carpet beneath the office desk. The wager was bullshit. How was he supposed to know that Susan was, in reality, just another piece of fuckmeat? It's impossible to tell who is really a whore, a slut, a bitch. Yes, alright, he should have thought of that before making this stupid bet. He was being made a fool of by both of them. He probably knew that she was a slut before the bet was even made. The whole thing was a farce and Darren was nobody's fool.

Our protagonist received Darren's reply to his email while sitting at his kitchen table listening to the fall rain trickle through the drainpipe outside the window. He felt no great enthusiasm for fucking Darren's wife but he also felt a great determination to collect his winnings. He felt sure her conquest would as simple as a text message invitation. The summer before at a BBQ at Darren's house he had found himself looking across to where she sat on a garden chair, chatting away to her neighbor. Her short, tight jeans skirt was spread enough to give him a view of her inner thighs. He realized he had been caught, his lascivious gaze discovered by Darren's wife. But instead of closing her legs she brazenly widened them and continued as if she was unaware of his interest. He was treated to a view of her light blue panties and spent a pleasant few minutes in the warm summer sunshine imagining the pleasures of screwing Darren's wife. He found her cell number and quickly, lazily, composed a text message.

Darren's revenge was swift after his wife casually mentioned she was "having a girls night" on Wednesday and that he "shouldn't wait up". It took Google search just a fraction of a second to discover and reveal Susan's husband's work email address. It took a while longer for the large video file to upload but soon enough the "sent" message appeared. He sat back expecting a sweet feeling of revenge to calm the vein that throbbed in his neck. Instead his anger sought out a new target - his wife. She was no better than Susan, a whore in disguise. No one was going to humiliate Darren and get away with it. Suddenly and unexpectedly he felt it would be better to destroy everything than live with this feeling of utter diminishment. The horizon of time narrowed so that he couldn't see or imagine the consequences of his actions as he rummaged about in the garage for a suitable instrument.

Our protagonist stepped out of the shower and took a moment to assess himself in the bathroom mirror. Not too bad, he thought, still buzzed from his afternoon conquest. As he was toweling himself off his phone buzzed an alert.

Susan's message simply read - "What have you done?" It took a minute for the full calamity of the situation to be revealed. Laid out in the simplified language of texts Darren's outrageous betrayal was displayed. The bookkeeper was on his way, our protagonist's address forced from Susan's sobbing throat. "He's got a gun" was the last text message our protagonist received before he positioned himself behind his unlocked front door, baseball bat in hand.