Worth It - Dos

The next morning, I woke up next to Darla and her hand was inches from my face, but only resting on my chest.

They say fingernails, not eyes, are the windows to the soul. If that was true, then Darla's soul was pink, shaped like rose petals but without variation to the curve, accented here and there with tiny red hearts painted in an arrangement that created the faint image of a larger heart on each nail.

Think cutesy, soulless prettiness. Emptiness.

A girl playing woman's games for a girl's reasons, with hearts on her nails that no real woman would suffer wearing.

I yawned. Maybe I stretched a little.

My first thoughts were that my night with Abby had been only a dream, which would have meant that I hadn't cheated on my wife Gabrielle after-all.

For my still awakening brain, this was an easy thought to accept, but then I realized that Darla getting pounded by Ricky and following him to his bed would have had to have been a dream, too, because she wasn't in his bed now.

Unless she was in his bed, and I was too, having somehow joined them in my sleep.

God-knows-what-might-have-happened-between-that-stout-Latino-man-and-me.

I sat panicky-upright, looked around for him, didn't see him, checking under the covers around Darla's sleeping frame.

No Ricky anywhere. It was my bed, after-all. And Darla was in it too, her teenaged frame sprawled face-down next to me, flimsy baby-blue thong straps tied low around her fair hips, but still tied to her hips.

Effortlessly, her lithe arm stretched high, and then settled back down on my chest. She pulled herself an inch or two closer to me before giving up and drifting off.

So then, I started to think, maybe all I did last night was sleep in the same bed with Darla, without breaking my commitment to Gabrielle, or letting Abby take advantage of my needful erection.

But then Abby stepped through the curtain, wearing the same black negligee she had worn last night. In the morning light, I realized that she was of Indian descent, though lighter-skinned than most Indians I had seen. She was also tall, long-legged.

Instant, needful arousal. Longing regret.

It seemed as if Abby noticed Darla first, and for a moment I thought I saw something like anger flash across her beautiful Indian face.

I thought she would do something much worse, but Abby only leaned over me, picked up Darla's white arm by the wrist - holding it as if it were a snake - and dropped it on the pillow.

"I went to go use the phone," she said, "and I guess she came back while I was gone."

Still face-down, Darla made a small mewling noise and stretched her arm out once more, searching for my chest, but I sat upright, heaved my legs over the side of the bed and found that I was slightly wobbly.

"I need to make a call," I said as Abby traced down my torso with a warm finger, finding a thin trail of pubic hairs to follow right to the waistband of my thong. She knew I was going to call Gabrielle. I pulled on a robe and stepped through the curtains.

Everything was fine until as I was walking away Abby said, "Roberto says hi."

Too weird for me. I kept walking and waved behind me.

But before I was out of earshot, she said, "He and Gabrielle were in the same bed last night. He said she couldn't stop talking about you."

I felt sick.

I needed to find the phone.

A woman answered on the third ring, went to go get Gabrielle. Apparently the other house was already having breakfast and we hadn't even woken up yet.

I wondered if she had showered alone or with someone else.

Interrupting my rumination, Gabrielle picked up the phone. She sounded happy, aloof, unconcerned as if she had just heard a funny story at the dining room table.

I couldn't match her enthusiasm, but she didn't seem to notice.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Eating." In the background, someone said something and she laughed into the phone.

"So, how was last night?" I asked, my stomach dying like a cold fish in the hot air.

"Oh it was great! I was assigned to a bed with this funny little man who is staying faithful to his fiancée, too. We just talked and it was lots of fun!" My voice was quiet, a whisper. "You didn't do anything with him, did you?"

"No, of course not. I told you, I would never cheat on you."

Right, I thought, she really wouldn't cheat on me.

"Well, ok," she said. "I have to get back to breakfast."

"Wait," I was getting worried. "Don't you want to know what happened to me?"

"I know what happened to you." She said, and my stomach flopped in place. "You spent the night with Roberto's fiancée, Abby, and you were such a gentleman that you lay on top of the covers so there was no chance your bodies would touch. Abby told me. I love you a lot honey, but I have to go."

And she was gone.

When I hung up, Abby was standing right behind me. Her face was blushed and hot, as if she had just been crying.

I wanted to ask her why, but all I could do was put my arms around her.

After a few moments of that, it made sense.

"You didn't tell Roberto did you?"

She shook her head no.

"You don't have any rules for cheating with Roberto, do you? You're not supposed to do anything with anyone else, are you?"

Again, she shook her head. Her eyelids were pressed tightly shut, but tears still squeezed between them, rolling down her cheeks.

"Then why did you lie to me?"

"Because I love you." She whispered the words. Whispered and shuddered.

"Do you have any idea what's going to happen when my wife finds out?"

She shook her head, more tears fell. Hot, moist breath on my shoulders. Evidently she hadn't thought that far ahead, and neither had I.

"Let's get something to eat." I said, "but I can't take a shower with you."

She nodded, smiling a little bit, but it was only a smile for me. As I led her into the bathroom, Ricky passed us heading towards the kitchen. Abby looked away from him and he looked at me, held a loose fist up to his mouth and pushed his tongue against the inside of his cheek. I was familiar with the expression; I had seen it used plenty of times in high school and even college by the perpetually adolescent.

He started laughing at his own blow job joke.

There was a camera watching us. Nothing I could do that wouldn't get Gabrielle and I disqualified. I would have to deal with him later, maybe on one of the outdoor missions when the camera crew was elsewhere.

Of course it was a communal shower. I planned on jerking myself off to dampen the building tension, lessen the likelihood that I would mess up again. Fool me once, as the saying goes, and Gabrielle still takes me back. Fool me twice, and I lose Gabrielle forever.

Respecting my wishes, Abby went to the other end of the shower room, but after I turned the water on and put shampoo in my hair, I felt a hand gliding across my back.

I guess I have one of those builds that women can't get enough of. I was in the Marines for the first two years of marriage to Gabrielle. Not all Marines are big guys, of course, but I had a genetic predisposition towards accumulating muscle, and my body allots it well on my tall frame.

I'm 33, but I haven't gained any noticeable paunch, just gotten a little bit softer here and there.

"Hey, we had a deal," I said as I rinsed my hair under the shower stream.

She must have put soap on her hand, because it slid down my back, over my ass and between my legs, fondling my scrotum from behind. I shivered with pleasure and was rock hard. Her other hand softly followed the contours down my chest, over my abs, feeling my muscle as it flexed, lightly tickling underneath my dick with quick, knowing fingers.

"And what kind of deal was that?" a voice spoke, and I realized that it wasn't Abby, or Darla.

It was Ricky.