by Gwen Masters
(02/23/05)

He was my best friend's husband. He was the consummate family man. This was just a friendly dinner, like all the others we'd shared. Hadn't he just called her and said he was having dinner with me?

So surely he didn't mean what he just said. Surely not.

"An affair..."

Or maybe I didn't hear him right.

I stopped halfway through the motion of spearing a lettuce leaf with a sterling fork. We were in a ridiculously posh restaurant just south of Memphis, both of us feeling out of place among the chandeliers and wine stewards. I looked up at him dumbstruck.

"What?" I was whispering and not sure why, as frozen as the ice chips the shrimp rested on. My eyes met his brown ones over his tilted wine glass, and he smiled at me.

"We're hiding from what we already know." He said it with absolute certainty.

I dropped my shrimp fork with a clatter of silver on china. Neither of us noticed.

Is that how it starts? How affairs begin? With a gesture or a word that suddenly turns an old friend into a lover, crying out above you in a rented bed somewhere on the edge of nowhere? Does it always drop out of the blue and explode, fragmenting your life? And then plant itself inside you and grow into beauty, into memories and smiles, building you into something stronger than you were?

For me, with my married lover, there's a bounce in my step that everyone notices but can't explain. It comes from pulling up beside a sports car parked outside of a hotel, in a town you've never visited before, and going through an open door with the "Do Not Disturb" sign already in place. It comes from there being no time for words before you're rushed into a dimly lit room and surrounded by his arms, his voice, and his desire. You both collapse onto the bed that has become a refuge.

He's married. I knew that as I walked out of the restaurant and slid into the passenger seat of his sports car. I heard her name in my head as he drove, one hand on the wheel and one hand on my thigh. I saw her in my head as the hotel room door closed behind us. I listened to her laughing with him as he pressed me back against that door and kissed me. I felt the guilt as I kissed him back, but I wanted him more than I wanted to heed the conscience that was shaking its head in shame.

I didn't hate her. I didn't even want to hate her. She's my best friend. She's a good wife, a good mother. She's a better woman than I am. She didn't deserve this.

I slipped off his wedding band and it dropped to the floor.

His hands cradled my face. His tongue danced with mine. He groaned low in his throat, the music of it resounding in my head, telling me this wasn't wrong. My hands found the lapels of his black suit jacket and I slid the silky material over his broad shoulders, letting it drape down his arms, catch his hands a moment before falling into the pool of darkness behind him. The top button of his dress shirt opened as easily as if I'd undressed him a thousand times.

I need this, I thought, as I began to undress him. He stood looking down at me, towering over me. I suddenly remembered that his wife was taller than me. I wondered about how they'd look together in bed. The thought filled me with an inexplicable anger. I wondered if he felt guilty, but I found I didn't really care.

I looked up at him as my hands continued to work. "Anything she does, I'll do. Anything she doesn't do for you, I will do it, over and over."

He smiled a slow smile. "I know."

My dress fell to the floor. I stood before him unashamed, the younger woman, the adulteress. The kind of woman that other women call a whore, whispering behind their hands. I found I really didn't care what anyone else would think of me.

Before his slacks hit the floor my hand was wrapped around his cock. I pushed all thoughts of her out of my mind as I opened my mouth over him. He groaned and buried his shaking hands in my hair, thrusting gently between my lips as I sucked him with the flat of my tongue, wanting to do everything he could imagine a woman ever doing to his body.

I slid my mouth up to his swollen head and slowly sank back down. He pulled my hair back from my temple so he could watch as he disappeared into my mouth. I flicked my tongue quickly across the sensitive skin just below the head of his cock and he bucked into me on pure instinct. My hands slid up his thighs and found his balls, heavy and surprisingly tight with anticipation. His head fell back as I sucked him harder, faster, letting my fingers play over him.

He said my name.

I began to pump him in and out of my mouth in a steady rhythm, my only goal being to taste the nectar that I knew would be as unique as he was.

He groaned as he came, a desperate sound muffled by his shoulder. His hands tightened in my hair as I took his essence into my mouth, let it flood my tongue. I sucked harder, feeling the spasms against my tongue. I moaned aloud at the pleasure of his juices sliding thickly down my throat. He watched with fire in his dark eyes.

He was still hard. He pushed me back on the bed and gently spread my legs. I closed my eyes as his fingertip touched me -- and the last traces of guilt fled as he licked slowly upward, teasing my clit with the tip of his wet tongue. I opened underneath him, the wanton slut, willing to do anything to please a man. His hands tenderly worshipped my body, cupping my breasts and molding them, flicking my hard nipples with his calloused thumbs. His lips nibbled at my thighs and his tongue curled around my clit to suck me like I'd just sucked him. He pressed one long finger into me and moaned.

"I want to fuck you. I've wanted to fuck you for years."

I bucked into his hand and he obliged by sliding two fingers into me. Without question as to whether I would like it or not, he pressed one finger against the tiny hole below my slit, pushing the length of his finger deep into my ass. I arched up into him, more than willing to do anything he wanted, whether he asked or not. He rubbed his fingers together through the thin wall of my body and sucked hard on my clit.

I came hard. I tried to catch my breath but all I could do was hold it, let the tremors build. My pussy clenched tight on his hand and he moved his fingers within me, searching out every last drop of desire that flowed from me and onto his tongue. His name was a moan on my lips as my fingers tangled in his dark hair -- to pull him closer or to push him away, I didn't know. He held my legs open when I closed them, trying to control the feelings coursing through me. He licked me harder. What I thought would be pain turned into pleasure and I came again, this time harder than the last. Through the red haze that had consumed my mind I vaguely knew that he was pulling away from me, so that he could watch as my body convulsed without shame or modesty.

Then his hands were touching me everywhere, cradling me like a delicate sculpture. His breath came harsh and ragged against the curve of my belly. He rose above me, pushing my legs apart to accommodate what he needed. He sat on the bed between my thighs and looked down, hands caressing my calves.

"You still want this?"

"I can't live without it," I answered, with more honesty than I'd ever felt.

I watched as he picked up a shiny gold packet. I took it from his hands and opened it, the sound of its tearing confident and soothing. Together we slipped the protection over him. He moaned as I stroked him.

"I want you inside me." I almost begged.

He pressed his hard erection against me. I spread my legs and we both looked down, watching as he pressed his hips forward. I felt his head slide into me and I watched as the rest of him followed, feeling him fill me, stretching my body around him.

"Don't make me wait anymore," I pled.

He pulled back...thrust forward...and my hips began to move with his. We found the rhythm together. Every motion of my body brought him deeper into me, so deep that I cried out with the surprise and pleasure of it. His hands moved over me, touching my neck, cradling my shoulders, caressing my legs as I wrapped them around him. We began slowly, building into something faster, until he caught my hands in his and pressed them to the bed above my head.

He drove into me, hard and vicious. I cried out, not caring who heard me. The muscles of his back tensed and relaxed under my calves as he pumped me. He buried his head in my shoulder and took me with no gentleness, with a rough possessiveness -- near anger almost -- that left me shaking with pleasure. I met every thrust until he became too rough for me to match his power, then I wrapped myself tightly around him and closed my eyes, another orgasm building. He released my hands as he felt my contractions building.

My body felt like liquid fire. I exploded around him, exploded with a cascade of color behind my eyelids. I whimpered his name into the quiet of the room. I wrapped my hands in his hair, holding him close to me. I bucked mindlessly against him, completely under his control.

He followed my climax, letting the pulses of my orgasm drive him over his own edge. I felt him throb deep within me as he came, heard his deep raspy voice call my name. His fingers clenched the sheets and his teeth seized my neck, biting down as the last of his orgasm washed over him.

He went limp and supple against me and slowly lowered himself to cover me. His weight pressed our bodies together. Our breath burned as it filled our lungs.

I slid my hands through his hair again and again, soothing him, feeling his breathing ease and his heartbeat slow. He shifted his hips and pulled out gently, leaving me aching with the void.

I let my legs drop and stretched them out beside his longer ones, feeling the tingle in my muscles.

He pulled a blanket over us and snuggled in behind me, his face buried in my neck. The tip of his nose was cold in contrast to the heavy heat of the rest of him.

After a few moments of lightly caressing the hands that were linked around my waist, I asked, "How long do we have?"

It was a moment before he spoke. "She won't be back from New York until Tuesday."

"Two days," I whispered.

"Will you stay here with me?"

I turned to face him in the bed. I traced the tiny lines of his forehead with my fingertip. I thought about what my answer would mean, about whether or not it was wise to continue. I waited for the guilt to come, braced myself for it, and only found certainty and a slight sadness.

"I'll stay," I said simply.

Thus began a new phase of my life, that of lover and mistress to a married man. I should feel shame, a desperate need to redeem my self-respect. At least, that's what the women who whisper behind their hands think I should feel.

I feel sorry for those who don't have what I've discovered, for those who can't feel the passion and rebirth I've found. I have moments of guilt. I can't avoid that little voice in my head, that annoying insistence on being morally straight.

I take full responsibility for what I'm doing.

Tomorrow I'll see his wife. She and I will have lunch. I'll listen as she shares tidbits of her life: the escapades of her young children, the latest headaches of her job. She'll be as lovely as ever with her beautiful red hair and her skin like fine china. She'll complain about having a man who works so much. She will look at me, her friend, and share secrets.

And I'll share with her, everything and anything I feel like sharing...with the exception of one thing.

I'll smile as I don't tell her that last night I fucked her husband in a hotel bed in Memphis.

I'll laugh at her jokes as I don't tell her that I will be on a plane as soon as I pay our tab, heading to a hotel room in Birmingham where he is giving a presentation. When he's done I'll undress him.

I'll make love to him right after he calls to tell her goodnight.

As she puts the children to bed I'll be riding him in a hotel room, making him cry out my name and forget all about her.

My conscience is clear. I'll lose no sleep as I lie beside him.

I told you: she's a better woman than I am.

Remember?

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