Seven Dates: A Different Kind of Hotwife (13 page)

Mexicans eat meals late. So when he said he’d return her by dinner time, I knew it would well into the evening before they returned. Indeed, it was already dark when he called to let me know they were on their way.

I wait for them in my hotel room. There was soft knock on the door, and I let them in.

Alejandro was his usually dapper self. Joanie looked a little frumpy, wrapped up in one of his coats over her dress. Her expression was inscrutable. She was tired, but oddly radiant.

“She’s been disciplined,” he explained, “but not broken. If you want that, it will take more time.”

I nodded. I didn’t actually want her broken.

He made a show of transferring her back to me. He handed me the leash, and it fell to me to detach it and then remove her collar. Even still, when she asked, “May I take a shower, it was directed at him rather than me.”

He deferred to me.

“Of course, honey. Shower. I’ll buy Alejandro a drink downstairs and say goodbye for us.”

She nodded, but she shot him another quick glance, and I knew there would always been a bond between them.

Downstairs, in the bar, over martinis, I made my last ditch gambit.

“Thank you Alejandro. I trust it wasn’t too tedious.”

He smiled. “It had to be done.”

“Indeed. But now that you’ve done me a favor, I feel like I need to do one for you.”

“There is no need, I assure you.”

“Yes, but I want to.”

There was an awkward moment where he seemed to contemplate that. I knew he was not the sort of man who’d acknowledge the real nature of the transaction, that I’d allowed him to play with my wife, and now he owed me. But that was okay. I didn’t need the acknowledgement. I didn’t want it, actually. I was dealing with enough guilt without making things explicit. But what I did need was for him to accept the fiction and let me proceed, not just to humor me, but to genuinely entertain my offer.

He considered it, and then with a smile, he gestured for me to proceed.

I didn’t begin with the money. I began with the concept. I’d been honing this in my mind all day. It wasn’t a pitch I fully accepted myself, but it was one I would like to accept. The man I wanted to be rather than the man I was.

I told him of my dissatisfaction with the Marston model. Deals for the sake of deals. Skimming a percentage off the top of other people’s work. Yes, we provided a service. It was valuable; it deserved to be rewarded. But it didn’t need to be honored. Even worse were the TKDs of the world. Bottom-feeders, living off the misfortune of others. And then instead, I spoke of XCOSA. Of their dozens of factories and thousands of workers. Of the tangible goods they produced.

Even as I spoke, I could see his interest deepen. I felt a rush. Leverage. In my mind, I was already thinking through how to adjust the offer I had in mind, make it less generous, squeeze out every last dollar. I shook that off. No, I’d stick to the deal I’d originally worked up.

I offered it up. A new partnership. A relationship. My money up front, not only as good faith, but also recognizing the risk of working with someone striking out alone. The deal would be advantageous to him. That was fine. He could make it up to me later.

He nodded, then asked, “And what of Joanie?”

I was tempted to offer her up to seal the deal. Hint at her continued availability to him. It was a dark thought, and it shamed me as how insistent it was in my mind.

I shook my head. “She’s not part of this. I think we’re now past our marital problems.”

He smiled. It was what he wanted to hear. “Send me the proposal and I will review it.” He rose. “It was a pleasure to see you again, Kellen, and a delight to meet your wife.”

We shook hands and he left.

***

I went back upstairs. I walked into our room as Joanie came out of the bathroom, wrapped in a white, fluffy bathrobe. She stopped short and our eyes met. I took a step toward her, then stopped when I saw her reach for the sash on the robe. Slowly, deliberately she untied the belt. She shrugged and the robe slipped off her shoulders, falling to the floor.

I gasped. She was covered in marks. Her left nipple, where he’d placed the clothespin was swollen, dark red. Purplish stripes over her right breast. Ligature marks at her wrist and ankles. She turned and I gasped again. Up and down her spine and on the back of her thighs were angry, red bands. Her ass was blotchy, bruised.

She turned back around to face me. I wanted to take her in my arms, console her, apologize. And then I noticed the gleam in her eye, saw the corners of her mouth twitch as she tried, unsuccessfully to suppress a smile.

“You enjoyed it.”

It was a question. An observation. A fervent wish. Yes, really. I wanted her to have enjoyed it. Just as I hoped she’d enjoyed her time with John… and Cody… and Raj… and Donald… and Tanner… and Amber. Because, and here’s what I had come to realize, that it wasn’t about getting the better of my wife, it was about bettering her life.

She nodded.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

We didn’t make love that night. Not in the traditional sense. Instead, she described her twenty hours with him. The pleasure and the pain, although it wasn’t as if the two were distinct. They blurred, intertwined, as she told it.

The paddling transitioning into a loving massage of her ass, his strong hand slowly working its way between her legs, into her wet and expectant pussy. The way he’d spanked her hard just as he felt her climax. The burning agony in her shoulders as he pressed her bound arms upward, forcing her hard onto the table, his huge cock suddenly penetrating her from behind.

Then when she told him about Raj, and he’d hung her by her wrists and forced a fat plug into her butt. He’d gagged her and left her like that. An hour, maybe more, until her hands went numb and her back and shoulders burned in agony, as the ball gag muffled her screams. Then he’d returned and attacked her clit with a Magic Wand until she came in a writhing, gasping orgasm, the pain in hands, arms, and shoulders somehow feeding the strength of the climax.

Onto his bed. Bound again, both ankles and wrists. Face down. Still gagged. He’d fucked her ass. Pausing to stripe her back and legs with a riding crop. Then resuming his anal assault, coming deep in her ass, leaving her tied up as his semen slowly leaked out.

Finally untied, he’d let her sleep, but only for an hour or two. Then he’d woken her and forced to continue her confession. Legs held apart by a spreader bar, he slapped her pussy and her stomach as she told of screwing Donald.

More humiliation followed. Naked, leashed, blindfolded, he walked her around his apartment on her hands and knees, assigned her Our Fathers and Hail Marys for each sin she confessed from her time at the strip club, spanking her raw ass with the leash if she paused or hesitated.

There was more. Things she couldn’t or wouldn’t share, but I read them in the gaps in her story and the unexplained bruises and sore spots.

I ordered room service and fed her. Lotioned and soothed her wounds. She fell asleep in my arms, and I didn’t wake her, even as my own body revolted, pins and needles in my limbs, my back and neck becoming stiff.

***

I had to give Alejandro credit. The man knew what he was doing. He’s marked her up impressively, but the wounds weren’t deep, and by the time she woke up the next morning, all that remained were the stripes on her back, and even those were fading nicely.

“You’re almost as good as new,” I remarked.

She rolled her eyes. “There is not an inch of me, inside or out, that isn’t still sore.”

“Well, you did need to be punished.”

“I did,” she admitted.

“And now the guilt is behind you?”

“Of course. I confessed. Did penance. And received absolution. Of course, in the real world, all I did was add sacrilege to my sins –“

“The real world?”

“You know what I mean. I don’t think Alejandro is really a priest… at least I hope not.”

“So, still feeling bad?”

She shook her head. “Actually no. I can’t explain it, but I do feel like I paid for my sins.”

“They weren’t sins. Or at least, shared between us.”

She nodded.

“I still feel I need to make things up to you,” I added.

“I’d think that knowing your wife is a dirty slut who’s been had by almost all the men in your life would be punishment enough for you.”

“As I’ve said, it would only be a punishment if I knew you regretted it, and I think you don’t. At least not most of it.”

“You’re weird. You know that, right? It’s supposed to be the other way around… or something. You’re not supposed to be okay with me having pleasurable sexual experiences with other men… people. I cheated on you, and --”

I shrugged. “The only thing I regret of what I did, well, besides the sense that I pushed you into things, is what happened with Jas at the club.”

She hesitated and then laughed. “Kellen, you don’t regret any of it.”

I began to respond, but she cut me off.

“You don’t do regret. You’re pure Id. You get what you want or you don’t. And this,” she waved her arms around to indicate everything that had happened, “is what you wanted. That’s why you’re okay with it. Not because I enjoyed it, but because you’ve always wanted me to be more like your slutty exes.”

“That’s not who I want to be,” I replied sadly. “I want your happiness to be important to me.”

She observed me closely before speaking. She smiled. “Now that I can accept. An aspiration rather than a reality.”

“And you, Joanie?”

“I don’t want to be the woman I’ve been this past week.”

“Okay, okay,” I replied, a little anxious at how this might turn.

“But,” she continued, “I also don’t want to be the woman I was before this past week.”

“You were perfect.”

She rolled her eyes. “Jesus, Kellen, stop it. Look, when I was hanging from my wrists in Alejandro’s apartment with a butt plug the size of a fire hydrant in my ass and my body aching from being slapped, paddled, and clamped, I got to thinking.”

She gave me a saucy grin.

“And a big part of what I realized was that I was playing a role. Had been playing one since I was kid. Maybe it was growing up Catholic. Maybe it was being the only daughter with three brothers. Maybe it was growing boobs before I knew what to do with them or how to deal with the attention they brought. I don’t know. But I’ve never been a real person. I’m a construction. Sugar and spice and everything nice. Except if that is what you aspire to, it can make you an insufferable prig. Self-righteous, indignant. A passive-aggressive bitch.”

“I’ve never thought that,” I insisted.

“Liar.” She said it simply. Not in anger, but simply as an observation. She resumed her self-flagellation. “Superior. Snooty. Stuck-up. Selfish.” She paused. “Did you like that? The writer in me pulling out the alliterations.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Is that one-sided?” she asked rhetorically. “Yes, of course. I’m sure I have some lovely qualities as well. But here’s the thing. This past week… I don’t know what the fuck it is. Maybe it’s just a start. Maybe I’m going to self-actualize into an unrepentant whore, fucking my way through life, one sensual experience after another. Or maybe it’s just a chance to step back and ask who the hell I really am.”

It made sense to me. I said, “We’re opposites, aren’t we? You often repressed. Me completely in thrall to my own needs. Me, me, me.”

“Opposites and yet the same,” she replied. “You’re selfish and self-indulgent. You think the world revolves around you. But you’re free, and it’s what attracted me to you. Jesus, Kellen, when we met, I was nineteen, and you… you were already fully-formed, ambitious, exciting, confident.”

I laughed. “And you were everything I thought I wanted in a woman. Beautiful, chaste, devoted… to me.”

“We deserve each other. Both selfish asses in our own ways,” she concluded.

“We were young.”

“We were.”

“But now, maybe we can learn from each other,” I suggested. “I can learn self-control, to care for the opinions of others.”

“And I can learn from you, to embrace my needs and wants, my desires and passions.”

“I want to make this work. A woman willing to go to the extremes you went to in order to teach me a lesson is a woman I want to keep.”

“And a man willing to forgive me after what I did is a man I can’t afford to lose.”

We looked at each other for a moment. I wanted to sweep her into my arms, but I’d missed the moment. Instead I looked at my watch.

“We need to get a move on if we’re going to make our flight.”

***

After our discussion in the hotel, we didn’t speak much during the trip. We both had a lot to think about, I guess, and we’d already said all we needed to say.

I knew I should be more mindful, more focused on the woman sitting beside me, but I couldn’t help it. I obsessively checked my email in hopes that Alejandro had gotten back to me. He didn’t. It didn’t help my state of mind that I knew from reading Tanner’s email that Alejandro was scheduled to fly up to Boston today as well. It was just dumb luck we weren’t on the same plane. But regardless, he’d be meeting with Tanner this evening, perhaps to finalize their deal. Well, as I said, I couldn’t blame him. Signing with KDP is what I would do as well.

When we got home at the end of another long day of travel, both Joanie and I collapsed into bed. I was down because I still hadn’t heard back from Alejandro, and I knew Joanie was still recovering from her adventures. We cuddled but didn’t make love, and as I fell asleep, I noted glumly that we had now hit the two-week mark since we’d had sex… with each other, at least.

For all of our straight-talk in the morning, it still felt like we were drifting apart.

I slept in the next morning. I just couldn’t seem to get myself out of bed. I couldn’t bring myself to go into the office. It was clear to me now that Alejandro wasn’t going to call. At some point, I’d receive a polite note, handwritten, apologetic, giving his regards to Joanie, and informing me that he regretfully had to decline my business proposition.

My mood darkened. I realized he’d gamed me. He knew I was desperate. Hell, Tanner had probably told him all about the situation. For all I knew, by the time I invited myself to Mexico City, Tanner might have filled him in on
all
the details, including what had happened in the club.

Had Alejandro played me from the start? Was his “gracious” invitation to dine at his place designed to result in the seduction of my wife? God, I’d made it so easy for him. I’d thrown her at him. But he’d been there to catch her. More eager than made sense in retrospect.

I shook my head to chase away those evil thoughts. It didn’t work. I imagined them, Alejandro and Tanner, over drinks and dinner comparing notes about fucking my wife. Tanner recounting how he fucked her from behind as she ate a blond stripper’s pussy; Alejandro topping him with a detailed description of him fucking her up the ass, bound and gagged on his bed as he whipped her back.

Actually, I couldn’t picture it. I was trying to make myself do so, my own form of penance, but I just couldn’t. Tanner and Alejandro just seemed like oil and water. They might do business together, but their socializing would be stiff, formal, for both a chore to get through. Oh sure, they’d have their martinis, their steaks, their wine, but the conversation would be about business and the weather. I’d bet on it…. And I was going to have to, because Alejandro coming around was my only hope. Not just my only hope… but our, Joanie’s and my only hope at the future we’d always wanted.

I tried to think about sources of leverage. But I had nothing left to offer. I’d left myself no room for bargaining. I gave Alejandro my best offer up front. I had to. I didn’t have time for games.

Games…. Well, we had had time for games, hadn’t we? I’d let Alejandro play with Joanie. And yeah, maybe it did help her work out some issues, but I also realized that most normal people would have gone in for a few months of couples therapy rather than turn their wife over to an experienced dominator for penance and punishment.

Still, he’d had fun with her. That much was obvious. And even though I’d phrased it as him doing me a favor, he had to feel some gratitude. Gratitude but not obligation, apparently.

My phone buzzed. I groaned as I looked at the incoming number. Tanner.

“What do you want?” I asked.

He laughed. “You didn’t really think you’d get XCOSA?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Al won’t give me the details. But I know you were down in Mexico to see him, and yet here he is ready to sign with me.”

“If you have it all figured out, then why are you calling me?”

“I have a deal for you, Kelly boy. An offer you can’t refuse.”

“You gonna blow my brains out if I refuse?”

“Nothing quite so morbid, though the effect on your career would be about the same. You do know Donald is going to fire you next time he sees you, right?”

“And how would you know that?”

“He and I had a nice, long talk about you.”

That could easily be a bluff, though it was likely true. Now that the shock of being confronted had faded, he probably realized he could fire me with impunity. I knew I probably wouldn’t burn Donald with the video if he canned me. Not so much for his sake, but rather for Joanie and for me. He’d probably figured it out by now as well.

“Well, then I guess I need to listen to your offer.”

“Not really an offer. More of a take-or-leave-it deal.”

“Sure Tanner, sure.” No point in arguing it, but there is no such thing as take it or leave it. There is always room to negotiate.

“I want you to sign over your allocations.”

Now this was interesting. Was Tanner going to screw his own firm by executing the distribution allocations outside a TKD-XCOSA partnership?

“To you? Or to TKD?”

“None of your business, now, is it? They’re worthless to you now anyway. You have to realize that.”

“As long as they have value to you, they’re not worthless to me.”

“Kellen, you’re being obtuse. You’re a loser, but you’re not dumb.”

I laughed. “Thanks Tanner, I feel the same way about you.”

“Do you want me to get to the point, or what?”

I sighed. “Yeah, could you?”

“Point is, I want your allocations, and I want to give you a job.”

“A job?”

“Oh, don’t get too excited. I mean, after your flameout at Marston, you need to start again from the bottom. But I have a junior analyst slot open. I’ll need you to sign a three-year contract and a non-compete.”

I laughed.

“Health insurance, a paycheck, you could… you will be doing a lot worse soon if you don’t agree.”

“I think I’ll try my luck on my own,” I replied.

“There’s more, Kellen. Just shut up and listen.”

I bit my tongue. He was jazzed about something. Best to try to figure it out.

“That’s better,” he replied. “I’ll also cover whatever you’ve laid out in your failed trip to Mexico….” He paused, dragging it out. “And, I’ll let you keep twenty percent of the action from your allocations.”

Now
that
was interesting. Depending on how the TKD-XCOSA deal was structured, that twenty percent would be worth between $360,000-$580,000. Amortized over a three year deal, plus a junior analyst’s base…. at least we’d be able to keep the house, the cars, a semblance of a normal life. Interesting and oddly generous for Tanner.

There was a certain logic to it. It headed off the possibility of Briand reappearing in the mix. And if Alejandro had insisted on an opt-out clause, it hedged against that risk as well. Still….

“And that’s it?” I asked.

He chuckled.

Uh oh, here it comes
.

“Well, now, Kelly, nothing is quite that simple in life, is it?”

“Spit it out.”

“I want your wife as my personal whore.”

I laughed. “God, Tanner, you’re fucked up.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Kel, she’s a bitch in heat. She’s going to be out fucking someone anyway. Might as well get your career back out of it.”

“Fuck off.”

“You should at least ask her. After that performance in the strip club, I bet she’d love the opportunity to work it again for a real man.”

“And that’s you?” I snarked.

“Me and some of my closest friends. Your new colleagues actually. I think it’ll be a good experience for you to have to work every day with a bunch of guys who pulled a train on your wife. I know it’ll make them more eager to welcome a loser like you onboard. Of course, we’ll need regular goodwill refreshers from her.”

I laughed. “I will give you this, Tanner. You may be an asshole, but you have an active imagination.”

He didn’t reply right away, though I could hear him breathing on the other end of the line. It was weirdly effective.

“Still there?” I asked.

“Told you, Kel, take it or leave it. Tonight, celebrating at dinner with Al, then after we have a suite at the Westin. I have a whore on call in case you don’t show. 10:00pm. And dress her sexy. We’re gonna want a little show before we start painting her white.”

He hung up. Fucking asshole.