Infidelity

Part I:  Ache

H. Jekyll


(MF, rom, slow/deliberate, oral) 

Copyright 2001 by H. Jekyll.  Permission is given to 
repost on any web site that does not charge a fee for 
access, as long as the author is prominently noted.

Please do not read this if you live in a place where 
it is illegal to read sexually explicit stories, or 
if you are under the legal age to read such stories.

Net writers post stories for feedback, not money, and 
I am no different from anyone else.  I dearly love 
comments, complaints, and conversation, at 
h_jekyll2000@yahoo.com.  

The H. Jekyll stories are archived at the Alt Sex 
Stories Text Repository:  
ftp://ftp.asstr.org/pub/Authors/h_jekyll/

===================================


She is a long woman, lean and pale.  Long legs pull 
your eyes up to where they meet.  Her long neck 
carries them further, to her face, that sweetly weak 
chin, her mouth.  Only her lips are full bodied.

She has never liked her body, thinking that she is 
much too tall, that her hips are too wide, that her 
butt sticks out, that her chest is too flat;  but 
men, and some women, enjoy watching her walk past and 
turn to look when she can't see them, to imagine her 
naked, imagine crawling between those never-ending 
legs, imagine her eyes swollen and half closed with 
desire.  Many a man or woman has sighed with a 
private disappointment after she has passed, the 
strength of the sigh depending only on the strength 
of imagination.  

She is right, though, at least about her absent 
breasts.  Her chest is flat:  two peas on an ironing 
board, as some men used to joke.  No one will move 
his (or her) hand from chest to breast and delight in 
the smooth curve, because there is no curve.  No one 
will feel the rubbery texture when her breasts are 
pushed up from below.  

She could fix this, she supposes, by having a doctor 
insert gelatinous bags beneath her nipples, but it 
wouldn't any longer be her.  It might even -- one 
might think -- take attention away from her neck or 
her mouth.  Perhaps her breasts would grow larger if 
she had a child, though she is unlikely ever to know.  
People come as complex packages.  This is what comes 
in hers.  

What else comes is fascination.  She watches the 
breasts of other women in her dance classes surge 
forward with centrifugal force during their steps, 
then bob around;  furtive looks so well camouflaged 
that no one has ever suspected her, mixed with chatty 
commentary on technique but full of longing, enough 
longing to make her ashamed.  She sometimes gossips 
about how men talk about tits and bazooms, but that's 
an excuse.  She has seen her own reflection in the 
studio mirror often enough, and found nothing 
noteworthy there.  

She is certain she couldn't attract a real lover and 
hasn't a clue as to how her husband came to want her.  
She thinks it couldn't have been her looks.  Now that 
several years have passed since they married, and his 
interest has diminished, she understands that he must 
be tired of having to work himself up for someone who 
lacks a true woman's body.  Along with that 
understanding, she has almost convinced herself that 
she is reconciled to a life of little passion.  

That reconciliation is an illusion:  while standing 
before the mirror after bathing a few weeks back, she 
suddenly made a despairing cry and began smacking her 
chest with her hands.  It took almost an hour to 
regain composure, to fix her face, before she could 
meet people with her usual gracious smile, backed by 
an inner light.  

---------------------------

In any event, while a life of little passion defies 
longings it doesn't banish them.  Hers is as deep a 
well of desire as anyone's, producing forbidden 
fantasies that entrance like visions of water on the 
desert, but being a good Christian woman she isn't 
going to act on them.  It shames her a little that 
she even has them.  Hers may be a liberal church, 
full of good, open-minded people, but she struggles 
to be morally straight.  Judge not.  Only judge 
yourself.  

Her fantasies slip into her mind at night when she is 
most vulnerable, forming from the swirls of almost-
sleep thoughts, little universes of lust growing out 
of nothing, brushing her belly, awakening her body.  
She doesn't feel she deliberately calls them out, but 
there they are, and they are insistent, full-color 
images of sex with this man or that from her job, 
movies, even her church.  Sometimes he is anonymous.  
It really doesn't matter.  They didn't used to 
include full naked bodies on display.  

Ever more during one of these fantasies her hand will 
slip from her side to her waist to her pubic mound, 
over the almost hairless mound to a spot where she 
can stroke herself with stealthy fingers.  On 
occasion she resists.  When she does touch herself 
she moves the fingers slowly between her labia, 
circling her clitoris, getting high, afraid of waking 
her husband while surrendering yet again.  There are 
times that she can't keep herself still or quiet, 
when she'll finally go into the living room or 
bathroom to finish.  

The acts she conjures once came mainly from R-rated 
films or the explicit romance novels she has taken to 
reading, but that ended when she stayed alone at a 
hotel that had a pay-per-view adult movie channel.  
On a whim she picked a movie almost at random and was 
devastated.  Which was stronger, disgust or desire?  
She probably doesn't know to this day, but her 
repertoire of fantasies began growing that night.  

After masturbating, once her breathing has slowed and 
she considers the visions that have driven her 
pleasure, she feels vile.  Shame is her other secret 
burden;  so much of it for such a good person.  She 
certainly wouldn't ever cheat with any of those men.  
Once or twice a man from work came on to her, just a 
little, and she cut him down right away.  

--------------------------- 

For awhile there was one man in her fantasies more 
than any other, a dance partner in their little 
community ballet.  They've teamed on and off in "The 
Nutcracker,"  practicing once a week, then meeting 
daily during performance week.  She is a principal 
dancer.  He is a volunteer from the community who 
replaces a non-existent male dancer, there being no 
senior men in the company.  

They've enjoyed playing dress-up, dancing, 
pantomiming.  They've held hands.  He has kissed her 
hand, often, often.  He is actually the only man 
besides her husband whom she has touched regularly in 
any way for years, and one evening last Fall the hand 
kiss suddenly made her wonder what it would be like 
if he kissed her mouth.  What if he pulled her to him 
and ...  did what?  That.  All of that.  

She had been expressing amazement at the dances of 
Herr Drosselmeyer's toys, paying attention to the 
actions and positioning of the party goers, but at 
the thought her vision was obscured by quick flashes 
of fucking.  She wouldn't use that word, but it's 
what she saw.  It was followed that night by a 
detailed fantasy of degenerate sex that wouldn't make 
her feel guilty:  what if he kidnapped me and forced 
me to submit?  What would he make me do?  

Please don't hurt me.  You don't have to hurt me.  
I'll do anything you want.  

The intensity and the pleasure frightened her, enough 
that she decided to avoid him, to talk only when on 
the floor, but the thoughts recurred throughout the 
season, finally fading only after the performances 
ended, when she wouldn't see him for eight months 
because their lives are completely separate and he 
too has a spouse.  

How many little ballet troupes are there, hundreds?  
All performing "The Nutcracker"?  How many 
fantasies are generated by them?  How many come to 
nothing? 

--------------------------- 

One shouldn't think that hers is a life of quiet 
desperation.  She keeps telling herself it is a good 
life, economically, religiously, intellectually, and 
much of the time it is exactly that.  Every life has 
some issues, she argues persuasively.  She keeps 
herself busy.  

And yet.  

She has growing periods when can't stand to be around 
other people.  She withdraws to her room to think and 
be alone, to trace the passing of the years, to 
fantasize and to wonder what happened to her life, 
how at one time everything had seemed possible.  

Along with her romance novels she has started reading 
poetry from her old college textbooks.  One Sunday 
afternoon she read "To His Coy Mistress."  When she 
came to the line "time's wing'd chariot hurrying 
near,"  she threw the book across the room.

=================================

That was her life until this evening, when something 
happened.  

What was it?  As winter passed, her fantasies had 
shifted around to focus on some stranger she saw at 
the grocery, when she unexpectedly saw him -- *the* 
him.  It is out of season for him, late spring, but 
there is a party thrown by a couple who turn out to 
be friends of friends of each.  It's how a small 
world works.  It's also how her God shows His sense 
of humor by -- just for the fun of it -- setting the 
stage for her seduction.  Or perhaps He has another 
wager with Satan.  

The earth is enjoying one of its magic times, the air 
rich with unimaginable varieties of blooms.  The 
flowering began weeks ago and will continue another 
month, first early bloomers like forsythia, fruit 
trees, and daffodils, then the later blossoms to 
carry springtime along.  The azaleas and their kin 
are colorful;  the dogwoods, though, are achingly 
white and this is dogwood country.  

It rained earlier today.  The air is still sweet with 
it, the walk damp underfoot, and isolated drops still 
fall from the oaks, but the sky is almost clear and 
there is the slimmest crescent of a moon.  Lone baby 
clouds scoot low in the sky, hurrying to a place 
people never see.  Down below, the trees and shrubs 
have been waving to the sky all afternoon, a physical 
hosanna to whatever deities of Spring they worship.  

She first saw him when she looked up from the walk, 
her mind filled with patterns of mud and raindrops, 
smelling the rain-cleansed air, aware of the clouds.  
He arrived in a sudden gust, without his wife, and 
when she saw him she felt the earth lurch, or the 
time, or something.  Her husband was with her, but he 
groused about these boring parties and finally asked 
if she could find a ride home later, so that he could 
leave.  Then *he* gallantly offered a ride.  

So the air was charged from the beginning, exactly 
the same as always, but different in that indefinable 
way known to shamans, as though an invisible wave had 
washed away the part that was familiar, leaving a 
world that is alluring but strange.  Jamais Vu.  She 
feels shaky, physically ill at ease, and she thinks 
if she has a bite to eat it may help her.  Or if she 
gets away from him.  She doesn't want to think about 
him.  

He walks to the table with her.  

They have to talk, of course.  She comes up with 
something interesting to say while he spreads baba 
ganousch on pita, nothing really, but they are able 
to chit-chat.  It may all amount to nothing.  She 
takes fresh vegetables and some kind of dip.  It may 
be easy.  She feels nothing special, and is about to 
relax when he takes her hand to pull her away from 
blocking the kitchen door.  

Yes, the hand feels the same.  It is a large hand, 
warm, not rough, and without warning there is the 
memory of rehearsal, of how his hands always did feel 
especially warm to her.  

She hadn't considered his hands when they first met, 
when his daughters took ballet and he spent his time 
playing with the smallest children, helping them do 
backward flips and giving them airplane rides.  She 
had just thought he was funny, still a big kid though 
much older than she.  

His hands.  They announced themselves later, when the 
two of them had played husband and wife so long that 
they could casually hold each other's before going on 
stage, and his would help warm hers until the lights 
heated the air.

There is another, related memory, the one she doesn't 
want to remember, the one of yearning and remorse.  
It is of that first, really cold night of dress 
rehearsal last December, how she had been shivering 
and huddling backstage, and how he had seen her and 
put his tuxedo jacket over her shoulders without 
being asked.  When she had hugged it around herself 
she had smelled him and been suffused in his body 
heat.  Though this was after her decision to avoid 
him, the smell and the feeling and the fact that he 
was so thoughtful had made her think about him all 
night long and want him to hold her.  

It was bad, so bad that she had forgotten a step 
during one of their dances together.  

She couldn't not think of him, but she'd stayed away 
from him as much as she could and she hadn't really 
thanked him.  She knows she was cold to him and once 
again feels shame.  

The memory arouses fantasies and regrets from 
wherever they have been resting, leaving her shy, 
making her wish she could extricate herself, making 
her want to stay.  Oh, why did her husband have to 
leave?  

She puts aside the plate of vegetables.  He gets her 
a drink and their hands touch when she takes it.  

Someone asks them to show a step from the ballet.  
This inspiration is doubtless generated by higher 
powers:  these are arts people, sure, but there is no 
reason for this.  The question leads to discussion of 
which step to show, a hasty improvisation, and the 
required holding of hands.  The kiss on the hand.  
She tries to look lighthearted.  

There is real improvisation when he spins her under 
his overstretched hands, catches her, and lets her 
lean down in his arms like a swing dancer.  Their 
bodies touch, brush, catch on each other.  For a 
second his face is right over hers and he looks her 
full in the eyes while she leans against his arm and 
body and tries not to look back up at him.  She is 
frozen.  She thinks he may kiss her right now.  

An epiphany:  all at once and without words she knows 
that he desires her.  

Why doesn't she laugh and get up, move away?  She 
could.  It would be easy, if only she and her body 
weren't so busy betraying each other.  

So she lies back in his arms and looks up at him 
blankly, swallowing, unable to muster the coquettish 
look she would once have used, telling herself not to 
be stupid but out of the blue feeling those 
sensations, the tingle or spark or subtle movement 
about her sex, the sensation like a tiny electrical 
current, the odd stirring in her lower belly.  She 
knows them well, just hasn't felt them from contact 
with a man -- not like this -- in a long time.  She 
feels herself growing vaguely damp where her vagina 
touches her panties.  She thinks she can feel a bit, 
just a tiny bit, of trickling, a minute tickle along 
the walls of her labia, before finally he lets her 
up.  

He wants me.  He does.  Me.  

The thoughts echo, circle, blend with the fragments 
of fantasy and the sensations in her belly, and tell 
her that something is happening to her.  Can anyone 
else tell?  She looks around at the other guests, 
laughing and clapping or not paying them much 
attention at all.  Thank you, Lord.  

She needs separation and self-control, so leads him 
to a couch where she sits in a corner, but her leg 
touches his because all the seats are taken.  She 
crosses her legs and her arms and leans as far into 
the corner as she can, to make herself invisible, to 
sort her feelings and get control of them.  

There is general conversation.  He is telling stories 
about major blunders during their performances, about 
prima donnas and untied Pointe shoes.  She makes just 
a small comment now and then.  She's normally active 
in these things, but she needs to look at him closely 
and can't do it while people look at her.  

Why does she feel this way?  Is there a clue in his 
flesh?  If he acts childlike sometimes, and he looks 
younger than his years, how can his eyes be 
surrounded by fine wrinkles that form folds upon 
folds when he smiles, and why does one eyelid droop a 
bit more than the other?  Was he injured once?  

The hostess announces a fresh plate of canapés.  She 
calls them "munchies." 

Our good woman is not hungry now, not at all.  She 
looks around the room.  The picture window is framed 
with a deep green cornice and drapes.  She tries to 
watch the man via his reflection, but there are ghost 
figures behind him.  When she focuses on them they 
become two teenagers who must belong to people 
inside, embracing just outside on the sidewalk.  
Their foreheads and noses touch as they talk, then 
they kiss deeply and open-mouthed, pasturing on each 
other.  

Her mind flicks instantly to the political campaign, 
how Al and Tipper Gore had kissed at the Democratic 
convention.  She hadn't liked it at all, because it 
was so hard and unmoving -- a fifties movie kiss.  

Back flicks her mind and she is again being held by 
her dance partner, but this time he does bend to her 
and start to kiss, the kiss of the teens, lips and 
tongues, a kiss that goes on and on, lovingly and 
sensually, until there is one final flash and she 
realizes two things:  that they couldn't kiss like 
that in front of everyone and that the hostess is 
holding a tray of munchies out toward her.  

The conversation is all party talk, never turning 
toward anything serious, but twice, when someone asks 
about her husband, she says, "Oh, he's fine,"  in 
*that* voice, the one that says she doesn't want to 
talk about him.  The second time, her dancer friend 
turns just a little to look at her with a serious 
expression.  

"Isn't it stuffy in here?"  

Yes it is, suddenly.  He asks if she would like to 
walk on the deck out back.  

Thank God!  There may not be such an easy opportunity 
to stop this later.  He hasn't been obvious, but she 
saw how he looked at her.  She knows he wants to be 
alone with her, and that he knows that she knows, and 
all that.  They understand each other completely, so 
when she says 'no' he will understand that, too.  

"Just a minute.  I have to find my shawl."  

---------------------------

It is time, time for time to accelerate.  Not the 
clock, but the experience.  There is a sense of 
something rushing, of movement in the earth, though 
the wind has gone away to rest, and the air is 
finally still.  Expectant.  Naturally the night is 
empty for them, as though prepared in advance.  

She feels it.  Does he?  

It is cool enough for her to pull her wool wrap 
tightly, but the night doesn't seem to affect him a 
bit;  he doesn't even wear a sweater.  

What's he saying?  There's some flowering ajuga just 
below the deck.  There, see?  He leans out over the 
rail of the deck to make his point, standing closer 
to her than he should and she can feel the heat 
pouring off him.  She looks, but she's too aware of 
his closeness to pay attention, so just says "Um 
hmm."  

It isn't that she's thoughtless.  She's thinking the 
whole time, setting scenes and conversation, 
visualizing possibilities.  How would he take it if I 
put my hand on his arm, if I simply rested it there?  
I could lay it there only for a second.  What would 
he do?  Would he freeze?  Get shy?  Take it as an 
invitation?  

She almost does it.  No, no, no!  This is getting 
absurd.  It's time to go back in.  

They don't.  Different music begins, something slow 
and familiar that she can't quite place.  He asks, 
"Dance?"  and takes her hand at almost the same 
instant.  Inside her the alarm bells go off, clanging 
in the night, warning her that this isn't any longer 
fantasy, telling her to refuse as she turns toward 
him to look, first to his mouth, then up to his eyes.  
She sees the party inside through half-open blinds, 
only for a second before the view is blocked by his 
body.  Say no thank-you, she tells herself.  She 
doesn't say anything at all.  

This is how it happens, not to everyone but to her.  
She hasn't decided in her mind to let this man fuck 
her.  She probably couldn't make such a decision, not 
coldly, not in advance.  There is simply a flow to 
events.  One would think that she would get help with 
her resolve.  

So they begin to dance.  It is slow motion.  It is 
like lightning.  She puts her free hand on his 
shoulder, feels his hand on her waist, lets him begin 
the step, judges his stride and his rhythm.  They're 
too far apart, dancing like children, so ludicrous.  
She is talking to herself, trying to understand what 
is happening, though what seems most important is 
that she shouldn't stand so awkwardly apart from her 
partner, so she steps closer and lets him slide his 
hand around to the small of her back, to pull her 
gently to his body.  He is large;  he almost 
envelopes her.  

Her face is at his shoulder.  It brings the memory of 
December, how his tux jacket felt, the heat, the 
faint smell of Mennen now replaced by the real thing.  
She can feel his real heat with her cheek.  Then, 
without any internal argument at all, she lays her 
head on his shoulder and leans her body completely up 
against his.  It is a big step, her first one to push 
the situation along, and it scares her to death.  

Their hands had been almost at his left shoulder and 
her face.  He releases her hand to put both arms 
around her waist, and she puts both of hers around his 
neck, so that as they rock slowly together on the 
deck their bodies touch all the way down.  She makes 
a tiny grunt, scarcely a high-pitched whisper, that 
she hopes he doesn't hear.  She makes it because she 
wants him and she is afraid to want him.  

Good Lord, I'm thirty-five, almost middle-aged.  Why 
am I acting like a fourteen year old?  

She's skidding on her straight and narrow.  Does this 
make her guilt more pleasurable?  Or a greater 
barrier?  She wants to stop everything;  she can do 
everything except make it stop.  No, she might yet 
break away.  

What is he doing?  He is leaning his head to her.  He 
kisses her hair, making her shiver, beginning a little 
frisson that sweeps all the way down her back from 
her scalp to her ass and brings a catch to her 
breathing.  

The next thing isn't a single thing.  It is two, more 
than two, some number, something kaleidoscopic.  
There is no order that she can recall later.  She 
smells him again, with her cheek feels a muscle move 
in his chest, feels herself pull him closer, for the 
first time feels his penis as a hard shape against 
her belly.  She holds her breath again, memorizes the 
outline of his cock on her body.  

She can feel herself growing wetter, hotter.  The 
feel of wetness seeping is obvious now, so beautiful 
a sensation, so perfect a mark of longing if he would 
touch her there.  He kisses her hair again and 
inhales her.  She can feel his breath.  His penis.  
His face.  A hand at her chin, lifting her face.  He 
is erect against her.  They begin a kiss.  

Only then does she step back, all at once, gasping 
out her regrets.  

"No.  Please.  I'm sorry."  What can she say?  "What 
are we doing?" 

---------------------------

Almost everyone knows that passion in the night can 
be frightening with its power to push aside all 
daytime considerations and lead people to a world in 
which there's no wrong or right, only hunger.  How 
many know its other characteristic, its fragility, 
how a word can stop it dead, break it like a light 
bulb, leaving only useless remains?  

He lets her stand apart from him but he doesn't let 
her go.  She could walk away but it would have to be 
her choice.  She wants him to talk, because she has 
run out of things to say that wouldn't make this worse.  
Maybe he can end it gracefully, in a way that will 
salvage their friendship.  Perhaps, so she waits, but 
he doesn't answer for a moment.  

What he does is take an enormous breath that comes 
back out as a slow breeze, like exhaling cigarette 
smoke, and only then does she realize how deeply he 
is affected.  

Finally, hoarsely:  

"I'm sorry."  He looks away from her, then back, as 
though unsure what to say.  

"No, I'm not."  Another stop.  

"I am and I'm not.  Oh damn.  I *am* sorry I did 
something your weren't ready for." 

He pauses.  

"But I wasn't alone in it, was I?" 

She decides, without deciding, to be flippant in her 
defense, and a little cruel: "Do you always come on 
this fast with other women?" 

He drops his hands and jerks away.  

No, no, no, no.  I didn't say that!  Say I didn't! 

There is no place to hide out here.  One hand rises 
to cover her mouth before she knows she is doing it.  
He starts to say something in an angry tone, then 
stops himself and turns toward the railing.  She 
thinks he might just walk away, which she won't be 
able to stand, but instead he stands almost perfectly 
still for a moment, then turns around slowly toward 
her, takes another large breath and finally starts 
talking in a very quiet voice, so softly that it is 
not at all accusing, so long that it is almost a 
monologue.  

"How long have I known you?  A decade?  More?  Have 
I ever come on to you before?  Do you think I never 
wanted to?"  He laughs a little self-deprecating 
laugh, though there's no amusement on his face.  

"I've wanted to for years.  Well, some things you 
know are never going to happen.  I knew I wasn't ever 
going to try to seduce you." 

He pauses for an instant.  

"Anyway, before tonight I knew it.  So I decided I 
had to stop thinking about it.  I thought maybe I 
could just enjoy being with you for a bit, and let it 
go." 

He leans against the deck railing and looks out to 
the lawn, while she pulls her wrap around herself 
more tightly and looks at the floor, knowing she has 
ruined everything.  Her mind flicks back to the 
fantasy of the kiss;  the hostess interrupts as an 
omen, the munchies are symbols of dread.  He is 
talking.  

"It didn't work.  After awhile I realized that, yes, 
I'm sure there are people who can do that.  Mother 
Teresa came to mind."  He makes that little laugh 
again.  

"Not me, though.  I couldn't keep from looking at 
you.  You must have noticed." 

She is about to say something but can't bring herself 
to talk.  She stares at a post of the deck rail, as 
though it is the unmovable center of all creation.  
He continues.  

"Last fall I think you were upset with me.  I 
guessed I was being too obvious, so I tried to stay 
across the floor from you as much as I could.  
Anyway, it was actually a relief when 'The Nutcracker' 
ended, because I didn't have to see you all the 
time." 

He takes yet another enormous breath, exhales, goes 
on:  

"Then tonight, you were different.  I ... I 
don't know how exactly.  Willing.  There was 
something in how you looked at me.  Hell, I probably 
imagined it.  I'm sorry I put you on the spot.  
Anyway.  You can say I'm inappropriate, wrong, 
whatever.  Just don't say I'm fast." 

She listened quietly during most of it, not moving, 
not even taking her hand from her mouth.  Only her 
eyes changed, growing wider and sadder and then wet.  
The exception came when he got to the part about her 
being upset with him.  Then she squeezed her eyes 
shut and wiped them with her fingers.  Now that he 
has finished, she has to say something:  

"I'm so sorry.  I didn't mean to say that.  Please 
believe me.  I've just been ...  I mean I was ...  
I'm afraid.  I am.  I was afraid of where we were 
heading.  I can't do that.  We had to stop." 

She wipes her eyes again and looks at the ground so 
that he won't be able to see her face.  Her voice 
becomes so quiet that it scarcely rises above the 
music filtering through the closed door:  

"And, no, you weren't in it alone." 

It is done.  So why, as they stand on the deck 
looking at each other, each reluctant to go back to 
the party, each knowing they need to, does she hope 
that he will stall a little longer?  

Jumbled lines from some poem steal upon her like 
ground mist, telling her that her whole world has 
rolled up in a ball, moving her toward an 
overwhelming question, and that because she was 
afraid she couldn't give the answer that might make 
her happy.  For one brief moment she had almost been 
happy.  But now it is time to go home.  

