“Fantasy”

by H. Jekyll

Part One of Four: The Taking of Alice (MF, oral, seduction, 
cheat)

*  *  *  *  *

Copyright 2004 by H. Jekyll. Permission is granted to post 
on any site that does not charge for entrance, as long as 
full attribution is given to the author. The story should 
not be read by anyone under the legal age to read sexually 
explicit stories, or by anyone in a location where it is 
illegal to read such stories.

“Fantasy” previously appeared at "Ruthie's Club." An 
illustrated and formatted version can be found there. 
See:http://www.ruthiesclub.com/.

I love to correspond with fellow netizens: h_jekyll2000
@yahoo.com

The H. Jekyll stories are archived in the Alt Sex Stories 
Text Repository 
(http://www.asstr.org/files/Authors/h_jekyll/), and at 
"Ruthie's Club."

*  *  *  *  *

“Fantasy, Part One: The Taking of Alice”


It’s often the case that the big changes in life sneak up 
on you. It’s possible, I guess, that you might anticipate 
some of them, but not all, and not all the time. My mother-
in-law was wrong to think she could avoid all evil by 
worrying about it. It comes whether you worry or not, like 
a thief in the night, at a time of its own choosing, and 
you can’t outguess it. 

Our thief didn’t come where this story begins, a Saturday 
night, the night for making love, one on which Alice and I 
had come home early enough to have the energy for 
excitement. I turned to Alice in bed and started kissing 
her, and then I ran my palm across one of her nipples. I 
especially liked to do that because Alice had — has — big, 
round nipples that remind me of red blackberries.

“Oh,” she said. “Do you have something in mind?”

“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t.”

“Let’s check. Oh, my! You’re a bad boy. Well, light the 
candle. I’ll be back in a sec.”

I turned out the bedside lamps and lit the aromatic candle 
beside the bed. It’s sandalwood and shaped like a star. I’m 
staring at it as I write this, letting it help me remember. 
I stripped. Water was running in the master bathroom. In 
the sink. In a minute she came out carrying a washcloth. 
She knelt over me and cleaned the head of my penis. It’s 
always a struggle not to squirm. Men will know what I mean. 
Then she tossed the cloth to the floor and leaned down to 
lick me.

“Mmm. You taste good.” She took me in her mouth and played 
me for a few minutes, just the head, while I reached around 
and caressed her ass, running my hand over the whole 
expanse of it, then up and down her crease, playing a lot 
right around her anus before I moved my hand to her vagina 
and began to diddle her. After a few minutes she sat up.

“Why don’t you come inside me?” She said it in her husky 
voice.

She lay down and spread her legs and I crawled on top of 
her and put it in her. Five or ten minutes later we put on 
our underwear to keep from seeping, and then we went to 
sleep.

It was New Year’s Eve eve. The night before it all began. 
That’s what made it memorable. Tomorrow night we’d be up 
late. You can always stay up late in Las Vegas, but New 
Year’s is special, and we planned to have a big night out 
with Bill and Jessica and some people from Bill’s company, 
and we planned to party like it was ten years earlier. I 
didn’t know the half of it, but then neither did Alice.

* * * * *

Fuck you, Richard! Fuck you! Fuck you, you God damned 
motherfucking son of a bitch! Fuck you, you shit! I’ll kill 
you! I’ll tear your goddamned shit-fucking dick off! I’ll 
fucking kill you! I will! Fuck.

* * * * *

I think we were happy together before Richard came back 
into our lives. I know I was. Reasonably happy, I mean. I 
wasn’t unhappy. Alice was my wife and I loved her. Some of 
us are cursed to always want something a little extra, 
something outside the norm, something different. That’s all 
I mean. We enjoyed doing things together and we had a nice 
house, nice yard, both of which we’d worked hard on. People 
commented on them. The paper had even done a Sunday photo 
shoot of our yard a few years back. 

The sex. Well, you can tell the sex wasn’t explosive. I 
mean, we’d been married over a decade, you know? The sex 
was a lot, oh, more mellow than a decade ago. There were 
things we didn’t even talk about that we’d enjoyed doing a 
few years before. But it wasn’t bad, you know? Sometimes I 
surfed Internet porn. Sometimes I even subscribed, and it 
was enough to get me through the rough spots. I wasn’t 
chasing other women. There was nothing to make me think 
Alice was unhappy with us, or that she would do anything 
with other men. Nothing at all.

* * * * *

Why couldn’t we have skipped the New Years party? I like 
parties, getting out, seeing people, drinking more than I 
should, the whole thing. Alice doesn’t. Not really. Or 
didn’t. Anyway, I’d made up a lot of excuses for her over 
the years. She could have begged off and stayed home to 
watch the New Year’s Eve shows on TV. She always enjoyed 
watching the ball drop in Times Square, and she always 
considered that the true New Year’s moment. Why did she 
come tonight? I guess because she thought I’d be upset if 
she stayed home again. Maybe, too, because of the friends 
who would be there. Whatever. I don’t know how events 
conspire.

Isn’t that a nice phrase? “Events conspire?” I don’t even 
know what I mean. Yes I do. Things have to happen just so. 
For want of a horse, the kingdom is lost. For want of a 
party...that sort of thing.

And if only we hadn’t seen Richard. If, if, if. That didn’t 
have to happen, and then the next thing wouldn’t have 
happened, and the next. I think.

We certainly didn’t go looking for him. He hadn’t been much 
of a friend for years, not since he’d decided to move from 
law to sex. Yes, that. He went from representing 
pornographers to being one. Almost. Almost. I might be 
overstating it. He bumped into me a couple of years ago. 
“Henry, my French film won an award at Cannes!”

“Really?”

“Yes. 'The Irresolution of Mme de Pompadour.' Didn’t you see 
it?”

“Um, no. I saw the review in the Times. Wasn’t that the one 
with real fellatio?”

“Yes indeed! The critics praised its uncompromising 
standards. The suck scene was the hardest part though, pun 
intended. We did so many takes. Finally when the filming 
was over I told Michelle Brioche, who’s a fine, fine 
actress, that she didn’t need to have an affair with André, 
because they’d already done everything on the set! Do you 
know what she said to me?” 

“What?”

“She said, not until I get mine, too!” Richard walked away, 
chuckling to himself. At Hanukkah he sent us a copy of the 
film. I had to admit it was well done, and the sex made me 
hard and hot. Alice, though. Well, Alice walked out during 
the blow job.

So maybe it isn’t porn, just “almost.” What’s the 
definition of obscenity? That I know it when I see it, 
right? That’s what it comes down to. Anyway, his stuff may 
be serious enough to withstand the new Federal crackdown. 

Along with the film, Richard sent a card that offered us 
free passage on a cruise to his resort island in the 
Caribbean, the island reserved for sex vacations. Why? 
Because he was once my best friend, a long time ago. Or he 
was showing off. Sorry, Richard, no can do. Thanks for the 
offer, but the wife – you know? That’s what I told him.

He has sex clubs, Internet sites, and a legal whorehouse on 
the Nevada desert. I never received an offer of a free trip 
there. He gives personal advice and personal services. All 
this grew out of an epiphany he had about where money was 
to be made and what niche needed filling, and where he 
would be happiest. We stopped seeing him when he dumped his 
wife, who had stayed with him through pretty extreme 
bondage. At least that’s what she hinted to Alice. I think 
she would have stayed with him forever, almost no matter 
what he did, if it had been her decision, but at least he 
left her well off. 

Shit. You can see where this is going. Old story. My best 
friend and my wife. But it’s more complicated than that, in 
a lot of ways. Not my best friend for a long time, not 
since he began hanging with sex merchants and movie stars 
and intellectuals, and affecting that fey accent. And the 
thing about Alice. Was it her? Or was it me? It's … 
difficult.

Anyway, there we were on the ballroom floor, faint smells 
of grass and opium wafting around, the band pounding us, 
the chinging of the slots next door obliterated by the 
music. I would have left. Not Alice. Me! I would have left 
if we hadn’t had to stay. If we weren’t stuck. It’s because 
we couldn’t even talk, or only for the short periods when 
the slots chimed in the background like a distant Pachinko 
galaxy. It was the sort of thing for twenty-year-olds. My 
ears were shorting out. I stuffed some tissue into them and 
Bill handed me a joint, and in a few minutes it got better.

And then there was Richard. He appeared just as a number 
ended, poof, like the devil, wearing an all-black suit that 
didn’t fit Vegas at all but would have been better in 
Chicago, maybe on Al Capone. It fit his hair, slicked back 
like a mobster’s. Do you have to dress like that in the sex 
industry? It was all so fucking stupid. I don’t think I’m 
being too insulting in saying that, though given how many 
women he had hanging off his dick, I guess it worked for 
him. I hadn’t seen him for almost forever, but he was 
always exactly the same. Always in dark, always playing the 
dom, always with a new, sweet-luscious thing in tow. 

The newest one was a blonde. Of course. Lean and big-
boobed. She had perfectly round, sticking-out breasts that 
screamed “plastic!” No, I’m not talking about how he paid 
for them. 

Richard had dressed her in something almost like the go-go 
dancers of the ‘70s, but with a short skirt instead of 
short-shorts. The skirt was so short that you could see the 
curve of her ass and it was clear if she leaned the least 
bit over you’d be able to tell if she was a natural blonde. 
Then she did, and you couldn’t, because she was shaved. 
There was just a twinkling of pale flesh.

We hadn’t spoken yet. He was in a sort of antechamber that 
served as a smoking and gathering room for those with. 
Those without were relegated to the ballroom. I wasn’t 
certain at that moment that he had seen us. Anyway, he 
ostentatiously dropped something on the floor and she bent 
to pick it up for him, and it was then she pussy-flashed 
everyone. A hint of labium, and a touch of anus, both 
looking pristine. She was already attracting attention. 
Even those of us without could see her through the double 
doors. She certainly caught Alice’s attention. Alice jabbed 
me in the arm and said “look who’s here with his pussy-du-
jour,” and Jessica laughed a nervous little laugh. When I 
looked up from the vision of sweet pubis, Richard was 
staring directly at us and leering. No. Not at us. At 
Alice. The others were too late to see the leer because 
they couldn’t tear their eyes from the girl’s crotch. But 
me—I should have had some sort of premonition. I should 
have.

From there things became complicated pretty quickly. 
Richard walked into the ballroom, directly over to us, the 
girl in tow. I’m repeating myself, but she really was “in 
tow.” Once I took my eyes off her pubes I saw she was 
wearing a dog collar, and attached to it was a leash. 
Richard held the leash. She walked two steps behind him as 
he came over, and the crowd parted for him like the Red 
Sea, Pharaoh’s troops stopping to look, to see if there 
would be another flash of pudendum, then losing themselves 
in swirls and eddies. Even women were transfixed. Neither 
of them seemed to pay the crowd any attention, though. 
Richard kept his smarmy look as he continued to part the 
sea, while the girl kept her head down and stared at the 
seafloor in front of her.

I shouldn’t have challenged him. I knew it then, but he 
looked so damned presumptuous and I was a little high. The 
pachinko sound from the slots and the ringing in my ears 
merged to form an otherworldly harmony that told me I could 
say anything. So it leaped out: “Hi Richard. Where’d you 
get your pet?”

“Henry!” His voice boomed. “And the always luscious Alice! 
Allow me to present Diane. Diane, say ‘hello’.” He 
emphasized the word ‘always.’

Diane looked up at us but didn’t raise her head much. Just 
her eyes. Even so, under all that make-up she looked 
scared. 

“Hello,” she said, in a leetle, tiny, Southern voice. My 
God! Like some poor thing straight out of Mayberry. How had 
he gotten her into this role?

“I’m teaching Diane the ropes,” he boomed again. He was 
ignoring everyone but Alice and me. He had to know the 
effect he and Diane were making. People were still 
watching. He wanted someone to play straight man and Alice 
took the bait.

“I bet you are! And the tricks, too. Isn’t she a little, 
ah, young?” She had that mean smirk on that said “fuck you” 
all by itself. Jessica giggled her nervous laugh again.


“Oh, just doing a favor. I’d much rather have a mature 
lovely like yourself.” He looked Alice up and down slowly, 
deliberately, so that no one could mistake what he meant. 
“In fact, if Henry wanted to trade I’d take you in a 
second! Half a second!” He turned to me. “Want to do it, 
Henry? Sweet Diane is just the girl to recharge the old guy 
who hasn’t had variety in a while.” 

How do you answer? I started trying to say something, but 
he turned back to Alice. Her mouth was half open. 

“And you, lovely Alice, I’d do everything for you and to 
you. I’d play with your ass, lick you, stretch out the 
love-making until you begged.” Her eyes widened. “Any man 
who does less than that doesn’t deserve you.”

No one except Richard had any idea what to say, not even 
Bill. You could hear the silence. Our silence. We were all 
standing there in the middle of the tinkling of the slot 
machines, as thoughtless as any group of idiots. Jessica 
looked like she wanted to hide, though she couldn’t take 
her eyes off Richard. He, though, he could have kept it up 
for hours, I think, but the music started again. The house 
lights dropped, leaving only the fairy lights from the 
chandeliers, and some music crashed down on us. Richard 
stepped right up to Alice and shouted, so all of us could 
hear him. 

“Would you like to dance, beautiful woman?”

And Alice stepped back so fast she would have tripped if 
she hadn’t bumped into someone behind her.

“No.” She paused, thinking. It was clear to me that she 
wanted a good answer for him. “No thanks. You have a date.”

“It’s okay. Henry can take Diane. He’ll enjoy her. And I’ll 
enjoy you.”

“No. Ah. No.”

“Well, maybe another time.” He took the leash and pulled 
Diane out to the floor, just as the strobe lights came on.

* * * * *

I’m not sure there was a melody, or a vocalist. For me the 
music was noise with a beat that went with the strobes. I 
have no real memory of it. I kept putting my hands over my 
ears, then pulling them down to keep from looking like a 
total dork. The floor was full of people, some in the 
light, or at least in the flashes, some in shadow. Music 
hammered me. People were caught in successions of strobe 
stills, like some experiment in motion pictures. Neither 
Alice nor I did anything.

Richard was directly in front of us in his Al Capone suit, 
dancing with Diane. He was barely moving himself, just a 
little shuffling of his feet, holding the leash while Diane 
went out and back and wrapped the leash around herself as 
she twirled to him, then twirled out when he pulled on the 
thing, spinning her out in spastic strobe segments. Her 
little skirt was almost short enough to show her vagina 
even when she was standing. And it did show — once, then 
again. More people were watching them. Damn, it must have 
made him happy, being the center of attention as usual. On 
the floor and at the tables, you could see some of them 
leaning and pointing. Men were staring. Women were staring. 
Alice was staring. She was trying to say something to me 
but I couldn’t make it out. It was too loud. The room went 
black for an instant and the music changed tempo and pitch. 
When the strobes started back up Alice was yelling in my 
ear and grabbing my arm. “That son of a bitch!” she was 
yelling. “Look!” I could hardly hear her because my ears 
were ringing.

Richard was still swaying in that otherworldly succession 
of flashes, but something had changed. Somehow the leash 
was wrapped around Diane’s neck so that at first I thought 
he was throttling her. But no. He pulled her down. He bent 
her from the waist. Her face was away from us and he 
pointed her ass directly at us. Richard was pointing his 
face at us, at Alice, the whole time, ignoring everything 
else, the music, the strobes, me, the crowd. Now Diane’s 
hairless pussy was visible to everyone. 

Richard held the leash close to Diane’s neck, to keep her 
head down. He held the end with his right hand. There was 
about a foot of loose leather that dangled from his hand. 
He ran that hand up from her crotch, across her anus, and 
into the air. He was looking at Alice while he did it, as 
though daring her something, as though there was some 
communication only the two of them could hear, as though he 
owned the world, as though he owned Diane, as though he 
owned Alice. 

Then he took the next step. He took the end of the leash, 
swung it back, and whipped it right across Diane’s vagina. 
The leather took about three strobe flashes to land, so 
that it was a slow-motion stroke.

Alice pulled at my sleeve and screamed something above the 
noise. I think it was “Make him stop!” 

Diane jerked a slow-motion movement to the left, upwards, 
and down. Her ass clenched. The crowd on the dance floor 
moved away from them, forming a circle with Richard and 
Diane in the middle. They were looking and talking, though 
you couldn’t hear them through the noise. More were 
pointing. I remember some leers and some looks like 
laughter, and some shock, though people in Vegas don’t like 
to show that anything could shock them. Richard leered at 
Alice and struck Diane again. You could tell it was a hard 
lash. Diane jerked again. There was a little mark on her 
where the first one had hit some white skin. Then Richard 
raised his middle finger in a bird, pointed it at Alice 
and, still staring at her directly in the face, put his 
hand down to Diane’s vagina, and pushed it in. All the way 
in. Slowly. He finger-fucked her slowly while the music 
reached crescendo, stroboscopically in and out while the 
noise pushed us to the bottom of the sea and a hundred 
people watched him breathlessly. Finally he pulled his 
finger out, theatrically, slow-motion, up in the air, and 
brought it to his face. He smelled his finger, an elaborate 
sniff. He sucked on it. He was still looking at Alice while 
he sucked. Alice was staring but not yelling anything any 
more, or pulling at me. Just staring.

And then the music ended, making my ears feel like they 
were stuffed with cotton. The soft house lights came back 
on. I looked at Alice, and when I looked back, Richard and 
Diane were gone in the crowd. I could see his head moving 
out toward the gambling area.

*****

That set the mood for the evening, and the conversation. 
Alice couldn’t stop saying “that creep,” or “that bastard,” 
muttering things while others talked, and it didn’t help 
when someone tried to make a joke of it. “None of you even 
tried to stop him!” She was angry. “Why didn’t security 
arrest him?” I mean this was Las Vegas, for Christ’s sake. 
Things sometimes happen, especially where people have 
money, but you couldn’t tell that to Alice.

Bill held Jessica close and said he was going to whip her 
when they got home. She curved against him and said she’d 
be good, and she giggled, but she’s such a mousy, nervous 
little thing that I bet it really happened. Would he make 
her shave, too? 

And it passed. The first bit, the shock. I thought it was 
over. He'd come and done his act and now we could go on 
about our own business. We stayed in the casino until the 
New Year came in, and we all had pretty good buzzes on by 
then. It was in the middle of a slow dance with Alice that 
I first noticed the change in her. She began to writhe 
against me and move her mound up and down against my 
crotch. We frenched and my penis began to grow.

“Oh, you’re my bad boy,” she panted in my ear. Her bad 
Donna Summers imitation. 

“You’re gonna be my bad girl,” I told her.

About two in the morning we went outside and walked down 
the Strip to watch the fountains dance. It was as crowded 
as everywhere else, crowded and dark enough that I could 
slip my hand down inside her skirt right there and be 
almost invisible. I hadn’t done that to her for years, and 
even though we could get caught she didn’t stop me. I had a 
flash memory of Richard finger fucking Diane, and I move my 
hand until I felt fur, then further, to lips, then to the 
hole. I finger-fucked her while the fountains danced to 
some 1950s number and she leaned against me pretending to 
watch them, until in the middle of it she pointed toward 
some bushes away from the light. There was a man leaning 
against a beam, and a woman was kneeling in front of him, 
giving him a blow job.

She put her mouth to my ear. “Would you like me to do that 
to you, big boy?”

“Yeah. Right now.”

“Let’s go home.”

So we went home and sexed the second night in a row. That 
didn’t happen very often. We did the same things as the 
night before.

* * * * *

The wheel turned, as it does, but just barely. A few days 
of the New Year passed, life went on, and then something 
happened. What happened? Something happened. Something 
changed between our phone conversation at lunch and dinner 
time. Why was she different? What was going on? But I came 
in the door from work and Alice was different. I should 
have marked it on my calendar. It seems a lifetime ago, but 
it was only a few months back.

“Hi, honey, I’m home.” She ignored me and  went on chopping 
some lettuce. I bent to give her a peck and she hardly 
responded. “Helloooo?”

“Oh, I’m sorry Henry. I’m just tired. I’ll have dinner 
ready in about half an hour. Why don’t you watch the news?” 
She didn’t look at me as she said it. Her eyes wandered up 
to the cabinets, then to the refrigerator, to anywhere but 
right at me. Her voice had that flatness, you know, the 
tone that says “I’m upset but I’m not going to tell you; 
you have to figure it out.” Oh shit, what was the matter? 
What had I done this time?

That wasn’t how we were. We always chatted and joked, 
except when we were having a fight. But there was no fight. 
Nothing had happened. I couldn’t be certain she was really 
angry. She was more—how to put it?—distant, as though 
something was on her mind that she wouldn’t tell me.

“Sure.”

There wasn’t much conversation during dinner. She left the 
table early. She asked to be excused during the national 
news and walked out of the room. Definitely angry. What had 
I done? It had to be bad.

But then she came back in while I was clearing the dishes 
and gave me a hug. It was so sudden and intense I almost 
dropped a plate. One minute I’m staring out the window at 
our grape trellis, feeling hollow inside and wondering how 
I can make right something that’s hidden from me, and the 
next minute Alice is holding me like she’s afraid I might 
try to get away from her.

“I’m sorry, honey,” she said. “Really, I’m just tired. But 
let’s go to bed early tonight, okay?”

And in bed it was different, in the good way. She came out 
in lingerie to get me, carrying the candle. This wasn’t 
Alice. It was almost embarrassing. Then she attacked me, 
and played with my dick the whole wobbly walk back to the 
bedroom, while we frenched like mad. In bed she asked, 
“Honey, will you do that thing? With your tongue?”

I wasn’t expecting that! I thought, you decided three or 
four years ago that you didn’t want me do that to you any 
more. What changed? What I said was: “Of course, ma’am. 
It’s my pleasure.” 

So I pushed her thighs apart with my shoulders and went 
down. Her legs were pulled up, leaving her knees in the 
air, and I could look straight down to her bush. I brushed 
one thigh all the way down, over her vagina, and up the 
other side, giving her chills. Everything was so soft, her 
thighs especially, even getting plumper like they were. I 
gave her nibbles all the way down both sides, and gave her 
a hickey, before I nestled into her mound. I sucked in her 
labia, ran my tongue up and down between them, then 
searched out her little nub. I hadn’t thought about her 
taste for a long time, but right away I remembered what I 
had liked about it. It was even better when I moved my 
tongue down to her vagina and pushed inside. She was so 
damn tangy in there.

It wasn’t that her body was open to me. Well, yes, of 
course it was partly that, her thighs and vagina spread for 
me and hidden from everyone else, there for me to use, the 
feel of her skin and her soft puff of brown pubic fur and 
the plumpness of her labia there for me alone. But it was 
also the other, that I could tell I gave her touches of 
pleasure and excitement, then jolts of them, that I could 
do this to her and know she wanted it and that I had 
touched something deep and personal and usually hidden.

Alice was holding my head, pulling me into her. When I 
looked up her eyes were open and she was staring at what I 
was doing. I moved to her button and began circling it with 
my tongue, once twice, again, again. At about the third 
pass she sighed and closed her eyes. Her hands clenched in 
my hair. I kept it up. Sigh, Alice. Moan for me. Love it. 
Show you love it. Show it. She began huffing, “hah, hah!” 
like she does when she’s really high, and her voice went 
higher and higher until it was like a begging little 
whimper, and then she came for me.

“Please, honey. Come inside me. Hurry. Please.” I got 
inside her and began humping while she squeezed me with her 
vagina. I think she came again before I finished.

* * * * *

Whatever the problem had been. Or so it seemed. Everything 
was fine when Alice got home the next evening, her day to 
work late. I was fixing a dish with pork loin and she came 
right up to me, hugged me tight, and said, “I love you so 
much, Henry.” She kept giving me surprise little kisses 
during the evening, and whispering “I love you.” Finally, 
when she was getting ready for bed, I came up behind her, 
reached around, and rolled both her nipples.

“Oh, do you have something in mind?”

“I know how to push your button.”

“You nasty, nasty man.”

“I’ll show you nasty in a few minutes.” I went to the 
bedroom, lit the candle, and lay there naked, watching the 
soft flickers on the ceiling and caressing my penis to keep 
it up for her, until she came into the room. She wore a 
peignoir under a green satin robe, old anniversary gifts 
that usually stayed in the armoire.

“Stop right there, lady. This is a stick-up.”

She looked at my penis. “I can tell that.”

“So drop your clothes right there and get ready to be 
robbed.”

“Of what? My virginity was taken long ago. By you, I 
believe. Have you lost it?” She was beginning to disrobe.

“I want some more of what I tasted last night.”

“Oh! Oh. Well, we might have some more.”

Indeed she did. But even more was to come. I licked her to 
orgasm again. It was a lot like the previous night, so I 
was able to watch her get higher and higher and then 
explode, but when she had come she didn’t ask me to put it 
inside her.

“Let me do you, honey.” I lay down and she began playing 
with my penis. She took baby powder and used it on my balls 
and dick, tickling the whole ensemble until I could hardly 
stand it. I wanted to touch her while she did it, but she 
knelt between my legs so I couldn’t touch her. She played 
with me for about twenty minutes, then she sucked my dick 
in as far as she could take it, moving her mouth up and 
down, that hot mouth, soft flesh on my penis. Jesus, I got 
so close so fast. I put a hand to her head.

“ I’m getting close. I’m almost there.”

She lifted off. “I’m doing you all the way tonight. Lay 
back.” So I lay back and she fucked my dick with her mouth 
and I came inside her. Oh Jesus! That wet, soft mouth.

* * * * *

We made love a third night in a row. 

* * * * *

The next afternoon she was distant, flat, moody. It was 
like the first day. What was wrong? 

“I’m just tired,” she said.

I thought, it’ll pass again, like before, but it didn’t 
that night. She hardly spoke again and I could hardly get a 
peck out of her at bedtime.

But sure enough, the next night she came out to the den 
when I was watching TV, pulled down my zipper, and sucked 
me all the way to climax right there. I thought, who is my 
new Alice? What’s starting to happen? Let’s progress! But 
she wouldn’t let me do her back. 

Then...oh, you could see this coming, couldn’t you? You’re 
far ahead of me, the village idiot. Well, maybe the village 
idiot doesn’t want to imagine the worst possibility. She 
became permanently distant. By permanent I mean the next 
several days. Little conversation, no sex, a lot of time 
spent reading back in the bedroom or surfing the Net on her 
computer. That was when she was home at all, because she 
had to go back to the office to work late twice, and she 
found the need to go shopping alone Saturday and Sunday.

I tried to keep busy, so I wouldn’t keep wondering why I 
was in the doghouse.

* * * * *

Monday she wasn’t home when I arrived. The place was empty. 
Her car was gone.

That wasn’t like Alice, not at all, but there’s an instant 
when something hits you, when the possibility that 
something bad could happen becomes real to you, and it 
hadn’t yet hit me. Maybe she’d run out for some groceries. 
But she hadn’t left a note. There weren’t any phone 
messages. Where? What? I walked through the house. I went 
through every room. Everything seemed normal, except that 
Alice wasn’t anywhere. I called her cell number and got 
voice mail. Alice? Where are you? Call home, will you? I 
called her office, but it had closed for the day.

Six-thirty p.m. Seven. Still no Alice. Stare out the window. 
Pace. Look again for a note. Make sure the phone is 
working. Do it all again. The thought kept rising, call the 
police. Call them now, before it’s too late. Maybe there 
was an accident. Maybe something else. Maybe what? I was 
beginning to get an inkling of the ‘what.’ I knew it, but I 
didn’t want to think it, that it was me. My chest and 
stomach felt hollow and electrical current spread down both 
my arms. Have you had those terrible feelings? I almost 
hoped there had been an accident. God, Alice. What is it? 
Where are you?

Could she have left me? Could I have blown it that badly 
and not have a clue? I’m dense, but not that dense. Could I 
have missed something so big? Maybe I should call her 
sister first, to check on her. How do I explain the call? 
Hi Deb, I can’t find Alice. Has she left me? But what else 
to do? Call the police.

Wait! If she left she’d take a bag. I ran back to the 
bedroom closet. Of course a suitcase was gone, and by now I 
knew Alice was, too. So it really was time to call Deb; 
maybe Jessica. What was happening? What was it? Was the sex 
a parting gift, a way to make the break easier for her, a 
goodbye blow job, something to lessen the guilt?

The phone rang.

“Alice?”

“Hello, Henry!” Richard’s voice boomed through the phone.

“I can’t talk, Richard. I need to stay off the phone. I’m 
expecting a call.”

“Yes! Of course! From Alice. She’s right here.”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I didn’t understand. It was 
surreal. Could Alice really be with Richard? How? I did not 
understand. I stood there with the phone pushed to my ear, 
staring at a print above the phone stand, and none of it 
made any sense to me. Finally…

“Put her on.”

“In a moment, Henry. In a moment. She’ll have a hard time 
talking to you, so I told her I’d speak with you first. 
Alice is with me, and she’s staying with me. She’s my woman 
now. You’ll have to get over her.” His voice was as warm 
and jolly as ever.

“What the hell is going on? Put my wife on now!”

“Sure, Henry, sure. But try to control yourself. This isn’t 
easy for her, and she’s just trying to grab some happiness 
in her dreary life.” There was a crackling sound as he 
handed the phone to Alice.

“Henry, I’m sorry. I couldn’t tell you, but I had to get 
out. I was smothering. I couldn’t stand it anymore.”

“What do you mean? What’s going on? I don’t understand, 
Alice. I love you! Please, come home so we can talk.”

“No, I’m not coming back. I had to get a new life. Please 
stay away.” The phone went dead.

* * * * *

Short, direct little sentences, one after the other, like 
footsteps leading away. But not an explanation. She was 
unhappy. She wanted out. Why now? There was the coldness 
recently. But a week ago she loved me. What happened? Where 
was the unhappiness?

All Richard’s phones are unlisted. I called the numbers I 
knew but no one answered, so I left messages everywhere. 
“Richard. I need to speak with Alice. Have her call me, or 
come by, or anything. Richard, do it! We have to talk. I 
need to understand!”

I called Deb. “Henry!” she scolded, “I don’t know what’s 
going on with you two. She told me she was making a change. 
Let me finish! It was just today, this morning. What did 
you do?” 

Indeed, what did I do?

I called Jessica. Bill answered. “What did you do, Henry? I 
can’t believe Alice would just up and leave out of the 
blue. Some women, but not her.” No, Jessica hadn’t heard 
anything at all.

* * * * *

You’d call everyone you could think of if she were yours, 
if it was all you could do in the night, dialing people who 
were almost strangers to tell them you’d lost your wife and 
did they know anything, had they heard anything, was there 
anything at all they could tell you. So our whole world 
knew almost right away. “She went with him?” He’s that well 
known. Yes, yes, and yes, she did. At least none of them 
asked me what I had done to deserve it.

I have trouble remembering separate things, details, from 
that night and the next few days. I was too frantic to keep 
my thoughts ordered. I think it was around midnight that it 
occurred to me to drive to Richard’s estate. It’s his own 
gated community of one, lined with trees from the eastern 
woodlands that could drink the desert dry. I had the 
security guard at the gate call the house. He talked for a 
moment, glancing down into the car at me every few seconds 
as though I might be a troublemaker. “I’m sorry, sir. He’s 
staying at another residence tonight. The staff doesn’t 
know when he will return to this one.” I asked the logical 
question and got the answer I expected. “No, sir. We aren’t 
authorized to reveal his location.” Shit. What was he doing 
to Alice while I chased my tail? He had her tail all to 
himself, didn’t he?

I fell asleep on the couch, waiting for a call that never 
came.

* * * * *

I drove to Richard’s office building at dawn, when 
everything was still quiet, and waited in the car until 
people started to arrive. At nine I called Alice’s office 
and got her administrative assistant. Another surprise. She 
had quit. Last week. She hadn’t even given them two weeks’ 
notice. 

So she was changing everything in her life, cutting out 
everyone and everything and especially me. I couldn’t have 
been bad enough to have caused that. She could have gone to 
Deb’s, gotten an apartment, demanded counseling. It was 
him. Only him. That son of a bitch!

A dark limo pulled into Richard’s parking space and I 
jumped out of my car and ran to it without even closing my 
door. I needn’t have bothered. The passenger window rolled 
down and I was looking at some attorney.

“Where is he? I need to see him!”

“As you can see, Mr. Moriarty is not here. Moreover, you 
are not welcome on these premises. If you do not leave 
right away we will have you removed.”

“But he has my wife! He took my wife, damn it!”

“That would be an issue between you and your spouse, not 
Mr. Moriarty.” I looked around and found two very large, 
but polite, young men, ready to escort me away.

*  *  *  *  *

A PI I’ve used once told me people should never think they 
can’t be found. They leave traces. Hell, Richard hardly 
tried. He had the money to make himself unavailable. My PI 
found two other residences with a couple of hours work, 
along with three more phone numbers, registrations on four 
cars, two work addresses, the whole McGillicuddy. I drove 
to the first address, another gated estate. The same two 
men were waiting for me there. They followed me as I went 
on to find the third residence, and then to Richard’s other 
work address, where they were met by two more men.

I went home and began calling all his numbers, leaving 
voice messages all over. I called his offices over and 
over. His attack secretaries got to not answering. Fucking 
caller ID!

At 2:00 p.m. I called to cancel all my appointments for the 
week.

I drove to a spot a few blocks from one of Richard’s 
estates, parked, and began looking for a chink in its 
fortifications, but within five minutes the second set of 
large men came out to greet me. This time they grabbed me 
and hustled me back to my car. “Listen, you fucker!” one 
said. “Stay away from Mr. Moriarty or you’re going to get 
hurt!” Not nearly as polite.

* * * * *

I finally saw Richard because he came to see me. It was a 
few days later, two or three I guess, and I was sitting in 
the living room staring at a wall, out of ideas and out of 
gas. Alice, my wife, my life partner. She was gone, and it 
was out of the blue, and it was with Mr. Sex. I jumped when 
the doorbell rang. There he was, flanked by the two polite 
bodyguards, one of whom positioned himself partly between 
the two of us.

“Henry!” It was his usual warm voice. “I hear you’ve been 
asking for me.”

“Where is Alice?”

“She’s fine, Henry.”

“Where is she? You took her, you fucker. I need to talk to 
her!”

“She left you. Happens all the time. Accept it, Henry. Find 
someone else, someone more your speed.”

“What do you mean? What have you done with her?” God, I 
wanted to kill him. That was the moment I hated him above 
all the other moments that would follow.

“Oh, you don’t want to ask that, Henry. I’ve done plenty 
with her. Our lovemaking is, oh, very imaginative. And I 
might add ‘passionate.’ Why, the things you never did to 
her!”

I stared at him. Could I land a good punch before the 
polite young man took me down? 

“What did you do? How did you do this?”

Richard looked a little impatient. “Look, Henry. I seduced 
her, okay? I convinced her I’m the man who can give her 
these experiences she’s missed. And it’s true. I can. So I 
talked her into it.”

“How?”

“Henry, Henry, Henry. If I have to tell you it won’t do any 
good. The fact is that a lot of women are pretty easy if 
you approach them right. Alice was as easy as any. Men are 
so pussy-whipped they think they have to be sensitive, and 
supportive, and all that, to get them.” He twisted out the 
word “sensitive.”

“But that’s not what most women want. Some. Not most. 
They’re so transparent if you look at whom they gravitate 
toward. They want a man with a capital M. They want him 
clever and strong and rich and powerful and experienced. He 
has to be smarter than they are. And they want him 
aggressive and a little controlling. For this guy, they 
want to be his special girl.” 

He played with the world “special,” dragged it out.

“They deny it. They think they should be feminists, but 
it’s true. Then, once they make the commitment to a guy, in 
their heads, he can make them do almost anything. They’ll 
like most of it, too. Didn’t you ever wonder why so many of 
them change their feelings about sex to match his, start 
doing the sexual things he wants? Almost all the women into 
swinging and bondage started doing it to please their men. 
And it isn’t just sex. You find it in all kinds of 
attitudes. You see it but you don’t understand it. If he’s 
in charge that’s how it usually works out. That’s why so 
many stay with batterers and child rapers. They can’t 
imagine life without him, and they’ll do anything to try to 
stay his special little thang.”

“And Alice...”

“You want to know how I got to your little Alice, don’t 
you? God, it was so easy! I seduced her over the phone. By 
the second call I knew I was in, figuratively speaking. You 
wouldn’t believe how much fun it is with those bitches who 
think they’re tough and want to show it by being insulting. 
No, of course you wouldn’t, Henry. You don’t know how to 
seduce a woman at all. If you ever did it, it was by luck.”

He finally got to something concrete.

“She never told you I called, did she?”

He’d called? He'd called. Of course. Probably that first 
day, sometime after lunch. Things began to fit into place. 

Finally I spoke: “And she talked to you? I can’t believe 
it.”

“Believe it.” He laughed. “Really she’s always been 
intrigued by me, but she hid it behind an air of 
hostility.”

“I thought it was real enough.”

Richard laughed again.

“I’m never fooled by appearances,” he said. “She thought 
she was supposed to hate me but I was this fantasy man. I 
could offer her so many things. I became the man in her 
imagination. I’m sure after my first call she was wondering 
what it would be like to be fucked by me. Maybe before 
that, after the New Year’s thing. That’s the way the sex 
works out, Henry dear. Don’t think women go into it wanting 
the pleasure. Oh, they love the pleasure all right. But 
first they want the man. She commits to him in her mind and 
then she starts wanting him to do her. And she’ll get off 
by letting him fuck with her.”

His beeper went off. He pulled it out of its holster and 
looked at it. 

“Gotta go, Henry. By the way, this was just a courtesy 
call. You should leave Alice alone. She doesn’t want to see 
you, and I wouldn’t want things to become...unpleasant. But 
who knows? Maybe one day we can all be friends again. 
Meanwhile, if you need to leave a message, call this number 
only.” 

One of the polite young men handed me a business card and 
they left.

* * * * *

A CD arrived the next day. The bell rang again. It only 
brought bad news. This time it was a courier, who hand-
delivered the thing. What would you do with it? I went 
straight to a CD player and popped it in. It was a 
recording of Richard’s first call to Alice. His way of 
boasting. What it told me was that everything he’d said was 
true. Richard had seduced Alice just like he said he had. 
He was truthful, I thought one of the most truthful people 
I’ve ever known.

I still have the CD. It’s stored carefully, and I 
transferred the text to my hard drive so I could listen to 
it over and over, when I wanted to torture myself. Listen.

“Hello?”

“Hello, lovely Alice. This is Richard.”

“And to what tragedy do we owe the honor of this call? 
Henry isn’t home just yet.”

“No, that’s just as well. I’d rather talk with you anyway. 
You’re much more interesting.”

“Well, I don’t think you’re very interesting. I don’t get 
off on displays of cheap sex and dominance.”

“Dominance? The other night? Oh heavens, Alice! Do you 
really think I forced Diane into anything?”

“I’m sure she loves being whipped. Especially in front of a 
crowd.”

“Of course she does! Dear, dear Alice. It was part of the 
fantasy. Couldn’t you see how excited she became by it all? 
Everything was a fantasy scene we worked out in advance, so 
she could experience something she’d only imagined. So she 
got to live it out. I thought surely you recognized that. I 
saw it in your eyes. Everything that really drives people 
has large dollops of fantasy, you know, and New Year’s Eve 
drove Diane into a such a state.”

“Oh, I’m sure it did. And what of your state?”

“A day at the office. I build my life around fantasy. You 
know that. It’s made me wealthy. And free. And in demand.”

“Maybe to some women, Dick, but not to me. That wasn’t just 
a show at New Year’s.”

“Don’t try so hard to convince yourself, lovely Alice. You 
find me more intriguing than you let on. And I find you 
irresistible. But it was only half a show. It was a scene. 
She accepted the rules before we started, the rules of the 
fantasy. She was bound to uphold her side. If she didn’t, 
if it were just a show, she wouldn’t have been half so 
aroused. She had to know I could play out everything in the 
role of master, to give her fantasy world the illusion of 
reality. If you’d like, I could ask her to explain it to 
you.”

“You arrogant bastard!” Finally she was through bantering.

On the tape Richard explodes in a warm laugh, sounding 
completely un-self conscious, before he responds: “Well, 
yes to the first part.” He laughs again. “But not so 
arrogant that I think I can just swoop in and a lady will 
find me irresistible. Things are muchly much more complex 
than that!” Again he laughs.

“Oh, you don’t just lay on a fantasy? I thought you could 
do anything in fantasy!”

I’m sure she thought she was laying on withering sarcasm, 
but he wasn’t stopped at all.

“Heavens no! Good fantasy requires imagination and a mind 
for myriad details, but it also needs enormous preparation. 
That’s why most people’s fantasies go nowhere. One must 
master them, play with them, plot reasonable paths and 
outcomes, deal with logistics. And it requires action. It 
takes all that to grow fantasy into something more than a 
desperate yearning within you when you’re having your 
coitus.”

Alice doesn’t say anything. Silence. Such a long pause on 
the tape.

“You’re so quiet, Alice. Why don’t you tell me a fantasy? 
With thought and discussion, it can evolve.”

Finally she says something, in a quieter voice, all the 
high-spirited, romance-novel challenge drained from it. “I 
think I better go now, Richard. I’m not one of your girls. 
I’m a happily married woman. I’m not looking for your 
games.”

“No. Of course not, Alice.” Richard’s voice drops, both 
volume and timbre. “I never suggested otherwise. I 
apologize. I’m not that presumptuous. And yet. And yet you 
do have fantasies, unspoken ones. You make love in 
predictable ways, at predictable times. And you bring the 
fantasies up from the back of your mind when you’re doing 
it. Maybe before you start. Maybe they’re what get you 
excited in the first place. They’re your most private 
thoughts, not even for Henry.”

A very brief silence. He didn’t let it drag, the bastard. 
His timing comes out on the tape. “Tell me I’m wrong, 
Alice. Tell me that honestly.”

She finally comes back on. She sounds depressed, tired.

“Everyone has fantasies. They add spice. I’m certainly not 
going to tell you mine.”

“Of course not, Alice. I apologize again. I’m explaining 
what I do. I evolve fantasies for people, and I charge them 
for the job. I charge them excessively. I tell them 
everyone’s can be more, and it’s true. Later they come back 
and pay me more to take their fantasies further or to craft 
new ones. There can always be more. Fantasy is what makes 
life really worth living for the thinking person. You know 
yours can be more. I do that for people, and it’s worth it 
to them to pay me very well.”

Here it seems she tries to make a joke of the conversation 
with a laugh that is only a little bit forced. “I don’t 
know why I let you go on like this! Like I said, I’m not 
going to be one of your little fantasy girls.”

He laughs again, and it’s not forced at all. “And yet here 
you are, talking with the enemy when you could have hung up 
long ago.” He laughs once again, then says something with 
faux sadness: “I guess I’ll just have to go away with my 
own little fantasies of you.”

She laughs, still forced: “Yes, I guess so.” There’s a 
hesitation. “Though I don’t think I like your having 
fantasies of me. You don’t have my permission to have any.”

“But as you said, everyone has fantasies. I’m simply more 
honest about them. That’s part of why I’m good with them, 
why they’re my business, because I’m not like other people, 
not ashamed of them.” Then he sounds more serious. “And 
they’re mine. I don’t need permission. Goethe wrote, If I 
love you, what business is it of yours?”

He lets the silence hang this time. I can imagine him 
timing it, deciding how long he should give her. It’s only 
about five seconds before she responds, but it seems 
longer.

“I...I don’t know about your having those fantasies.” Her 
voice has changed. She doesn’t sound angry, or 
disapproving.

“I don’t need your approval, Alice.”

She hesitates again: “Should I worry about what you’re 
thinking?”

He drags it out again. He’s good: “You said you didn’t want 
to know.”

“Well. Well, I don’t know.” Her mouth seems dry: “Maybe you 
should. Tell me. I think...I think you should tell me what 
they are.” Another pause. She’s ill at ease. He has her. 
“Because I think I might worry about them. About what 
you’re thinking.”

A silence.

“Richard?”

A brief silence.

“So you want to know something I’ve fantasized about you.”

“Yes. No. But ... I don’t know. You brought it up, not me.”

“And you’re curious.”

“I’m concerned.”

“Okay. So I’ll tell you. Just one little thing. Nothing. A 
little thing in my mind.”

Hesitation: “Okay.”

“Well...” He drags it out, again. It’s as though he’s 
taking long drag on a cigarette and letting it out slowly: 
“In this one I’m licking and sucking your pussy.”

Another pause. Then: “Oh.” I can’t tell if that’s a 
question or a statement, or if it’s a little gasp, caught 
and molded at the last instant.

“Only you’re tied to a bed, spread to the four posts.”

“Oh! Of course! Your typical dominance!” She sounds 
relieved that it sounds simple and unimaginative.

“Heavens no! It’s just that such a woman as you might 
throttle me with your thighs at just the wrong moment, and 
we couldn’t have that, could we?” He laughs, but continues 
before she can interject: “But really this is for you, so 
that you can’t control how it goes, or how long it goes, 
and so you get to experience the delicious mixture of 
helplessness and pleasure. Because in the fantasy I press 
my tongue against your spot with hard, steady pressure, 
then move it up and down and around. I make you hot, but I 
go slowly, slowly, slowly, and I make it drag on once 
you’re high enough.”

Alice doesn’t say anything.

“How is that for a fragment of fragment of a fantasy, 
Alice?”

Finally she says something: “If the woman in your fantasy 
doesn’t want you to do that, does she just tell you?”

“No. You can’t.”

“Why can’t she?”

“Because I have a belt. If you say anything at all, you 
know I’ll whip you. So you have to take it. My tongue is 
moving over your clitoris, around and around. My mouth is 
hot on you.”

She delays responding. I can picture her wondering what to 
say, and how to phrase it. She sounds almost empty of air 
when she finally comes back on. “So. What’s in that fantasy 
for you, if you’re busy pleasuring the woman?”

“My time will come, I’m sure. And I get to experience you 
the entire time, Alice, in so many ways. I feel your flesh 
and feel you move. And I see you under me, your sweet body, 
your face. Do you know you close your eyes when you’re 
inflamed?”

Alice doesn’t say anything.

“And I taste you. You taste musky in my fantasy, Alice. I smell 
your musk as you become more aroused. It'sa like a wonderful 
cologne. And I get to hear you. I’m experiencing Alice with all 
my senses. I hear every breath, every gasp, every little whimper, 
every sound of disappointment when I let up a little and every 
moan as I go faster and harder on you. You move your body 
because you can’t help responding, Alice. You get so caught up 
in it. At some...”

Alice finally cuts in, and it’s sudden: “Richard, I have to 
go. I’m sorry...”

“Of course, Alice. I’d like to call you again.”

“I don’t think you should. I’m sorry...”

“Let me call you again in a few days.”

“I have to hang up.”

“Tell me I can call you.”

“I have to go.”

“Tell me. Say it.”

“I have to go.” I’ve never heard someone sound so 
desperate.

“Say it.” 

“Some other time.”

“Give me a day. A time.”

“Not before Thursday. In the afternoon.

“I’ll call you.”

There’s a click and the recording ends.


End of Part One.


