Arnica Butler - Well-Constructed Affairs Read online

  She began to rock back and forth on his still-hard cock. At first it was almost too much for him, and he braced himself leaning backwards and sucked the air through his teeth in pain. But before long she had him worked back up, craving her, wanting to fill her again with his cum.

  Outside, the party seemed to be spilling over into the pool area. They could hear voices getting closer and closer to the cabana.

  John pushed her forward, and held her by the hips as he sloshed in her overripe cunt until she seized up around him and squealed into the material of the bed. He held in the loud yell he so desperately wanted to give as he came, and the force of it almost gave him a stroke.

  As the ringing, exploding buzz of his orgasm died down, and Adria' seemed to as well, they became aware of the voices approaching the cabana. “Shit,” Adria laughed.

  It was too late. Someone opened the curtains, saying “what's in here?”

  Luckily, it was no one they knew, and the man surveyed the scene quickly, said “whoops,” and let the curtain fall.

  John put his face into Adria's shoulder blade and stifled a laugh.

  They dressed quickly, and then Adria peeked out of the tent to find a moment for the two of them to sneak out. They darted into the garden behind the cabana, but not before a few guys clapped and cheered for them.

  John was grateful it made Adria laugh.

  13 CLOSE CALL

  Adria leaned across the car and gave John a kiss before stepping out. She was wearing a higher heel than usual today, and it ground, slightly slippery, on the loose sand and gravel that covered the area being used as a parking lot. “Thanks,” she said. “I'll get a ride back to my office from Ken and take the train home.”

  She took a moment to scan John's face. A flicker of jealousy, but mostly arousal. She winked at him.

  He liked the idea of her “getting a ride” from Ken.

  She closed the door with a smile, but as soon as she heard his car pulling away behind her, she felt a little drop in her happiness.

  She knew she should be more happy than she was with the “arrangement” they seemed to have hammered out. After all, John was happy, and now she could find a way to pursue her own secret fantasies without feeling like she was doing something wrong.

  Still, something was lurking around in her subconscious, and it wasn't a sense of relief. There was something that didn't quite fit, didn’t quite satisfy in this arrangement. She couldn't say exactly what it was.

  After all, they had hashed out an agreement after Mark. After she had actually had sex with another man at her friend's wedding. In a cabana, in public practically. She had gotten off on it, he had gotten off on it. Everything seemed good.

  Right?

  Right.

  And then she had agreed that she would tell him about her affairs. Perhaps let him encourage them. But there was a tacit agreement in there, a clause they had sort of glossed over: the fact that John was aroused by things that weren't totally agreed upon ahead of time. Things that were a little bit over the line.

  And so did she.

  So she was on a looser lead, and she should enjoy it, right?

  Instead she was worried. Worried about what she might do. Worried that the ball, so to speak, was in her court. And she was certain that John had no idea just how dirty her ideas could get.

  “You look tall,” Ken said dryly, breaking off her train of thought. He scanned her from head to toe and back again with a more paternalistic gaze than anything. “You need shoes?”

  Adria felt a flush of embarrassment creep across her face. She was in the low heels today – and tight jeans, and a black, form-fitting t-shirt, as opposed to her typical Carhartts - because she wanted to look...well, good.

  John had noticed when she got in the car. It had raised his heckles and his suspicions, and she could see that he liked it.

  But if she was honest with herself, John's reaction wasn't why she was doing it.

  “These are steel-toed,” she lied to Ken.

  “Oh yeah?” Ken quipped. He rolled his eyes.

  “It's part of a new female construction fashion line.”

  More eyeroll and Ken waved her toward the office as he began his unsteady workman march in that direction. “My fuckin' head's steel-plated, doesn't mean I can walk around here without a hard hat. Get some boots or you're stuck in the office. I can't have OSHA up my ass this week.”

  Someone lurking about in the shadows made a boilerplate joke about OSHA up his ass, and so the day began.

  “You got a problem with the specs.”

  It was a statement rather than a question, and the voice delivering it made Adria's downy neck hair rise. A wave of goosebumps rippled down her spine and over her buttocks.

  She turned to see him – Billy Stone – leaning on a two-by-four with his forearm and staring at her.

  She pushed her hair from her face. She felt a wave of embarrassment after that, because she was actually twittering like a schoolgirl. “I do.” She tried to deliver her statement with the same detached tone as the wiry, muscled workman, but it failed and came out sort of bitchy. “I mean, yeah, I do..but you...how'd you...?”

  She was inwardly dismayed with herself. Get it together. Why was she finding this twit so disarming?

  She could see in Billy Stone's smug fucking face that he knew exactly the effect he was having on her.

  His eyes dropped to her work boots. They were an obvious size too big, and Adria was convinced she was in far more danger waddling around in these things than her other shoes, but rules were rules.

  “Nice kicks,” Billy said. He took a step closer to her.

  Her eyes dropped and she let them take a lingering walk on his bicep. Involuntarily, she shook a little inside. His arm was incredibly taut, thick and muscled. Her mind took a plunge, imagining his solid weight on top of her, his bicep next to her face, right where she could turn and bite into his flesh as he made her scream.

  She realized that she hadn't said anything, and felt her cheeks stain red. Billy moved a little bit closer. She didn't move away.

  “I can show you where the problem is,” he growled.

  Adria felt her whole body go cold. This was close – uncomfortably close, excitingly close – to the fantasy she had kept stored away in her mind. She almost felt as though she had been stripped naked.

  But there was no way he could know what was in her mind?

  Was there?

  Billy took a look around the level. There was no one on the floor with them.

  “Is that what you came up here for?” he asked.

  Adria wasn't sure what happened to her in the next few moments. She felt hypnotized. Billy moved closer to her, and she backed away but – as he surely knew – there was nowhere to go but into a concrete pillar. And then he was very close to her, and he leaned an arm up against the concrete.

  She felt herself shake her head.

  “No?” Billy said, and he gave her a smile that was as enticing as it was self-satisfied. She felt his hand at her navel, and then moving slowly up, over her shirt and up to her bare chest.

  “What then?” he asked.

  He pushed the shirt up and over her breasts. He didn't take his eyes off hers. She felt the roughness of his hand move over her skin and up to her neck, then up to her mouth, where his fingertips moved over her lips.

  She felt her pussy throb and her excitement gush into her underwear.

  He pulled at her lower lip and watched it before he moved his mouth very close to hers. “What, then? What did you want up here?”

  His mouth was on hers before she could answer, and he moved his hand to cup her breast at that moment.

  His touch was everything she had expected. Forceful, hard, unyielding. He pressed his body against hers and she felt his cock through his jeans against her thigh.

  She moved her hand to his chest, to push him away from her, but he caught her wrist and squeezed it tightly.

  Just like she wanted, if she wanted to admit
it to herself. He pressed her arm against the cement and swiftly caught the other one. He pulled away from her mouth, and held her there, panting.

  “This was a bad idea,” she said, but even she knew that her voice sounded false.

  He moved his head very slowly from one side to another, and she gave her arms a little wiggle. They were met with unyielding force: even if she had really, really wanted to, unless he chose to let go of her, there was no way she was getting away. “I think it's a great idea,” he said.

  He turned his head slightly to the left, and she felt his mouth and the sandpaper of his stubble against her throat as he sucked her skin up into his lips. The very real danger of him leaving some kind of mark on her made her panic, and she actually struggled against his grip.

  But to no avail, and he looked back at her with amusement on his face.

  She could feel the very real danger of Billy Stone now. She felt like a searing liquid was injected into her arteries: it was was similar to fear but it lit her up like a wildfire. She squirmed in his grip, and he went in for her neck again. She faintly moved her head from side to side in dissent, but her resolve was weak, and she was excited like she had never been before, and anyway, she couldn't say no...

  The high whine of the elevator made Billy pause, and then the sound of it stopping on their floor made him grin, and push his body away from hers.

  “Next time,” he said, picking up a bag he had set on the floor and whistling as he turned around and walked away.

  Ken stepped out of the elevator, and a new kind of fear surged up inside of Adria. What the hell had she almost done?

  “Whadya doin' up here? Problem's on eight, I have to get out of here, been lookin' all over.” He swept his eyes over the scene, and Adria was relieved that Billy didn't seem to be anywhere in sight. “You okay?”

  She nodded.

  “You look pale.”

  Adria floundered through her mind for a response. “I almost fell.”

  She could feel her pussy throbbing, and her ears had a tinny ringing to them. With just a kiss, Billy Stone had brought her near to orgasm. She stood up.

  “What, off the side, or what?” Ken barked.

  “Huh?” she said.

  “You look like you almost died. Let's go. I don't got time for this.”

  Adria joined him in the elevator. As it closed she searched for the smug and beautiful Billy Stone, but the place looked empty. She wondered for a moment if she had imagined it all.

  She stopped on the way home after buying a pack of cigarettes from a gas station. She drove out to their old neighborhood, the place where they'd bought their first starter home. Not for any nostalgic reason, just because it was on the way and she knew where there was an undeveloped field and a road that dead-ended there. She sat on the hood of the car and lit the cigarette.

  It was the first time in five years she had smoked. It tasted terrible, but she smoked it anyway, looking out over the field in the golden late afternoon light.

  Shit, she thought. What was she doing?

  There was this thing with John.

  Was it bothering her? Was it John, and the wedding, that had her out here smoking in a field?

  She blew a languid stream of smoke out of her nostrils and inspected the burning ash at the end of the cigarette. She knew that wasn't it.

  She liked fucking Mark. It had been fun. But when she thought of it, she felt a slight ping in the back of her mind. A gentle reminder, a little kick of guilt. And she knew where it came from. She knew she knew. She had to confront it.

  She closed her eyes.

  She had told herself that she slept with Mark because John wanted her to. And there was some truth to that story: John did want her to, and that was one reason she had done it.

  But there was something else. Something she didn't want to think about too much.

  She sucked in her breath and opened her eyes.

  Hadn't she done it, just a little, because she was looking for something else?

  She had known she wasn't going to get it from Mark. He wasn't that kind of guy, and even as they snuck away to the cabana and writhed on the bed, she hadn't felt the kick she really wanted to feel.

  The kick she had felt with Billy only an hour ago.

  The real feeling that she was doing something illicit.

  With someone dangerous.

  That she was really close to a real edge.

  No matter how scandalous it might have seemed, taking things all the way with Mark at a wedding in a public setting, it hadn't excited her the way Billy Stone's lips, sucking on her neck, threatening to bruise her flesh and leave her with a lie to tell, had excited her. Mark hadn't made her pulse race with the same kind of adrenaline, the same kind of fear, the same horrible twisting in her stomach.

  The one of doing something bad.

  Something wrong. Really wrong.

  She took another drag.

  Was it that?

  Or was it that Billy Stone was the kind of man who was going to hold her wrists and take what he wanted?

  Her own fantasy made her nervous. She made herself nervous, taking things this far.

  “What's the outcome?” she said aloud.

  Because that was always the thing that mattered. Where was this going? What if she hadn't been interrupted by Ken? She would have taken things all the way with Billy. She could see she hadn't really really had much of a choice.

  And then what?

  And then what?

  She put the cigarette out, grinding it with the heel of her shoes. It was wildfire season, any little spark could set the whole town on fire.

  A fitting metaphor for her life.

  She plopped into the seat of the car, but left the door open and stared into space. She didn't feel like driving just yet.

  She needed to make a decision. She needed to make a decision and commit. But the flow charts she was drawing for herself in her mind, the diagrams and the lists – they never really added up for her.

  She knew the most important thing was her marriage.

  Obviously.

  But if John could have this thing he wanted, and it was outside of their marriage...then surely he couldn't deny her what she wanted.

  But if she told him about it, she didn't feel like it would be the same. She wouldn't really be getting what she wanted.

  She didn't really want to tell him what she actually wanted.

  Minutes passed by.

  She slid her phone out of her purse.

  She didn't remember it ringing in her ear.

  “You need to talk,” the voice on the other end said. “Pick me up at La Flaca.”

  14 GUILT

  “Did you do it?” Lily said, diving right in after their waiter left the wine at their table. Adria was wearing sunglasses, and Lily rolled her eyes when she didn't take them off. She reached across the table and took them off her face. “Tell me. You did, didn't you? And?”

  Adria looked at the table. “We did it at a wedding.”

  “Was this Marie and Luke's wedding? Because I am pissed at that bitch, you know she didn't even invite me. Mamona. Was it good?”

  Adria smiled. “The wedding or the...”

  Lily tisked and waved her hand in front of her face like there was a fly bothering her. “I don't care if the wedding was good. The guy. The...” she waved her hands frantically in the air. “The thing. Did he watch?”

  Adria looked up at her. “Yeah,” she said, and her voice was hesitant. “And that was good. It was..cool.”

  “Cool?” Lily screeched, and Adria put her hand out to stop her. “Cool? Ay, guera, you had better have something else to say but cool.” She looked at a passing waiter with sexual interest, then turned back squinting. “Small pene?” Agreeing with herself before Adria could say anything, she tisked again. “That is the worst.”

  Adria shook her head. “No, no nothing like that. That's...look, that was fine, okay? It's not...it's not what I want to talk to you about.”


  Lily arched an eyebrow. “Really.” She slid the wine glass from the table and folded her arms across her chest. “I am shutting my mouth now then, I am all ears, I promise. I must hear this thing you are going to tell me that is something more interesting than fucking some guy – did he have a good-sized one, then? - at pinche Marie's wedding. La muy cabrona.” Lily mimed zipping her lips.

  Adria closed her eyes. She knew that telling Lily was probably the worst idea she'd had in a long time, but she had also made up her mind to do it.

  “Okay. So. This thing with John is great. It's good, we have hot sex now, I don't feel...I don't really feel weird about it. Like, not weird about...it...but I have a problem. Another problem. Something else about it is bothering me.”

  Lily opened her mouth and then closed it, re-zipping her own lips. Her eyes were wet with interest. She sipped her wine and waved at Adria to go on.

  “It's sort of...I mean, it's the thing I sort of talked to you about. I mean, I did this thing with Mark – that's the guy at the wedding -” Adria stopped to laugh because Lily held out her fingers to make a length of eight inches between them, her eyes pleading for an answer. Adria held her own hands apart about nine inches and Lily smiled.

  “Anyway,” Adria said. She leaned forward on the table. “I didn't actually feel like..I don't know, all that wildly turned on by it. Or off. Or...anything. Right? It was just like, okay, this was exciting...but it wasn't that exciting. It was...missing something.”

  Lily pressed her lips together.

  “John liked it. But...”

  Lily looked like she would explode. She closed her eyes and shook he head slowly.

  “And then, I almost fucked this guy at work.”

  Lily sprayed her wine out and dropped her head to her napkin, trying to wipe herself up. “You what?”

  “Yeah. This guy Billy.”

  “Why didn't you?”

  “Ken showed up. But...I would have, you know? If he hadn't? Right there at work. On the third floor of this unfinished building, anyone could come up there any time. You know? I would have gotten fired. Not to mention that...well, it isn't what me and John agreed on.”