Pulling out of the garage, my self-consciousness about my new outfit intensified as I began the ten-minute trek through the neighborhood toward the tennis courts. Despite wavering in the garage about whether to change into something less revealing, I held my ground, determined not to let my husband’s negative opinion strip away my remaining self-confidence. The Florida humidity had already coated my freckled body in a sheen of sweat before I’d even picked up a racquet. Arriving at the court, I walked from the golf cart to the veranda, where the ladies were already sipping cocktails in the same chairs Gloria and I had occupied the night before.
“Hey, girl!” Beth called out, her eyes lighting up with a smile as she was the only one facing me to notice my approach.
“Love the new outfit!” she followed.
“Thanks,” I responded, swiftly reclaiming the confidence my husband had tried to steal from me.
Turning around in their chairs, Jill and Gloria greeted me with broad smiles.
“Cute outfit girl!” Jill said, her genuine reaction impossible to fake.
“Hey, girlie,” Gloria smiled, her eyes quietly extending the conversation we’d already had this morning.
“Hey ladies, thanks. Just trying something new,” I said with a nervous laugh, grabbing the empty chair they’d saved for me and hoping to shift the focus away from myself quickly.
Sitting on the veranda, I was served my usual Mojito, the perfect drink for the Florida sun in the early afternoon. The staff knew me well. As we waited for our court to open, delayed by the better player’s practice, the four of us chatted casually. The familiar setting provided a brief sense of calm, but my mind was anything but settled. I was torn between Alex’s disgusted look and Gloria’s lingering glances, which seemed almost desperate to continue our conversation from the night before, and our Signal chat that morning.
As the court cleared, the pro shop door squeaked open with its familiar sound, and Tommy stepped out just as he had the night before. However, the tiny tennis shorts that had barely contained him the previous evening were now replaced with his usual baggy basketball shorts, solely designed to conceal his freakishness. Unlike last night, his purpose today was to kick off our D-league practice, not drain Gloria of every built-up orgasm in her sixty-year-old body.
“Hey ladies,” Tommy said, making eye contact with each of us around the table.
“Someone’s been on a shopping spree,” he said with a smile, glancing at my second new outfit in as many days.
“Thanks,” I said with a nervous laugh, lowering my arm to cover my exposed midriff.
“Okay, are we ready, ladies?” Tommy called out, raising his voice to motivate us away from the social time and the alcoholic beverages some of us clearly enjoyed more than the actual tennis.
Finishing our drinks, the four of us reluctantly got up and headed to the court. Tommy, true to form, began practice with some excruciatingly bad drills before vanishing into the pro shop, likely not to be seen again until our next practice or his next rendezvous with one of the ladies. Practice flew by, leaving us completely sweat-logged. As Gloria and I began packing our things, it became clear that she had orchestrated Beth and Jill’s hasty exit. They quickly said their goodbyes and disappeared, leaving just Gloria and myself.
“How are you doing, girlie?” she asked.
“Alright, I guess,” I said, recognizing that there was no outsmarting a woman with her experience.
“You sure?” Gloria asked, her expression filled with concern.
“Yeah, I’m good,” I replied, not ready to pour everything inside me out on the tennis court at that exact moment.
“Alright, well, I am always here if you need to talk,” she said, wrapping her sweaty arm around my shoulder with a half-hug of sympathy and a subtle farewell. She was wise enough to sense I was on the verge of cracking and let me go without additional probing.
As I returned to the golf cart and headed home, my mind was again flooded with thoughts. Subconsciously, I had decided to give myself the entire practice session to see if my feelings had changed from the decisive conclusion I had reached in my garage. The stark contrast between my husband’s reaction to my outfit and Tommy’s, who I barely knew, weighed heavy on me, reinforcing that my initial conclusion was likely correct.
Arriving in my garage, I again sat in the cart for a bit, just as I had the night before, dreading the moment I’d have to go inside and see Alex. Instead, I pulled out my phone, opened Signal, and opened the chat between Gloria and myself.
“Alex was repulsed by my outfit today,” I wrote, the anger having built up so much that it came pouring out.
“He is an idiot,” she quickly replied.
“I know he is, but it still hurts,” I responded, immediately met by a sad face emoji.
“I could tell something was off about you today, but I am glad you reached out. I know someone who liked your outfit, lol,” she shot back.
“Aww, thanks. Sorry if I was a drag at practice,” I said, prompting a strategically timed five-minute silence from Gloria. Her pause was clearly deliberate, as if she was patiently guiding me toward the conclusion she had anticipated I’d eventually reach months ago.
Wiping the sweat from my face and arms again with a well-used tennis towel as I sat in the cart, the perfect storm of lust and anger collided within me, and I felt as if an external force had taken control of my fingers.
“I think I am ready to join the team,” I hesitantly typed before finally hitting send.
“Woohoo!” Gloria responded instantly, revealing my assumption that she had been patiently waiting for me to reach this inevitable conclusion.
“This is one of the best decisions you have ever made, trust me,” she immediately followed.
“How does this work anyway,” I asked nervously.
Gloria promptly sent me what appeared to be a Signal contact card for “Tommy Salami,” clearly relishing the moment of anticipation before sending it.
“Just say hi to him,” she responded with a smiley face.
My mind raced, and my body trembled as I exited the golf cart and entered the laundry room. Wiping my face and arms one last time, I tossed my sweat-soaked towel into the open washing machine before moving through the house. As I passed through the foyer towards the stairs, Alex’s clacking keyboard seeped through his closed door. I started up the stairs, heading for the shower, knowing I could still back out and pretend nothing had happened. A whirlwind of thoughts flooded my mind, dominated by the fear of losing the moral high ground over my now homosexual husband.
The evening dragged on as Emily remained at her friend’s house. Alex, seemingly oblivious to the full extent of his insulting reaction to my outfit, remained shut away in his office, avoiding confrontation. By 9:00 PM on a Friday, I found myself in my closet trying on a new outfit that had arrived earlier that day and which I planned to wear to our next away match. Although we had only one choice for home matches, the white one-piece tennis dress, I had more flexibility with our attire for away matches.
As I finished trying my new outfit, a baby blue skirt with a navy blue top, I remained distracted by Tommy’s contact card and the latest picture Gloria had sent. I was suddenly drawn to the bed where my phone lay, not even bothering to remove the new tennis outfit. As I sat on the bed and grabbed my phone, the exact scene depicted in the story’s picture above, I navigated back to the Signal chat with Tommy.
Once again, seemingly against my own will, just like when I messaged Gloria earlier to say I was ready to join the team, my finger tapped Tommy’s contact card, opening a new chat with his alias arrogantly displayed at the top of the screen.
“Hey, Tommy,” I wrote, hesitating to hit send as my heart beat out of my chest.
Finally hitting send, bolstered by one last glance at the latest picture Gloria had included, I nervously awaited a response. I saw him typing almost immediately before I could even internally celebrate the nerves I had fought through to message him.
“Hey, Amy!” he responded, followed by a pause.
“Sorry, I know this is weird, lol,” I replied, not knowing what to say, followed by an even longer pause this time.
“Not at all. I just finished up with your partner,” he finally replied, followed by a selfie of him and Beth, the eyes of my “freckle twin” reflecting the exhaustion of a spent woman.
I again almost dropped my phone in response to the candid bluntness, quickly reminded that I would be just another cog in the wheel of a shared commodity among my tennis group had I chosen to move forward.
“Oh, fun,” I replied, the first thing that came to my mind in response to a message I wasn’t quite sure how to respond.
A few more minutes passed as I anxiously awaited Tommy’s following message. When it finally arrived, it wasn’t a regular message but rather a QR code to a Cash App account, causing my jaw to nearly drop to my lap.
“What lesson package do you want?” Tommy’s follow-up message read, its bluntness catching me entirely off guard.
My mind instantly flashed back to Jill’s comment in Gloria’s car months ago on the way to Pine Ridge Country Club. She had mentioned paying for lessons but never actually taking them, which suddenly made everything clear. In a near panic, I quickly closed the chat with Tommy and opened up my direct conversation with Gloria.
“Umm, he is asking what package I want,” I wrote.
“Start with one and see how you like it,” Gloria replied almost instantly, her tone unexpectedly serious, as if she had anticipated my question.
I didn’t even know how to respond, fidgeting restlessly in bed, unable to remain still. I was a sophisticated, college-educated woman, a mother, and a wife of two decades. I didn’t pay for sex. Who in the hell did he think he was? The nerve of this guy to send me a Cash App QR code without showing any interest in who I was as a person was infuriating. In what seemed like a recurring pattern, I dropped my phone onto the bed beside me, attempting to gather my thoughts.
My mind raced uncontrollably as I sat on my bed, leaning against the headboard with my phone beside me. I weighed the consequences of backing out of a commitment that Gloria clearly took seriously and the potential fallout with my new friends. It felt like being entangled in the mob; extricating yourself without severe repercussions was nearly impossible once you were in. I understood that withdrawing now would irrevocably change everything. I’d be unable to view Tommy the same way ever again, risk ostracism from the group, and be forced back into the daily life of a broken marriage and a husband I now loathed.
A rare moment of clarity suddenly struck me: I should have anticipated how this would unfold based on Jill’s comment. Deep down, I knew a payment was involved, so why was I suddenly feigning outrage? Perhaps I had been naïve. My sense of attractiveness was now front and center. Maybe my husband’s secret life was a reflection of my own diminished desirability. Perhaps the way he looked at me in my tennis outfit earlier was how the rest of the world saw me. Had I unknowingly become the “fat girl at the bar at 2:00 AM”?
In a sudden lapse of self-confidence and insecurity, I returned to the chat with Tommy, the Cash App QR code glaring up at me. Scrolling back up, my eyes were drawn to Beth’s face in the selfie he had sent, a face marked by pure, unrestrained satisfaction, something I hadn’t felt in years. Flashbacks hit me like a tidal wave: the permanent smiles on my teammates’ faces, images of Tommy’s anatomy, tennis shorts on the verge of bursting at their seams, and orgasm counts that didn’t seem real. The overwhelming flood of thoughts pushed me to scroll down and put my thumbs on the tiny keyboard, almost against my will.
“Just one,” I typed back, my fingers betraying the shame I felt as it likely seeped through my phone.
“Cool, send me $300 when you get a chance,” Tommy quickly replied, his tone cold and transactional, making me second-guess whether I was making the right decision.
Closing the chat with Tommy and jumping back to Gloria, my heart pounded against my chest.
“So, $300, lol,” I wrote.
“They get cheaper the more you buy,” she quickly replied.
“I don’t even have my own money, lol,” I responded nervously.
“So, it’s tennis lessons. Every tennis player needs lessons. Surely your husband is cool with that, right?” she asked.
“I suppose so, lol,” I responded, suddenly coming to the realization I was about to use my own husband’s money to pay for sex with a tennis pro, more age-aligned to our daughter than to myself.
Gloria was being strategic, laying low, and only addressing my concerns when prompted, leaving me to navigate the waters of Tommy on my own. She wasn’t her usual chatty self, responding only to my questions in a seemingly serious tone. I could only imagine how turned on this must have made Gloria, who had waited an entire year since Beth and Jill to entrap someone new in Tommy’s web.
Returning to my chat with Tommy, I stared at the Cash App QR code for a few more seconds before finally tapping it. The app opened, leading me to a payment page for a user name made up of a blend of words, including “Tennis,” “Tommy,” and “11”, with the eleven subtly hinting at his massive length without raising any suspicion to the husbands who were paying for it. My fingers hovered over the number pad as I hesitated, typing in “300” and adding a memo of “Tennis Lessons.” I paused before hitting send, knowing that clicking the button would not only immediately debit a joint checking account I had contributed absolutely nothing but also irrevocably alter the makeup of my soul, making me no better than the husband I had quietly grown to loathe over the past several months.
As I hit send, a notification from the app and an email from our bank confirmed the transaction. I knew Alex would receive the same notification downstairs in his office. Likely questioning the transaction, he would see the memo and return to his writing or whatever in the hell he was doing in his office, knowing better than to bring up anything tennis-related after that morning’s events.
“Received,” read a push notification from Signal at the top of my phone. As I opened it, the stoic nature of Tommy’s response confirmed the payment.
I was overwhelmed with guilt and shame as I saw Tommy actively typing a message.
“Will tomorrow night at 9:00 PM work for you?” he wrote, cold and calculated, almost like a machine.
My life flashed before my eyes once again. Everything had happened so quickly. Amid my guilt and shame, it felt as if I had been under Gloria’s spell, physically controlled by her puppet strings. I was like being on a rollercoaster, and I could not escape until it came to a halt. I was already in too deep, and it was too late to turn back. My thumbs seemed to move independently, returning to my phone’s keyboard.
“That works,” I replied nervously, oblivious to or unconcerned about any prior Saturday evening family commitments I might have made.
“See you then. Get there at 8:45 if you can. The same spot you were at last night,” he responded.
“Also, wear your home team outfit,” he quickly followed.
“Will do,” I responded, a sudden excitement washing over me. It now made sense why Gloria had worn our club-issued white tennis skirt last night; Tommy was very particular.
“I did it, lol. 9:00 PM tomorrow night,” I messaged Gloria.
“Yes! So proud of you, girlie!” she responded exuberantly, her excitement radiating through the screen.
“I’m nervous, lol,” I replied.
“Don’t be, girlie. In a couple of days, your biggest worry will be convincing your husband to get a second job to pay for your next two hundred lessons,” Gloria sent, followed by a crying laugh emoji, skillfully reminding me of the transactional nature of my new life.
As we said our goodnights, I got off the bed and went into my closet to take off the tennis outfit I had nearly forgotten I was still wearing before returning to bed. Mentally exhausted and struggling to grasp that in twenty-four hours, I’d be a changed woman, reaching a level of satisfaction I had never imagined possible, I knew I had to get some rest before our 3:00 PM match tomorrow. Despite my racing thoughts and the most nerve-wracking day of my life looming just around the corner, I somehow managed to pass out.
Waking up the following day brought a whirlwind of feelings: guilt, shame, nervousness, fear, and excitement. The day got away from me quickly. Alex became scarce, visiting his mother most of the morning and afternoon while Emily hung around the house with a friend. I did my best to keep my mind off the impending evening by keeping busy with house chores. Before I knew it, 2:00 PM arrived, and I quickly dressed in my white tennis dress, lathering on my sunblock, and headed toward the tennis courts.
I eventually made it to the club at 2:30 to warm up. I expected my experience at the court to feel different today, but it didn’t. Tommy greeted us in the same manner, paying little to no attention to me as he always had, aside from a smile. Beth and I got beat, but we gave them a run for their money today. We shared a few drinks on the veranda, and before I knew it, I was back on the golf cart, turning down my street. Throughout the morning, I sensed that Jill and Beth knew about the evening’s planned event but had seemingly been sworn to silence by Gloria, fearing they might give me cold feet.
Pulling into the garage around 5:00 PM, I took a minute to collect my thoughts before going into the house. A wave of nerves hit me as I suddenly acknowledged that my life would never be the same four hours from now. My heart pounded against my chest. Alex was gone, and so was Emily’s car, as she had mentioned going shopping with a friend. Entering the laundry room from the garage, the open top of the washing machine reminded me that I still had to wash the white home tennis dress I would wear tonight currently stuck to my body by a sheet of my own sweat.
Taking advantage of the rare solitude, a luxury I hardly ever experienced with Alex home all the time, I stripped off the dress right where I stood in the laundry room, dropping it into the washing machine. Clad only in my bra and panties, I trekked up the stairs, each step echoing in the quiet household. In the bathroom, I undressed and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The sight was a stark reminder of the six months of non-intimacy, a time during which I had let myself go. My unkempt private region stood out as I suddenly felt pressured to make myself presentable for Tommy. The realization hit hard, adding another layer of emotion to the whirlwind already brewing inside.
After showering and returning to a physical state reminiscent of the times I was intimate with my husband, I slipped into a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. Heading downstairs just after 6:00 PM, I tossed my skirt into the dryer. Just as I finished, Alex walked in through the garage and into the laundry room, startling me.
“Hey, you scared me,” I laughed.
“Sorry, he said,” as I started the dryer and headed back toward the kitchen.
“What was the $300 Cash App transaction for?” he asked abruptly, barely thirty seconds after arriving home as if it were the most pressing issue on his mind.
“I signed up for tennis lessons. Is that a problem?” I replied, my tone sharp.
“No, just let me know next time,” he replied with an edge of rudeness.
“Ok, will do. I actually have a lesson tonight,” I said, heading toward the living room.
“Cool, have fun,” he shot back, seemingly annoyed, as I walked away.
With barely three hours left before meeting Tommy, I needed something to occupy my mind. I settled into the couch, grabbed the remote, and tuned into one of my junk shows, trying to push aside the anxiety of the evening ahead. Alex disappeared into his office again, leaving me alone with my thoughts. As I settled in, I was still getting used to the foreign sensation of being completely shaved, a feeling I hadn’t experienced in a long time. It was almost itchy, an odd reminder of the transformation I was undergoing.
As the minutes ticked by, I lost track of time, and before I knew it, 6:30 had come and gone, quickly followed by 7:00, then 8:00, all while I was engrossed in the latest episode of Bravo’s “Below Deck.” Emily finally arrived home with her friend, plopping down on the couch beside me and excitedly recounting their shopping trip to the Mall at Millenia, a staple of Orlando shopping. I did my best to pretend I was listening, but I was distracted, my mind fixated on the sudden rush I felt to get up and prepare for the evening ahead.
“I need to get ready for my tennis lesson,” I told Emily as I slid off the couch and stood up.
“Saturday night lesson, huh? Look at you, Mom, all motivated!” Emily teased with a grin.
“I’m giving it my best shot. Tennis isn’t as easy as it looks on TV,” I said with a laugh, getting up and walking around the couch toward the laundry room.
After retrieving my tennis dress from the dryer, I headed upstairs, feeling as though the minute hand on my watch was speeding up. In my closet, I began to get dressed, digging past the granny panties in my drawer until I found a white thong I hadn’t worn in years, the kind of panties a man like Tommy would expect. In the bathroom, I paused to study my reflection in the mirror, examining myself in the white sleeveless tennis dress I’d worn only for home matches. I used my hands to smooth out the wrinkles from the dryer, securing my hair bun while trying to strike a balance between looking my best and presenting a plausible appearance for someone heading to a tennis lesson.
As I stared at myself in the mirror, grappling with the guilt and shame that surged within me, the vibration of my phone on the bathroom counter broke the moment. Despite my deep resentment toward my husband, I knew that this didn’t make me any better of a person.
“Have fun, girlie!” came a perfectly timed Signal message from Gloria, accompanied by one last photo of Tommy. She knew the picture would push me through any remaining threshold of guilt, a visual reminder that my future of infidelity was worth it.
“Thanks!” I replied nervously, casting one last glance at Tommy before heading out of the bedroom and down the stairs.
“See you guys later,” I said to Emily and her friend as I walked past the couch toward the laundry room.
“Bye, Mom,” Emily replied.
I entered the garage, the laundry room door softly closing behind me in order to avoid reminding Alex of my departure. The white noise of the space, dominated by the hum of a bad ballast, heightened my nervousness as everything seemed to move in slow motion. Each detail felt exaggerated, from the faint echoes to the amplified sounds. I climbed into the golf cart, opened the garage door, turned the ignition, and flipped the switch to reverse. The unmistakable buzz of the cart in reverse resonated throughout the garage, even with the door open. As I backed out onto the street, I flipped the switch out of reverse and braced myself for the most intense ten-minute drive to the tennis courts I would ever experience.
Fear and excitement nearly paralyzed me as I drove through the neighborhood, approaching an experience that promised both mental shame and physical satisfaction like nothing I had ever experienced before. The unexpectedly mild Florida evening brought a cooler-than-average breeze that whisked through the cart, brushing past my hair bun, which remained unaffected. While everything else had seemed to go in slow motion, the ride had not. Before I knew it, I was pulling into one of the golf cart parking spots outside the tennis pro shop, just as I had on every visit.
Sitting idle in the golf cart, my mind raced. My life flashed before my eyes as guilt washed over me, thinking of Alex and Emily at home, assuming I had merely gone for a tennis lesson. It wasn’t too late to turn back, I told myself. I could pretend this never happened and be back in my living room sitting on the couch with my daughter in ten minutes, chalking up a missed lesson to a scheduling conflict. Though I might lose the friendship of the three ladies I had grown close to, never step foot on these tennis courts again without shame, and be $300 poorer, at least I’d still have my dignity and pride intact.
At that point, I knew nothing short of a natural disaster could stop me from following through with that evening. Months of pent-up lust were ready to erupt out of me like a volcano, propelling me toward the inevitable. While sitting in the golf cart, I pulled out my phone and navigated to lushstories.com one final time. Seeing Alex’s profile marked as “online now” felt like a petty confirmation that somehow justified what I was about to do. With that small validation, I finally exited the golf cart and headed toward the veranda. It felt strange leaving my tennis bag behind, knowing it wouldn’t be needed that evening. As I made my way up the steps toward the same table Gloria and I had occupied barely twenty-four hours ago, it was unsettling to realize that the next time I descended those steps, my life would never be the same.