Scarsdale, NY: Friday 17th April 2015
A face like thunder, ‘We are not amused’
She slammed the door and I knew all was not well. Sue was just returning from Friday evening drinks with a group of girlfriends from the hospital. I wondered what on earth could have happened to prompt such an angry slam of our front door. The doorframe and whole wall had shaken with the force of it.
As she stormed into the lounge she had a face like thunder.
“Fricking bitches!” she announced, looking at me with daggers.
Over our twenty years together Sue has very rarely totally lost it, but when she does lose it you don’t want to be in the path of that particular storm. It’s as if all of the feelings from a multitude of ignored everyday slights and annoyances have been stored up, and act to supercharge what would have otherwise been a bad enough outburst anyway.
“I don’t believe those bitches!”
I looked at Sue, not knowing what to say, and thinking it wiser to stay quiet for the moment.
“You wouldn’t believe what they’ve only gone and done.”
And then fishing in her bag she angrily pulled out a printed piece of paper.
It was the pictures I noticed first. Four photos of Sue in a bikini, taken from a recent holiday, but with her eyes blacked out by four photo-shopped black boxes. The moment I saw this editing a feeling of dread rolled over me. Over the years I’d surfed the web enough to know that there was only one type of website that showed photos like this.
As I read the words below the pictures, that feeling in my gut just got worse.
‘New York: Beautiful early forties MWF loved her first taste of chocolate. Looking for WE respectful black guys to help me continue my exploration and education. All ages considered but must have the right equipment. Husband knows and supports and may participate or watch. Email to [email protected] with undraped photo and letter saying why you’re the one.’
I thought about saying ‘well at least they didn’t use your real email address’, but caught myself before what would have been a life-threatening mistake.
I looked up at Sue and saw she was still incredibly steamed over this ad. and decided that collecting more information was the best way of trying to get her temper cooled down a bit.
“Who did this thing?” I asked in a calm voice.
About two seconds later I realized this was a big mistake. What Sue wanted from me at this point wasn’t questions or even empathy. What she wanted was someone who was equally as pissed as she was.
“Who did this?” she spat back at me. “That’s not the frickin’ point. You should be as mad about this as I am. Or does your wife’s good name and honor no longer matter to you? I thought you English guys were meant to be all honor and chivalry. Looks like that’s all a pile of crap.”
“Hey honey, don’t unload on me. I’m not the bad guy here. I’m not the one who put this ad on the net.”
Sue’s temper calmed a tad from a Category Five to a strong Type Four, but I was still on shaky ground.
“Why aren’t you more pissed about this thing, Pete?” she asked in an accusing tone.
Now wasn’t the time for truth. A famous man once said ‘Speak truth to power’, but he’d never met Sue when she was seriously bent out of shape. And so instead, I told a half-truth, promising myself I’d tell Sue the truth later.
“Honey, I’m not as angry as you because this is the first I’ve heard about this. Two minutes ago I knew nothing about. I’m just trying to find out the facts, so I know what I should think.”
Aaah, aah. Try again, bozo. Wrong answer.
Sue’s temper flared again, as she angrily grabbed the piece of paper from me and waved it around.
“Are you a moron, Pete? What’s there to know? You can see with your own eyes what Jenny and those other two bitches have done. They’ve only gone and plastered my photos and my details all over the web, so any sicko and pervert can beat off over my photos and then, when they’re done, write me a nice little love letter.”
My first strategy for dealing with this angry woman had been an abject failure, so I tried plan B. Practicality and mitigating the problem. Classic business practice 101. With a little bit of empathy thrown in to cover my bases.
“Look, honey, I’m as angry as you are. But I think the first thing to do is to contact the website and get them to pull your ad. Limit the damage. Then we can think about how we get back at Jenny and her two accomplices. Maybe some kind of complaint to the hospital?”
Sue’s facial expression had been telling me I was doing so well, until that last stupid comment, as suddenly Sue’s temper flared back to a five as she unloaded both barrels on me.
“Are you for real, Pete? Sometimes I wonder if you’ve got shit for brains. Complain to the hospital? How’s that gonna go? First witness for the defense, call Doctor Francis Etebo of the oncology department. Oh, no, wait. Let’s call Jenny herself with the video from that Friday night. Get real, I’m screwed. I’ve got no comeback at all.”
This last realization seemed to knock all of the fight out of Sue, as she slumped down next to me.
This bit I knew, knowing I was finally on safe ground as I put my arm around my wife and pulled her head onto my shoulder, giving her a consoling hug to comfort her. Sue just sat there for several minutes, her head on my shoulder, just staring blankly at the wall. When I judged it safe to speak, I simply asked, “Drink?”
Sue turned to look at me, and I could see all of the anger had left her face.
“Yes please, and you better make it a large one, I think I need it.”
As I handed her a large vodka tonic, the normal Sue rejoined us.
“Sorry, honey. I shouldn’t have gone off on you like that.”
“That’s okay, sweetheart,” I smiled at her as I kissed her softly, “That’s what us husbands are for.”
For the first time since she’d entered the house she smiled.
“You know, in a way, it’s my own fault.”
Sue’s confession pricked my interest.
“I’m pretty sure it was Kate who put Jenny up to this, because of when Sally and I put Kate on a Tinder.”
Sue saw my confused look and explained something she’d not shared with me before. About how a year ago, when her friend Kate was recovering from a romantic break-up, she and Sally had put her on Tinder. Partly as a joke and partly so she might meet someone nice. Sue seemed pretty sure that Kate had returned the compliment, only with interest. From what Sue told me, the three people who’d placed her photos on the dating site were Jenny, Kate, and Sally. So it seemed a fair bet that Sue was right and that this was retaliation.
I spent the rest of the evening trying to cheer Sue up. Mostly this took the form of telling her what a big place New York was, and how few people would likely see the ad or pay it any attention.
Sue listened patiently and gradually cheered up, aided by another couple of vodka tonics, and her mind switched to how to get her own back on her three friends.
About a couple of hours after Sue had returned home she got a long text from Jenny. It was an abject apology from her and the other two, saying they were sorry if they’d misjudged things. Jenny added that they’d already taken down the ad and that she and the other girls would treat Sue to an evening out by way of an apology.
Sue had calmed down sufficiently that she texted a quick reply accepting Jenny’s apology, and moments later Jenny felt it was now safe enough to call and apologize properly to Sue.
Fickle? Who, me
I’ll never cease to be amazed by female fickleness. After a couple of minutes of mandatory seriousness and ‘yes, I forgive you’ type statements, Sue and Jenny were cackling away like old fish wives as Jenny gave Sue what sounded like a crude and very graphic description of some of the replies her ad. had received.
Of course, I was only hearing Sue’s side of the conversation, but I could get the gist. Sue was describing both the impressive physical attributes of some of the guys who’d replied, and also what they’d said they wanted to do to my sweet wife. Some of which sounded like it might not be physically possible.
In my mind, but too smart to do it for real, I was shaking my head at the speed of Sue’s about-face. In a matter of minutes, she’d gone from vowing revenge on Jenny to once again being best of friends as they carried on a conversation that had me blushing at times.
And then to cap it all, Sue asked for my laptop which I’d been browsing and then logged on to the new email address that Jenny and her conspirators had set up for Sue. Mandingomama17761776 was alive and well, sipping another vodka tonic and perusing the best black meat that the city of New York had to offer.
But re-telling the story, I have no right to sound so high and mighty. Because given my confessed addiction to the fantasy of sharing Sue, you can guess where my eyes were as Sue scrolled up and down the replies which Jenny told her were the most interesting ones.
Listening to them as they reviewed and dissected various guys made me realize that the idea of womanhood as a delicate and genteel fairer sex was a somewhat incomplete picture at best. It took me all the way back to 1987 when a good friend of mine had returned shell-shocked from an afternoon of listening to his then-girlfriend and her three friends discussing the physical prowess of various college rowers. Let’s just say it was an instant antidote to his misplaced upbringing regarding the fairer sex. And the girl concerned was a vicar’s daughter!
As Sue gestured for me to make her a fifth vodka tonic of the evening, I recognized all of the signs. Sue was settled in for the evening, her legs tucked up under her butt and her new drink carefully placed within easy reach.
Thinking Sue and Jenny would spend the next hour just getting more and more drunk and making more and more lewd remarks, I was about to go and find something else to do. But then Jenny made a suggestion that changed the whole tone of the evening.
I only learned the full facts later, but the heart of it was that of the hundred plus replies they’d got, about ten of them were from guys who Jenny thought were the real deal. Guys whose responses weren’t just a cock shot and a crude ‘I want to screw you’ missive. Guys who had taken the trouble to be respectful and write something witty and interesting, and whose photos showed they didn’t have two heads and were equipped to show a girl a good time.
Knowing that the other two conspirators were at home and bored, Jenny suggested they play a little game, where the four of them would be online and would each choose one of the ten guys, with the idea that all eight of them would then go out on a combined group date.
To me, it sounded insane. Would the guys agree? And what about the girls’ significant others? But when you’re five Vodkas in, any idea can sound pretty good. So before I knew it, my ears were being assailed by the cackles not just of Jenny and Sue, but now of all four girls.
Meat market
As they played their game, it was agreed that Sue would get the first pick as the ad had been in her name. There was a bit of bickering and arguing about who should get the next pick. Jenny, being the oldest I guess, argued that out of respect it should be the oldest who got to pick next. Kate, the one Sue had put on Tinder, was apparently still single and argued this should give her the right to second pick, as she had the greatest need. Sally seemed the quietest of the bunch, and it soon became clear that she was going to be the fourth to pick.
After some protracted argument, Jenny and Kate agreed to toss a coin and it was Jenny who won and got second pick after Sue. Somehow this seemed appropriate, as Jenny really seemed to be the live wire and moving force in this little gang of four.
I won’t bore you with all the details from the next hour or so of female hijinks. But needless to say, it didn’t paint the feminine half of the population in the most positive of lights. I knew Sue was pretty drunk by now, and by the sound of it, her three friends were in a similar condition. I almost felt sorry for the ten black guys who got dissected and pulled apart by these four ravenous and increasingly drunk ladies. All kinds of comments were made about their appearance, their bodies, what they’d written in their responses, and most of all the shape and size of their cocks. It was like a cross between a drunk hen party and the worst type of Tom Jones concert. I could virtually smell the estrogen as bit by bit they slowly moved towards making their choices.
I was pretty much trying to blot out many of the worst details of the conservations, but I got the impression that Sue had finally chosen a guy called Brandon. From what I gathered he was about six-two and was thirty-three years old, working in insurance. All the girls found the combination of his looks, his body and his thick nine-inch cock the perfect package and agreed with Sue’s choice. Jenny with her number two pick ended up with a younger guy in his mid-twenties called Sean, and I’m a bit hazy on the names and details of the guys Sally and Kate chose. There comes a point when you stop caring, with one drunken lewd innuendo sounding pretty much the same as the next.
The girls ended the call by agreeing they each had to contact their guy in the next twenty-four hours, and that they’d meet up after work on Monday. Then they’d compare notes and plan what to do next, depending on how the guys had responded.
During the course of the call, Sue had consumed another couple of vodka tonics and having forced her to drink a pint of water I helped her to bed. By the time I’d brushed my teeth and donned night clothes she was already sound asleep. With no-one to talk to, I decided to read my kindle. But it was a losing battle, my mind was abuzz with excitement and fear about what was going to happen next.
I realized that one of two things was likely to happen tomorrow morning when Sue woke up and had recovered sufficiently from her hangover. She was either going to think of this whole evening as a drunk but rather fun game and forget the whole thing. Or she was going to think back to how much she had enjoyed her time with Francis and was going to ask me if it was okay for her to email this guy Brandon.
As I tried to get to sleep that night, there was a battle raging in my mind. Between the addict that been largely passive these last two months and the sensible voices that had enjoyed the peace and lack of worry.
And I knew deep down that if Sue wanted to meet up with this Brandon guy, then I wouldn’t stand in her way. In fact, depending on which of the two sets of voices won out in my head, I knew I might get involved myself and encourage Sue to meet up with Brandon.
A sneak peek at Sue’s internet suitor
Not surprisingly, I was the first one up in the Jones household on Saturday morning, while Sue slept the booze off. As I fixed myself my morning oats, OJ and coffee my eye fell on Sue’s laptop, which she’d left there from last night.
All my life I’ve never been good at resisting temptation and knowing Sue’s okay with these things, I picked up her laptop and turned it on. It only took a tiny bit of detective work and I was looking at all of the emails that had been sent to ‘mandingomama17761776’. The girls had been more organized than you’d expect from a drunk bunch of nurses, with their short list of ten guys organized into a neat sub-directory within the Gmail account. So just a few seconds after I started I was face-to-face with several photos of a stunningly handsome black man and a couple of photos of his very large cock.
Brandon was obviously a well-educated and intelligent guy judging from the email he’d written Sue.
‘Dear Mama,
How can I carry on calling you that? Never mind, it’s only a small price to pay if it’s the admission price for one day being able to hold your hand in mine and look into those beautiful green eyes of yours.
‘Mama’, please allow me to introduce myself. I’m Brandon, a divorced father of a lovely six-year-old daughter called Holly who’s the joy in my life. I work in Manhattan in Insurance and am a healthy thirty-three-year-old guy who loves to help ladies and couples explore their sexual fantasies. We all have fun, it’s a great win-win. Having being married myself, I can assure you and your husband that if I’m lucky enough to meet you I’ll always be respectful and discrete.
I’d love it if I’m the lucky guy who you and your husband choose to play with. I think you can see I can show you a good time. But if I’m not the one, I hope you both have fun. Play safe,
Yours always, Brandon’
Wow! This guy was smooth. I had no idea if half of what he said was true or not, but he was obviously an experienced lothario and player. He’d pressed just about every button there was in his short but beautifully crafted email. No wonder Sue’s friends had agreed with her that he was the one they’d have gone for too.
I looked again at his photos and came to the conclusion this wasn’t a face I naturally felt inclined to trust. I was almost certainly over-analyzing and extrapolating well beyond what was sensible, but a couple of things made me wonder. The first was that his eyes were a kind of grey-blue color which looked decidedly unnatural in a face which was in every other way pure black. I assumed that this was due to Brandon choosing to wear blue contact lenses, as this seemed more likely than him being part of that very small percentage of black people who have blue eyes. By itself, this wouldn’t have raised any alarm bells, but these strange blue eyes were complimented by a very thin cut beard that I later found was called a gunslinger style, and which gave him an almost demonic look.
For a guy who was so handsome, I wondered why he’d made these two rather odd choices, which gave an otherwise very handsome face a hint of mystery and menace. I was just pondering whether these two choices hinted at something deeper when I heard Sue’s footsteps on the stairs.
For a split second I toyed with closing the laptop and pretending I’d been doing something else, but then the other side of my brain decided it would be fun to pick up the game where the girls had left it last night. So I left Brandon’s email up on the screen and headed over to greet my frail looking wife.
“Hi, honey. How are you feeling?”
Cue a look of abject self-pity from my normally bubbly wife.
“Not great.”
“Sit down, sweetheart, and I’ll fix you some breakfast and something to drink.”
I helped her to a chair, and thought I’d have a bit of fun by guiding her to the chair in front of the open laptop.
As I turned and started getting some stuff together for her, I was mentally counting down in my head. Three, two ….. I never got to one.
“Oh god. It’s all coming back now. That’s the guy I chose, right?”
“Apparently. His name’s Brandon, and he looks quite a catch. From what I could make out, the other girls were a bit put-out that you chose him before they could get their hooks into him.”
Sue blushed as she remembered more of the details from last night.
“Tell me I didn’t email him last night when I was drunk?” she asked, with a tone somewhere between panic and self-disgust.
Presenting her with her breakfast I sat next to her and reassured her.
“Relax, honey. Your loving husband, after your eighth Vodka, put you to bed, before you could do any serious damage. So no, you didn’t email him last night.”
Finally some good news, Sue relaxed and thanked me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seeing the state Sue was in, I realized now wasn’t the time to discuss what, if anything, she was going to do about Brandon, and the pact she’d made with her three friends.
I left her pretty much to her own devices during the rest of the day, knowing from experience that she’d be feeling a bit more like her normal self around dinner time. I’d been planning to take Sue out for dinner, but as I wanted to talk this Brandon thing through with her I suggested we just eat in. Sue was all in favor of my idea as she wanted a quiet night in after the excesses of the previous night.
We ordered and ate our Chinese food as we watched a pretty unmemorable cable movie. Towards the end, I slipped my hand under Sue’s blue cashmere sweater and started gently rubbing her tummy. By the time the movie had finally finished, I was enjoying the lovely feeling of her hard nipples between my finger and thumb, as Sue gently moaned her appreciation.
My teasing of Sue’s body had the desired effect, as even before the final credits had finished rolling Sue hauled me upstairs. We were soon enjoying ourselves as I sank my cock into her with an urgency we both shared. I tried my best to delay coming, but having spent much of the day thinking about Sue and Brandon, I was more excited than normal and came pretty quickly, leaving Sue frustrated as she’d not come yet.
With hindsight, if Sue hadn’t been so frustrated, the conversation that followed might have taken a very different direction, and who knows how things might have developed then.
But as I apologized to Sue for coming so quickly and leaving her high and dry, she just looked at me and smiled knowingly. “You were thinking of me and Brandon, weren’t you.”
I said nothing, but my guilty look confirmed Sue in her suspicion.
She grinned. “Leopards really don’t change their spots do they, my sweet English leopard.”
I shrugged my shoulders, “Sorry honey, you know that’s my weakness.”
And then she just came straight out with it. “Well honey, what do you think? You’ve looked at his email and the photos. Would you like me to reply to him?”
It was at that moment that I realized that, despite the normality of the last two months, Sue’s experiences with Francis had fundamentally changed her attitude to our marriage and the question of monogamy. With hindsight, maybe I was naïve in not recognizing this change before. But as I saw the look on Sue’s face and heard her words, I knew that, for good or ill, things had fundamentally changed in this part of our relationship.
Sue had raised the question about Brandon in quite a flippant and off-hand way, but as I looked at her expression I knew she wanted a serious conversation about it. As we talked about it, it soon turned into an unequal battle. There were two voices arguing in favor of a meet-up, and only once voice arguing against. The two warring sides of my brain argued evenly, one voice on either side of the discussion. But Sue was pretty much totally in favor of the idea. To be fair, a small part a couple of times she suggested a bit of caution, but for the most part, she argued in favor of a meet-up.
Seeing and hearing Sue’s enthusiasm both frightened and excited me. With Francis, with the exception of that single night at the gala dinner, it had mainly been me who’d made the running and done the encouraging. But seeing Sue’s enthusiasm to meet with this handsome younger black guy, I couldn’t help but wonder where this enthusiasm might lead us. I felt a shiver of fear and arousal run through my body, as intuitively I felt Sue’s desire for Brandon would add more excitement but also more risk compared to with Francis.
And it wasn’t just Sue’s enthusiasm that caused this mix of anticipation and anxiety. I may have been totally wide of the mark, but there was still something in those photos of Brandon that bugged me about him. Making me wonder what kind of a guy he was, and what his motives were in playing in this lifestyle.
But as I said, with two voiced against one, it was an uneven battle. Especially as Sue’s enthusiasm only served to give strength to the part of me that loved this whole set-up. The more cautious voice in my bed was soon cowed into submission. Just as he’d been with the whole Francis situation a couple of months back.
When we finally slept on that Saturday night, both Sue and I knew the die had been cast. And all that remained for us to do on Sunday was work out the details.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The girls’ plan to meet up on Monday evening to discuss their progress with their respective guys didn’t survive the weekend. It hadn’t allowed for the enthusiasm of Jenny who seemed intent on getting her three friends to join her and her husband in the open lifestyle they enjoyed.
Sunday lunchtime found the four girls convened to a local restaurant where, aided by a couple of bottles of red, Jenny checked up on the progress of her proteges. When I picked up Sue at around two-thirty she looked slightly flustered.
As we drove home she told me the story of what had happened. Apparently, Jenny and Kate had already written to their respective guys. So Sally and my wife then came under pressure from the other two to hurry up and write to their guys, so that they could get a move on and fix-up the planned eight-way date.
Despite lots of pressure from her friends, Sally had said she was out of the game as her husband Phil unsurprisingly had cut up rough and Sally refused to do anything without his agreement. Jenny, in particular, had tried to get her to change her mind, but she’d stood firm.
And so all the pressure from Jenny and Kate had switched across onto Sue. When Jenny discovered that I was okay with the plan, as they finished their deserts Jenny had produced an iPad and in cahoots with Kate, they’d started drafting a reply to Brandon, on Sue’s behalf. Worried about what her friends would say, Sue had decided it was better if she did it herself. She looked a bit nervous as she asked me if I was okay with this.
I felt that familiar feeling in my gut as Sue confessed and I realized that almost certainly we were back on the emotional rollercoaster we’d briefly ridden with Francis. I told Sue that I was okay with this, as we’d kinda got to that point last night. To Sue, I projected as much certainty and calm as I could, but of course, inside I was a swirling mess of conflicting emotions and fears.
When we got home I tried to maintain a veneer of calmness. But Sue saw right through it, and as I made us coffee to help counteract the effects of the red wine, she plonked down her laptop right next to me.
“There you go, honey. I know you’re dying to read what I said to Brandon,” she grinned at me, her expression a strange mix of teasing and a shy blush.
‘Dear Brandon,
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my ad. You made me laugh, and so to put you out of your misery I’ll let you into a little secret. As you guessed, my real name isn’t ‘mama’. It’s Sue. Maybe a little more normal and boring, but that’s the hand I’ve been dealt.
From your letter, you seem a nice guy, and I hoped you liked my photos. I certainly liked yours!
Like I said, my husband, Pete is totally on board with this. He and I had one great experience with a black friend of ours recently, and we’re both keen to see if things might work out similarly with you.
If you’re interested in taking things further, why don’t we chat a little on Messenger or whatever you use? Get to know each other a little, and if all’s good we can meet up in person.
Hope this makes sense to you. Looking forward to hearing back from you soon,
Sue x (and Pete)’
As I finished reading Sue’s email I became aware that I was physically shaking. It suddenly hit me that this thing with Brandon represented something far deeper and more significant than what had happened with Francis.
With Francis, it had been a chance meeting, and he wasn’t someone who was into this swinging lifestyle. He was a grieving widower who was fundamentally a nice guy. We’d only really played for a couple of days, and then got cold feet. And while Sue and I had been having reservations and second thoughts, he’d been having similar doubts. With the benefit of hindsight, Francis had been a safe and comfortable option. Like us, a normal guy who had chanced into this thing for a brief time.
But with Brandon, all my instincts told me that we were dealing with a very different creature. The mere fact that he trawled these dating websites looking for white women to hook up with was of itself instructive. They say ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’, but I couldn’t help but keep coming back to the way he’d chosen to make his appearance slightly sinister. The look he had wasn’t the one that nature had handed him. Nature had dealt him four aces, a handsome face allied to a tall athletic body. But for some reason he’d chosen to add on top of this handsome exterior two features that turned him from handsome and normal, to handsome with more than a hint of danger.
Sue had gone to the lounge to sleep off the lunchtime red wine, and so I was left by myself as I pondered these thoughts. Part of me thought I was making a mountain out of a molehill, as I scolded myself for reading so much into just two fashion choices this guy had made. But another part of me insistently warned me that Brandon was very different to the gentle widower we’d first hooked up with. This guy was a professional player, whose hunting ground was the dating sites of New York.
As I looked into the lounge at the calm sleeping figure of Sue, I realized that if we went forward with Brandon we were definitely taking a big step forward in this lifestyle.
Barely two months ago we’d played for a couple of days, then stopped because we were afraid. And yet here we were two months later and we were about to start the whole thing up again. Only this time with someone whose personality and motives we really didn’t know.
