Dinner is over and the four of us are sitting here, unsure of how to proceed.
Allison finishes her champagne and pours another glass. “This is the best part of the night. Let’s dwell in it.”
“You mean eating?” Mitchell says.
Allison swipes her finger on her empty plate and licks the sauce from it. “You know I love your cooking, babe. But that’s not what I’m talking about.”
My wife will soon be walking hand in hand with Mitchell. She’ll unlock the front door of our house and let him go in ahead of her. They’ll probably have a drink in the kitchen. Which is where they’re going to start. Or somewhere in the living room. Or the sauna. Jesus.
“I was thinking we should do a fun activity together, before we head off to our destinies,” said Allison.
“I’m in,” says Kristi, who hasn’t said twenty words all night. Or maybe I haven’t noticed because I’ve been paying attention to Allison and Mitchell.
“Why don’t we keep talking about how nervous we all are?” I say. “That’s been a fun way to pass the time.”
“Shut up. This idea of mine is really good,” says Allison. She leans back in her chair and unbuttons her jeans. “It’s like a teambuilding thing.”
“You’re drunk,” says Mitchell, and laughs like how the Brawny paper towel man would laugh. Mitchell’s an orthopedic surgeon and he’s built like a lumberjack. He could break you in half, with ease, but he’d need the help of a bunch of other specialists to put you back together.
“This is when I get all my best ideas.” Allison rubs her palms up and down the smooth distressed denim on her thighs, creating a hushed drumroll, and claps her hands for the last hit of the cymbals. “We’re going to wear each other’s underwear.”
The room goes silent. We can hear a car drive by on the street.
“That’s gonna be a problem,” Kristi says.
“I don’t see why,” Allison says. “Mitch wears my panties all the time. I mean, not when I’m around, but—”
“What are you talking about?” says Mitchell.
“Don’t be a prude. Take pride in your secret little fetishes.” Allison stands up. “Come on, Kristi. It’ll be easy for you. You’re wearing a dress.”
“Here,” Kristi says. With her thumb and forefinger pinched together, she thrusts her hand out to Allison.
We all stare at the invisible panties dangling from Kristi’s fingers.
“Give them to Mitchell,” says Allison, and pulls her jeans and her panties down simultaneously. I don’t know if I should be ogling Allison or what the deal is.
Kristi wads her pretend panties up and throws them across the table. Mitchell lets them land on his dinner plate, or his face, or wherever.
“Boys,” says Allison, snapping her fingers.
“I could wear your bra,” Kristi suggests.
Allison takes her shirt off undramatically.
Kristi stands up, peels her dress off over her breasts and hips, and lets it fall to the floor. She unclasps her bra, wriggles from it, and hands it to Allison. She is completely naked. I thought she was joking about not wearing underwear.
“I’m a bit out of your league,” says Allison, setting Kristi’s bra on the seat of her chair. She takes her own bra off and hands it to Kristi.
I try and think of something clever to say as Mitchell and I take off our clothes. He is staring at Kristi and she is looking at him, smiling, holding Allison’s bra, which is so comically not her size she doesn’t know what to do with it.
I toss my boxers to Allison as she tosses her black and blue lace panties to me. One thing I can say about Allison, she has very good taste in lingerie.
Kristi holds Allison’s bra out like a reticent lepidopterist. “It’s really cute. I don’t want to stretch it out and ruin it.”
Allison slides my boxers on and snags her bra from Kristi. “That’s very kind. If not mildly insulting. But the truth usually hurts.”
“I’d trade boobs with you anyday, to look as cute as you and give my back a break.”
“The grass is always greener,” says Allison, eyeing my wife’s body. “And neatly trimmed.” Allison turns with fury to her husband. “Put on Kristi’s panties, you puritan fraud.”
We all stare at Mitchell. He slides his red briefs off and steps out of them.
Catching a glimpse of Mitchell in the locker room is one thing, but staring at his elephant trunk head-on—it’s like seeing a thousand car crashes in movies and then encountering one in real life, it’s as if you’ve never witnessed anything like it before.
Allison takes the invisible panties from the table (they had apparently landed just short of Mitchell’s plate) and passes them to her husband. “Here,” Allison says. “Put these on.”
Mitchell holds them and just as it seems he isn’t going to play ball, he mimes hooking his thumb under the elastic to open them up and steps into them carefully, one leg at a time. He struggles pulling them up his thighs. He’s so convincing, I half-wonder if his dick is going to mime curling up inside the invisible fabric.
“There’s no way your dong’ll fit,” I say, causing Mitchell to stop his act.
“Peter,” Kristi says sternly.
“Hey, Buzzkill,” says Allison. “Why don’t we find out how well black and blue really suits you.” Allison probably had so much to drink so she could talk to me however she wanted in front of Kristi and Mitchell.
Mitchell rapidly mimes pulling the panties up to his waist and his dick waggles shamelessly. He reaches and quickly scratches his balls.
“Uh-oh. You might be allergic to the fabric,” I say, stonefaced. “It’s imported.”
“Mitchell,” says Allison. “Manners.”
“Sorry, I’m not up to snuff on drunken swinger etiquette.” Mitchell looks across the table at my wife, who is wearing his undies. “How’s the fit?”
“Roomy,” says Kristi.
This is a bad idea. I’m pretty sure she just winked at him. All I wanna do is grab my bride, throw her over my shoulder, and re-carry her across the threshold.
“Now that this icebreaker is finished,” says Allison, “are we ready to pair off?”
Kristi raises her eyebrows. “OK,” she says, and quickly slips her dress on. “Can I talk to you in the kitchen, Allison?”
Mitchell pulls his slacks up, zips and buttons them, and sits to put on his socks. “Are you OK? Your wife seems a little nervous.”
“I’m good to go. And Kristi’s fine. She’s been talking my ear off about this all week.”
“Al hasn’t said a word,” Mitchell says. “As outgoing as she is, she keeps a lot of things close to the vest. Which has rubbed off on me more than I would like.” He shakes his head, as if roused from a trance. “But tonight’s supposed to be about fun. I should just shut up and let it happen. By the way, don’t freak out when Al tries to bite you. She’s going to keep doing it no matter what you say.
Allison comes in from the kitchen, still wearing my boxers and nothing else, and leans back against the wall. “Better hit the dusty trail, cowboy,” Allison says. “Your cowgirl awaits.”
For a moment I feel relief, thinking she’s talking to me—that I’m the cowboy. But I’m not. Mitchell is. And my wife has left without saying goodbye.
What had I expected? Lots of hugging and kissing like one of us is boarding a train to Chicago?
Mitchell stands up, slips his loafers on, and walks out of the room like he’s headed to the gallows. When the door to the kitchen shuts, I wonder if Kristi is waiting for him outside, standing barefoot in the yard. I look under the table to see if she left her shoes.
“What are you doing?” says Allison. She drapes my boxers over my shoulder and sits at the head of the table.
“Nothing,” I say, tiredly. “I’m not doing anything.” The shoes aren’t there.
“Are you on the rag or something? My husband gives you carte blanche to ravage me in the home he built with his bare checkbook and you’re busy poking your head around under the dinner table, looking like someone bumped into you and made you drop your popsicle in a mud puddle.”
“This was entirely your idea,” I say. “Excuse me if my mind is somewhere else for a second.”
“The reason I arranged this night is because your cock has been somewhere else for a year and you won’t shut up about your big bad guilt breaking your poor little heart. Get over it. Sometimes you have to tuck things away and go about your day.”
“You’re a fountain of good, solid advice. A geyser.”
“And what are you? A repository for shame that spurts out in passive aggressive bursts. The reason so many people loved your movie is because they’re weak like you and they don’t know what to do about it.”
“I guess I should have written a movie for sociopaths. You would’ve gone to see it a million times.”
“Hyperbole and sarcasm. Huh. Whatever it takes to stop your lip from quivering.”
“Are you going to tell Mitch this is what we did? Sit and yell at each other over the dinner table?”
“We can go do something else, if you want. My husband has a fun golf game on his computer upstairs.”
“Fuck off.”
“I was inventing a scenario in my head, during dinner, where I come around to your side of the table and keep baiting you until eventually I say something so perfectly mean, you launch at me, grab my neck and slam me against the wall.”
“I’m not into that shit,” I say.
“Which is why I’m going to soak my panties when it happens.”
I reach around and rub my lower back.
“But seriously,” Allison says. “We’re going to have to come up with something to say so we both tell the same story.”
“Keep it simple. We tried, but we couldn’t go through with it.”
“Let’s go to the living room.” Allison puts her shirt on. “Do you want a beer?”
“Sure.”
I go into the living room and sit on the couch. Allison hands me a beer and takes a drink of hers, sitting within arm’s reach of me.
“What’s our exact story?” Allison asks. “Kissing and light fondling? Was it me or you who couldn’t get it up? Who decided to pull the plug?”
“Why do you have to be so crass? We’ll say it was mutual. There was no chemistry. Leave it vague. They’ll fill in the blanks.”
“Fine.” Allison sets her beer down. “Let’s go to the bathroom. Do you want top or bottom?”
I set my beer on a coaster made of pink agate.
We stride into the bathroom and take off our clothes. Allison lifts the toilet seat and straddles the bowl. As she urinates, I aim my stream of piss down the center of her cunt, fluttering her labia; beads deflect and accumulate on her thigh; I squeeze her left tit hard and wrench it. Al massages the last of the urine from my urethra, places her nostril on the tip of my dick and inhales. She rests the head of my prick on her tongue and caresses my leg, which means she wants me to push one last golden driblet onto her tastebuds. She’s always said that if I don’t fart, I’m not pushing hard enough. I clench my adbomen and after I flatulate, Allison licks and sucks my balls and dick like she’s imbibing the last remaining salt of the earth. When I ejaculate into her mouth, she spits it onto the ivory tiles like an old-time major leaguer, hooks her arms under and around my shoulders, and we kiss with our mouths wide open, our tongues fighting for a higher ground that doesn’t exist.
Back in the living room, I take a drink of my beer and it’s still cold.
Allison has changed into tight cotton shorts with no panties and is rubbing one out with her nondominant hand.
“Do it,” she says. “Do the thing.”
I take a drink of my beer and burp.
“Allison’s ass is alabaster,” I say. “But her butt also bucks like a bodacious bull. Catch her cute coochie quiver. Don’t dine on it daintily. Eat her every element eagerly. For flattery falls flat to physics. Get gregarious and gobble her gorgeous gooch…” I start laughing.
Allison is panting, in a good rhythm. “Don’t break the chain, you shit.”
“Hell if I have half a hint how hard to hit her. If I impart this important information immediately I’ll… Just jump her, like Jack, and jerk her Jill. Kiss her killer kitty. Lap her labe like it’s the last luscious lifeline left. Make the maiden moan more and more, till muh… And never… Nary… Fuck…”
I reach over and grab her throat. Her mouth opens and her eyes slam shut. Her body jolts violently in reaction to the waves of pleasure flooding her system. My hand releases its grasp and Allison gasps for oxygen like she needs it to continue living.
“Holy fiddlesticks,” she says. “If I smoked cigarettes, I’d kick back and light one up.” She wipes her hand on my shirt and reaches for the TV remote. “What are Mitch and Kristi up to, I wonder?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“That can’t be true,” Allison says. “It matters to you.” The TV is on mute and a young Jonah Hill gets hit by a car. “Once Mitchell shakes off his pregame jitters, your wife is going to find out what happens when my hubby gets super-hard.”
I finish my beer. I’m in an art gallery and all of the canvases are blank, as white as the walls. I carefully examine each one, searching for its meaning. Nothing.
“They’ll probably have a long conversation about what each of them are into,” says Allison, “and he’ll work up the courage to ask her about anal. He’ll go into this aw-shucks routine and will chat about how his dick has never found its way into his wife’s precious third hole. The final frontier.”
One of the biggest canvases in the gallery displays Mitchell’s dick thrust into my wife’s mouth. I blink and notice the tears running down her face. If I turn and look at the other canvases, I’ll see something I really don’t want to see. So I keep looking at my wife’s—
“How many times have you fucked around?” Allison asks. “It’s not just with me, right? Tell me it isn’t. I don’t want to be some washed-up writer’s proximity whore.”
“It’s only you,” I say. “And yes, the only reason I fuck you is because it’s convenient. If I had to drive twenty miles to cheat on my wife, that would be a total deal breaker.”
“Why do you hide your feelings behind sarcasm?”
“Why do you ask me questions like we’re in a real relationship?” Maybe this was over the line. I don’t know. I don’t know anything, anymore.
“If you’re raw-dogging chamber maids thrice weekly, I want to know which antibiotic regimen I need to start.”
“Have you been with anyone but me?”
“Yeah. He has a huge cock, too.”
“I meant anyone but me and Mitchell.”
“No,” she says.
I was sure this had to be a lead-in to a big confession.
“What’s the matter?” I ask. “You’re acting ten times more aggressive than usual.”
Allison shuts the TV off and throws the remote. It skitters across the wood floor and slams into the wall. “I’m thinking of divorcing Mitchell.”
“Really? Why?”
“I’m bored. Every day feels the same. Mitchell lives at the hospital and when he’s at home he falls asleep wherever he sits, and I have to put him to bed like he’s five years old. Sure, we go on a luxurious vacation a few times a year, but after the first day or so, all he wants to do is read mystery novels and draw.”
“Dear Dr. Ruth. My husband is a hardworking doctor who likes to read and make little sketches of the landscape when we’re on vacation in Bali. I’m at my wits’ end. Sincerely, Bored in Birmingham.”
“I don’t want to be married to someone who’s barely half-available,” Allison says.
“What do you want in a husband?”
“Someone who surprises me. Challenges me.”
“What do you want in a lover?”
“The same.”
“I think you’re bored because you don’t have an outlet for your creativity.”
“Well, then,” says Allison, “go buy me some crayons.”
“Why do you hide your feelings behind sarcasm?”
“All I’m good at is talking shit and working out and thinking about fucking. I can’t draw or sing or paint or act or play the trumpet.”
“You’re a writer. You’re like a sexy female Bukowski.”
“Who’s that?”
“A writer. I’ll bring you some of his books.”
“How can I be a writer if I haven’t written anything?”
“The same way a girl in a village in France can be a supermodel and no one’s ever taken her picture. Some people are born with gifts and are never discovered.”
“I wasn’t born a writer.”
“Yes,” I say. “You were. You just haven’t exploited it yet.”
“And how do I do that?”
“By being brave. Trying new things.”
“I dreamt about you last night.”
“What was I doing?”
“You had me pressed up against the wall in a hotel room and you tore a hole in the backside of my panties. They were lace, so it wasn’t that difficult. Your breath was hot and steamy and I could feel it on my tits and stomach and the wallpaper between me and the wall started to sag and it slid off when I touched it. The paste got on my fingers and I could feel the head of your dick prodding at my ass crack. Whenever I told you to spit, you would spit on the floor and on my neck. Eventually you got so frustrated you jerked off and came on the small of my back and it burned my skin.”
I spat into my palm and showed it to Allison.
“Your aim is much better tonight,” she said. She leaned forward and spat onto my spit.
