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  “Yes, I mean at the bar.”

  “Oh, that. Well, let me just freshen up a bit and I’ll tell you.”

  She turned toward the bathroom.

  “No!” I whined. “Please, Jennifer, please, just tell me.”

  “I really should freshen up. Things got a little messy.”

  I groaned and sprinted around her, cutting her off. “Tell me.”

  “I did what I had to do. What you wanted me to do.”

  “What? Just say it.”

  She hesitated. “Well, it might be easier just to show you.”

  I was about to let out another frustrated groan when she reached down and pulled her cover-up over her head. The sound died in my throat. I knew what was coming next. I’d practically begged for it, but it was still shattering to see her reach behind her and casually remove her bikini top and let it fall to the ground.

  I stared at her gorgeous breasts looking for evidence that he’d touched her. Was that hint of red under her left breast a thumb print, or just where the suit had rubbed off the sunscreen enough to allow a slight sunburn? Were her areolas darker than usual?

  She stepped up close. Close enough that I could smell her coconut scented sunscreen, the lingering aroma of the rum on her breath. Automatically I reached out and cupped her boobs, lifting them, my thumbs finding her nipples and circling them as they stiffened.

  “Yes, just like that,” she sighed. But she wasn’t expressing her pleasure at my touch. “Yes, that’s just how he touched them.”

  I looked into her eyes, looking for even a hint of deceit, but there was none that I could see. Just a dreamy, heavy-lidded excitement as she relived the events in the office.

  I startled when I felt her hand on my crotch. I looked down to see her deftly unzipping and unbuttoning my shorts. I looked back up into her eyes. She smiled and nodded. Yes, I did this too.

  I shook my head. No, she couldn’t have. My shorts feel to the floor. Her hand reached into boxers. She squeezed my hard cock, and then I was shuddering and gasping as I came all over my boxers and her hand.

  She giggled. Embarrassed, I tried to slink away, but she tightened her grip on my member, keeping me in place. And once she was satisfied that I wasn’t going anywhere, she began stroking me firmly, her hand squishing with my come as she worked my temporarily spent member.

  “That would have made it much easier,” she commented. “But Charles was apparently less impressed with me that you are. He made me work for it.”

  She stroked me faster now. I thought she meant that she just had to jerk him off longer. But then she continued.

  “He put his hands on my shoulders.”

  She looked at my own hands, still mauling her tits, until I got the message. I rested them gently on her shoulders and she immediately sank to her knees. I gasped. I couldn’t bring myself to look down, but I felt her yank off my boxers, and swallow my slimy prick deep into her mouth.

  I felt my erection beginning to return as she sucked me up and down, swirling her tongue around my shaft. I moaned softly.

  “Yeah, he liked it too,” she commented as she switched to sucking my balls. Her hand stroked my rod firmly.

  She took me back in her mouth and again swallowed me deep. I looked down to see her looking up at me. She slowly, slowly lifted off my cock, until she just held the head in her mouth. Then another quick swallow, followed again by that delicious, slow-motion withdrawal.

  This time she let my prick fall out of her mouth. “I couldn’t take him quite as deep. He was very big.”

  “And black,” I muttered.

  She stroked me with her hand. “And black,” she echoed. “Very thick. You know, I really had to open wide.” She demonstrated and then swallowed me whole. “Longer too. And uncircumcised.” She kissed around the perimeter of my glans. “He liked it when I sucked on his foreskin.”

  “I bet,” I moaned.

  “I liked it too. It felt different. Sexy too.” She spoke in quick, clipped gasps. “Knowing you were out there. Just a few yards away. While I was on my knees. Blowing a huge, black cock. So exciting.”

  She moaned softly. I looked closer, noticed her hand down the front of her bikini bottom. I gasped as well. She smiled.

  “I couldn’t help myself. I know I was just supposed to be paying the bill. But having that big, hard, pulsing, black… thing in my mouth was just such a turn-on.”

  She slowly stood. I groaned in frustration. I was so close.

  “So I decided I could kill two birds with one… thing.”

  She took a step backward, pulling me along by my prick. Then another step and her butt pressed against the narrow writing table. She leaned backward and pulled aside her bikini, exposing her wet, pink pussy.

  “’Put it in…’ I told him,” she breathed.

  I stepped closer and she pulled my cock toward her steaming snatch. I thrust inside, marveling at how hot and wet she was.

  “Oh God,” I moaned. Was I churning around in another man’s come?

  She seemed to read my mind. “I didn’t have a condom. I… I didn’t even think about it. All I could think about was getting him inside me.”

  She was taunting me, and it worked. I could feel my anger rising with my excitement. I thrust in harder.

  “That’s it,” she said, “that’s how he did it. Hard. Almost like he wanted to hurt me.”

  I pounded into her faster, harder.

  “Hurt me with his big, hard… black cock.”

  I grunted with the strain of fucking her.

  “But it didn’t hurt,” she gasped. “It felt so good. So good…”

  Her hand reached into her bottoms. I could feel her fingertips on my shaft as she rubbed her clit even as I continued to pound into her.

  “So big,” she gasped.

  “So hard.”

  “So thick.”

  “So black.”

  I saw her eyes roll back, felt her body shudder, her pussy spasm on my invading prick.

  “Oh God,” she moaned. “Just like that baby. That’s how he made me come.”

  I growled and thrust myself completely inside her, my cock pulsing painfully as I came for a second time in less than ten minutes. I felt lightheaded. There was a ringing in my ears. My heart was pounding a mile a minute. I had to lean against the bulkhead to keep from falling over.

  When my head finally cleared I realized Jennifer was laughing.

  “What?” I asked.

  “So, when did I lose you?”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re an amazing actor, you know. You actually looked stricken at times. I was tempted to let you off the hook, but you seemed to be enjoying it.”

  My mind was still working at quarter speed. My brain foggy. “I don’t understand.”

  She grinned, but as she looked at me, her expression changed, to confusion, then anger.

  “You really didn’t know?”

  “God, Jennifer, I swear, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” And then it hit me. “You made up the whole thing?”

  I was relieved, yes. But more than that, much more than that, disappointed.

  She put her hand to her mouth. “You believed me?”

  I nodded. Then shook my head angrily. “Okay, you made your point. I’m a gullible fool.”

  She wasn’t focused on my turmoil. She was dealing with her own.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she mumbled. “So you really do want to do this? It turns you on?”

  “Fuck, Jennifer, how many times do I have to say it? And yes, this is a new thing. And no, I don’t understand it either.”

  She laughed mirthlessly. “I guess I should be happy. A free pass to screw a hot guy… or guys, I guess. Doesn’t really matter, bareback, whatever, as long as they’re black?”

  “You know what, Jen, forget it. Let’s just pretend this never happened. Okay? And nothing did happen. You and I just had sex. Doesn’t matter what we were saying or thinking at the time.”

  She loo
ked at me quizzically. “Why are you angry at me?”

  “You could have just said no –“

  “I did,” she replied reasonably, though her reasonableness didn’t penetrate my hurt shell.

  “—and not made fun of me.”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t mean to. I just… It just never occurred to me this was really real, you know? Jeez, how could it?”

  “Just forget it,” I groaned miserably.

  “You think I’d really do something like that?”

  I thought about it for a second. I shrugged. “Why not?”

  “Because… it’s…” she struggled to get the words out.

  “Crazy. Right, I get it,” I replied. “Wrong. But why? If you think it would be fun…”

  She shook her head.

  I persisted. “… and I was turned on by it, why not? Because you don’t believe I would be turned on if it really happened? Well now, I think you know I would. Because just now, Jennifer, I swear to God, I was convinced I could feel his come inside you.”

  She scrunched up her nose.

  “Gross, yeah,” I admitted. “And yeah, it made me angry. But fuck if I didn’t come as hard as I ever have in my life.”

  “I enjoyed it too,” she admitted.

  “You would have enjoyed it even more if it had been real.”

  She shook her head.

  “Yes, you would,” I insisted. “Because the way you described it… I know the thought turns you on.”

  “Reality might not be like that.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. He might have been tiny. Or couldn’t get it up. Or he could have blown his load the minute you touched his prick like I did the first time.”

  “Or he could have been too rough. Or had some STI. Or…”

  “But reality might also be better, just by being real, and because some of it might be unexpected, in a good way. But isn’t that true of any new experience. It could be worse than we expect… or better.”

  “I dunno. This isn’t some new fucking start-up. High risk, high reward bullshit.”

  “There’s no risk in a start-up. If you fail, you try again. And there is no real risk here. Because the thing you’re really worried about –“

  “Losing you,” she admitted.

  “You now know you don’t have to worry about.”

  “I don’t know, Jeremy. This is crazy.”

  “You know what the opposite of crazy is? Boring,” I said replying to my own question.

  “Boring is safe.”

  “Crazy is fun.”

  “You’re crazy.” She shook her head. “Let me think about it. No promises though. But let me think about it.”

  I nodded. “I love you no matter what.”

  “Okay, well now I do need to get cleaned up. So if you’ll excuse me….”

  I flopped down onto the bed. I was asleep before she even managed to turn the shower on.

  Chapter Four

  We swapped shortly thereafter, Jennifer taking a nap and me hopping in the shower. She was still dozing when I got out, so I dressed in a pair of lightweight khakis and a simple white shirt. I went out on deck where Thom was waiting to offer me a drink.

  I asked him for a generous pour of scotch. He gave me a Johnny Walker Black. No skimping on this cruise. We were sailing again, heading south, toward some nice snorkeling spots. It was another lovely day on the ocean. The sun was settling toward the horizon, and the sky was filled with sheets of orange and gold.

  I sat on the rear deck, sheltered from the wind. For all of Jennifer’s protestations, I knew the fantasy had her hooked as well. She could not have conjured up those scenarios, acted them so well, had she not been visualizing the scenes in her own mind. And I could understand her reticence about admitting that, much less acting on it. She needed to be sure I was on-board. And I was… I think.

  The truth is, I wasn’t even completely sure myself. Yes, in my imagination, it was scalding hot. That recurring image of Reg between her legs was still enough to get my blood boiling. And I was surprised at how quickly I warmed to the idea of Charles. Still, I also knew that I was dealing with a new fantasy. That its power might fade over time, that the excitement I might get from it might diminish even as my resentment for her having done it grew. Or it might be the reverse. That in acting on it in a brief moment of madness we might be able to bottle up a fiery memory that might be able to warm us in any dark, cold time to come. No real way to know. I just knew that it felt right, though I also knew that such impulsive surrenders to passion are often fraught.

  I heard Jennifer clear her throat behind me. I turned my head and gasped at her loveliness.

  She was wearing a white chiffon dress, strapless with a beaded bodice and a sweetheart neckline. As she stepped toward me, I could see her lovely thigh poking through a high-cut slit.

  “Wow.”

  She smiled. “Just the reaction I was hoping for.”

  I kept my next thought to myself. Man, Captain Wallace would go crazy for her.

  Thom appeared and Jennifer asked for champagne. She settled down beside me, her knee poking through the opening in her dress.

  “Did you have a good nap?”

  “I had the strangest dream.”

  “Oh?” I said hopefully.

  She chuckled. “No, nothing like that. Just weird. Things changing, not being what they seemed. You know what I mean? Like you’re holding a glass, and then suddenly it’s a fork. Disconcerting.”

  Thom returned with the champagne. “Captain was planning on sailing a little more tonight. Almost a full moon, good visibility. Would you like to eat back here out of the wind.”

  I looked over at Jennifer and she nodded.

  “Sure that sounds great,” I replied.

  “What do you think the dream means?” I asked her.

  She shrugged. “Nothing, really. Probably just feeling unsettled. You can see why that would be, right?”

  I nodded. I didn’t want this to be an issue, and I didn’t want it not to be fun. “Look, we don’t need to talk about this anymore.”

  She shook her head. “Oh, I didn’t say that.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

  She glanced over at Thom who was beginning to bustle around setting up the table and china. I got the message. We’ll talk about it later.

  So instead we made idle chit-chat. We talked about the weather. Wondered if our kids were having fun. Discussed snorkeling. I mentioned an interest in maybe squeezing in a morning of fishing if we could find a good spot. Thom overheard us and noted he had an amazing butter-salt bonefish recipe he could make if I caught something decent.

  ***

  It wasn’t until Thom served us the main course, a delicious crawfish curry, that he retired long enough for us to really talk. I wasn’t going to pressure Jennifer anymore. If she had something to say, I’d let her make the first move. She didn’t waste any time.

  “So, I’ve been thinking about it.”

  She didn’t need to say what it was.

  I refilled our wine glasses.

  She smiled and picked hers up. “Good idea.”

  She took a sip.

  “And I’m willing to do it…”

  My stomach did a flip. Oh God, oh God, oh God.

  “…but I have some conditions,” she concluded.

  “Conditions?”

  She nodded. “Uh huh.”

  “Um, sure, I guess. I mean, what are they?”

  She took a bite of her curry.

  “Number one, you never, ever, ever, use this against me.”

  “Of course not,” I replied quickly. Too quickly. She frowned. She’d thought these conditions through, and she wanted me to do the same. “Okay, I get it. Easy for me to say now.”

  She nodded.

  “But you’re worried I’ll go back on my word later.”

  Another nod.

  “Hmm. Okay, so this is a tough one. I can’t promise that, of course. I can’t promise that at some point in the
future, if we’re going through a rough patch, and I’m feeling resentful and hurt, I won’t say something ugly. So I guess, the best I can do is promise that I don’t intend to do so. That if I did, you’d be right to consider it a grievous violation of trust and consideration.”

  She finished off another bite of food.

  “Okay, good enough,” she replied. “I just want you to understand. I don’t think I could forgive you if you did use it against me.”

  I nodded.

  “Condition number two. Once it begins, I’m in control, not you.”

  “I’m not sure what that means.”

  “It means that whatever happens is my choice. It’s between me and… our friend. I’m not… we’re not action figures that you get to move around as you see fit. You’re the audience, not the director.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. The fantasy, for me, had a very specific mise-en-scene. I didn’t think I’d be satisfied if they just climbed into bed, under the covers, and made love in the dark.

  She noticed my hesitation. “Go ahead. That one bothers you. Why?”

  “Well, the fantasy isn’t so much just you having sex –“

  She chuckled. “No, I get that. You want to see me getting pounded by a big, black cock.”

  “Something like that,” I admitted.

  “You’re welcome to make occasional suggestions. But you’re just going to have to trust that I understand your fantasy. I think I’ve shown over the past couple of days that I get it, right?”

  I nodded. She got it well enough that she was able to almost get me to come just by setting the scene.

  “I just don’t want you to forget that I’m part of this.”

  “No, I won’t. But you also need to realize that this only works if it works for me too.”

  “Of course.”

  “Which means, we might do some things that I need, not just what you want.”

  I wasn’t completely sure what that meant. I tried to mask my unease with a smile, but she seemed to see right through me.

  “See, not as simple as you thought?” she noted. “Are you sure you’re thinking this through?”

  I thought I was. I pressed forward. “Okay. More conditions?”

  “This one is more of a warning than a condition. But anyway, if I really let go, I may say things that, well, I don’t really mean, but that feel right, or hot in the moment.”