Dare to Dog - Ben

Note: This is a companion piece to "Dare to Dog," following the evening from the perspective of the man on the bus. Like the other chapters, this is a standalone story and the other parts are not required to understand or enjoy it.

I knew my marriage was over. It was the married equivalent of 'dead man walking.'

Six years is a long time to go in a relationship that probably never should have got off the ground in the first place. Six years of fooling myself into thinking that it could get better. Six long years of ignoring the signs of just how much worse it could really be.

I guess I'd known, well, since the honeymoon. I just didn't want to admit it to myself. After all, who wants to confess to themselves and the world that they'd made a terrible mistake?

One of Elizabeth's relatives had given us a cheap, discount timeshare week as a wedding gift in Spain. I'd never been to a timeshare before and had considered it an adventure. She'd never been to a timeshare before and considered it beneath her.

She'd sent me off to get coffee that first morning, but the 'café' was little more than a cabinet and a coffee pot. They'd not even had proper styrofoam cups to carry hot liquid, only those tiny transparent cold cups.

The girl behind the counter had filled them with boiling hot coffee as if it were a normal, every day occurrence. I looked at her as if she was having a laugh, but she was completely serious.

"Uh," I stammered. We'd already established that she didn't speak English and I didn't speak Spanish. "Leche? Sucre?" I hoped that my ability to remember Spanish words through osmosis was at least understandable. Was sucre the Spanish word for sugar? I couldn't remember, but it was the best I could do.

She shook her head. I looked at the cups worriedly, but going back empty-handed wasn't an option. Like I said, I should have seen the signs even then.

I seriously questioned the wisdom of trying to carry them back to the room on the other side of the property, especially since they didn't even have napkins to wrap around the cups. Slowly I tried walking without spilling. I failed numerous times. It would have been comical if it wasn't so absolutely pathetic.

As luck would have it, our room was the last one in the last building on the opposite side of the property. I had to kick the door with my foot in order to get her to open it, as my hands were full. The look on her face told me just how annoyed she was that I'd made her answer the door instead of opening it myself.

My new bride was a "strong woman," I'd told myself. I liked strong women. She didn't take crap from anyone. Opinionated. Intelligent. I liked that. Somehow I'd convinced myself that these were her characteristics - all positive takes on what I would come to find out are simply sugar coating that she was, in fact, an abusive bitch.

"Hot, hot, hot," I said as I gingerly crossed the threshold and put the cups on the kitchen counter.

Burned fingers. Tiny drops of coffee on the floor. The berating began.

"What's that?"

"They didn't have any hot cups," I'd said.

"And the cream and sugar?"

"They didn't have any."

"You expect me to believe that they didn't have any hot cups, cream or sugar at 8 o'clock in the morning?" Her voice was nasty.

I ran my fingers under the cold tap. I hadn't believed it myself, but it was what it was. The water was soothing at first, but forced me to wince anyway. This was going to blister.

"Did you ask," she accused.

"Of course I asked," I said, trying to keep my voice calm.

"Go back and ask again," she said, turning to leave the kitchen.

I snorted. "I don't think so," I said. My fingers were really starting to sting. "If I go anywhere it's to find a first-aid kit."

She came over and looked at my hands. Angry red welts were starting to form on a couple of my fingers. She looked up at me. "Don't be such a pussy," she said.

She picked up one of the cups and sucked in air as the hot liquid immediately scalded her own hands. I noted the satisfaction I felt that she had gotten a taste of what I had experienced, even if the liquid had cooled considerably during my careful balancing act on the way back to the room.

"Yeah, well," she said dismissively. "I don't want it now."

She threw the coffee down the drain in the sink where I was rinsing my fingers under the cold water. Immediately afterwards, she flipped her hair dismissively as she turned and walked into the bedroom.

The thought came unbidden and violently. My god, what have I done? It had been less than 48 hours since the wedding. Had I really just married the wrong woman? No, that couldn't be. I couldn't have been that stupid, right?

Why had I gone through with it? I knew I could never recount the coffee story to anyone without them asking the question. Who would knowingly go through such pain and agony for a woman who showed no appreciation - someone who was proud of the fact that she "didn't do sympathy?"

I was scared of her and didn't even know it. I was scared that if I had returned to the room with only black coffee (which I drank) and nothing for her, I'd catch hell. If I returned empty handed when there was coffee at all, I'd get it. If I'd sat and drank coffee at the cafe alone, I'd get it. The path of least resistance seemed to simply suffer through bringing something she didn't want in the hopes that I might avoid some of her wrath.

It wouldn't be the last time that the warning signs were there. I'd lost count of just how many times I wondered why we were together. Of course, it wasn't like that every day. Just most days, it seemed.

Elizabeth was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever met in my entire life. She also had a wicked sense of humor. I think the moment that I fell in love with her was the first time we'd found ourselves in bed and she amused herself (and me) by having an entire conversation with my penis during our first blowjob.

"Oh, look!" she'd said. "He likes it when I talk to it!"

I'd watched, fascinated, as she cooed and told me how cute it was before engulfing me into her throat.

Lifting herself off of me, she looked straight at my cock and addressed it as if it were a puppy. "Oh, you like that, do you?"

She deep throated me again, which caused my dick to jump in her mouth.

"Oh, you do!"

I couldn't help but laugh.

"Hush, you," she said, glancing up. "We're having a private conversation here!"

She continued to play and talk and suck and it was, without question, the most unusual blowjob I'd ever received.

She was the first woman I'd met who thoroughly enjoyed sexual play. Her wit was unmatched, but so was her vitriol. Her sarcasm cut both ways, and I had convinced myself that our relationship was built more on the good kind of sarcasm than the bad kind of sarcasm.

With all the sex we'd been having, I'd been able to keep that illusion alive. She was always up for it. Oral, anal, vaginal - everything. When a beautiful woman loves sex as much as you do, you can overlook a lot.

I just didn't realize how much I'd overlooked. From that moment in our honeymoon, though, it was as if I'd taken off the blinders. Or, blinkers as she'd say. She was British; I was American. We were a "mixed marriage."

We moved to the US almost immediately after the wedding, but it made everything worse. She'd hated it immediately and for everything that went wrong it was because I'd "taken her away from England." Everything was my fault, literally. Everything that she did that was at fault was always due to the fact that I had taken her away from her home country.

In an effort to make her happy, I saved up money to return back to England. But it took a very long time. Years. There wasn't a passing day when she didn't remind me that I had promised to take her back if she was unhappy. You'd have thought that once we started the moving plans she'd be happy. Instead, it just made her even more unpredictable.

Back in England, I got no reprieve. She wasn't any happier. She didn't make any attempt to find a job that she liked or reconnect with her previous friends, all of whom had moved on with their lives. She blamed me for that, too.

Being an American in England can be trying at times. The English constantly remind you that you're different, even if you've lived there for decades. Most of my friends weren't English, but rather ex-pats from other countries. Australia. Poland. Sweden. Ireland. Scotland. But very few English.

Plus, even though we were still in London, Beth always made the excuse that she didn't want to go out and socialize. Not with me, at least. She always seemed to find time to go visit her own friends and family. She bristled whenever I wanted to join her, though.

"Well, you can come if you want, I guess," she'd said recently, obviously not meaning what she was saying.

"Why don't you want me to go?" I'd asked.

"I didn't say that."

"It's kind of obvious."

"I just don't want you to feel bored because I'm not going to babysit you."

It was offensive. "I don't need a babysitter, Elizabeth."

Using her full name was the wrong thing to do. "Look," she'd said, her eyes narrowed. "Nobody knows you."

"That's because I'm not allowed to get to know them," I'd shot back.

Exasperated, she said, "Come if you want, I don't care."

In the end, I didn't go. It just wasn't worth it. She didn't want me there, and in the final analysis I didn't want to be in a place where I wasn't wanted. I'd be left to hover over her and her friends, which creeped me out, not to mention how unpopular I'd be with her friends.

I'd been trapped in my marriage for years. Unhappy and unable to move forward, unwilling to give up and ask for a divorce. There just wasn't enough justification to admit failure.

Then there was a ray of hope.

I came home from work yesterday to find her wearing a silk nightie, leaning against the bedroom doorjamb. Her long blonde hair fell back behind her shoulders, her athletic frame emphasized by the high cut of the lingerie. Her muscles moved sensuously as she shifted her weight.

On my raised eyebrow, she said, "You like?"

I did. Very much. I smiled and took a step towards her. She held up a hand, keeping a coy look on her face. "Hang on there," she said. "This is just a preview."

"A preview?" I was confused.

She nodded. "I want this to be special."

Special? We'd not had sex in months. Anything would be special. Hell, even if she were to just watch me jack off, it would have been "special."

"Have you been cheating on me?" she asked suddenly.

It was mental whiplash. "What?" I asked. "No, of course not!"

"I wouldn't blame you if you did," she said, sadly. "I mean, I know I've been really difficult to live with."

I was completely taken off guard. I wasn't sure how to respond without it sounding like I was protesting too much.

My hesitation signaled something to her, but I wasn't sure if she thought that my silence equaled an admission of guilt or not. "I still love you, Ben," she said. "And I want to show you how much I love you."

The mood was ruined for me, but I didn't want to lose the opportunity. If she wanted to have sex, I'd make it work. After months of a drought, I was pretty sure that the "big guy" would be up for anything.

"Okay," I said. I tried to act as if what she said hadn't affected me at all. "Let's go."

She shook her head. "No, like I said, this is a preview. I want to make it really special for us."

Turning on her heels, she disappeared into the bedroom and closed the door. I struggled against my conflicting emotions. I felt insulted and offended, but my dick had been on the rise looking at her body presented to me as a sex object. Her small breasts enticed me, erect nipples poking through the flimsy silk.

I wanted to take her. Ravage her. Enter her body and claim what she had promised me would be mine. I wanted to hear her scream my name in something other than rage and derision. I craved the positive attention.

She emerged from the bedroom and cupped my face in her hand and leaned up to kiss me. "Patience, boy," she said. She winked, and I saw the gleam in her eye.

I felt a hand snake between my legs and squeeze. She got down on her knees and kissed my zip. "You too," she quipped. "Patience, boy."

For a split second I thought she was going to give in and take me in her mouth. She was so close. All she had to do was unbutton my trousers and lower my fly, but instead she stood up and walked away. Sure enough, my dick had awakened despite the strange shifts in mood.

She spent the remainder of the night teasing me. She lifted her t-shirt to show off her small breasts, her nipples hard and erect. Elizabeth's nipples were just like my cock - they became erect when she was aroused, hard and demanding. Otherwise they remained soft and barely registered above the mounds on her chest.

They looked as if they ached for attention. She pinched them once, gasped in excitement, and then dropped her t-shirt back down to cover them.

I struggled to sleep that night. My dick stayed hard and strained against the sheets She slept on her side, and I entertained the notion of relieving myself. I imagined myself spooning behind her and slipping inside anyway, but I was deathly afraid of raising her ire and ruining whatever she was planning.

My erection sought her out, wanted to be close to her. I would have been happy enough just to stroke myself and allow my come to splash onto her naked back. The tantalizing curves of her bubble butt would look so attractive with my sperm cascading down around the contours.

But then I could hear her go through the roof. It wouldn't have been so bad to come on her back - she wouldn't have even woken up. It would have been sleeping in the wet spot that would have set her off.

I finally settled into an uncomfortable sleep, filled with turbulent sex dreams. I woke up often. Each time I needed to readjust my cock so that I could get comfortable.

Just as I felt like I had fallen into a relatively deeper sleep, I found myself pulled upwards into consciousness again. I heard Beth's voice, distance and quiet. I strained to hear what she was saying, but it was still too far away.

Finally, I awoke. My legs were spread apart and Beth was kneeling between them, having a conversation with my dick which had apparently woken up several minutes before the rest of me. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure it hadn't slept at all.

"Oh, yes," she cooed at it. "You and I are going to have a lot of fun tonight, aren't we?"

I smiled. The memories of how much fun we had when we were dating flooded back.

"Well, you just look so good, I'm going to gobble you right up!" she joked.

"What's that?" She brought a cupped hand to her ear. "Oh, no, I couldn't do that! It would spoil you for tonight. What? Well, maybe just a little bit."

She took me in her mouth and forced herself all the way down to the root. Involuntarily my eyes rolled back into my head and I moaned. She let me stay in her mouth for a few moments, and then pulled off just as abruptly. A long strand of saliva snapped back from her lips to my dick. It throbbed in appreciation.

"Oh, you're awake!" she said, smiling. "I hope our conversation didn't disturb you."

She got off the bed and blew my cock a kiss. "See you tonight," she said, and then bounced away. I watched her wonderful body disappear into the bathroom.

The day dragged on as if I was back in school. I watched the clock and agonized as it crept by. Five minutes felt like an hour. An hour felt like a year. I didn't get any work done all day.

By the time I got home I was in a complete state. I was irritated by the traffic, but also excited about being home to my wife. It felt good to think of that word, "wife," in a positive way. For the first time in a long time, she was trying to make things work.

The overwhelming sense of hope and enthusiasm felt physical. I felt as if I had a harness attached to my chest and was being pulled into the house. For the first time since I could remember I wanted to be home. Whereas I had usually slumped towards the front door after work, I practically ran to it.

I unlocked the door and threw it open, dropping my bag to the floor, hanging my keys on the holder, and raced to take off my jacket. My feet were already moving, my right foot aiming to fit itself into the sole of my left to kick it off.

I opened my mouth to let her know that I was home, when I was cut off.

"Elizabeth!" a voice called from the kitchen. "Where do you keep your saucepans?"

My mother-in-law stepped out into the hallway from the kitchen, looking up the stairs as if she could see my wife. I stopped, frozen in my tracks. As she waited for Beth to answer, she turned and saw me standing in the foyer. Her face hardened immediately.

She'd never forgiven me for taking her baby girl away to another country. To her, I wasn't just the enemy, I was one of those "damn colonists" who had made her daughter patently unhappy by taking her to America for too long.

"Ben," she said. It was more a statement of fact than a greeting. To her, this was being polite.

"Hello, Eleanor," I said. My voice was more confused and surprised than anything else.

"I just washed them," Elizabeth called down from upstairs. "They should be in the washing-up."

The wind thoroughly taken out of my sails, I slowly finished taking off my coat. I left my shoes on, which wound up being an extremely smart thing to do. I think my dick was more confused than I was. Eleanor's presence and grating voice was more effective than a four-hour ice-cold shower.

Eleanor made a sing-song, "Thank you!" to Beth and turned to go back into the kitchen. She made a point to pause a beat and then look straight at me, then resumed moving with her nose in the air and her eyes closed. She was a parody of the busybody English housewife, complete with flower-print dress. Whenever I saw her I was reminded of Monty Python's Pepperpots. Notably Terry Jones' version.

The stereotype had a definite basis in reality.

I slowly peeked around the doorframe into the kitchen. It was an absolute disaster, as it almost always was when Eleanor came to visit. It didn't matter what house she was in - whether it was her own or someone else's - she claimed ownership of the kitchen. She had an annoying habit of kicking everyone out of the kitchen so that she could work unhindered, and then complain that no one was around to help her when she needed it.

"What brings you to our humble abode?" I asked, trying to filter my palpable irritation and anger at her presence out of my tone.

"Oh, Elizabeth invited me over," she said, re-washing the saucepan that she had taken from the drying rack. Apparently it wasn't done to her liking.

"She did?" I asked, stunned.

"Yes," she confirmed. "She said that you had something planned for tonight and asked if I'd like to spend the evening with her."

"I did?" I was dumbfounded.

She whirled on me. "You know, she works just as hard as you do," she snapped, all pretense of politeness gone. "The least you could do is spend time with your wife instead of bouncing around London with your mates."

I was speechless. This was not the way I had expected the evening to go. Without saying a word, I turned around and went up the stairs. Beth was on the phone with one of her friends.

"Go away," she said, putting her hand over speaker. "I'm on the phone."

"Beth," I said, trying to keep my tone even. "What is going on? Why is your mother here?"

"I said," she said slowly, her eyes narrowing. "I'm. On. The. Phone."

I lost it. I took two steps over to her and ripped the phone out of her hand. "She'll call you back," I snarled into the phone, and hung up.