Don't Ask, Don't Tell

After that things got really fuzzy for a bit. I'm pretty sure he made her clean him after he came in her. I remember him propped on the pillows and winking at me as he guided her head to his still dripping cock. I remember some time later seeing her straddling him and riding his cock. Her moans as she came that time focused my attention enough to make me aware of what was going on, even though I couldn't really do much about it.

I would like to simply blame the alcohol, but to be honest, I must say that my drinking was only part of it. I was numb and had withdrawn as some kind of self protective mode. Kind of like when someone is severely injured in an accident, but can continue to function without feeling the pain until the immediate danger passes. Something like that. My emotions were pretty shut down. I had been excited and thoroughly enjoyed Suze's now innocent seeming exhibitionism earlier in the evening. That was everything I had hoped it would be. The scene in front of John, touching my wife at his direction was intensely erotic and exciting, but it went beyond anything I had really wanted. I enjoyed it, and the sex with my wife while she went down on John was thrilling, but definitely not anything like what I planned or really wanted for us. I had felt that 'standing on the edge of a cliff' feeling in my gut as it happened. Thrilling and scary. Good and bad at the same time. What happened after that was much more bad than good. I felt ill at what was happening. I just didn't have the fortitude to stand up to John and say "enough." I passively watched as he took my wife down the path to depravity

And depravity it was. One of the later snapshots I have from that night was of John standing with his arms propped on the bed, bent from the waist. Suzanne, my sweet innocent wife, the mother of our daughter had her face in his ass as he directed her to lick his bunghole. That lasted for a long time, because I faded in and out several times while it happened.

I'm not positive of all of the other things that happened between them that night. I'm pretty sure he fucked her ass. He also slapped her around a good bit. There were bruises and bite marks all over her breasts and ass the next day. She was pretty marked up the next morning. The thing about it that really stuck with me was that no matter what they were doing, she was not just a passive toy for his use. She actively participated and sought more. Something was unleashed there that I never imagined could have existed. It was like Suze was someone else.

I woke with a severe crick in my neck. I was still in the chair that I collapsed into after...after fucking my wife in front of the pages in that scrapbook fanned across my mind's eye. I jerked upright...and fell back against the chair. My head felt like a fuzzy melon with a spike through it. My stomach was crawling up my throat. And my vision was fuzzy or blurry or something. I managed to lurch into the bathroom before heaving up bile and the last remnants of our meal last night.

I wiped my face and looked back into the room. Suze was curled in the corner of the bed with a sheet over her. It was the bottom sheet. All of the other bedding was in the floor, except for two of the king size pillow cases. They were tied to her wrists. She looked like she was sleeping ok, so I went back into the bathroom and rinsed my mouth and tried to clean up some. I found some aspirin in the shaving kit that I had packed and took a handful. Then I went to the phone and ordered a light breakfast for two.

I had showered and dressed by the time room service knocked. The aspirin had kicked in and I was no longer acutely ill. I took the tray at the door and set it on the table between John's chair and mine. It is funny that even with him gone I considered it his space. I poured myself some coffee and waited for Suze to wake up. I wasn't really thinking about what happened. I was like one of those soldiers with a 'thousand yard stare' you see pictures of .

It didn't take long for the smell of the coffee to rouse my wife. When she rolled over and sat up, it was clear that she shared a bit of the hangover I had, but she didn't seem to suffer the severity I had.

"Morning. What can I do for you'" I said.

She squinted the light squeezing past the curtains and said, "The coffee smells good, but let me go clean up first."

She got up naked from the bed, untied the pillowcases from her wrists, and padded to the bathroom. That was when I saw the bruising and bite marks. My internal organs froze. It had really happened. I had let this stranger abuse my wife. I had set up the situation that led to all of this. She would never forgive me. I had ruined our lives. I sank into a morass of self pity and loathing for my actions. If the room had a balcony, I may very well have thrown myself from it in those moments while she showered the residue of the terrible incident from her body.

As I sat there crushed and distraught, I heard the shower stop. The silence hung in the room. I to go to Suzanne to beg for forgiveness, but couldn't overcome the inertia of my despair to do it. I waited, dreading the moment when she returned. It seemed like it was taking forever to come out. I started worrying that she was in there curled up crying and as distraught as I was. Maybe she couldn't overcome her loathing of me enough to come out of the bath room. Maybe she is so upset that she was in there doing something drastic – could you cut your wrists with one of those multi-bladed razors?

I stood and crossed the room to check on her. As I stepped over a pillow, the bathroom door opened and Suzanne came out. She was dressed in the jeans and blouse I had packed for her yesterday. Her hair was mostly dried and looked nice. She had on some makeup and looked great.

She stepped to me and kissed the tip of my nose. "Silly, you didn't even pour me a cup of the coffee," she said, stepping around me to move to the table.

"Gahh..." I was less than eloquent. It was like nothing was wrong. Like everything that had happened last night had been a very strange dream. She smiled at me as she sipped her coffee. I rubbed my nose where she kissed it – kissed it with lips that had been wrapped around another man's cock, lips that had kissed his asshole, that had tasted his cum. But there she stood, looking bright eyed and chipper. "Gahh..." I repeated.

"Poor baby. You had lot's more to drink than we did last night. Come over here and lets get some of this breakfast in you."

I shuffled over and sat down. She set my plate on the little table in front of me. I ate like a zombie. I was unable to process what was happening, what had happened.

After we had eaten a little bit, I mustered my verbal skills enough to say, "I'm so....sorry."

She gave me a long look. "There's nothing for either of us to be sorry over. Honey. We had too much to drink and let things get out of control. Way out of control. But I love you and never want anything to hurt us. Let's just put last night behind us. It will only hurt us if we let it."

When push comes to shove, I firmly believe that women are far more rational than men. My wife was certainly more rational than I was at that moment.

"I just want you to know that I didn't want anything bad for you. I wanted last night to be fun and exciting and different. But I never thought...I didn't...I treasure you and would never have let that happen if I had known," I said.

She patted my knee. "Of course not. But it did happen. Neither of us really wanted that, but something in us let it happen. It's ok. Let's just write it off to temporary insanity and go on with our normal lives. Besides, you know we did have some fun. It wasn't all bad."

I thought about it. We'd had a great dinner. Suze had dressed sexy and broken out of her shy shell some before things went really nuts.

"Yeah, I guess it wasn't all bad," I said as I stroked her cheek.

"That's right, honey," she replied as she leaned forward and kissed me.

That moment seemed so good. My fears and worries seemed to have been dealt with. We had escaped ruin and marital disaster. Looking back now, I realize how deep our misunderstanding was. I was thinking of dinner and the benign aspects of the early evening when I said it wasn't all bad. She was thinking something else.

Chapter 2

The next three weeks were perfectly normal. We slipped back into our normal lives as if nothing had ever happened – almost. I cleaned my laptop of all of the stories I had collected. I wiped my links to story sites. I cleared the alt. newsgroups out of my news reader. And I stopped going to my home office and surfing while Suze fixed dinner.

The first couple of times we made love were a little awkward and stiff. We were both pretty tentative. But we seemed to get over it and our love life went back to normal. Once in a while, the memory scrapbook I had of the our anniversary would open up. Sometimes it spurred me on and charged our sexual play a little extra. Other times, it hit me like a sack of cement., forcing me to struggle to finish the act. Things seemed to be settling down, though, and I was happy that our anniversary nightmare didn't look like it would have a lasting negative affect on our lives.

Then, three weeks to the day after our anniversary, I got an e-mail from Suzanne directing me to meet her at the bar of the Hilton after work. I tried calling her but only reached her voicemail. My mind raced. I didn't know what was going on. It seemed like everything at work conspired to keep me late, but in reality I was out the door a bit early.

When I got to the Hilton I found Suze in the same seat she had been in before. She was in the black dress and looking great again. This time, though, she was alone and drinking water. She kissed me and ordered water for me as I sat down.

With a fair amount of trepidation and a bit of a shake in my voice, I asked, "What's up?"

She melted my heart with a smile. "I thought I'd give us a mulligan on our anniversary. Not so much to drink and no funny business this time, though."

Relief flooded through me. "You mean...I mean...another night out and then finish back here?" I asked.

"Back here alone together," she replied brightly.

I drank my water and smiled.

Dinner and dancing were great. We laughed and talked and had a merry time. We were dancing one last dance before heading to the hotel when Suzanne lifted her head from my chest and said, "I'd like you to do something for me, honey."

I held her close and murmured, " Anything, angel."

"When we get back to the hotel I'd like you to be more...in charge. "

"Huh?" I didn't understand.

"When we get back to the room I want you to be more forceful with me. Make me satisfy you. I'd like that." As she whispered in my ear, she pressed her body closer. I felt her rub against me.

I was paralyzed. On one hand, this was pretty much the type of behavior and play fun I had hoped for when I started it. On the other hand, it was John who had been 'in charge', not me. I wasn't sure how comfortable I was with taking charge. After a moment of thought, however, I decided to do as Suze asked. I didn't want to throw cold water on a happy time together, and besides, this might turn out to be fun.

"Ok, baby. I can do that," I told her.

It is too embarrassing to relate all the details of what happened when I tried to play the dominant hand. I turned into a robotic moron. I was so clumsy that I even accidentally elbowed Suze in the ear. When she suggested I hold her hair and force her to go down on my I kept pulling her off of me and checking to see that she was ok. I felt silly the whole time, and I could see the frustration building in Suzanne.

After a while, she said "You know what? Lets just make love. These games are pretty silly."

This was better. I made passionate love to my wife for the next two hours. I stroked, licked, and caressed her beautiful body. I kissed her and cherished her. It was sweet, hot, romantic sex. We both had orgasms. We were both sweaty and tired by the end. We fell asleep tangled in the sheets and each other.

Waking in the morning was the opposite of my post-anniversary morning. I was recharge, happy, and physically sated. I popped through a shower and ordered breakfast. Then I woke my sweetheart with a kiss on the cheek. She woke with a smile and a stretch. I told her, "Breakfast is on the way! Get it together or you'll miss out."

Room service had just left when she joined me at the table. "You are certainly chipper this morning." She said reaching for her juice.

"Yep. Last night was super. At least...most of it was." I felt myself blush. "I had a great time with you last night. Dinner, dancing, and sweet lovemaking in the moonlight..."

Suzanne smiled at me around a bite of croissant. "Yes. It was nice. You are the sweetest, kindest, most considerate lover I could ever imagine."

Something jarred in me. She had just given me an incredible compliment. I could see the love her eyes when she said it. Yet – there was something there that was off. There was nothing that anyone who didn't know her intimately would have even suspected, but there was something that told me that what she said wasn't the whole story. It was almost as if there was a telepathic "but...." on the end of her last sentence. I gave her a quizzical look, trying to draw out the rest of the story without actually saying something to her.

She concentrated on her food in reply. I let the silence hang.

"You know...." she began, " last time. I mean when we...were here before?" She paused looking for my understanding.

I nodded to her and thought, 'yeah when you were abused and fucked like a slut off the street.'

"Well there were aspects of what we did...what I did that night that were satisfying. Something that night filled a need or desire in me that I didn't even know I had."

I nodded again, feeling anguished. This morning was the opposite of my last wake up here. Last time I woke up miserable and things got better. This time it looked like my life was circling the bottom of the bowl. I prepared myself to hear Suzanne tell me she didn't want me anymore and that she was leaving me.

"Not just the sex," she continued, "the whole experience was so intense. I can't begin to describe how enormous it all was for me. I discovered something in me that is powerful. It draws me. And then...well...last night kind of proved my fears. "

"What?" I asked.

"Rich, you are so sweet natured, so kind and caring that it isn't in you to be forceful or controlling. I love our sex and love together and never want to be without you, our love, or even the sweet loving we share. But there are things I've discovered I desire that I just can't imagine you doing. These things...I'm afraid that if I don't explore them somehow, they will build up. Unanswered, they will build up and eventually poison our lives together. I don't want that.. I haven't thought about anything but that night and us since that night three weeks ago. I feel something building in me that I have to respond to."

"Okay, I think I hear what you are saying. But, where are you going with this? What do you mean?"

She took a breath, then looked me in the eye, "That night, before he left, John and I exchanged e-mail addresses. He will be back in town next week and I want to see him."

"I don't want to see that person again," I said as forcefully as I was capable. "I can't go through that again. I don't want it."

"I didn't say that I wanted US to see him."

My jaw dropped. "You mean you want to have an affair?"

"No. I don't want to do anything behind your back. I want your permission to explore this side of me. It is something I feel a strong compulsion to try. I know you care fore me and want me to be fulfilled. I'll share it with you in any way you want. If there were some way you could give me...some way it was within you to be less sweet and loving and more in control...then I wouldn't ask this of you. You can come watch, participate, stay home and I'll tell you all the details. Whatever makes you happy."

I felt like I was driving a car going downhill on an icy street, I was trying to get a little control or slow down, but inertia and gravity just kept sliding me along – no matter how hard I stood on the brakes. Looking back, I think I started down the hill the day I opened that first newsgroup story. Somewhere along the line, right about the moment we let John in our hotel room, all control was lost.

"Look, I know I encouraged the dress up in public stuff, but I never wanted any of the other. I don't want it. I don't like it. I'm not some kind of twisted perv that wants that sort of thing." As I said that I flashed on all the stories I had read over the internet. They had excited me. I had been excited most of the time with John. It was in the cold light of morning that I wasn't excited by the reality of doing stuff with others, but I wasn't about to admit any of that to Suzanne.

"But, what if I am?" She asked me.

That kicked off an argument that lasted for hours. We both reasoned, yelled, cried, and shouted. It didn't get us anywhere. I was firmly of the opinion that what had happened was a terrible mistake that should be spackled over, painted, and forgotten. Suze was positive that not investigating what she felt would cause her desires and interest to fester and would eventually ruin us. It didn't help when I said it would surely ruin us now by doing what she wanted or it might ruin us later if we didn't. Finally, we dropped it when checkout time approached.

That evening at home, after tucking in our daughter, we sat at the table and talked some more over a glass of wine. We had had a few hours to calm down and think.

"I'd like to set a baseline," I started. "I love you and want to share my life with you. I am pretty sure you feel the same way."

"Yes. I never want to lose you or us. No matter what."

Okay then, I guess the next thing is how do we not damage that and still find a way to accommodate or eliminate these strong feelings you have..."

"I don't think it is quite so simple. I don't think this is something that can just be switched off. What I felt, physically and emotionally, that night was so intense, so deep, that I can't begin to tell you. "

"Do you mean..." I bit off the rest of the sentence, but it echoed in my head 'his cock so deep in you, or your tongue so deep in his ass?' "Never mind. I'll just accept that you have a need to explore this thing – okay?"

"Okay. It isn't that I don't want you. It isn't that our sex life isn't good. It is something different – separate – from all of that.."

I sighed. This was painful. "What if I try to learn to fill that role?"

She was shaking her head as I said it. "We tried last night. I think we both agree that it is something completely contradictory to your personality."

"Maybe I can learn..." I started.

"No. I've been thinking a lot about this. Not only is it not in you to do it, I don't think it is within us for you to pretend or act that way. I don't think either of us can put ourselves out of the roles we have with each other. I couldn't ...let go... like that with you even if you could act that way convincingly. You are the love of my life, my life partner – not my..." she blushed and looked into her wineglass, "....master"

An icy blade through my stomach wouldn't have felt worse. I was speechless for a minute. The silence that hung between us seemed to have physical weight. Finally, I said, "I don't think I can be part of anything like...that."

"I know."

"But I know you need to explore your feelings. I think I understand what you said about them festering if we ignored them."

"So...what do we do?"

I spoke without thinking, "I don't want to see it, hear about it, know about it – at least not until I hear from you that it is over. I won't stop you or leave you. I don't want our normal lives disrupted or destroyed. As far as I'm concerned, this whole thing can just cease to exist."