Escape From Comfort Ch. 01

"Kick it! Kick the ball, Merry!" I called out eagerly to my six year-old daughter on the soccer field. ("It's a Pitch, Daddy!")

Why we parents all yell at our kids during a soccer match is beyond me. None of them listen to any of us. I guess that it is just a coping mechanism so that we can pretend that these games where no one keeps score are entertaining.

Meredith did indeed kick the ball. Expertly. Right to a girl on the other team.

"For crying out loud, Merry! Not her!"

THAT Merry heard. She turned to me and scolded me at the top of her voice, "She's my friend, Daddy!"

Sure enough, the friend kicked the ball right back to Merry. Merry went to kick the ball back again, but this kick was more like her usual skill level and the ball careened off toward the rest of the players. Every kid on the field, including one goalie, chased after it.

Beside me, my friend Peter was laughing hard. He clapped me on the back, looked at me, then shook his head and laughed again. Peter's daughter was on Merry's team also. The mass of girls converged on the ball and it popped free randomly, rolling off toward the other team's goal, the one whose goalie had left to chase after the ball with her buddies.

Peter's daughter Felicity popped out of the mass of little girls first, chasing the ball as it rolled toward the goal. Now it was Peter's turn to scream head off. "Run, Felicity! Run!" She caught up to the ball as it slowed before the net, other girls chasing madly behind her. "Shoot it! Shoot it now!" screamed Peter.

It was Felicity's turn to grow ears. She turned and looked for Peter in the crowd. "What do you say, Pop?"

The rest of the mass of muddy little girls surged around the ball and play went on.

I looked at Peter with a shit-eating grin. We raised our cans of Coke and clicked them together. The game continued interminably.

Directly in front of us stood our wives, right at the spectator's line, cheering everything good-naturedly. Both were much more earnest and focused on this titanic athletic contest than we were. Meanwhile, with our daughter's moments in the spotlight with the ball fading into the distant past of three minutes ago, Peter and I both got bored again.

Peter cleared his throat and took two steps backward. I raised an eyebrow but slid back beside him. "What don't you want the women to hear?" I asked curiously.

"Nothing," said Peter casually. "I just think the vista is better from here," he added with a sweeping gesture of the field that ended with an indication of the women.

"I get your point," I said calmly, my eyes resting on my wife's shapely, jeans-clad backside. Of course, it was hard not to let my eyes slide to the right and take in Peter's wife's smaller but equally enticing tush. We clinked Cokes again wordlessly, and I reflected that Peter had just as good a view of my lady's ass as I had of his.

C'est la vie. We were lucky men.

"So, I was thinking," said Peter. "Why don't you and Sara come over for dinner Friday at our place? Could you get a sitter?"

"That would be great," I replied. It would be more than great, actually. Erika and I had just moved to town a few months ago, and aside from her parents, we didn't know many people. In our early thirties, we were discovering it was harder to make new friends than when we were younger. I went on, "I don't think we have plans, and it would be nice to actually get to know you guys and have a conversation without being interrupted constantly by watching the hellions run around like crazy people."

"Let's run it by the actual decision makers," said Peter and we stepped back up behind our wives. Peter wrapped his arms around Sara and I rested my hands on Erika's sleek shoulders. "Ladies," asked Peter, "I was hoping Erika and George could have dinner at our place Friday. How about it?

Erika asked, "Should we bring Merry?"

"I thought we'd fob Felicity off on Ma for the night," replied Peter. "Could you get a sitter on this late notice?"

Erika laughed. "Mom and Dad are always on about having Merry stay over. If George and I play our cards tight, they might take her for the whole weekend."

"Oooh!" teased Sara. "George and Erika alone for the weekend. Gonna do some hot, hot shopping at COSTCO?"

"Maybe, if we get REAL wild," snickered Erika, "George will take me to Target, too!"

"So we are on for Friday? 7:00?" said Peter firmly.

It was a date.

Friday afternoon, Peter called my cell. "Hey George! I just wanted to say, we will probably pretty much hang out in the back yard tonight, and with as hot as it it, you and Erika should dress casually. Sara and I will just be in shorts and t-shirts."

"Thanks," I replied. "I'd been dreading the inevitable conversation where Erika demands that I tell her what was appropriate to wear. Like I'm supposed to know any better than her when we accept an invitation!"

"We have that same convo, man. All the damned time. That's why I called. Just trying to help a buddy out!" We laughed and hung up.

I dropped off Merry at her grandparents' early on Friday. We tended to avoid having Erika do the drop off because all the hugs, the 'I'll miss you's, and the 'just one more story's took forever. And that was just from Erika's mom. Merry was pretty clingy with her Erika as well.

When I got back, my wife was in our bathroom getting ready. She was out of the shower and doing her makeup in her underwear when I came in. I sighed. In part, I sighed because my wife is beautiful. Not just beautiful through the eyes of the man that loves her, but beautiful as in objectively freaking hot. She was a college cheerleader when we met my senior and her junior year in college, and eleven years have failed to make much of a dent in the overall package. Her legs are sleek, and their curves perfectly match her aforementioned scenic ass. Her waist remains slender and while her belly might not be the convex wonder it was in college, she had worked crazy hard to restore its flat perfection after the baby.

But my sigh was also in part due to her underwear. She was wearing a simple pair of flesh-toned beige panties that were cut low at the hips, with an equally plain beige bra. There had been a time when, if we were going out for the evening, Erika would have always sported some sexy, even racy, bra and panty set or even a teddy, in black or a bright color. And she never would have let me see what she had on before, you know, I'd worked for it.

But ten years of marriage and a child had transformed the spark our marriage to a warm, nurturing ember. We still loved each other deeply, don't get me wrong, but our relationship that had once been about adventure together had morphed almost without our knowledge into companionable comfort. It is hard to preserve much mystery in a relationship when you both know each other well enough to talk without using words.

I stepped into the closet and slipped on a pair of loose-fitting khaki shorts. I chose them because, well, Sara is almost as hot as my wife, and I'd never seen her in shorts before. The prospect of that had crossed my mind several times since Peter had warned me about the dress code and I thought better baggy shorts than sorry. I then rifled through the collection of Polo shirts in different colors that form the core of my casual wardrobe. I grabbed the green one and came out, pulling it over my head.

"No," said Erika firmly, looking at me in the mirror.

"What? I like this one."

"No," she repeated. "The collar on that one is getting frayed. Don't you see it? Drop it in the gardening clothes basket and we'll buy you a new green one next time go to the mall. Wear the fuchsia one."

"Really? The pink one?" I asked, obediently tossing the green shirt into the gardening clothes basket, never to be worn in polite society again.

"It is fuchsia, not pink. And you look sexy in it," said Erika. "And I want Sara to see how sexy my man is," she smiled sweetly at me.

"Well, thank you," I chuckled. "I hope you are wearing the tight blue shorts, rather than the soft white ones. I want Peter to know my wife's ass is better even than his wife's."

"Oh ho! Are you saying that Sara has a nice ass?" she teased.

"Um...."

Erika laughed and finally shooed me out of the bathroom. She came out a few minutes later.

She was wearing the blue shorts.

We walked the couple of blocks over to Peter and Sara's house. It was a little hot for comfortable travel by foot, but it was nice to walk together without Merry trying to hurl herself in front of traffic all the time. Besides, this way we would not have to worry about driving home if we ended up drinking too much.

I rang the bell and Sara answered the door, Peter right behind her. Whoa. Sara was wearing a rather spectacular pair of cut-off jeans, or at least they were spectacular on her. They were low-waisted, but her own flat stomach left a considerable gap running around her between the waistband and her body. The legs were several comparatively modest inches long, but her legs were so elfin that they too moved loosely free. The only place the shorts were tight enough for them to keep from falling off was around her hips and across her nice, pert ass. The old, faded, Aerosmith concert shirt she wore was casually, disappointingly loose, but it was cropped just enough at the bottom to leave an inch of delectable belly showing above her shorts.

"Come on in," she said, backing up into the house. As Peter stepped forward to shake my hand, I sensed Erika behind me take her turn to pause. Peter was wearing loose, knee-length gray cargo shorts, but the pause had to be for the shirt. It was a white cotton, button-down, short-sleeved camp shirt that looked about a size too small. At least the arms and shoulders were too small. It was unbuttoned halfway down, giving a broad view of a waxed smooth chest. 'Jesus, he waxes his chest?' I thought with a sudden competitive twang.

Erika and Sara shared a quick hug and I offered the bag I held to Peter. "Thanks for inviting us. I brought a bottle."

Peter slid the bottle of Whistle Pig out of the bag and whistled in turn. "This is better than anything I have in the house right now. Can I pour you a glass of your own offering?"

"Please," I said happily.

"I'll take one too," put in Erika. I looked at her. She had mostly been drinking wine lately. She shrugged and smiled at me playfully. Her look told me that since Peter and Sara were still new friends, she was ready to roll with their groove a little. She was also nervous about making new friends, just like me.

"Four glasses it is," declared Peter, not asking Sara. I followed him into the kitchen while the wives discussed the house. Peter pulled four huge ice cubes from a bag in the freezer, four large square glasses from the cabinet, and then proved himself to be a heavy pourer, filling each glass full.

"Whoa, man! Don't try to empty the bottle in one round!" I laughed.

"It's been a long week at work," grumped Peter.

"Hey, that soccer game was a long week all by itself," I prodded good-naturedly.

Peter smiled, "Yeah, that too. Drink up!" We carried the glasses in to the women.

"Peter Estherhazy, you are trying to get me drunk!" exclaimed Sara upon being handed the glass."

"Of course! If you dress like that, a man's got to do what a man's got to do!" replied Peter, kissing her briefly on the side of her neck.

Erika and I exchanged glances. "They flirt like newlyweds," whispered Erika.

"I know. And I think they've been married as long as we have," I whispered back.

We shared another look, half sheepish, half jealous. Erika broke the mood by standing on tiptoe and kissing me just a hair longer than was really proper in the present circumstances. "So," she asked brightly to Peter and Sara who had been looking at us in turn, "what's the plan?

This time is was Peter and Sara's turn to look at each other and smile. But Peter just swept his hand toward the back of the house. "We thought, heat wave or no, it was time for some good steaks on the grill."

At their invitation, we ditched our shoes and we followed Peter and Sara out to their back yard, which turned out to be much smaller than ours and hemmed around by one of those high privacy fences. It did have a nice pool shoe-horned in that kept the whole yard cooler than it might have otherwise been.

Peter and I did the Man-Fire-Food-Talk act while Sara and Erika split their time between hanging out by the pool and working in the kitchen, finishing up Sara's baked potatoes and broccoli casserole. We all sat and enjoyed a truly excellent meal, our giant drinks, and then got to work on a second round of giant drinks. In fact, the second round was even bigger. The ice cubes had melted down a good bit, so there was more room for whiskey in each glass. When pouring for Erika, Peter told her merrily to just say when. Erika just smiled up at him, whiskey still pouring until the glass was full. "That's a dangerous game," said Peter, who stopped just before the delicious brown liquor reached the rim of her glass. "If this was a bottle of Jack, I'd have just kept pouring until it overflowed and you had whiskey all over you!"

"Chicken!" taunted Erika, sounding for a moment like her college self.

As the sun set fully, the ladies gathered up the plates while Peter and I sat and talked companionably. The wives returned fairly quickly and I surmised that the plates has simply been removed, scraped, and stacked. Washing them was apparently going to be left to Peter, and perhaps me, later.

"So you've never had a pool?" asked Sara as they re-emerged. "You should put one in, they are amazing."

"I don't know," replied Erika. "Don't you worry about Felicity all the time?"

"She was a handful when she was just learning to move around on her own, wasn't she Peter?" Sara said, raising her voice to momentarily include us in the conversation before she turned her back to us again. I didn't mind. At least not the part where Sara turned her backside to us. "But she now understands that the pool rules are hard and fast, like roads and hot ovens."

"Maintenance seems like a chore."

"That is what men are for! Besides, an after dinner dip is the best. Want to try?"

"It does look good, but you should have told us to bring suits!" laughed Erika, "And I'm afraid a suit of yours would not fit me."

"Ha! I wish they would," replied Sara, giving her sweet retort an edge that was just a bit envious, and a little bit raunchy. "But I wan't thinking of wearing suits."

"Sara!" gasped Erika. She stared wide-eyed at Peter's wife, then flashed a significant glance at us, blushing the whole time so deeply that I could see it in the dusk.

Sara calmly looked both of us over, then held Erika's gaze again. "Because they are here? They ARE our husbands, you know. We'll just reap the rewards of their gratitude later."

Erika stared at Sara for a moment, then took a big gulp of pure whiskey, set down her glass and whipped off her blouse! She then turned away from Peter and me and slipped off her bra as well. She seemed to be stripping as quickly as possible so that she could run and hide in the water. Still turned away, she undid her fly and pulled both shorts and panties off as one. With a shriek, she turned and leapt into the deepest part of the pool, popping up in water up to her neck.

My eyes snapped back to Sara, whose shirt was long gone and who had apparently not been wearing a bra to begin with. Her breasts were so damned pert, and at just barely less than half the size of Erika's, were still damned tasty-looking. She pulled her shorts and a minuscule red thong down as one, just like Erika, and strode smoothly but wonderfully slowly to the pool's edge and slipped in after my wife. She surfaced in much shallower water, her nipples barely hidden beneath the surface.

"So," I said with outward calm barely concealing inward raging turmoil, "that just happened."

"Yeah," said Peter, sounding more relaxed, less surprised, but just as appreciative, "that just happened."

And just like that, our conversations resumed as if nothing had transpired. The girls kept on about the benefits of the pool, Erika sounding much more on board, and Peter and I kept on chatting. I don't remember what he and I were talking about, as I was concentrating pretty hard on the naked women bobbing around in the pool in front of us.

But then Peter, just in the normal course of conversation, observed, "That is a really spectacular pair Erika has. How did the conversation go about getting them done?"

I thankfully had not just had a sip, or I'd have choked on it. I checked the reality warping field around me again. Yep, my friend had just asked me about my wife's boob job while said wife was buck naked in said friend's pool, cavorting with said friend's also buck naked wife while trying to keep the aforementioned boob job below the surface of the water. Checked out. Just another day in suburbia.

Peter filled the pause in the air as I remained silent. "I'm just asking because I sometimes think Sara might be interested in enhancements herself. I think, especially right now, that I would be on board with the idea... But I'd like to know how to navigate that conversation without being fed my balls...."

I thought back in a flash. Breast-feeding then weaning Meredith, along with a ruthless commitment to losing her baby fat, had left Erikas 'girls' in what she felt was a sorry, diminished state. For my part, I thought they were still lovely (if slightly diminished) and made an effort to ensure I demonstrated my continued admiration regularly. But Erika kept moping about them and I'll admit I lost patience eventually with her lack of self-confidence. One evening, after half a glass too much rum, Erika saw a particularly nice pair of tits being featured on the TV show we were watching, and went into her mopey, self-pitying routine.

"Listen," I had grumbled, "I've got a bonus check in our account that we can't spend on a vacation this year. Use it get get yourself the pair you want. Hell, use it to get THAT pair," I said pointing to the screen where the catalyst for the conversation was currently bobbing.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" she exclaimed, slapping me on the arm, but with surprisingly little heat in her anger. The show moved on from the bobbling tits, and so did our conversation. I forgot about the whole thing. Too much rum, remember?

Two days later, I came into the living room to find Erika watching Merry watch Baby Einsteins and reading her iPad. She looked up at me seriously, and flushed a little as she blurted, "I've been thinking about what you said about your bonus check. She turned around her iPad to show me a lovely woman pictured on a medical practice website. "I just booked an appointment to see what they can do to restore my girls. Want to come along?"

Did I want to come along? That's like asking a guy did he want to go shopping for Ferraris, except it was for tits. Who could say no? Who could think no?

"Sure, I guess," I said slowly. "When?"

We met with the doctor three days later. Each day in between I was mildly surprised that Erika did not back out. I also had to admit to myself that I was more excited each day when she didn't. That was how I found myself in a well-lit doctor's office, with the man examining my wife's naked chest and showing her a book of breasts. After fairly brief deliberation, Erika settled on a modest 200cc implant that would get her back to her original, perky, buoyant, small C-cups. I was largely ignored throughout the process. The doctor seemed content with our thinking, and left to do paperwork and to let us talk it over. After he left, however, one of his nurses, a pretty woman a little older than us in dark blue scrubs came in. She did some additional diagnostics on Erika and chatted about what she was thinking. Erika told her her tentative decision and I actually saw the nurse frown a little. She picked up the chart and looked it over.