Friday

"When I started at the firm, I was serious about Todd, but we weren't engaged yet. Chrissy, of course, was the queen of the place, she just sort of is, everywhere she goes. She took me under her wing, so to speak, and most of the time I didn't spend with Todd, I spent with her, and later with her and Bill.

"Shortly after that, Todd and I got engaged. I told Chrissy about it, and they invited us over to celebrate. While Chrissy and I chatted in the kitchen, Bill took Todd into another room. He told Todd he was going to fuck me that night; Chrissy was telling me the same thing. Todd could either go home and leave me there, or participate with him and Chrissy. He was going to fuck me, either way. Todd had been drooling over Chrissy all night, so it was an easy choice for him. That night, he watched Bill and Chrissy take me, and then he fucked Chrissy while Bill took me again.

"After that, Todd and I met Bill and Chrissy regularly for sex. They were always coming up with new and kinkier things to try. We did it places we might get caught, we used handcuffs and gags, even some paddles. Even though I wouldn't have volunteered for any of it, I have to admit it was hot. I never noticed how subservient I'd become to Chrissy, although others did.

"While this was going on, Lena joined the firm. She was very shy and kept to herself a lot, but she was obviously good at her job, and beautiful enough to make Chrissy jealous. Then Bill saw her and wanted her, and the game was on. That's when the girls' night out started, sort of sporadically. Then Lena became more confident and outgoing, because of you. Chrissy thought that was even better, because it made her more of a challenge. She made the girls' night out every week, and made sure Lena would come, no matter what you thought of it. Lena thought Chrissy was her friend, and fell for it.

"Gradually, Chrissy made girls' night out more about sex, and we worked on loosening Lena up. You didn't know it, but you helped, too, as you got her to open up to you. We began feeding Lena sex tips to take home to you, and she reported back how much you liked them. She was so inexperienced, it was easy enough to convince her that we had to demonstrate what we were talking about. It went farther and farther, until by a couple of months ago, the three of us girls were having sex every Friday night. Chrissy managed to convince Lena that it wasn't cheating on you, because it was just women.

"The next step was for Chrissy to convince Lena that you'd go along with swapping. Bill and Todd started to 'accidentally' show up. At first, they just walked through the living room, then they stayed a while. Chrissy kept talking about how much fun swinging and swapping were, and how any guy would jump at it, and of course Bill and Todd chimed in. So she took that home to you with the other sex tips, and was surprised and upset when you refused.

"Chrissy told Lena you probably refused because she hadn't seen it yet, so she wasn't convincing enough. So that night Lena had to watch Bill fuck me, while Todd fucked Chrissy. We didn't do anything kinky, and made it look as loving and nice as we could. We could see her wavering. The next week, we did it again, and encouraged her to finger herself. She went off like a rocket. The following week, we made her watch naked, and Chrissy and I caressed her while Bill and Todd fucked us. She came so hard for us that we knew she was ready. That was the week before you were there."

I had fully intended to keep my emotions in check while I listened to Anna's tale, but this was too much. Seeing Anna sit there and calmly relate how she had helped corrupt my wife and destroy my marriage, had me ready to strangle someone. My anger at her, and at Lena for cheating on me for two months, must have shown on my face. Anna leaned forward in her chair.

"Please, Jason. I know this is hard for you to hear. There's only a little more. Please hear me out." I nodded grimly.

"The night you were there was, as you probably guessed, planned out in detail, including who would 'lose' each poker hand. The idea was that you were supposed to be turned on by our stripping; that's why Chrissy and I got naked first. Then when Chrissy blew you, she was supposed to 'accidentally' make you cum. That way, you wouldn't be able to object to anything we did after that. You would be offered the chance to participate or not, just like Todd was. If you didn't go along, you would remain tied to the chair while the rest of us went ahead and did it. Chrissy was so upset that you didn't get hard for her that she changed the plan and didn't offer you the choice. How did you do that, anyway? You looked spaced out or something. Anyway, Lena was a little upset about that, but forgot about it when the fucking started.

"I admit that I always enjoyed the sex. I always went home happy and sated. There was no sneaking around, nobody got hurt, and the sex was great. I was having a great time last Friday, too, until I happened to glance over at you. You looked sort of passed out, and I was afraid you might throw up, so I untied you and took off the gag. I went back to eating Chrissy out, and forgot about you for a while.

"After we finished, I saw how you looked, and how you looked at Lena, when you left. I knew something was very wrong then. I told Lena I thought she had a problem, but nobody listened. The guys wanted to fuck her again, but I cleaned her up and took her home. Todd was upset at me for wimping out, as he called it, and I guess he and Bill used Chrissy the rest of the night.

"After I went home, I thought about where I was going. As I said, I'd thought all of this was great as long as nobody got hurt, but that wasn't true any more. You were hurting badly, and soon Lena was going to be hurting too. That wasn't part of the bargain. I decided that was my last Girls' Night Out.

"Todd finally came home, and we had a long talk. Long story short, he liked Bill, he loved fucking Chrissy and Lena, he didn't care who got hurt, he was staying in, and as long as we were together, I was, too. So I broke our engagement.

"That was okay for me, but I had to try to do something for Lena. After all, I'd helped Chrissy get her into this. I don't know if you'll ever get back with Lena. I don't know if you should even consider it. I do know that you still love her. I've seen it on your face as we've talked. For the sake of that love, Jason, please help me try to rescue her. Even if you don't get back together, you don't want to see her thrown on a garbage pile somewhere, with all that you love about her squeezed out for Chrissy and Bill's amusement. I know you don't, and I don't either. You love her, and I owe her. Please help me."

I thought a moment. She obviously wanted me to believe her, but I wasn't sure I did.

"So you're telling me that both you and Lena were victims in this?"

"Lena, yes. Myself?" She paused and sighed. "At first, yes, I was. I was easy, much easier than Lena. I was already so in awe of Chrissy from work that I'd do anything she told me, and I'm not a very strong person anyway. I did enjoy the sex, I can't deny it. At that point, I was willing and eager to do anything for Chrissy, including helping her capture Lena. I even believed it would be good for Lena, and for you, too.

"Then last Friday, when I saw what we put you through, and saw Lena helping us do it despite her love for you, I knew I had to find a way out, and get her out, too. I've quit the design firm, you know. Chrissy told me my life would be a wreck, I wouldn't find another job, and I'd never be satisfied with 'ordinary' sex again. I told her I'd risk it. At least I could start learning to live with myself again. It felt strange to say that, actually talking back to Chrissy, but I know I need to start standing up for myself, and stop just going where stronger characters push me. It's going to be hard. I've always had issues with self-confidence, and haven't had someone to help me like you helped Lena, but it's time for me to do it. Past time, really."

"What are you going to do now?"

"I have a line on another job; I'm interviewing Monday. I know Chrissy will try to screw it up, but it's not in a design firm. It's a division of a national house, so I hope they won't listen to her. Wish me luck?"

"Sure, Anna, good luck." The more she said, the more sense she made. Now that I paid closer attention, she looked different, too: more solid, somehow. The change was subtle, but she didn't look so much like Mary's little lamb any more. In spite of what she had done, I found I could wish her well. Chrissy, not so much.

"So what about Lena," I asked.

"Jason, when Lena tells you that she didn't do this to hurt you, and she thought this would be something you two could enjoy together, she's telling the truth, as far as she knows. I'm sorry to say, I was the example: she could see how I enjoyed swapping, and Chrissy used that to convince her that you guys would, too, despite your saying you wouldn't. She knows last Friday was awful for you, and that she hurt you badly, but she doesn't understand why you can't get past this mistake."

I sputtered and snorted, trying to contain my incredulity, unable to form coherent words.

"I know, Jason, it doesn't make any sense at all from your point of view. If I were in your shoes, I'd be calling bullshit right now, too. The problem is, she can't see it from your point of view right now, because she's so dominated by Chrissy."

"Oh, come on, Anna. You don't expect me to believe a smart, capable woman like Lena is, what, brainwashed? Next thing I know, you'll be telling me she's been zapped with a Martian Slut Ray." My exasperation was showing.

"I understand, Jason. You know how a magician's trick looks unbelievable, until you go online and read about how he did it? After I saw that movie, I knew how the trick worked. Then, too, I can believe it because it was done to me, and because I helped do it to Lena. Please don't doubt that this is possible."

I tried to make sense of this, I really did. I just couldn't get past the look on Lena's face as Bill and Todd fucked her, and the way she turned her back on me while I was cuffed to the chair. My doubts must have showed on my face.

"Okay, I'll tell you what. Why don't you watch the movie? Then let's talk. I can tell you're struggling with this, and I know it's hard to get your head around. Please don't take too long, though. While you're struggling, Chrissy and Bill are taking advantage of your absence."

"Do you think Lena went there last night," I asked with a sense of foreboding.

"I don't see why she wouldn't. I'm sorry." Anna looked genuinely sympathetic.

"Damn." Lena had seen what a wreck I was when I left their house a week ago. Hell, she'd helped make me that way. She knew her marriage was in trouble, if not over. Then she went right back to the people who helped her wreck it, and betrayed me with them again? Lena was a smart girl. How could she act so stupid? I knew she cared about me, or at least she had at one time. How could she be so callous?

"Okay, I guess I know what movie I'm watching tonight," I sighed.

"Call me tomorrow and let me know what you think, and let's make a plan." I wasn't ready to trust Anna that far yet, if I ever would be, but there seemed no point in saying so just then. We shook hands (which seemed odd; the last time I'd seen her, she'd been mostly naked and getting fucked) and parted.

I watched the movie. It was incredibly hot, and incredibly evil. Michelle Pfeiffer and Uma Thurman played the girls Valmont seduced, and they were brilliant: virtuous and innocent at first, then flaming hot as Valmont took them. Valmont was pure evil. Then I thought of Lena, and I wasn't so sure about Anna's theory. True, Lena had once exuded the innocence and lack of self-confidence that Uma Thurman portrayed. Might it still be there under the surface? Had Chrissy managed to sense and manipulate that vulnerability? It still seemed far-fetched to me, and Anna's 'rescue' plea sounded more like an attempt to ease her own feelings of guilt.

I couldn't see Lena deliberately risking our marriage for group sex. That argued that they had at least managed to convince her that I would eventually go along with this, or treat it as a mistake and go on from there. That would explain Lena's "It was all a mistake" messages, which I still received several of every day.

Next morning, some of the fog of the movie and Anna's story had cleared out of my brain, and I could at least identify some things I had to do. I needed to see a doctor for STD testing, my bank to separate our finances, and an attorney regarding divorce options. It wouldn't be fair to Lena or me to leave her hanging.

I had to listen to Lena. That would be immeasurably harder than the other three put together, but it had to be done. I needed closure, of course, and only she could answer the questions that refused to stop gnawing at my heart, if anyone could answer them. Then there was Anna's story. I was a long way from believing it, but neither could I dismiss it out of hand. If Lena's story corroborated Anna's, not the magical-seducer, Martian Slut Ray parts but the basic sequence of events, it might actually be true.

Then what? I didn't think even hypnosis would remove those ghastly images from my mind. Someone would have to cut out large chunks of my brain for that to happen. I couldn't imagine living with Lena, seeing those images, let alone making love with her. The very idea almost made me ill. But if Anna was right, and Lena

wasn't completely at fault, didn't she at least deserve a hearing? I realized I was trying to solve for too many variables in too few equations. The next step was to gather data: listen to Lena.

I thought about meeting her at our house. We'd only lived there a year, but already it wasn't just a house. When I told my work buddies Lena and I were buying a house, and she would decorate it, they groaned and told me what to expect. All my furniture would be gone and replaced with expensive stuff I hated. She would never make up her mind about what went where and I'd be moving furniture until my back broke, and so on. None of it happened. Some of my furniture did go, but it wasn't very good stuff anyway, and we didn't spend a dime on new furniture. Lena lavished as much care designing our little house as she did on her highest-paying professional jobs. She knew from the start exactly where everything would go, never changed her mind, and even pulled her weight moving it, never mind that she was barely five foot and a hundred pounds. The best part was, there was something about our house that said, "You're home now," every time I walked in, like a soft, sweet hug and kiss at the door. Every room held her presence in it, no matter where she was. I'll never know how she did that, but it was her gift to me, and I loved it.

That's why we couldn't meet there. I wouldn't last ten minutes. Either I would break down and cry uncontrollably, or scream and shout in my hurt and frustration. Neither would do anyone any good. I finally remembered a little restaurant I liked where we hadn't dated, paced the floor for ten minutes working up my nerve, and called my wife.

"Jason!!" Lena was wailing and shouting before I could finish saying, "Hi, Lena."

"Jason, oh, I've been so lonely and upset and I've missed you so. Say something, anything, I need to hear your voice." I would have, if there had been any space between her words. She continued at a breakneck pace.

"Jason, are you coming home? Please? tell me when, and I'll be ready. No, that's not true. I've been ready since five seconds after you left. But I want to dress for you, and cook something for you. What would you like?" On and on she went. Finally, just before I thought she'd asphyxiate, she stopped for breath.

"Lena, please listen. Calm down. I can't meet you at our house: I'm sorry, but I just couldn't handle it right now." I heard her breath catch in a little sob. As I've said, the house was very personal to her.

"So you're still..."

"Lena, I don't know what I am right now, and I haven't since that night. I do know we need to talk. Do you know where Pellegrini's is?"

"NO!" she shouted at me. "No, I can't go there! I can't! Please don't make me..." She was sobbing.

"Lena, what in the world...?" I could hear her trying to regain control of herself.

"I'm sorry, Jason, it's nothing to do with you. I have some ... some bad memories of that place, from before I met you. I'm ... a little on edge, I guess." Well, that made two of us. "I do want us to talk, and I'll go there if you want." She said it with a shudder I could hear over the phone. Whatever happened to her at Pellegrini's must have been truly awful.

"No, no, Lena, that's okay. If Pe... that place is bad for you, whatever the reason, we'll meet somewhere else. Where would you prefer?"

She proposed Romano's, I suggested 3:00 because this conversation wouldn't be good for either of our digestion, and we agreed.

I arrived early so Lena wouldn't have to wait. I imagined her running back and forth across our bedroom, trying on outfits, rejecting one after another, growing more and more frantic, as she always did before an important meeting. I could almost hear the front door slam as she ran out, exactly five minutes later than the time she set for leaving, just as usual.

Lena walked in the door at 3:05 precisely. I rose to let her see me. I had intended to smile to put her at her ease whether I felt like it or not. Seeing her enter, unbearably beautiful in a simple blouse and skirt, I smiled from the heart. She responded with a heart-stopping smile of her own as she approached our table, and I seated her.

Our smiles faded as we looked at each other. Suddenly, Lena looked small and unsure of herself, like the Lena of three years ago.

"Jason, are we going to be okay?" She spoke timidly, but went straight to the heart of the matter. I sighed.

"I don't see how it's possible."

"But Jason..."

"Lena, you tied me to a chair, and made me watch while you took what you promised would be private to us, and gave it away to others. How am I supposed to be okay with that? Look!" I commanded. I showed her the places my wrists still weren't healed. She glanced and looked away, shuddering.

"It was a mistake," she mumbled.

"Yeah. Some mistake." It took all I had not to snarl the words. This wasn't working.

"This isn't getting us anywhere, Lena. Let's try something else. I want you to start at the beginning, and tell me the whole story of Girls' Night Out, Chrissy and Bill, and Anna and Todd. All of it. I warn you, though, the first lie you tell, even a very little one, I am out of here and we are through forever."

Lena gave a nervous little gulp. "Are you... are you sure you want to hear all of it?"

"I'm very sure I don't want to hear any of it. Still, I think for us to have any future together at all, I have to know all of it. I have to know you're not hiding anything from me."

She sighed and began. Her story was almost exactly what Anna had predicted, including her belief that I would come around and believe swapping would be good for both of us. That was good, as far as it went, but not conclusive: I knew she and Anna had talked since what I had come to think of as Fatal Friday, and they could have arranged their stories. The hardest for me to hear was how much she enjoyed the sex, first with Chrissy and Anna, then with Bill and Todd.

"Chrissy and Anna eased me into it so gradually I hardly knew when we stopped just talking about things you and I could do in bed together, and started actually having sex. I wasn't, I'm still not, very experienced, so it was natural for them to show me things rather than tell me. It felt wonderful, but part of what made it good was imagining what it would feel like when you did the same things to me they were doing. I didn't think of what I did with Chrissy and Anna as having sex, really: it was experimenting to find things I could take home to you. Believe me, it was always better with you.