Mary's Movie Night Ch. 03: The Big Sleep

It's all Lauren Bacall's fault.

It was my turn to pick the film for movie night, well, our turn. Only Susan no longer seemed interested in movie nights. She didn't seem, to be honest, in anything except maybe work these past couple of months. She had developed a kind of dour hangdog expression. It was like she was trying to soldier her way through something distasteful.

So I was surprised to wake up Sunday to her in a cheerful, bubbly mood. She bounced around the apartment like a kangaroo, joking and smiling. It reminded me of the woman I had married just a few years ago, of the spritely college girl she had been or the hijinks she'd get up to during her residency. Instead of the super-serious doctor face she'd been wearing, this morning she sported a mischievous smile. And it was her suggestion that, for Thursday, we watch The Big Sleep, with Bogie and Bacall. I was a little taken aback, since I'm more of the Turner Classic Movies guy: she's more Guardians of the Galaxy than Edgar G. Robinson. But I was glad of it... kind of.

If her mood was chipper, I was fighting dread. In the preceding two weeks, movie night had ended with risky encounters with our tight-bodied next door neighbor and, subsequently, thanks to a truly obscene photo of the occasion, a coerced but equally unprotected time with our appalling neighbor, Mary, three doors down. Susan was happy and yet, basically, any of our neighbors could blow the whistle on me at any time.

But, amazingly, nothing happened like that. Life just kept cycling along. Work, meetings, emails, dinners and breakfasts, until, at least, Thursday night was staring us in the face. I was girding myself for being outed as a cheating piece of shit, but Susan practically waltzed down to Mary's place, a bottle of decent red wine in one hand and some hastily assembled crudites in the other.

Cindy McGill was already present. She's somewhere past sixty years old, with a face that looked well lived in. I knew little about her: she'd buried her much older husband a few years ago. She was an ardent college football fan, with a hint of Southern lilt still in her accent that she could play up or hide as needed. In her youth she was probably striking, long reddish hair, now streaked with gray, over six feet in height, and thin as a rail. The only things that stuck out on her were a pair of good sized (but not gargantuan) boobs. You could see immediately why her husband's children thought she was a gold digger.

Mary, of course, was there, it being her place. She scowled when she saw my wife. Little black clouds gathered all around her and little lightnings shot from her eyes. I think we she was hungry for more blackmailing magic and the thought of being cock-blocked by, ironically, my wife was eating her up from the inside.

Pete and Belinda came a couple of minutes behind us, perhaps saving Mary from blowing a gasket. Pete fumbled around a bit when we were saying hello and he really didn't appreciate the looks Mary was giving him. Perhaps he was worried Mary was plotting "revenge" on me by getting him upstairs with her later or perhaps the whole situation had him thrown off.

Corn was popped and wine poured and we settled in to watch Philip Marlowe dealing with blackmail and murder. Part of me wondered if my wife was sending me a message! About an hour in, with all of us immersed in the show, Mary suddenly paused for intermission. It was like a shock to the senses to be jolted back into the modern world.

Mary headed to the bathroom, while I went for a refill of wine. Susan and Cindy stayed put, with their heads together, obviously in cahoots about something. That gave Belinda a chance to sneak in a couple of words, just to ensure my anxiety was kept at a peak.

"I spotted a bit yesterday and my boobs are so sore. We'll know in a day or so for sure," she informed me. Gah. I was pretty definitely in trouble there.

Then Mary waddled up, letting me know "I'm on the rag anyway, so you're off the hook tonight. Just don't think this changes anything, daddy." At least I didn't need to worry about baby number two... yet.

Lauren Bacall's character got the last words, when Bogie asked her if she was in trouble: "Nothing you can't get me out of." It made me wonder if I could get out of all the trouble brewing around me.

As the credits rolled, my wife was right at my elbow, where she'd been mostly glued all evening, saying, "Babe, could we walk Cindy home tonight? We have something we want to share." Definitely in cahoots, then. I couldn't imagine what this could be, but the cold dread I'd been holding at bay seemed to be closing in all around me.

Steps away, Cindy was unlatching her front door. Her townhouse was the opposite end unit in our cluster and, thus, a mirror image of our own; kitchen on the left instead of right, that sort of thing. Cindy's taste was, well, everywhere. She's one of those people who adore bright colors and a carefully curated everything-has-a-place clutter. Every horizontal surface was filled with bric-a-brac, every bit of wall decorated with a jumble of art, craft, or family photos. The effect was of a thirty-room mansion owned by a color-blind drug lord on display in a double-wide trailer.

We sat on a sectional sofa, Susan and I together, Cindy around the corner. She put her hands together in front of her and announced, "Well, this should be interesting. I take it Susan has kept things under wraps?"

I was being ganged up on. The bees in my stomach were ready to riot.

Susan took my hand, looked into my eyes, and launched into her spiel:

"Honey, I know you've been frustrated and that I might have seemed distant and cold lately. I want you to know that I love you just as much as I always have. But I've been seeing a therapist at work and he's helped me make some discoveries about myself." She faltered here. I squeezed her hand to encourage her to go on.

Glancing over, I could see Cindy had on her poker face.

"I'll come right out and say it: he says I'm asexual. He says I shouldn't feel bad that I don't feel any sexual desire. Not just with you, but with anyone. I never have, really. I've always had to force myself into... you know..." She made squishy joiny gestures with her hands.

"I've thought and thought about how to deal with my problem. I still love you very much and feel close and connected and attracted to you in, uh, non-physical ways. And I know you have needs that I can't satisfy without feeling, uh, you know. So what I thought was: what if you could take care of those needs with someone else?"

"Cindy is, well, she's willing to help us..." I glanced over and Cindy had a tightly controlled look on her face, while her gray eyes were calculating and appraising. I felt like I was being sized up, like she might want to examine my teeth or something.

"Anyway, I wanted to tell you about this. I'm sure you have many questions. But I want you two to get a chance to talk about it, just between you. I'll be waiting at home. I hope... well, I am doing this for you, for us."

Susan got up and I stood, thinking to go with her. I started to speak, but she shushed me. "Just talk to Cindy about it."

Then she was gone.

"Well," Cindy started, "quite an announcement, hey? Bet you could use a drink. I know that's making me thirsty."

"You could say that again. Of all the things that could have happened, I never saw that coming. She let you in on this before?"

"A couple weeks ago. It took some time for me to agree to this chat. I don't normally like taking up with married men: too life shortening to get caught playing pat-a-cake like that."

"I get it. What changed your mind?"

"Partly, you did. I mean, realistically, your marriage probably just walked out that door two minutes ago. Maybe not right away. Oh, you'll try and try to understand. You'll think maybe the therapist will have a breakthrough or needs a punch on the nose. Or she'll have a weak moment."

But she's given you a hell of a gift. You get that itch and now you won't have to go months or years wondering if you did something wrong not to merit it being scratched."

"I don't understand. We used to 'do it'. Never the Sexual Olympics, but not nothing, you know? A guy likes to think he knows when she's faking it."

"I'm sure he does. Maybe it's not even fake, if she tries hard enough. Still, you have some tough choices."

"You have no idea."

"I think I might. I'm pretty observant and this is a small neighborhood. Tongues wag. Drapes don't get drawn. That sort of thing." My heart was back in my throat: what did Cindy know?

"I'm pretty sure," she went on, "that Peter's little cut didn't just 'selectively' heal up, the way he's going to say pretty soon that it did when little Belle starts spreading her news. I don't know if you've hit the target there yet or not, but she's going to catch eventually."

"I'm pretty sure it was a hole in one," I replied.

"And, of course, Ms. Mary has the hots for you and will do anything at all to get you into the sack. I bet her photo collection is fascinating!"

"I bet it is. Puppies and rainbows and unicorns in every one of them."

"No doubt. But let's talk about us. I could, er, facilitate your adventures. Your Susan could think you're taking care of my plumbing while you lay pipe elsewhere in the neighborhood. And I have to admit, nothing warms the leathery recesses of my heart more than the thought of that rascal, Pete, pushing a big brood of kids around to the park, knowing that little Belle is getting her bell rung in the one way he can't touch. Between you and I we could ensure her belly is never anything but round for a good long while."

"And Mary, well, we can manage her, so long as you avoid making her bulge with the vast collection of rugrats she envisions getting on you. But Cindy, you ask, what's in it for you?"

"The thought had crossed my mind."

"It's simple. I made Susan a deal and I can make one with you as well, one where my needs get met."

"That sounds unorthodox."

"You'll find it more so when you find out what my needs entail. I'll warn you now: I have your best interests at heart and eventually and I'm a woman who can appreciate what you have to offer. But I have rules and we play by those rules. You don't have to agree to them, in which case I slap you on your butt and this talk never happened. But if you do, know that I'll cut your balls off if you break them."

"Present circumstances notwithstanding, I'm a man of my word."

"I don't doubt. But you haven't heard the rules yet. First, discretion. You don't tell anyone and neither do I. Second, fidelity. You'd find me a willing and experienced partner, but I don't share. With anyone. Not even your wife."

"Now, there's three exceptions to that rule. First, we both know you're taking care of Belle's nesting instincts. I want to keep that up. I wasn't kidding that you and I would conspire to ensure she stays on maternity leave for a good long while."

"Second, I know you're being blackmailed by Mary and it suits my purposes for now to keep things hushed up. So you need to keep her mouth shut. While I work on how to get you out of that, it probably means plugging her dike with more than your thumb. But you have to be careful. If you knock her up, I will ensure that your name appears next to hers on a marriage license. And I somehow suspect that's worse as a fate to you than cutting your balls off."

"And third?" I inquired.

"Someday, perhaps sooner, perhaps later. I will have another woman in my bed with us. I will insist that you seed her and breed her so that you can make her your proper wife. You won't have any say in who she is or what she looks like, but I promise you'll be happy."

"But until then, well, you walked in here thinking the world is one way and now, here it is, pretty definitely another. I think you have lots to offer me. If you agree to my terms, why don't you take me upstairs and start showing me what that is?"

We both stood and she regarded me as I thought about it.

She was almost as tall as me and we looked directly into each other's eyes. The urge to walk out and find Susan was there. But her words had made sense to me. I stepped up and put my arms out to embrace her, thinking how weird it felt to even be thinking of my older neighbor as a sexual being. But she snuggled in nice and close. The first kiss was unromantic, just lips touching. But feeling her breasts between us and the way her hips moved sent the usual signals: woman, lover. My loins surged in response.

Kissing, it seems, improves with practice. Then we went upstairs to her boudoir. Her bed was all pink and frilly and perfectly made. She pulled the comforter all the way off, baring the surface for our activities. I pulled her to me again, enjoying her height. I let one hand inside her sweater, feeling the warmth of her bare back. My other hand pinched her big black plastic hair clip, letting her ponytail down. She put one hand on my shoulder and the other around my waist, as if she were going to swing around me like a pole.

More kissing ensued, as we swayed next to one another, getting used to the feel of our bodies being embraced. Could I really be here, guided by my wife, ready to make love to the widow McGill? With her blessing? And where had that confession of asexuality come from? If I agreed to Cindy's rules, it meant no going back. My thoughts were turbulent.

My body, however, didn't feel a ripple, just a flood of confused need. I could tell she could feel my hardness swelling up my pants between us. I danced her back towards the bed.

"You don't waste time, but you're not in a rush. I like that," she said.

"I like doing a quality job. You approve?"

"You haven't heard me complain yet. I think you'll recognize when I do." She sat on the bed and let her hands go to my belt. The black leather unhooked easily from the worn buckle.

"I like to get a feel for what I'm working with," she said, being careful with the button then the zipper. I mussed her hair a bit with one hand, considering my next move.

"Pardon me while I go fishing," she said, her fingers fishing around inside my boxers. Her hand was slim and long fingered, carefully manicured... and icy cool.

"Does it meet the limit or will you have to throw it back?"

"I've caught bigger fish. But this is no anchovy."

She dipped her mouth down and licked at the leaking tip. "Salty! I can't abide those freshwater species," she added, before seizing the tip in her mouth. This shut her up for a while, as she concentrated on trying to swallow it whole.

She was definitely onto something, but it seemed like I was making her do all the work. So I reached down and pulled the sweater up and off, turning it inside out in the process. She grinned at me once the offending garment was deposited on the floor. Her body was a natural redhead's, densely covered in freckles, and rail thin. You could see her ribs outlined and a strong collarbone. Her belly was soft, slightly pooched by age, but still taut. Her breasts stood out from that theme, curvy and encased in satin sheen magenta bra. The straps were thin and bit into her skin a bit, while the cups were solid rather than lacy, the better to hide her own arousal.

I fumbled at the one hook holding the whole contraption together. Apparently I'd forgotten how to work such a simple appliance. But I mastered the recalcitrant part. There was some sagging as the support ebbed away, but not that much. Her breasts assumed their natural shape, conical and tipped in huge nipples somewhere darker than I would have expected.

"I seem to have found a sizeable catch of my own. Can I keep them?"

"They should have been consumed fresh. These are stale and only suitable as decoration. Someday I'm going to find you a pair you'll want to latch onto."

"Well, they are at least very decorative. Perhaps I should have them stuffed and mounted?" I pushed my pants down and off, the better to climb into the bed with her. Then drew off my shirts. She held eye contact as I climbed onto the bed with her and we kissed again. Her height made every sensation novel: feet and knees were paired up. Her covered bits aligned just right with my now uncovered ones. With my left hand, I weighed one quite satisfactory teat, letting my thumb caress the tip. She shuddered slightly with each careful stroke.

"Careful, tiger, I might get excited."

"Huh. I thought I was the one riding the tiger. It's best not to stop--I might get devoured"

She rolled back and reached down to undo her pants. I pushed her hands away.

"Let me explore a bit. Seems I need to get familiar with the landscaping." It's her turn to grin as I undid the snap. Her hips were a little narrow and I had to sit up to pull her pants off. Black Keds disgorged long, narrow feet. There's pink nail polish on each little piggie. She had very long legs, thin almost to emaciation, not toned but still spare.

Under the denim, she's wearing panties, plain and white. Not quite Mother Hubbard's, but something above a bikini cut. I started kissing at her right knee, making plain my intention to make a close inspection. She lays back approvingly, prepared to enjoy the ride. I took my time climbing up. Her bush is graying and trimmed. There's a narrow C-section scar at a cross angle to tight pink labia.

"These hips weren't built to push them out," she says, as I touch the scar. "But those years are past for you and I. Don't worry, I'm going to find a ripe belly to carry yours into the world--the ones we don't plant in Belle."

"Mmm," I reply, non-committally. My mouth is busy in other places. Those lips part and her entrance flops open. This is a well-travelled pussy. In spite of her thinness, she's loose inside. I have one and then two fingers; then three and all four. She's urging me to get my hand up inside her. Her wetness coats my hand and she's begging for me to give it to her. Good thrusts up deep inside. My middle finger brushes her cervix way back there. She's groaning my name pretty fast. "Get it in there. Fuck that pussy with your hand. Make it hurt, daddy."

We go a while, with my other hand keeping me ready for the main event. I pull my hand out with a squishy pop and dry it somewhat on the bed while climbing up to greet her. Cindy reaches down to find my cock, tug it a couple times, then up to spit into her fingers. She moistens the tip and is guiding it to her center as I finally reach the point of kissing her.

"Fuck me hard, cum in me, and our deal is on," she says.

"Sure you don't want to marry me?"

"I want your children and no, not from Belle. They'll be mine, from another mother."

I enter her. She's got a long loose tunnel, relaxing to feel around me, not all tight and jittery like a jackrabbit. My cock is pleasantly warm, not gripped maniacally. Her hips move in perfect rhythm with mine, just the right amount of flex in her legs. She varies her pelvic angle thus and so and we're both moaning.

"Cum in me, you cheating bastard and make yourself my man. Breed my worn out useless cunt so I can use you for my pleasure and stud you out to make my babies." This is novel and unexpected. It's nasty, but hot. I'm thickening up, ready to blast my cream into her depths.

She sees that I hear and understand her. She feels me swelling up inside her.

"That's right, Mister, now you understand. I'm going to ruin the life you had, but I'm going to give you everything you ever wanted and more."

I cross the point of no return.

She holds me gently as I flutter back to Earth, my spend filling her.

It's a while before I'm prepared to face up to what has happened. I have to go home and talk to Susan, who must know what I've just done. Cindy squeezes my shoulder and pinches my butt on the way out.

As I walk through the cool night air back towards my house, I pass Mary's. She's sitting on her porch, waiting. "Well, stranger, you're later than I expected. Thought I'd forgotten you?" Then, quoting the movie, "You've got a touch of class, but I don't know how far you can go."