The Beginning of the End Ch. 01

Author's note: This is my first foray into the world of writing NTR/cuckold, so I'm a little nervous to post this, and I really hope it resonates with people. I definitely prefer slow burn, emotional stories in this genre, so this might not be for you if you just want something that jumps into the action. This also came out quite a bit longer than I'd intended so despite proofing it several times, I'm sure some typos and mistakes made it through. If you have any feedback, suggestions, or questions, feel free to contact me. Enjoy!

Despite its name, The Grand was anything but. The floor was covered in peanut shells and sticky with dried beer. The windows were filthy enough to filter half the sunlight, and the entire bar was thick with the heady scent of cigarette smoke and mildew. Ancient speakers mounted in the corners wheezed some grunge song from the mid 90s, the type his dad liked, with a bunch of lyrics you could barely make out through the singer's wailing. It was the kind of place Phillip would frequent during his time in school, when all he cared about was finding the cheapest way to get wasted. The kind of place in which none of his clients would be caught dead. Perfect for a clandestine meeting.

That didn't stop his wife from nervously glancing at the door each time someone walked in though. Talia had barely spoken a word on the ride here, and was still silent now. Absently swiping on her phone without really reading, an untouched glass of beer beside her. Phillip reached out and placed his hand atop hers.

"We can leave if you want to." He'd made the same offer a dozen times today, each time more worried than the last that she might take him up on it. Luckily, her answer this time was the same as always.

"No... I said I would do it." There was an edge to her voice. A tiny fragment of resentment that lodged itself in his heart. Or it would have, if he wasn't so excited. He took a deep sip from his own glass to steady himself.

Talia lowered her phone as the door swung open again, but when a biker sporting a lengthy beard walked in she propped her chin up on that table with a huff and continued her scrolling. "Are you sure she's coming? She's ten minutes late already."

"Sara has always run on her own time. She'll be here," He assured her.

Talia was a stickler for punctuality, among other things, and while it was nice that it wasn't him on the receiving end, for once, he hoped Sara would get here soon. His wife's patience was wearing thin, and her agreement was hanging by a thread already. The last thing he needed was for Talia and Sara to start off on the wrong foot.

"Mhm," she muttered, "Tell me again how you know this woman?"

"She's a friend from high school. We used to hang out all the time." She raised an eyebrow at him. "There's no history. Promise. She's out of my league anyways."

He knew it was a mistake as soon as the words left his lips. She snapped her phone facedown on the table, leaving two fingers pressed into it as she narrowed her eyes. He held his hands up defensively. "It was just a joke! I never had any feelings for her or anything. We just always got along well. Kindred spirits."

It wasn't a lie. Not exactly. There had never been any romance between him and Sara, but that night... The image came to him unbidden, as it often did. A darkened room, still spinning. The sounds of a dozen sleeping students passed out around him. A single bar of moonlight cutting through the gap between the window and the blinds. Glinting off the rim of her glasses, curving along the swell of her breasts. Shining back at him in her sapphire eyes as she gasped quietly beside him.

Talia let her tension go with a sigh. The sound pulled him back to reality. "Sorry Phillip, I'm just nervous."

"We can-"

"Stop!" Her voice grew quieter. "I said I'll do it."

"Thank you, Talia." She finally took a sip of her beer, and reluctantly smiled at him. God, she was gorgeous.

Sometimes he still wondered how he'd managed to score a woman like her. Even with her conservative attire -a white, sleeveless sweater and billowing skirt that ran to her ankles- the signs of her beauty were impossible to hide.

The baggy sweater folded forward, hanging off the shelf of her breasts, and the way it cinched at her waist made her figure obvious despite her efforts. Her exposed arms were slender and well toned from daily visits to the gym, and the way that skirt swayed as she walked contoured her flared hips, hinting at the plump, heart-shaped ass veiled within its folds.

Every man in the bar had stared as she swished her way to the restroom earlier. It was like that everywhere they went. Talia, oblivious to her beauty, but commanding an audience all the same. A fact that excited him to no end. Sara may have planted the first embers of perversion all those years ago, but seeing the way other men looked at Talia fanned the flames. Perhaps tonight, if he was lucky, he would finally be free to let them burn.

He studied her from behind steepled hands. Watched the scrolling rectangles of light reflected in her eyes. Beautiful as her body was, those eyes were his favorite thing about her. Hazel, but so light they were nearly golden. Whenever they met his, he was captivated. Held in thrall by their intensity. Talia looked up, pinning him to the spot, then looked past him, focusing on the door as it creaked open yet again.

She uncrossed her legs, and began smoothing her skirt with a frown. Phillip twisted to follow her gaze, wondering why she was so restless, and felt his jaw go slack as the new arrival began to saunter towards them. Sara still wore glasses, delicate black frames, just wide enough to extend past her cheeks, but nothing else about her was the same.

Her hair was a deep brunette so dark it was nearly black, save a single bleached blonde streak that ran the length of it. It was much longer than in her profile picture, which he now realized was woefully out of date. Extending past her shoulders, it was thrown back on one side, and fell forward in gentle waves on the other, the blonde streak snaking its way into the deep valley of her cleavage.

She wore a black tee, although it was more like a scrap of fabric, sheared at the collar to expose both shoulders, and cropped at the bottom, displaying her soft, flat midriff. Floral tattoos covered the exposed ivory skin, leading the eye to dangerous places. They converged at her chest, where a circle a few inches below her collarbone was inset with a feline eye, warped by the curvature of her breasts.

Distressed denim, so tight that it appeared to be painted on, hugged her slender legs until it was swallowed by a dramatic pair of heeled leather boots. Rips in the thighs revealed that the tattoos continued down her legs. Phillip wondered where else they might reach. With each step closer, her hips swung like a metronome, marking the breaths of every man in the bar.

She smiled at them and flashed a peace sign, oblivious -or pretending to be- of the silence that had fallen over the room. Phillip did his best to smile back, but seemed to have forgotten how. Beside him Talia was squeezing fistfuls of pleated fabric. She glanced at him, and caught him watching her.

"She is out of your league," she whispered as Sara stopped at the bar to order. He certainly couldn't argue.

Gone was the shy, bookish girl he remembered. In her place was this dark siren, exuding confidence as she tapped her foot to the music, leaning against the bar and chatting effortlessly with the bartender.

He reminded himself to breathe as Sara finished her conversation and strutted toward them, a beer in one hand, and three shot glasses caught between her fingers in the other. She laid one in front of him, and another in front of Talia.

"You looked like you could use these," she said, turning to Talia and extending a hand, "Sara. Phillip's told me so much about you."

His wife gave him a look that said they'd discuss exactly how much he'd told her later, but she shook the outstretched hand, saying only, "Talia."

Sara sat and raised her shot glass, looking at each of them in turn. He did his best to gather his composure, and took the glass. It was filled with brown liquid. The Sara he knew hadn't enjoyed drinking. Both of them had changed, he reminded himself, even if his transformation wasn't quite as drastic.

"To new adventures." Sara said with a wink.

The whiskey burned, and Phillip found himself coughing as Sara slammed her glass down rim first, and Talia gently placed hers on the table.

"How did the two of you two meet?" Sara asked.

Talia gestured for him to go ahead, so he cleared his throat, and told Sara the story.

It was six years ago, in his third year of college. Talia was younger, and in a different major, but they shared an economics class and ended up working together on a project.

His wife was type A personified, and had quickly taken charge, giving out orders and deadlines like a queen at court. The other members of their group resented her, but in the end they'd gotten a perfect score, and her rigorous schedule had allowed him to focus on other classes while the other groups were rushing to finish at the last minute.

On the last day of class, he'd finally managed to work up the courage to ask her to dinner. As expected, she'd immediately turned him down. What he hadn't expected, however, was for her to return the favor the following semester. Bad timing, she'd said, though he'd always wondered. Within a year they were sharing an apartment, and after two more they were engaged.

"...and it's been three years now." He wrapped up.

Talia looked to Sara and said, "Phillip says the two of you were friends in high school?"

"We were," Sara smiled, gazing into her beer as she remembered the past, "I was still figuring some things out back then, and he was a good friend."

"And what do you do now?" Talia followed up. Phillip knew she would have more questions about their past later, especially after seeing Sara. He'd need to dig up an old photo to prove that she used to be just as plain as him.

"I'm an entertainer." Sara's glasses had slid down, and she pushed them up the bridge of her nose with a knuckle as she looked up at Talia to clarify, "an adult entertainer."

Talia blinked, stammering out, "Oh. That's..." and looked at him.

Luckily, Sara saved him the effort of finding a graceful follow up by laughing and saying, "I get that reaction a lot."

"I'm sorry, I was just surprised. I've never met someone in your... field. Phillip said you were a straight A student."

"I was. I even made it into my top choice for college, but I dropped out after a year. This life is more my style." Her grin was all too familiar. Phillip drank deeply to hide his face. "What about you two?"

"Phillip works for Holden Insurance." Talia said, "I'm a software developer."

They continued from there, following the same script that small talk always did. They were still in an apartment uptown. They'd tried to buy a condo but the seller went with another offer. Phillip was expecting a bonus this year. All the boring minutia of post-graduation life. Sara avoided the topic of her "career," apparently preferring to keep the conversation about them.

Phillip had to admit, though, that he was as surprised as Talia. It was disappointing to learn that she'd thrown away such a promising academic career. Hopefully not for that asshole jock from the party. He doubted it, since he'd never seen her with him after that, but then again, he'd never worked up the courage to ask about what happened, and she'd never again spoken of the night that ruined him. They'd graduated without ever acknowledging it, and drifted apart. Even when he messaged her last month, he'd been careful to word his inquiry in just the right way. Nothing to indicate that what had probably been nothing more than a drunken indulgence for her, had warped him forever.

Throughout the bar, heads turned as other patrons glanced their way, trying to figure out what someone like him was doing at a table with women of their caliber. He didn't blame them. Phillip wasn't ugly, but he was wholly unremarkable. At five seven, skinny (though leaning toward pudgy these days), and with a soft face that caused him to be mistaken for a girl throughout his childhood, which he now perennially hid behind a patchy beard, he was far from the masculine ideal.

It wasn't all bad, though. Unlike many of his friends, he still had a thick head of hair; his boyish face at least gave him a youthful vigor, despite having run out of twenties; and most importantly, he had a beautiful, loving wife. In many ways his life was the best it had even been, but he'd definitely left behind the more ambitious dreams of his younger years. Something he dwelled on more and more as his thirtieth birthday loomed.

Maybe that was why he'd finally worked up the courage to be honest with Talia. To tell her that their sex life was a little too... conservative, for his tastes. She hadn't taken it well at first, but after a while she'd given up on the silent treatment and asked what she could do. His wife never could stand the idea that she wasn't good at something. A fact he'd been counting on.

Talia eventually warmed up to Sara, and before he knew it both women were drinking casually, discussing their lives. Philip began to see that, despite her appearance, Sara really was the same person. Her habit of constantly pushing her glasses up, even when she didn't need to, remained. So did her tendency to deliver the occasional cutting remark. She'd always had a talent for suddenly and mercilessly driving a dagger through your heart, and her newfound social grace hadn't blunted her edge.

"Wait!" Sara interjected, "You've already been promoted twice, but he's still in the same position as three years ago?" She traced her index finger along the rim of her glass, "I guess we know who the breadwinner is. You'd better be careful, Phil, or she'll realize she can do better."

The remark was delivered like a joke, but while Talia laughed, Sara remained silent. Watching him. Sending a chill down his spine. Her lips curved upward as though she could tell. Maybe she could, in her line of work.

"Tell me about your tattoos," Talia said, "I want to know what they mean, especially this one." She pointed to the eye.

Sara placed a hand over it. The motion was careful, almost reverent. "This one is for my master. To show that I belong to him." Talia tensed, and her cheeks went red. Sara watched her with a gentle smile. "What's to be embarrassed about? I thought that's what you two were here for."

"I um..."

Talia looked to him for help, so he finished with, "we didn't realize this was so," he searched for the right word, "intense."

"Oh, don't worry. There are degrees of engagement, and I'm in pretty deep. For me this is a lifestyle, but plenty of people just have the occasional night of fun." She laid one hand atop Talia's, "No one expects you to get a tattoo. Or to do anything you don't want to. We can take this at your pace."

"I see." Talia was clearly uncomfortable with the other woman's touch, but she didn't move her hand. "I appreciate that."

"Phillip isn't bullying you into this is he?" Sara pursed her lips. "This only works if you're willing."

Phillip squeezed his hands together. His heart pounded in his chest while Talia considered, watching him. He did his best to keep his face neutral, but inside he panicked. He'd spent so much effort convincing her to agree to this, only for Sara, of all people, to risk ruining it. She was a fucking porn star now. Wasn't she the freaky one?

Eventually, though, Talia answered Sara the same way she had him. "No, I'll admit I'm a little nervous, but I said I would give this a try. For his sake."

Thank god!

"If you say so," Sara let Talia have her hand back, and Phillip doubted that Sara missed how quickly Talia pulled it away, once free. "Are you sure you don't want to meet Damian before we do this? Usually guys want to see the man who is going to fuck their wife," she said, dryly.

Talia was crimson, checking to see if anyone had overheard as Phillip responded, "We already know he's clean, and you'll be there to make sure he follows the rules, right? I don't need to see him then. I know how this works." Phillip leaned back in his chair and took a swig. Sara waited patiently for him to finish, "He's some meathead type, I assume. All brawn, no brain."

Maybe that was a bit too far, this was someone that Sara cared enough about to get a permanent tattoo for, after all. He decided to add, "No offense."

"None taken." Her grin suggested that there was something funny about his statement, but before he could investigate, she turned her attention back to Talia. "If anything feels wrong, you can call things off anytime. We won't mind."

Talia seemed to catch the 'we' part, and asked, "You won't be...participating, though. Will you?"

"Only as the camerawoman. Don't worry, I do this for a living. No need to be embarrassed, I'm a consummate professional." Sara said, snickering at her own joke. Another habit she hadn't lost. "Is that okay with you?"

Talia nodded, so Sara turned to him. "Once we get to the hotel and everything is set up I'll call you, but when you answer it's go time. I'm going to put you on mute, from that point Talia will be the only one that can stop things. Are you sure you want this?"

Phillip's voice was hoarse as he forced out, "Yes."

"I think it's very cool of you to give this a try for your husband, Talia." Sara said as she stood, "Just be careful. It can be addicting."

*****

The ride to the hotel was as awkward as it was terrifying. When Talia wasn't holding on for dear life as Sara whipped her roadster through the city streets, she was desperately searching -and mostly failing- to find something to say that wasn't simply prying into the woman's career, or her past. The best she'd managed was to ask Sara about her car, but that simply led right back to the elephant in the room.

"I bought it to celebrate getting signed with my current agency," she said. Apparently the thing was already almost paid off.

Talia didn't think highly of the porn industry, though she admittedly knew very little, but as someone saddled with a mountain of student debt, she was beginning to rethink her opinion if it afforded Sara a car like this. Although she suspected not everyone would enjoy the same level of success. She slid her eyes leftward, and studied her husband's former best friend. A woman who wielded her beauty like a weapon. A weapon whose blade was honed to a fine edge.

Sara was skinny, but with just enough fat in all the right places. Her breasts were smaller than Talia's own, but Talia had nearly a foot on the woman, and on Sara's tiny frame they seemed the perfect size. Especially when paired with her petit waist. A waist that gave way to thin, supple looking legs with a prodigious gap between them. Talia tugged her sweater lower, attempting to cover her own soft thighs.

Loath as she was to admit it, she'd always been self conscious about her height, and the curves that seemed to come with it. Part of her knew that she was attractive. It didn't escape her that men tended to stare wherever she went, but that didn't mean much. Men stared at anyone, it wasn't exactly a high bar. Phillip never seemed to mind her height though, and that, at least, was something. Still, sitting next to a vixen like Sara had her wondering if this whole thing was a mistake.

As if she could read her mind, Sara turned and flashed her a reassuring smile before turning back to watch the road and saying, "There's nothing to be nervous about, this'll be fun. And if it's not, we can stop anytime, who cares?" Sara chuckled and added, "Besides Phillp, I mean."