The Dark Side

As we talked, I became convinced Allison was telling me the truth when we discussed how she'd drifted into a state of mind wherein her total focus was on her professional life to the detriment of her family, and marriage. She said she just didn't know why it had happened. She was perfectly willing to find out; she was ready to go into counseling to determine the reason if I really wanted to know, but she wasn't terribly concerned about it. She just didn't care why she withdrew from her daughters and me, because she'd quit the job that had created the situation, and that was that. A chapter in her life had ended and wouldn't—couldn't—be revived.

I understood what was happening to me. By even discussing these things with her, I was buying in to her contention that she'd reformed and wanted nothing more than to rebuild her relationship with her daughters and me. Knowing what was going on didn't help. Allison's earnest approach to everything concerned with her family and her willingness to listen, and change what was wrong, made an impact.

She was the mother of my two daughters, and I loved them more than I valued my own life. Some of that spilled over into my feelings for Allison. We'd committed ourselves to each other a long time ago and we'd been ecstatically happy for a long time. Living in the same house with her—my daughters wouldn't hear of her staying in the island's only boarding house—couldn't help but bring back into focus all the good times Allison and I had had together.

We weren't sleeping together, not yet, but I couldn't help but see that was on the horizon. I just didn't know whether I wanted to dive back into the marriage. I didn't like the sensation of not being in charge of my feelings—that the world was pushing me in a direction I might not want to go, but it was like being caught in a riptide. I wasn't sure I could break free.

It'd happened to me once before. I hadn't been comfortable with what I had with Allison's sister, Tricia, way back when. I'd felt much the same way I was feeling now. Then, Tricia's betrayal killed our relationship in an instant and I'd been supremely happy. I didn't see any such cathartic event occurring to save me this time and I didn't know whether I'd be happier or sadder if we didn't restart our relationship. Allison's efforts at regaining her daughters' respect and love were bearing fruit, and I was being carried right along with the undertow.

* * *

I was surprised on a Friday evening a month and a half after Allison's new tattoo was revealed when Danielle invited me to come over to her place. Unfortunately, the bond between Danielle and me had been slowly withering away and we hadn't spent much time alone of late, though Danielle was a frequent visitor at my home. She and Allison, sometimes with the girls and often without, would go shopping together and sit next to each other engaged in lengthy conversations. It was seriously surreal.

I left my office just after supper time, having told Allison and the girls I would be out late that night. I didn't ask; I simply told them I wouldn't be home at the regular time.

"Salut, cherie," Danielle greeted me affectionately at her front door. I got a nice kiss and when I wrapped my arms around her waist, I got another, longer, one. "We're going to have a guest," she remarked softly. "I think you will like her," she added.

That meant Danielle had organized another threesome, our first since Allison had jumped back in my life. After a second, I grinned. It seemed to me, this was just what I needed to break me out of the doldrums and move my emotions a little away from my wife—give me a little space.

"Shower!" Danielle commanded, smiling. "by yourself...," she added.

I been about to suggest she could join me in getting wet and soapy, but she knew darned well, we wouldn't be out of the shower any time soon if we did that. I sighed dramatically but obediently strolled down the hall to her bathroom.

When I came out of the shower with only a towel around my waist, Danielle was there, naked and smiling. We made out for a few minutes, stroking and caressing each other. Danielle undid my towel and tossed it back inside the bathroom and led me to her bedroom.

Inside, her room was lit only by a couple of very low-wattage lamps on the nightstands on either side of her bed. That was plenty. I could see a woman laying face-down on Danielle's bed with her face turned away. The woman's wrists were secured in handcuffs whose chain links were around the far bedpost.

The woman eased herself up on her knees, hiked her ass up in the air and looked over her shoulder at Danielle and me. I swallowed hard. It was Allison.

Abruptly, I was more angry than I was aroused. I held out my palm to Danielle. "Key!" I demanded. Without a word, Danielle took the key off the dresser beside her and handed it to me without comment.

Going around the bed and kneeling at the head of the bed, I unlocked the cuffs and tossed them away. "Never again," I swore, but I didn't get off the bed, and my right hand was suddenly caressing Allison's beautifully rounded ass cheeks. I hadn't realized until that moment what I was doing, but even when I did understand, I didn't even try to quit.

Allison turned over and pulled me down atop her for a long, deep kiss. It was like the kisses we'd shared when we'd first become a couple. I felt Danielle climb up on the bed from the other side.

"Okay, you two," she admonished Allison and me, "this is MY party and I get to say what we do, comprendre?" She shoved me gently to the side and got between Allison's wide-spread legs.

"Russ, baby?" Danielle said quietly, "would you mind if I fucked your pussy?" I hadn't noticed she'd used the time while Allison and I were making out to don a strap-on. Now I could see it bobbing around obscenely as Danielle wriggled her hips. She was grinning naughtily.

It took me a moment. She'd said the phrase, "your pussy" matter-of-factly, the same way she'd have asked to use a ballpoint or something. I shot a glance down at Allison's groin. In the dim light of the bedroom, I couldn't actually read the word, " Russ' " but I knew it was there. I guess I took too long.

"Please, honey?" Allison cooed. "She'll be done with it in a minute and then you can take me," she coaxed.

I'd been a cop too long; I just did not believe in coincidences. This whole thing was scripted—it was a choreographed happening. Allison's pussy was marked as "belonging" to me and both women were acting as if I had to give permission for its use. On the other hand, I couldn't see anywhere this might lead that was bad for me. I was hard as a steel spike and my brain on fire. All I could do was nod, but it was enough.

Danielle spread her knees to settle herself a little lower, fisted the plastic penis and put its tip between Allison's pussy lips. Then she pressed slowly inside. No foreplay. No working to get the juices flowing. No nothing. Just put the toy in and go to town with it. This wasn't like Allison at all. She liked lots of kissing and touching before penetration, but ... what the hell? So she'd prepared herself earlier, and so what if this whole thing was preplanned? She clearly wasn't in any pain and she signaled her approval by lifting her legs high in the air and grasping her ankles to keep herself spread wide open.

I watched as Danielle bore inward, driving the fake cock deep into Allison's vagina before withdrawing, and then thrusting deep again. In a moment, Allison was arching herself upward in time to Danielle's inward plunge. They gradually worked up to a steady rhythm, accompanied by a series of grunts and tiny squeals from Allison.

Allison pulled me up on my knees close to her face so she could take my dick in her mouth. It wasn't to make me hard; I could have pounded nails with my prick already. A few minutes later, Danielle bent over and pulled my cock out of my wife's mouth so she could kiss Allison.

When she straightened up, Danielle shot me a glance and grinned naughtily at me. She wriggled her hips and slapped her left butt cheek. She captured my dick in her left hand and pulled me behind her. I didn't need any further invitation. A couple of seconds later, I was deep inside Danielle's vagina and fucking her steadily. It took us a little while—I'd never done this before, and to the best of my knowledge, neither had Allison—but before long I was slamming my hard-on into Danielle and the momentum from that was plunging the strap-on's dildo into Allison. It was slower than I was accustomed to, but very, very satisfying to hear two women moaning and whimpering little cries of anguish.

Allison came first, her face screwed up into a mask that would have meant intense pain in another context. Danielle and I didn't stop. I kept ramming myself deep inside Danielle and our movement was slamming the fake cock deep inside Allison. Protesting, Allison was being swept along in another mounting drive to an orgasm. She reached it in a few more minutes and this time, Danielle joined her. Danielle was a little vocal when she climaxed and spent the last minute of our hard-driving fuck yelling at me to fuck her harder and harder.

It wasn't long before Danielle screamed, lifted her face to the ceiling and drove the strap-on cock deep inside Allison and held herself immobile, save for some rapid and delicate shudders that overwhelmed her for a long moment. I came hard, powering my dick as deep as I could into Danielle's volcanic, clutching cunt and spraying her insides with my come. I thought, but I wasn't certain, that Allison came a third time because she was writhing underneath Danielle with crumpled sections of the sheets gripped tightly in her fingers.

Danielle flopped on her back beside Allison, lifted her hips to sweep the strap-on down her legs and off. She tossed it; I didn't even look to see where it landed. Danielle pulled Allison atop her for a long kiss and then splayed her legs wide.

To my surprise, Allison knelt with her head between Danielle's thighs and began licking Danielle's pussy lips. So far as I'd known, Allison had never been bi curious, but there she was, enthusiastically tonguing Danielle's sex. Danielle had a fine control over her vagina, she could a creampie back out to coat her pussy lips, and she did exactly that for Allison to lap up. Apparently, Allison was not bi "curious", she'd moved across the dial to full-scale bi practice. I didn't know what to think.

* * *

We took a break then for food and some of Danielle's favorite wine. We talked companionably for a while, then Danielle played videos she'd downloaded from some porn site of amateur threesomes. She pointed out things we could do and then initiated them in front of her TV so we could critique the on-screen performance and mimic those things we thought interesting. We kept going for a long while with frequent breaks and showers. Before we were finished, we'd done a little bit of everything two women and a man can do with each other that doesn't involve pain.

The women finished the evening off by giving me a long, dual blowjob that went on and on. I'd come several times and, while I was still hard, there wasn't much left in my balls. When I was finally ready to come, Danielle gave me over to Allison who told me emphatically she wanted me to come in her mouth. Then, at the last moment, Danielle pulled my dick out of my wife's mouth and aimed the tip of my cock at Allison's nose. I couldn't help it, I sprayed my come over Allison's face. I surprised myself. I'd thought there would only be a thin brew coming from my balls this late in the game, but I managed a thick fountain of semen that splashed on her cheeks and lips.

"You want to be a slut," Danielle hissed viciously to my wife when Allison would have complained, "you be a whole slut ... for your husband!" Then she began to lick the come from Allison's face.

I didn't entirely understand that moment. Allison had never been shy about giving me blowjobs, and it wasn't unheard of for her to swallow, but she would never agree for me to erupt on her face. But she'd just done that without even trying to escape, and then accepted a stinging rebuke from Danielle without protest. Something besides hot, steamy sex was going on.

The blowjob put an exclamation point on the evening's entertainment. We were all three worn out and ready to call it a night. Danielle told Allison and me to shower in the master bath room with its larger shower stall while she would use the guest bathroom.

Normally, I love shower sex. There's something about a naked woman, lots of slickery soap, and hot spraying water that gets my motor running.

...But not this time. Allison and I spent a long time just enjoying the intimacy, kissing and stroking each other, but the fire was gone from the evening.

When we came out of the bath wrapped in huge towels, Danielle was gone. She left us a note on the bed where the three of us had spent several hours of pleasure.

* * *

Mes amis, this has been a wonderful partir -- a going-away party?

I know I didn't tell you, but I must return to France, to my home there.

Russell Chambers, I do not know another man such as you.

I could spend the rest of my life with you if things were not as they are.

I will not forget you.

Allison, I give your man back to you. It makes me sad, but

I think it is more right for you to stay with your husband

to make him happy.

But, mon amie, if you are so stupide ever again I will be there

and I will never let him go.

Danielle

(Please leave the front door unlocked.

I have a woman coming in the morning to clean the house.)

* * *

Allison and I dressed, then walked home in the darkness to my—our—home. We didn't talk much, but we held hands the whole way and we slept in each other's arms for the first time in, literally, years.

EPILOGUE

So what was I to do? My children wanted their mother and father back together. They'd forgiven Allison; it seemed certain she'd turned over a new leaf and renounced the things she'd done to drive our family apart. She'd quit the job that had seduced her away from her marriage and—there was that damned tattoo. There was no getting around the pain she'd endured and the commitment it conveyed. On a balance sheet, there were any number of reasons to try again with Allison and almost nothing on the debit side.

...So it seemed I was fenced in, and there was no real way out. On the other hand, if it was a trap, it was surely a velvet lined one. The Allison I'd married was back, and the mother Megan and Evelyn had had, was there again, reincarnated and working hard for her children.

There's an old song that goes, "Love is lovelier the second time around...."

It seemed to apply to Allison and me, but it didn't happen overnight by any stretch of the imagination. We were in our late forties and were both mature, capable people. We could have lived apart for the rest of our lives—we'd proved that already. Instead, we found a new love.

We'd fallen in love many years ago. Building on that, and a mutual love of two wonderful children, we worked hard to be in love again. I don't know that we achieved what we'd have had if I hadn't broken down Allison's office door that day, but we did find something that was just as good.

Very curiously, Allison never brought up the time I'd spent in Danielle's bed before and after Allison's arrival on the island. In a strange way, I think Allison equated my relationship with Danielle with the relationship I'd had with her sister, Tricia. Allison had worked to separate me and Tricia —she'd been dirty and underhanded in the process. She worked hard to separate Danielle and me and she had, in her own way, been ruthless in her campaign to do that. I believe in some fashion in Allison's mind, there was no difference between the two events. I was more certain than ever Allison would benefit from some professional counseling.

I probably could have done with a bit of counseling myself. I had to deal with a lot of guilt at having dragged my daughters into dangerous situations needlessly. It could have all been avoided if I'd only checked one time to see if I was actually wanted, but I never did. I was so thoroughly convinced, I never thought to make sure. I never knew how I'd developed a blind spot that huge.

From little bits of conversation Allison and I had in later years, she was aware Danielle's threesome party that last night had been intended as a "changing of the guard" of sorts. On the other hand, Allison had not known Danielle would force a facial upon her, though, and hadn't really appreciated the scolding she'd been forced to endure.

Allison wasn't bi-curious either. She'd tolerated Danielle's little party as the quickest way to get Danielle out of the picture. We never invited another woman into our bedroom after we got back together. In fact, Allison told me if I ever suggested such a thing, I'd never pee again without the assistance of a medically inserted device. I assured her that I'd never consider another woman, as long as my wife stayed my wife.

* * *

We returned to the States a few months after Danielle's going away party. Megan and Evelyn gave up their pistols—except for weekends out at a farm we bought—and went back into a conventional school system. I didn't give up my pistol; I felt naked in public without one but I did get a carry permit.

Allison and I started a private security agency. We shared the same office; neither of us commented on a need for that. There was no lock on our office door.

I ran the operational side and Allison ran the business divisions. With my expertise in various law enforcement issues and Allison's proven business acumen, we had a thriving business with offices in cities across four states just a few years later. We're doing very well, both professionally and privately.

Our daughters are working hard on becoming successful young women and seeming to be succeeding very well. Megan will be off to college soon. Photography hadn't lost its appeal to her, but she'd decided she wanted to go to law school, with a view to becoming a prosecuting attorney. Evelyn has decided to get an engineering degree and work on antique cars on her weekends. Both have boyfriends, but there doesn't appear to be anything serious yet.

Danielle calls Allison every once in a while—just to chat—and perhaps also to subtly remind Allison she will always be on probation. Danielle never went back to the island, having too many commitments in France to ever do that again. She has not gotten married either. I think knowing that keeps Allison on her toes and perhaps a little nervous.

Me? I know I reap the benefits of Allison's nervousness, if that's what it is. We've got a great thing going now, and we're both working hard to keep it.

THE END

* * *

The quote "love is lovelier the second time around is from the song, "The Second Time Around" and has been performed by various artists through the years. It was written by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn (1961).