The Epidemic

Bridgette brushed hair from her eyes. "You sure, darling?"

Karl nodded. "I wanna take my turn fucking you. I'm the husband. I..."

"No problem," David said, pulling out of Bridgette's wet, roomy vagina. Two daughters.. Bridgette looked over her shoulder.

"No, you don't understand, David. He...he has a bad heart. His cardiologist told us—"

"I don't give a shit about that right now," Karl said, sliding off the bed. "I'm your husband. He's not. I want to take a turn fucking my own goddamn wife."

"Karl...?"

"Let's switch," Karl repeated. He was standing now—if unsteadily. David backed away, off the bed.

"She's all yours."

"Talk about me like I'm a fucking whore why don't you, you guys."

"You are a whore," her husband said.

"Oh thanks."

"Letting another guy fuck you?"

"And what about you? Sucking another guy's cock."

That shut him up. That and the rising pain in his chest. He grasped it, the left side. He had one knee on the foot of the bed, but now he backed it off. Staggered.

"I need to...sit for a minute. I'll watch. I..."

"You OK?"

"Mind if I finish in her?" David was holding his idling cock, stroking it. Karl gave a dismissive wave.

It would be minutes later, maybe fifteen, before the couple's passion cries finished drowning out the husband's meek pleas for help.

The Following Saturday

David gunned the Jag. They were crossing the bridge to the distant beaches. The speedometer touched 95.

He was in the form-fitting driver's seat. He had control.

A smiling Bridgette sat beside him, in the other leather bucket. She was wearing some kind of minimalist, diaphanous, short-skirted beach dress over her patterned bikini. She was middle-aged, thick-bodied, but she would look hot—Hot!—as they walked along beach together or, later, frolicked in the tame gulf waters. All those midwestern tourists would look at her—look at David—and be jealous. From a distance his black bikini would merely look like a Speedo ripoff. Only he and Bridgette would know it was in fact a simple, laceless, microfiber women's panty. Their hips would bump as they walked in the wet sand. He would feel her sagging breasts when they knelt off-shore among the gently lapping waves. She would whisper in his ear that she was thinking about getting a boob job. She knew a doctor.

"Me too," David would joke, as something slithered past their kneels. A stingray? "Let's get out of here!"

Afterwards they would sip cocktails and share appetizers, fake grouper nuggets for instance, at Crappy's Tiki Bar & Grill on the Beach. And watch the sun set like a Nuclear Blast.

Then they would raise their umbrella-ladened, fruit-filled glasses to Karl, may he Rest In Peace.

Eight Days Earlier

An impatient Bridgette stood in the express lane at the grocery store. She had six items. The limit was 10.

The guy ahead of her had about the same number, including panty liners. For his wife or girlfriend, she guessed. He wasn't wearing a wedding band. He was tall and slender and younger than her but not, she rationalized, by all that much.

In front of him was an elderly lady—must've been 80 at least-who had just taken out her checkbook. A checkbook! In the express lane! What century was this?

As she'd pulled the elongated blue vinyl-covered booklet out of her voluminous purse something—a coin—had fallen to the floor. The man in line in front of Bridgette now bent to retrieve it.

Bridgette silently gasped as the man's shirttail lifted up, baring the lacy back of his waist.

Christ! What was with men these days?

Was it some kind of epidemic?