Ultimatum

Avril smiled. She has this way of doing it, beneath her blonde fringe, her teasing green eyes checking my expression. My wife has always talked with her eyes.

'So which are you?' she asked softly. She didn't elaborate right then and I was still in shock. My wife was sleeping with a German guy called Andreas and, panic struck, i had just insisted that this was OK. We could work with this. We could be modern. I mean, when you get hit with something as brutal as that, you stagger about a bit, reach for some kind of equilibrium, some way to stay upright. I watched her apply lippy to the lips that opened against his. I looked at the impossibly tight black leather dress that she wore to go out. i'd never seen the dress before. It was obviously new.

'I don't understand, which am I? What do you mean?' I mumbled, searching for calm inside my head.

She glanced across at me and for the first time ever it looked as though she thought me an idiot. I wasn't that. I wasn't a fool.

'Well, you've not blown your top. You've not demanded that I never see him again, so I presume that you're not going to try and fight him for me,' she observed calmly. She was rolling on stockings now, black seamed stockings. The leather dress seemed too short to hide the suspender straps, but it wasn't, just.

'I've seen the guy remember, you were out with him. He must spend an age in the gym. I've seen how small you look against him' I returned, hoping to seem reasonable.

'He would beat you up if you interfered' she observed casually. She seemed to savour the thought.

'Probably' i conceded. I hated violence. Truth be told I wasn't good at it either. I didn't have the physique.

'So, which are you?' she responded, impatient now, 'the sort of guy who pretends that this is a game. One where you farm me out for cock and imagine that I'm doing it to titillate you? Or are you the sort that needs to submit to a stronger man, someone more masculine than you?'

I blushed. That was preposterous! It was a crazy dichotomy and I rejected it all. Right now i was simply the husband who was cheated on. I was the poor sucker in shock. 'Don't be ridiculous!' i snorted.

She started to touch up her nails. Tonight, she wasn't going out to dinner with her sister. She wasn't dolling herself up for a girl's gossip night. She was seeing him! Again the look came from beneath her ash blonde fringe. She seemed super confident and I thought I knew why as well. He was cocking her.

'Well i need to tell Andreas, how you see yourself. I don't think he would tolerate someone who acts like they're in charge, a voyeur who wanted to watch us fuck. He wouldn't let you be that way with us. But he might accept it if you bent the knee to him, and thanked him for taking over.' She blew on her nails. The little announcement delivered pat, she seemed content to wait for my reply.

My mind was racing. Surely I was neither of those things! I was simply a married man who expected my wife to be faithful! But as i wasn't ready to punch the other guy's lights out, then I had to be something else. She had determined that.

'You once asked me if i would fuck another man, as part of our thing' she reminded me, 'well now I am, and I want to know what that means in your head. Andreas needs to know too, before he decides what to do with you.'

'We were drunk!' i insisted, 'we were drunk and that was years ago. You'd read that article about open marriage in Cosmopolitan!'

She nodded and pulled the leather boots onto her feet. They were ridiculously high heeled, surely impossible to walk on.

'We left it that I might try that. We said that if i did then i would tell you. I'm telling you now. We just need to know what you think that means for you' she responded logically. I couldn't refute that. There had been a conversation, but it was long ago. i thought that the idea had died.

'I could leave' I suggested bitterly.

'Yes, you could. Andreas might put you out of the house anyway' she observed. A cuff bracelet was fixed around her wrist. Perfume was squirted.

I drew a breath and i felt as though i was trying to suck down air through a scuba mask. The effort seemed immense. Avril was patiently watching me. She had just metaphorically stabbed me through the heart and now she watched the blood drain.

'Do you love him?' i asked, twitching with the anticipation of a terrible reply.

'Yes' she said. She said it so simply.

'Because he fucks you better' i said bitterly.

'Don't be vulgar, you're not a stupid man Ian. You know its more than that.' She crossed her legs and looked utterly hypnotic.

'But he fucks you better than me. You haven't wanted sex with me for weeks' i said lamely, reviewing the past month.

'Of course he does' she said as if i was willfully naive. Think about physique. Think about stamina. Think about masculine attitude! 'Andreas won't let you fuck me anymore. If you try, then I will tell him and there will be trouble.'

'So I'm a cuck' i said irritably.

'Yes' she said. 'But Andreas understands. Some men can't take the shock. Some men have to pretend that the arrangement is different now, but not dissolved entirely.'

I blinked at her. This was desperately opaque.

'In your head, you might pretend to yourself, to some of your little friends that you ask Andreas to fuck me because this is a voyeur thing. That would leave you, in your head, a shred of dignity.' Her gaze never left me as she spoke. She must have rehearsed this.

'And you'd play along with that?' I asked.

She smiled. 'Of course not! I love Andreas. I will date Andreas. He's coming with me to your sister's wedding. But we wouldn't hound you out of the house if you wanted to lie about things to some of your friends.'

I shook my head. This was crazy.

Avril whispered, 'Men pretend these things. It makes them still feel in control. You wouldn't tell them that you were only allowed to lick my sex now. You wouldn't tell them that was all that Andreas would allow.'

'Are those Andreas's terms then, the oral sex?' I murmured.

'Yes, if you need to pretend that way,' she said.

Dear god, they had talked loads about this. Avril had worked it all out, how it would seem, how it would feel and what it would entail.

'And if I'm the other kind of bloke, the sort that submits to your beau?' I asked.

She smiled. There was a pause. This must have seemed insanely sexy, at least it looked that way to her, delivering the ultimatum.

'Well then we come out as a threesome, and explain that i live with two men. One is uber masculine and the head of the home and the other is gentle and kind and generous and supportive.'

'And you fuck me once in a while?' I asked.

'No' she said laughing, 'Andreas won't allow that. But I would encourage you to go down on me. I like that and so would Andreas. We would be living honestly and differently.'

'And you would love me, somehow, in some way?' I asked, decimated now.

'That would be silly Ian. I can't love two men, but I would respect you for exploring what you truly are. We would defy the rules Ian. I think monogamy and competition are so dated....don't you?'

'You're a fucking bitch!' i snapped.

She picked up her mobile. There might be a need to make an urgent call.

'Sorry,' i muttered, shaking my head. I was trembling all over. This was devastating.

'It's difficult i know. You've been so sweet and so steadfast, but the world has changed. We'd understand if you needed to pretend for a while, you know. But eventually i think its inevitable. You would need to accept Andreas as the boss. You would need to relate to him, humbly, otherwise we couldn't arrange of public life as a three, could we?' she mused.

For pity's sake I thought.

'I'm going out with Andreas tonight. I'll sleep over with him and then tomorrow the three of us will have a little chat alright? That will give you time to sort out who you want to be, or whether you have to leave because the change just seems so vast' Avril informed me.

I watched her stand and don a little leather biking jacket over the dress. She looked impossibly chic. I smelled her perfume as she passed. She paused by the door...

'Oh, I won't have my mobile switched on OK? Andreas said that you might get irritable and try to interrupt our evening. Then he would get cross with you, so I've left the mobile switched off.'

She waved the mobile momentarily and then slipped it in her shoulder bag.

Then she was gone.

It was just like that....

What would you do?

How would you feel?

I should never have suggested that dirty idea all those years before, should I?

You wouldn't have, you wouldn't have entertained the idea? May be, may be if you did, you would say, have it out with the other guy, insist on something more for you?

May be...

Anyhow, she has gone, and the house is empty....empty....empty now.