3 comments/ 40817 views/ 4 favorites A Literary Seduction By: A Literary Seduction At least that’s what I thought until I opened the door to Claire’s bedroom and saw her husband lying in the bed beside her. I stared at him in shock, feeling the gooseflesh crawl in waves over my skin. I raced back down the hall and opened the door to the office, fully expecting to find it empty, to realize that what I’d seen was just a dream, a mirage, or a hallucination of some kind. But there he was, typing away. I saw that in my absence he had completed almost half a page and I couldn’t help but envy his speed. It often took me a whole day to be satisfied with a paragraph or two. Of course, I didn’t have his inspiration either. Back in the bedroom, I stared again at the sleeping man I had just seen typing away on the computer. Without question, they were one and the same. My mind reeled from the sense of vertigo you get when you’re in a tall building and you get a sudden glimpse of just how high up you are. I had no explanation for it. Twins? Clones? I didn’t believe in ghosts but for a moment even the thought of a doppelganger crossed my mind. I touched Claire lightly on the shoulder. Her eyes opened immediately and I wondered how much, if any, she’d slept. I held my finger to my lips and she followed me into the hallway. On this night, at least, Claire had dressed for comfort, wearing a loose-fitting nightshirt that barely hinted at the sumptuous curves beneath it. “What is it? What did you find?” Her eyes were wide, perhaps because of my agitated expression. I stared at her for a moment, at a loss for words. I glanced quickly at the office then back to her bedroom. Finally I asked, “Claire, is that your husband in there?” “What?” She looked at me as though I’d suddenly grown a third eye in the middle of my forehead. “Of course, it’s my husband. Who did you think it was?” I led her to the office and opened the door. I stepped back so that she could have an unobstructed view of the room. “Then who,” I asked, pointing to the desk, “is that?” Her hand went to her mouth as she saw the figure sitting at the desk. She moved into the room slowly, the look on her face a mixture of horror and curiosity. She stopped at the desk, her eyes darting back and forth between the man and his words as they appeared on the monitor. She spoke his name and his fingers paused at the keyboard. He gave her the same bland, indifferent expression he’d given me and went back to his typing. She said his name again, sharper this time, and she started around the desk as though she meant to grab him. I caught her by the arm, stopping her. “Claire, wait!” I motioned that the two of us should leave the room. “Come with me.” With more than a little reluctance, she followed me out. When we were downstairs, I said, “I don’t know about you, but I could use a drink.” She gestured to a cabinet in the corner of the dining room and muttered that I should help myself. I opened the cabinet and whistled softly. Whatever else her husband had, he had good taste in booze. I asked Claire if she wanted one and from the living room I heard a soft yes. I grabbed a bottle of 30-year old single malt and two whiskey glasses, pouring myself a liberal dollop and her a more conservative one. I closed the cabinet, leaving the bottle accessible, and carried the glasses into the other room where she sat hunched on the sofa with her face buried in her hands. Seeing her sitting like that, I couldn’t help but notice the rounded, fleshy globes of her ass cheeks or the outline of the generous crevice between them. I handed her the glass. “Good for what ails you,” I said as a toast. She stared at the drink in her hand while I knocked back half of mine in a gulp, relishing the sharp, stinging heat of the alcohol as it coated my mouth and throat. Certain things, I reflected, are almost impossible to describe to someone who hasn’t experienced them. The sudden rush of nicotine from the first cigarette of the day, for example, or the way good whiskey both numbs your mouth and excites your taste buds at the same time. “What happened up there?” Claire brought me back to the here and now, twisting the glass in her hands. “What did we just see?” I had to be honest with her. “I don’t know.” I took another sip of my drink. “But unless your husband has a twin that you didn’t know about,” she shook her head violently at the idea, “then I’d say what we just saw was impossible.” “How could that be?” “At this point, your guess is as good as mine. I can honestly say that I’ve never seen anything like it. I mean, I’ve heard of writers going into a trancelike state when they write, but this,” I gestured at the ceiling with my glass, “is ridiculous.” “Do you think that’s what it is,” she asked, “a trance?” “More like astral projection of some sort. But even assuming you believe in those things – which I don’t – astral projections don’t have a physical presence. They don’t type.” “Still, you have to believe what we saw, don’t you?” “At this point, Claire, the only thing I’m a hundred percent certain of is that I’ll have another drink.” I pointed to her glass. “You okay?” She nodded. When I came back she was sitting up, her glass nestled in the wedge between her thighs. In this position, her breasts were fighting a valiant but losing battle against the confines of her nightshirt. “Joe,” she asked as I sat down across from her, “why wouldn’t you let me touch him?” I shook my head. “I’m not sure, exactly. I got the strongest feeling up there that he had no interest in us, that the only thing that mattered to him was his work, what he was writing at that moment. I guess I was afraid of what might happen if we interrupted him before he finished.” We both stared into space for a few minutes. When she spoke, her voice was shy, almost timid. “What should we do now?” “I think we should wake your husband.” “No!” Her vehemence surprised me. “Not yet, anyway,” she added. With that, she closed her eyes and tossed down her drink. When she opened them, her expression changed to one I hadn’t seen from her before. “First, I want to see what he’s written.” The office was just as we’d left it. Her husband (I couldn’t help but call him that) was still hard at work, churning out the latest in his series of imaginary erotic adventures for her. Knowing we could be awhile, I made myself comfortable in my original spot on the couch. Claire, however, stood by the edge of the desk, watching him avidly. As I sat there, I wondered about the two of them. I had no answer to the mystery of how her husband could be in two places at once, awake and asleep, but I had the feeling that the key to it lay in Claire’s response to his writings about her. All writing, not just erotica, is an attempt to seduce. The goal of any writer is literally the submission of the reader. Come with me, the writer says, like an alluring lover. Give yourself to me and forget all else. Given that fact, it’s amazing just how often the writer fails in his or her attempt at seduction, how easy most books are to put down. In this case, however, the goal had clearly been achieved. Claire was smitten by her husband’s words; so smitten that now, given the chance to confront him and learn the truth about them, she chose instead to read his latest chapter. She was, as she’d said, ‘hooked’. As it turned out, we didn’t have long to wait. The laser printer whirred into life and after a few moments to warm up, the pages flowed into the tray in brisk fashion. In the silence that followed I watched him, thinking that he might disappear now that his evening’s work was done, but he sat quietly, staring into space. Claire, meanwhile, had worked her way around to his side of the desk and now stood next to him, reading his work by the light of the monitor. I watched her face in the fluorescent glow, noting that she was what I call an ‘animated’ reader, her lips parted, her tongue flicking, her expression a constant, changing blur of emotion. She’d made it through the first page and part of the second when she closed her eyes and let out a moan, a low, throaty growl that tickled the hair on my balls. I wondered what she could have read to induce such a response when I realized that her husband had changed position. He had turned towards her, watching her read just as I was, and one of his arms trailed off behind her. Blocked by the desk and Claire’s body as she leaned over it, I couldn’t tell what he was doing to her but the effect was obvious. She moaned again and, with an effort, opened her eyes and continued reading. My cock had sprung to life at her first moan; now my imagination fired it, seeing his hand in my mind’s eye as it petted her meaty buttocks, sliding down and stroking her taut, muscular hamstrings and then his fingers as they slipped inside what had to be a moist and inviting slit. First one finger entered her and then two, his thumb rolling around, teasing and flicking over her engorged clitoris. Her breathing grew ragged and the pages shook in her hands. Her eyes kept closing and her mouth opened but the only sound that emerged was like the mewling of a kitten. Her husband dropped to his knees behind her, flipping her nightshirt up to the middle of her back. Her groan was so loud it startled me. The pages slipped from her fingers, scattering on the desktop. The scene in front of me was both erotic and maddening. I felt as though I was watching one of those soft porn movies that turn up on the premium channels late at night, the ones that show you lots of T&A and orgiastic expressions but never give you the money shot. Lit by the glare of the monitor and the soft, hazy glow of the waning moon, Claire’s body wriggled and writhed, ensnared like a fish on the end of her husband’s tongue. Then I saw his head bob up, like a cork in water, his tongue sweeping past the soft and tender flesh that separated her pussy from the vertical smile of her ass. Spreading her cheeks as far as he could, he extended his tongue and began licking her asshole. Claire went rigid at his first touch, the cords on her neck standing out in huge relief. She reached out, grabbing the edge of the desk for support, and her entire body shuddered as she came, her legs twitching and wobbly from the combined efforts of his mouth and fingers. Without further preamble, her husband stood and shoved his cock inside her. Claire howled, her hands clutching her breasts. Frustrated by the nightshirt, she yanked it off in one smooth motion, revealing herself fully to me for the first time. Her body was just as I’d imagined it would be, her breasts full and round, dangling over the desk like ripe casaba melons with long, juicy stems. She squeezed and kneaded them as her husband fucked her with long strokes, his hips like the steady slap of a glove on her ass cheeks. Now I had to admit that, dim lighting or no, this was a scene I’d pay good money to see. I fought the temptation to touch myself. I was on the job, after all, and this wasn’t my party. Still, as the scent of Claire’s sex filled my nostrils, I felt my own need for release growing strong. She looked at me then, as if sensing my arousal, and her lips spread in a slow, seductive smile. “Come here, Joseph.” She crooked a finger at me. Now the last person to call me Joseph, other than my mother, had been Sister Mary Agnes at Christ the King elementary school. But for some reason that thought only made my wood harder. I stood up, my legs stiff and clumsy, and walked towards her, fumbling with my belt. She pushed my hands aside, finishing the job herself. My skin sweltered under her breath as her fingertips curled around the waistband of my briefs. My cock sprang at her face like a cobra, the angry head smearing her cheek with pre-come. She let out a satisfied “Yum” and used my rod as a paintbrush to spread it over her skin, while her other hand milked me for more. Her husband watched us, his eyes glittering in the darkness. A thin stream of saliva fell from his mouth, landing squarely on her already moistened asshole. His thumb went to work massaging the puckered ring. Then Claire took me into her mouth. Exquisite. It’s the only word that comes close to describing the sensation I felt at that moment. Gently she sucked me in, her lips stretched wide to handle my girth, her cheek muscles fluttering like gills. Framed by that small mouth and her delicate, china-doll face, my cock looked obscenely huge, and for some reason it reminded me of those old-time advertisements you used to see in magazines and on television, warning about the perils of cigarette and alcohol abuse. Be careful, those ads seemed to say, or you’ll wind up like this, buggered at both ends, wallowing in sin and degradation. What those purveyors of decency never understood was how good it felt to let yourself go, how exhilarating it was to give in to the carnal desires we all share. At that moment, Claire was high on the most powerful drug of all, the one known to all women, envied and feared by all men, since Eve first discovered it in the Garden: Raw, unbridled, sexual power. My cock head nudged against the opening of her throat and she opened her eyes, staring at me. She’d managed to work all but two inches of my meat inside her mouth and I thought that might be as much as she could take, but I soon realized she wasn’t done yet. Her throat muscles began to vibrate, tickling my glans, and her hands gripped my ass cheeks. Her eyes never left mine as her lips claimed the balance of my turgid flesh and in moments, incredibly, her mouth was kissing my pubic hairs. She pulled back slowly, showing off her skill, letting each new inch of now glistening skin gradually emerge in the moonlight. She worked on the head in earnest, her lips sucking, her tongue like a pair of fibrillating paddles. At this rate I knew it wouldn’t take long for her to get me off. Then her husband pulled out of her cunt and pointed his cock against her asshole. Without taking her mouth off my dick, Claire grabbed my hands and placed them on her breasts. I knew what she wanted. Each one filled my hand perfectly and I cupped them, letting her hardened buds slip between my fingers. I squeezed, pulling downward, pinching and tugging on her nipples as though I were milking her. She moaned her approval. Her husband pressed forward, forcing her sphincter muscle to stretch and let him in. She cried out around my cock as the mushroom head popped inside her anal opening. Claire steadied herself against me as her husband steered his cock down her Hershey Highway. When he had her completely skewered, he paused long enough for her to regain her balance. He gave her a slap on the cheek and she signaled her readiness with a quick wiggle. Then he began to pump her tight little butt, slowly at first, each stroke gathering steam, while she renewed her oral assault on my dick. None of us were going to last long now. I felt it first, that little tingle that signals the point of no return, and Claire seemed to sense it as well. My body convulsed as I lost all control, yanking hard on her nipples, thrusting into her face, my come spurting into her throat and mouth. Her husband cried out and I knew the time had come for him as well, his ejaculate flooding deep into her bowels. Claire joined us both a moment later, my cock slipping out of her mouth as she screamed, my remaining jism squirting onto her jaw and neck. For the next few minutes the sound of heavy breathing filled the room as we tried to collect ourselves. The acrid odors of sweat and semen were almost overpowering. I started to feel awkward and more than a little uncomfortable. Claire’s hand brushed her hair back behind her ears and in the process scooped some of my come onto her finger. She stared at it, as if debating what to do with it. A smile spread across her face and she looked at me, extending her hand towards my face. The invitation was clear enough. Although I’d have preferred another shot of her husband’s scotch, I opened my mouth and allowed her finger inside. She deposited my gooey cream on my tongue, swiping her finger back and forth several times. When she tried to remove her finger, I pressed my lips together hard, trapping her, and her smile grew broader as my tongue flicked around her nail. Finally, I released her and she let her hand linger for just a moment on my lips and chin before turning her attention to her husband. She swiveled around on the desktop to face him, her legs reaching out to wrap around his hips. The two of them embraced and began kissing each other passionately. I took that as my cue to leave and I stuffed my shrinking cock back into my trousers. I was halfway down the hall before it struck me what I’d just done and with whom. I poked my head into Claire’s bedroom. Her husband was still there, all right, lying peacefully on his side of their bed. He hadn’t moved from the position I’d seen him in last and for a minute I wondered if he might be dead. I crept quietly along the wall, angling for a closer look. There it was, the slow, steady rise and fall of his breathing. I stared at him for a few moments, feeling a strange combination of remorse and apathy. Well, buddy, I thought finally, you missed one hell of a party. I walked down the stairs and left the house, resisting the temptation of the liquor bottle sitting on the bar. On the drive home I turned the situation over in my mind, trying to make some sense of it, but I had no luck. I kept seeing Claire, bent over the desk in that darkened room, her husband’s face shiny with her juices. And I kept feeling her lips and tongue as they ravished my aching cock. By the time I got home I’d worked up a good old-fashioned Catholic case of guilt, full of reproach for my actions, sure that I had broken every known rule of involvement with a client on a case and wondering if I hadn’t made up some new ones. I showered before going to bed, paying extra attention to my genitals. For a sinful man, I slept surprisingly well. The following afternoon I sat in my chair, staring at my blank piece of paper, listening to Max shredding documents in the next room, when Claire walked in. The change in her was astonishing. Gone was the fidgety, hesitant, unsure woman who’d walked into my office just two days ago. In her place stood an elegant, sophisticated lady looking comfortable and secure. Wearing a black dress that hadn’t come off any rack, she even looked taller, but I’m sure the three-inch pumps had something to do with that. Completing the ensemble were a pair of black stockings that clung to her legs like a second skin. My first thought upon seeing her like this was to bend her over my desk and fuck her like I’d seen her husband do, but I had the strongest feeling she would like nothing more. She gestured to the typewriter. “What’s the matter? Wasn’t last night inspiration enough for you?” I shook my head. “I’m still trying to sort out last night. Until I get it straight in my head, I can’t write about it.” “That didn’t bother our…friend,” she laughed over her choice of words and sat down, placing her dark purse on my desk. “After we finished, he wrote five more pages before leaving me.” “Leaving you?” “Yes.” “And when was that?” “I don’t know. About dawn, I’d say.” “And when did your husband wake up?” “Not long after that. He’s an early riser.” “And of course, he had no memory of having done anything.” “None at all. He’s told me that he dreams every night but he never remembers them.” Her eyes met mine. “But then, he really didn’t do anything, did he?” I held her gaze, not giving an inch. “Why me, Claire?” She looked puzzled. “What do you mean?” “You know exactly what I mean.” I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my desk. “Come on, Claire. I may have been thinking with the little head last night but the big one is doing just fine now. You knew what we were going to find up in that room, didn’t you? You knew because you’d seen him before; you’d…experienced him before. Hadn’t you?” A Literary Seduction My palm slapped the desktop. “Hadn’t you, Claire?” “All right! Okay!” Her body jerked as though I’d jabbed her with a needle. “Yes, I’d seen him before.” Miss fidgety was back suddenly, arms and legs crossing and uncrossing, her tawny skin rippling from the effort. In the momentary silence that followed I became acutely aware that the shredding sounds from the next room had stopped. When she spoke again, her voice was in a monotone so low I had to strain to hear her. “It was the night I stayed up; the one I told you about. I’m not sure what happened, maybe I fell asleep, I don’t know, but I was sitting up in our bedroom and I heard a sound coming from the office. I checked on my husband and he was dead to the world, so I got up to investigate. I tiptoed down the corridor and stuck my head in the doorway and I saw him. Just like you did.” She stared straight ahead, not seeing me, not seeing anything, reliving the events of that night. “At first my reaction was just like yours. I freaked. But just as I was about to go back to the bedroom and wake my husband, the printer started kicking out pages. And for some reason, I had an overwhelming urge to see what he’d written. I went over to the desk and grabbed the pages out of the printer tray and started reading them, just as I did last night.” Her eyes focused on mine. “And then I felt his hands on me.” She uncrossed her legs, slowly this time, and I saw, if not all the way to Argentina, at least as far as the continent of South America. Her stockings stopped at mid-thigh and it didn’t take a brain surgeon to guess she wore no panties. “I’m not sure I can describe for you just how it felt,” she continued. “They were my husband’s hands, and yet they weren’t. And I can tell you; my husband has never touched me like he did that night. It was like the words that I’d been reading come to life. Almost before I knew it, my nightshirt was off and I was lying on my back on the desk. He fingered me and then I felt his tongue on me and oh God, was that incredible! It was like, I don’t know, if I could somehow leave my body and go down on myself, that’s how I would do it. So intimate. So…knowing. “But it was more than that because he knew things about me even I didn’t know; places I liked to be touched, ways in which I wanted him to use his mouth and tongue. I don’t know how long he did it, but he kept raising the stakes, building me higher and higher until at last, when I finally came, I was like a monster, screaming and grabbing at his hair, squeezing my legs together so hard I thought his head might pop off.” As Claire spoke, the temperature in the room seemed to go up, as though someone had set the thermostat on ‘blast furnace’. My palms oozed sweat onto my desktop and my dick leaked in sympathy. I sat back, hoping I wouldn’t stain through to my trousers. “I’ve never had an orgasm like that,” she went on. “It seemed to go on for hours. When I finally recovered, he was standing up and I expected him to fuck me, but he had other ideas. He pulled me towards him, sliding me off the desk until I was on my knees in front of him. I figured he wanted me to suck his cock and after the way he’d made me feel I was more than happy to do it for him. “But I soon discovered that what he really wanted to do was fuck me in the mouth.” She stopped then, looking down, and I thought I saw another blush creep across her features. “I know I told you that I hadn’t slept around a lot before I got married but that didn’t mean I was inexperienced, either. And I had one boyfriend in particular who liked things a little…rough, let’s say. Of course, he liked things rough out of bed, too; a real creep, that one. Why do men always feel they have to treat you the same way, both in and out of bed?” I opened my mouth and shut it just as quickly. I was pretty sure the question was rhetorical and, at that point, I didn’t have enough blood pumping to my brain to form an articulate response. “Anyway, I found out I had a taste for it. Rough sex, I mean.” She shook her head. “I thought I’d left it behind me when we broke up but I guess not. I don’t know, there’s just something about being used like a fuck toy that’s so dirty and so…hot. And maybe, once you learn certain things about yourself, maybe there’s no going back. Those feelings just stay there inside you, lying dormant, waiting for the right set of circumstances – or the right man – to wake them up. “Anyway, that’s just what he did. He pumped in and out of me slowly a couple of times, just to let me get used to him, and he slipped his fingers through my hair, grabbing a fistful of it, tilting my head until I was at just the right angle for him. Then he began fucking my mouth. “God, I loved it! I played with my nipples and rubbed my clit and it didn’t take me long before I came again. I came twice more before he unloaded and he even did that right, pulling back far enough so that he came in my mouth and not my throat. When I’m that turned on, I’m like a semen-junkie. I want to taste it going down.” She looked at me again. “You tasted different, you know. Similar, but different. I guess most men do. But then, everything about you is different, isn’t it Joseph?” My cock twitched at her use of my name. “You were brought up to treat girls like ladies, weren’t you? To be a gentleman. And that’s just what you were last night, even when I was sucking your cock.” She stood up then and walked around to my side of the desk. She lifted one leg and sat on the edge, hiking her skirt until downtown Buenos Aires was exposed, swollen and very moist, her hooded clit peeking at me like an unspoken promise. She took my hand, her breath catching as I touched her, my finger slipping naturally between those two puffy lips. “But I’m no lady, Joseph,” she said, her grasping cunt mugging my finger. “You don’t have to be gentle with me.” I stood up quickly, shoving a second and then a third finger inside her. She gasped, closing her eyes, welcoming the sudden assault. I thrust my fingers as deeply as I could, cupping her pubis mound with my hand, my palm rubbing her engorged clit. I grabbed her hair, her dark, lustrous, perfectly coifed hair, squeezing it, yanking her head back until my face was on top of hers, our mouths close enough for me to taste her lipstick. “Is this what you want, Claire? Is this why you came here today?” “Oh, yes!” she managed. “Jesus, God, fuck me, please!” “You know,” I said, watching her, “that’s almost funny. I hadn’t figured you for a religious girl.” My fingers slid out of her twat with a wet, spongy sound and she groaned in protest. Before she could react, I stuffed them into her mouth. Her eyes went wide but she didn’t hesitate, licking and sucking my fingers hungrily, the way she had my cock the night before. From the way she lapped at her own juice, she wasn’t just a semen-junkie. But I’d had enough of Claire and her ‘I was a teenage harlot’ routine. The big head was still functioning, barely, and I needed some answers. I jerked on her hair and she reluctantly let go of my fingers. I led her back to her chair and allowed her to smooth down her dress before sitting her down in it. I sat on the edge of the desk, facing her, making no effort to hide my still tumescent cock or the wet blotch on my pants. Our positions were now reversed and she stared at my bulge the way a kitten eyes an empty saucer of milk. “Why me, Claire?” She stared at me resentfully; a junkie denied her fix. Her composure returned bit by bit. “I’d heard of you,” she managed after a few minutes. “You know, the detective who’s also a published writer. I found a few articles about you on the Internet.” “So what?” I snorted. “Dashiell Hammett was with the Pinkertons and Joe Wambaugh was a cop for 14 years. What’s the big deal?” “So Hammett’s dead and Wambaugh wouldn’t return my call. What do you think, Joe? I thought the fact that you were a writer might help.” “Why?” She sighed. “You may not believe this, but what I told you was the truth. I started receiving these letters or stories, or whatever you want to call them, and I got hooked. It was like reading one of the best, the most erotic, stories I’d ever read, only this one was about me. I had to find out who was doing it!” “But you knew who it was before you ever came in here.” “Yes, I did. Or thought I did. But it seemed so crazy! I woke up that next day so confused. I thought maybe I’d dreamed it, or imagined the whole thing. I mean, how could such a thing be possible? Can you explain it, Joe?” I shook my head and she continued, “So I thought my original idea might be best after all. If I could just convince you to come to the house, and if he showed up while you were there, then that would mean it – he – was real.” “And last night?” “Last night? What about it?” Then she realized what I meant. “Oh. What happened last night…happened. I didn’t take you out there to seduce you. But I enjoyed it, Joe. All of it. Didn’t you?” It was my turn to blush. She was getting comfortable again; confident. I remembered the way she’d looked the previous night, sprawled out on the desk like a suckling pig with more than a foot of cock meat filling her. Had that really been her first time with two men? If so, she’d taken to it like a duck to water. Maybe in some women sexual knowledge isn’t so much taught as it is inbred, passed down like a genetic trait. And maybe I was just being perverse, but I couldn’t let her off the hook just yet. With what little control I had left, I managed, “So, why did you come here today, Claire? Other than to let Jesus fuck you, of course.” Her nascent smile became a glare of anger. “Well, it certainly wasn’t to fuck you, Joseph.” I said nothing and we stared at each other for a few moments like two school kids engaged in a game of double dog dare. Finally, she looked away and said softly, “I came here because I still need your help.” I refused to let up. “Why, Claire? Your case is solved. You know ‘who done it’. What’s more, you know that it’s not just your imagination either because I saw it, too. Vidi, veni, baby. That should be proof enough for anybody.” “But I don’t know what to do about it!” Her whole body shook. “Don’t you see? I thought that you, of all people, might be able to help me understand why he can’t just…I mean, why does he have to…” The dam broke and the tears began to gush. I handed her a box of tissues and walked back around my desk, feeling more than a little ashamed of myself. I sat heavily in my chair, letting her cry it out. After a few minutes, the full implication of what she’d said hit me and I couldn’t help it, I laughed out loud. She lifted her head, startled at my outburst. “I’m sorry,” I said, gaining control of myself. “I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s that I just realized that you didn’t hire me for my skills as a detective. You hired me because I’m a writer. And I don’t think that’s ever happened before.” “Then you’ll help me?” Her smile was weak but hopeful. “Look, Claire, just because I’m a writer doesn’t mean I know what’s going on in your husband’s mind.” “But you must have some idea –“ “Let me tell you something. All writers are split personalities, Claire. I accept that. We’re one person when we write and another, often completely different person, when we’re not writing. And one of the great ironies in life is that most of us are far less interesting and provocative than what we write about. But where that ‘other’ personality comes from, where our ideas come from and why we feel compelled to write about them in the first place, that’s one of the great mysteries of life. “Now, as to why your husband is writing about things most men would rather be doing, that’s a very good question, but you’re asking the wrong person.” “Joe, I told you what happened the last time I accused him of writing those –“ I held up my hand, stopping her. “Don’t accuse. Show him.” “What?” “First rule of writing, Claire. Show, don’t tell.” “I don’t understand.” Changing tactics, I asked, “Claire, are you familiar with the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?” “Well, I haven’t read it, if that’s what you’re asking. I think I saw the movie, though.” Christ, I thought. If it weren’t for the movies, the great books would have disappeared long ago. “But you know the story, right? Henry Jekyll, a prominent, upright physician in Queen Victoria’s England, believed that he could indulge in some of his darker desires without fear of exposure by creating an alter ego, Edward Hyde, to take the heat for him. It’s only by the end of the story that Jekyll realizes that he and Hyde are and always have been one, and there’s no separating a person’s actions from their consequences. “Now tell me, Claire. If you had a choice of living with either Henry Jekyll or Edward Hyde, which would you choose?” It took a few minutes for the idea to sink in, but when it did, a smile gradually crept across her lovely face. “Why not both?” she asked. “My thoughts exactly.” I stood up, extending my hand. “Mrs. Vawdrey, I don’t think you need any more of my help.” She shook my hand, saying, “I can’t thank you enough, Mr. Conrad.” She paused, noticing the still damp spot on the front of my pants. “Are you sure I don’t owe you anything?” “Quite sure.” She turned away and then stopped. “Oh,” she said, fishing in her purse, “I almost forgot. These are the pages he wrote last night. I thought you might like to read them.” She set them on the desk and with a last smile she was gone. I picked up the pages, noticing that one of them had a dark stain on the corner. I raised it to my face and sniffed. Faint but exhilarating, the aroma of Claire Vawdrey’s come sent an unmistakable signal to my dick, causing it to swell and tent my trousers. At that moment, Max burst into the room, trying not to look too excited. “Jesus!” she said, her eyes bright. “For a minute there, I wasn’t sure if you two were going to fuck or fight.” She saw the pages in my hand. “Oh, more reading material? Great! Cause I kinda, um, wore out the others while you were on the job last night.” She walked over to me, reaching out to get a closer look at the papers. Her other hand absently brushed my engorged knob, recoiling when she hit the wet spot. “Ewww! What did that bitch do, make you come in the wrapper?” She brought her hand up to her face and inhaled, just as I’d done a few moments ago. “Not bad,” she said, smiling. “Of course, it’s better when it’s not sifted through cotton.” Her tongue swiped across her palm. “Any more where this came from?” I growled low in my throat. That was it, I thought. I’d had more than enough of strong, sexually knowing women for one day. I spun her around, draping her over my desk. “Oh!’ Her exhale became a grunt as her breasts flattened out on the desktop. “All right!” I yanked her skirt up to her waist and reached for her panties with both hands, shredding them with surprising ease. “Wait!” She cried out at the sound. “Those are my best pair! Goddamnit, Joe! You don’t pay me enough to—!” The rest died in her throat as my cock plunged inside her all the way to her cervix. I fucked her hard and fast, all the frustration, all the restraint I’d shown earlier with Claire boiling over into each stroke. I came in less than 30 seconds, screaming something inhuman and each spurt shook me like a heart attack. I thought I heard Max crying out with me but I couldn’t be sure. I’m not sure what happened after that; I must’ve blacked out for a few seconds because the next thing I felt was Max shaking me. “Joe,” she said, her voice muffled by the desk, “either somebody’s put on weight lately or your dick needs to go see Jenny Craig.” “What?” I opened my eyes and realized that I’d collapsed on top of her. “Oh. Sorry.” I lifted myself up and staggered backwards, falling into my chair. She groaned and rolled over, squeezing her legs together and propping herself up on her elbows. She stared at me while she caught her breath. “Nice foreplay, boss man,” she said finally. “Good thing I was already worked up from listening to you and Little Miss Muffett or you might’ve torn something.” Her fingers toyed with the remnants of her tattered underwear. “Like my poor panties.” “I’ll buy you another pair.” “Yeah, yeah. That’s what they all say. And then the next thing you know, they’re telling you not to wear any because they just get in the way and the next thing--.” “Maxie, honey,” I said, closing my eyes, “shut up.” I sat like that, sprawled out in my chair, enjoying the blessed silence, waiting for my heartbeat to return to normal. Finally, Max couldn’t contain herself. “You know, there’s just one thing I don’t understand,” she said. I cocked an eyebrow to let her know I was listening. “What did you mean when you asked her which one she’d rather live with, Jekyll or Hyde?” Max listened quietly while I filled her in on the details from the previous evening. Well, almost all the details. After all, every relationship has its secrets. I ended by saying, “I’m going under the assumption that the man we saw in the office last night and the one lying in her bed are just different aspects of the same person. How he’s able to manifest in two places at once I don’t know, but I think it shows just how strong these desires he has for her are.” Max thought for a moment. “So your idea is for her to wake her husband up one evening and introduce him to his alter ego? Sort of a ‘Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name?’” I shrugged. “Something like that.” “Show, don’t tell.” She laughed. “That’s pretty cute, boss man. But isn’t it kind of risky, too?” I nodded. “Any time you love somebody, you’re at risk. Granted, there’s no way to know just how Dr. Jekyll will react when he meets Mr. Hyde, but if anyone can pull it off it’s Claire. Based on what I’ve seen, she’s more than a match for both of them.” And any other man she meets, I added silently. I watched as Max stopped fiddling with her panties and lifted her hand to her face. She licked each finger and then stuck all three in her mouth. I thought of Claire, sucking on my fingers after I’d jammed them in her cunt, and I had a sudden image of the two of them wrapped around each other, their faces slick and shiny with girl sap. Max had never given me any reason to suspect she liked women but even the people you know the best can still surprise you. Her chuckle brought me out of my reverie. “What’s so funny?” “You,” she said with a glint in her eyes. “What’s an old fool like you know about love?” For some reason my cock gave a sudden jerk when she said the word ‘love’. “I might just surprise you.” “Oh, yeah?” I levered myself out of the chair and staggered towards her, my lengthening dick slapping my thigh. I grabbed her hair with one hand and wedged the other under her still-juicy snatch. She gasped, opening her mouth, and I kissed her, darting my tongue between her lips like an agile worm. After a few minutes of mouth calisthenics I stopped and looked at her. Her eyes were soft and a little glassy. “Well?” I asked. She spread her legs slightly and I felt a small dab of my come dribble onto my fingers. She smiled, placing one hand on my lips and the other on my shoulder. “Show,” she whispered, gently forcing me to my knees, “don’t tell.” FIN