Thy Neighbor's Wife
(and Other Sins)
A Fantasy
by
RICHARD O STEELE
Copyright 2001 © Richard O Steele. All rights reserved
Chapter 31
Notwithstanding Amanda's doctor-ordered detour into vaginal celibacy, Peter was certainly not wanting for sexual release. Amanda herself might be wearing the medically enforced equivalent of a chastity belt, but she still pulled huge clots of rich sperm from her husband's massive balls every night of the week (and most mornings, too) in myriad other ways.
In addition, Peter continued his once a week rendezvous with Julie at the University Sheraton. He also saw Toni every couple of weeks or so at some upscale hotel of her choosing. And — perhaps most intoxicating of all, he was finding — Peter was trysting with Lakisha once or twice a week at the Tasker Arms. The extraordinarily buxom little girl was so sexy and so exciting!
Peter, it should be noted, had been extremely wary of telling his playmates about his wife's condition. He was afraid that some of them at least might erupt in rage were they to suspect that they were being used as mere sexual surrogates during his wife's indisposition. Certainly, Toni would explode at such an idea! She was highly sensitive to a mere hint of a slight. The idea that Peter was seeing her only because his wife was temporarily unavailable would not be congenial to her. Not at all!
Julie would surely be upset as well; however, since Peter could establish by the calendar that their affair had predated Amanda's pregnancy, he could prove that his attention to his hugely buxom former neighbor was not a product of that condition. In his heart, Peter knew that would make absolutely no difference. There was no doubt whatever that Julie would be upset notwithstanding; if she was aware of Amanda's pregnancy, she might well feel even more guilty than usual about her part in this little tableau. It was clearly best not to get into it with her at all.
Lakisha? Well, he certainly could tell her. The impossibly buxom little girl would not care if Peter's wife were pregnant with sextuplets. Or giraffes, for that matter! Anything beyond the reality of Peter's massive cock and fantastically satisfying loving techniques would simply not register on her radar screen. In fact, though, Peter did not tell Lakisha; he simply did not want to reveal anything personal to the little tart. In his relationship, he was happy to be "Jimmy" about whom nothing beyond the excitingly sensual present moment was known.
Actually, Peter did mention Amanda's pregnancy to Gina on one of his now infrequent visits to Arabian Nights. The sultry, buxom escort, after all, was someone to whom he could unburden himself without fearing the slightest censure or judgment. In fact, Peter admitted to himself, he continued to visit the busty beauty once a month or so as much for the post-coital conversation as for the fantastic loving that preceded it. Gina, in any event, was happy for Peter. She seemed gratified, in fact, that she could offer a service that his wife, on account of her condition, had necessarily put on the shelf. Still, this unburdening went only so far; Peter did not mention the rest of his harem. I mean, it wasn't any of her business, was it?
Meanwhile, Amanda kept growing and growing. She looked very, very pregnant as a result. One of the apparent byproducts of that condition was that Amanda, already startlingly beautiful, seemed to be getting more gorgeous still. She was just glowing with beauty in the wake of her pregnancy! Even with her belly notably distended on account of being extremely heavy with child, Amanda still turned as many heads on the street as ever. Maybe more!
To Peter's great delight and astonishment, her belly was not the only part of her body undergoing expansion. Her breasts were definitely getting bigger as well.
"God, Amanda, you really are swelling up ... in the chest, I mean. Just how big are you now?"
"I just threw my 32C bra into the bottom drawer of the dresser. It's a 32D for me, now," Amanda announced. "I didn't realize tits got this much bigger during pregnancy," she continued. "Down, boy," she added as Peter reached over to fondle one of her fleshy appendages. "I'm really sore!"
Amanda's sudden breast growth was remarkable. The swelling in her belly was equally so. Both husband and wife thought that she really was bigger in that area than her six-plus months of pregnancy would warrant. Since this was their first kid, they couldn't be sure but, really, should she be this big?
The answer came a couple of weeks later during one of Amanda's routine checkups. She called Peter at work; her voice was breathless. "Honey, guess what! Twins! We're going to have twins."
"My God!" Peter exclaimed. "That's wonderful! How great!" Peter wasn't really sure it was wonderful and/or great at all but he was certainly an experienced enough husband to act enthusiastic about it!
"It turns out Dr Montgomery had been suspicious for weeks," Amanda replied. "Months, even. He hadn't wanted to get us worked up just in case it was nothing but today he did an ultrasound and, no doubt about it, we've got twins!"
"Wow! That's amazing, honey! Fabulous!" As he continued to enthuse over the news with his wife, Peter suddenly realized that the fact Amanda was having twins might explain not just her overly swollen belly. It might help to explain as well her expansion from a small B-cup into what was now a large D-cup. After all his efforts to find extremely buxom women out in the community, was he now going to find huge breasts in the most unlikely setting of all? At home, of all places? That would be amazing for sure! And might there be even more growth on the horizon? As when her milk came in? That would be wonderful and amazing! In fact, fabulous might be just the right word to apply to the phenomenon!
As the weeks went by, Peter got more and more involved with the details of the impending births. The joyful couple attended weekly Lamaze classes at a local hospital and faithfully practiced their breathing exercises each night between sessions. He and Amanda had never felt closer or more mutually ecstatic about their life together.
Yet Peter also felt like an absolute schizophrenic as well; he was happily planning his life as a parent with his gorgeous and hugely pregnant wife while at the same time stepping out on her not once but several times a week. Perhaps describing himself as an absolute rat was more like it. This betrayal, this duplicity, Peter knew in his heart, simply could not go on much longer. It was either going to end or he was going to get caught. He could bank on it. He then promptly did nothing to act on this conclusion!
The problem was that the randy fellow was not paying much heed to his heart, let alone to his brain. It was his little head that was in full charge. As Amanda got bigger and bigger, Peter continued his regular schedule of spending several lunch hours each week with his harem. He might well have to give all these women up — he knew that time was coming up fast! — but while it lasted he certainly was enjoying this Indian Summer of illicit, on-the-side, loving!
"Honey ... wake up! I think it's time!"
Probably because he had been eagerly waiting for this moment for months, Peter was suddenly awake. "Have you been timing them, honey"?
"Yes ... they're about twenty minutes apart."
Because twins were expected and particularly expert natal care was therefore a must, the plan was to have the delivery at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital on the Penn campus at 34th and Spruce — if there was time! It was 3:00 a.m., traffic would be light, and the contractions were still reasonably far apart. There would indeed be time for a quick trip into the city.
Anne McGuire Wyeth and Jessica Biddle Wyeth were born at 10:23 a.m. Well, Anne was born at 10:23; Jessica came along some four minutes later. The babies were perfect! Although they were twins, they seemed not to be identical. As accurately as the hospital personnel could tell at this stage, the babies were fraternal rather than identical twins. No matter! The parents were perfectly happy! They both were so beautiful! In fact, as a couple of the nurses predicted after seeing Peter and Amanda, girls with parents as attractive as those two were probably going to break a lot of hearts someday! They were not identical twins but the nurses were sure the girls were going to be amazingly beautiful in their own ways.
Peter did a lot of shuttling between his office and the Hospital to visit Amanda and the babies. It did not escape his notice that the route he took — the Subway-Surface trolley from the 19th Street station under Market Street to the 37th & Spruce Station — replicated most of the trackage he took to get from work to the University Sheraton to see Julie.
Indeed, on one occasion — to his shame! — Peter took a very long lunch hour to spend time with his wife and kids — or so he told his secretary. Well, he did just that — to a point! He spent two happy hours with Amanda and the babies, and then strolled west on Spruce and north up 36th St to the Sheraton to keep a mid-afternoon date with Julie. For a fellow who was planning to resume a pattern of marital fidelity, Peter was not getting off to a very good start!
Because of the multiple deliveries, the doctors decided to keep Amanda in the hospital for four days — a day or so longer than usual in today's abbreviated HMO-dictated hospital stays. She continued to do fine; so too did the babies.
Peter visited the hospital two or three times a day. On the morning of day three, Amanda greeted him with a huge, wide smile. "Guess what, honey ... my milk came in! I've already nursed the babies twice. I'm so excited!" The beautiful young mother grinned. "Wow! I guess that means I'm a success as a mom! So far, at least!"
Peter looked down at his wife with fondness and relief. They had wondered about this aspect of motherhood. Many mothers, after all, never produce milk at all but are forced to raise bottle babies. Since breast-feeding is so much better for the babies than bottle-feeding, this was a very welcome development.
After smiling into his wife's eyes, Peter glance dropped down to her chest. Jesus! Amanda had on a loose hospital gown but there was no disguising the fact that two huge mounds of flesh were seriously distending the lines of the garment! Fuck! A lot more than Amanda's milk had come in!
Amanda smirked. "Hmmm! You noticed, eh? Yep, I've really gotten swollen up." Peter's suddenly buxom wife smiled and then yawned deliciously. "And why not," she added. "I've got to produce and store milk for two and so the containers have to be bigger than average." Amanda then reached over, took Peter's hand, and squeezed it. "So, baby, your flat-chested wife just got serious implants — for a while at least!"
Peter looked back down at Amanda's chest. Her breasts were easily the size of small loaves of bread. They were G- or H-cups, at least, Peter's practiced eye declared. Jesus! He had assumed that Amanda would continue to expand when she started nursing but he had never expected anything like this! This was amazing! Arousing, too!
On the way out of the room, Peter bumped into Dr Montgomery. "Mr Wyeth. Glad I caught you! Congratulations!" the physician bellowed as he vigorously shook Peter's hand. Then, in a softer voice he continued, "I'm here to look in on your wife for a moment. She's doing just fine. In fact, if you have a second, why not wait for me in the lounge at the end of the hall and I can give you the details. OK?"
Peter waited a little nervously. Was everything really all right? He did not think the doctor usually needed to talk with the husband in private like this. What was up?
Dr Montgomery stepped into the lounge about five minutes later. "Is she really all right?" Peter hastily asked.
"Absolutely," the physician assured him. "I merely wanted to talk briefly about, er, the resumption of your normal marital, ah, routine."
"Good!" Peter blurted out. "I understand six weeks is about the norm in that department."
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," Dr Montgomery replied. "You're quite right ... six weeks is the norm. It's just that this situation departs from the norm a bit."
"Oh?"
"Yes. Well, you see, multiple births are usually a bit more difficult for the mom to recover from. Then, too, there's the matter of your, well, your rather impressive, er, endowment. Your wife and I discussed that aspect of the relationship, of course."
"Of course."
"Well, in light of those two particulars, I'd like to suggest that we extend the usual waiting period to, say, twelve weeks." Dr. Montgomery donned one of his patented avuncular smiles. "Under the circumstances, that would be best for your wife. Quite the best. Think you two can live with that?"
Peter smiled back with equal warmth. "Of course we can, Doctor. Heck, I've been living with it ever since we discovered Amanda was pregnant. Twelve more weeks? I could do that standing on my head!"
Twelve weeks? Three months? Peter's mouth had been positively watering at the sight of Amanda's new G- or H-cup tits. He couldn't wait to get his hands and mouth on those huge mounds. While it was undoubtedly true he could play with these gloriously exciting puppies before the recovery period was up, he was really looking forward to sucking on those huge tits while fucking his suddenly buxom wife. Plus, her huge tits would surely deflate once the girls were weaned. Time, in other words, was a-wasting!
Could he wait? Yes, he could wait. But it was going to be a lot more difficult than he had let on to Dr Montgomery. Above all, it was going to play hob with his tentative schedule to phase out his bevy of buxom playmates. Given his unnaturally strong sex drive, he was going to have to postpone his adieus for a lot longer than he had anticipated!
Amanda and the girls were soon home from the hospital. The household, needless to say, fell into a very different routine. The transition from a carefree, childless life to an existence centered on the unrelenting needs of two little babies was wrenching to say the least! The demands of two careers and two babies combined to form a volatile mix!
Luckily, the Wyeth connection (that is, Peter's family and friends) had gone to work and produced Mrs van der Puy, a long-time Main Line nanny. Mrs van der Puy, a native of the Netherlands, was in her sixties; she had gray hair and a spreading, comfortable lap. She had, in fact, been the nanny for some of Peter's childhood friends, and then the nanny for some of their children. The idea was to keep Mrs van der Puy in residence until the girls were ready for school. In that way, Amanda could continue to teach and write, and Peter would not have to put a crimp into his busy workweek to undertake weekday childcare. At the same time, all the joys of parenthood would be there for as much time as Peter or Amanda could devote to the task. As it happened, the amount of that sort of time was considerable — especially on the weekends when Mrs van der Puy often traveled to suburban Long Island to visit her son and his family. Peter and Amanda really worked hard at being attentive, involved parents.
Peter was not doing as good a job of being a good husband, however. A faithful one, anyway! His extracurricular activities continued unabated, even though, as the weeks progressed, he knew that the time for breaking up with his girlfriends was getting closer and closer. He had promised himself that he was quits with all of them just as soon as the twelve weeks of enforced waiting was over.
Not that sex wasn't good with Amanda notwithstanding. They continued to engage in all the non-vaginal sports they had perfected during the prenatal period; in addition, Peter now had a huge pair of tits to occupy his libido as well. The truth is that their sex was great!
Peter's estimate of a G- or H-cup bosom turned out to be under the mark. Soon after she had returned from the hospital, Peter had an opportunity to find out their actual size. He took it! One evening, Amanda was luxuriating in the bath. She had tossed her underclothes on the bed. Among the articles was a nursing bra. It was huge! It certainly looked bigger than a G- or even an H-cup. And it was! Peter picked up the giant garment and checked the label to find out. The label announced that Amanda was now a J-cup. Amazing!
On account of her nursing, her massive milkers were tender; still, she allowed Peter to play with the giant appendages so long as he was gentle. The combination of Amanda's familiar but intoxicating beauty — a loveliness that was enhanced by the glow of young motherhood — and the novelty of a huge bust was overwhelmingly arousing! Peter often found it difficult to be gentle at all!
Once in a while, Amanda even allowed Peter to suckle her breasts in order to share with the girls the sweet milk being produced by his wife's massive breasts. "Just a little, honey," she would say, "'cause sometimes it's hard to produce enough to keep the girls happy."
Peter's hands would be softly running up and down the soft cylinder of tit flesh while his mouth eagerly sucked Amanda's rough, red, elongated nipple. He typically would be moaning with passion, and his giant cock would be almost impossibly stiff. The taste of the warm, sweet breast milk was so comforting and yet so arousing as well. Peter had even spewed semen all over the bedroom several times while nursing his wife. It was that arousing! And Amanda, who found nursing very arousing herself — at least when it was her husband doing the nursing — often returned the favor; she, too, would often react to Peter's expert nursing with an explosive orgasm.
All this exciting tit play would have come to an end, Peter realized. Yet he also knew it was not uncommon for mothers to continue nursing until their babies were two years old or so. This meant that Peter might be in for a glorious two years of huge tits! It was not, he suddenly realized, going to be hard to do without his harem at all!
Things were going so well, in fact, that Peter thought it might be wise to begin the farewell process well before the twelve weeks had run. As thrilling as sex with Amanda and her big tits had become, Peter still need some vaginal loving on the side. He certainly did not, however, need four women on the side to fill that need. It was time to strip down to the essentials and to start saying goodbye.
The first choice was easy. Gina. In many ways, Gina offered Peter the most free and easy sex — even though he was paying $225 a visit for it. Yet she would be the easiest to break up with. It would simply be like no longer dropping by your neighborhood Wawa for your morning coffee! They might not even notice your absence!
Peter did not just disappear, though. Nor did he call the buxom escort to tell her of his decision. Instead, he made one last trip to the Arabian Nights townhouse on Race Street. It was thrilling! Since it was the equivalent of one more for the road, Peter made a particular point of fucking Gina's brains out just for old time's sake.
Gina's reaction to Peter's announcement was just about what he would have expected: an expression of cheerful regret, but one that was comprised of about 80% cheerfulness and 20% regret. "Oh, too bad, Peter ... I'll miss you ... and this thing, too. It's been fun!" Gina smiled as she gave Peter's limp cock a playful squeeze. She then leaned over and bestowed an affectionate kiss on his cheek. "If you ever change your mind, Peter, you know how to get hold of me!"
Goodbye number two was nearly as easy to chart. Toni! Peter had often thought to himself that hooking up with the buxom secretary was a huge mistake in the first place. Perhaps, better put, she was easily the worst of his many mistakes. She was demanding, bitchy, and moody. Nor was that all; she was also touchy, had amazingly sensitive antennae for slights and insults — most of them imagined — and both craved and achieved revenge from those she held responsible for these perceived injuries. Of all his girls, she was the one who had the greatest potential for exposing him out of spite once the affair was over. She was clearly the one who was most likely to try and get even! Better to get it out of the way now rather than later.
On the other hand, it was clear why Peter had put up with these character flaws. Toni was very pretty (though not beautiful), extremely buxom, an amazingly passionate and proficient lover, and — not least! — an accomplished blowjob artist who could deep throat Peter's sixteen-inch love sword. That was not a talent to be lightly cast aside!
Still, Toni had to go. Now. Indeed, all the girls had to go; it just made sense to put Toni near the head of the line. Peter decided to make the break as smooth and businesslike as possible. He rented a room at the Ritz-Carlton — the site of their first coupling — and decided that he would announce the breakup before the lovers had even climbed into bed. In fact, Peter had determined there would be no climbing into bed at all. It was emotionally cleaner simply to call it quits at the beginning of the session without introducing the hopeless ambiguity of sex into the equation. Peter wanted to send no mixed messages to this young lady! There would not, he thought, even be a chaste goodbye hug and kiss.
"You fucker! You want to what?" Toni was fairly screaming at the top of her lungs — which, given the generous size of those organs meant that the volume was turned all the way up! What's more, her face was red and twisted with anger. Things were not off to a good beginning!
"Break up ... stop seeing each other," Peter repeated. He was getting precisely the reaction he had feared. "Look, honey..."
"Skip the 'honey' bullshit, Peter! Give me a fucking break!"
"Okay. Look. You know I'm married, Toni. Things have been going really well with my wife lately and I just want to go back to being a faithful husband. I feel guilty about having been unfaithful to her. I'm also afraid of getting caught. Eventually, I just know I would get caught. I want to stop seeing you, feeling like that, before disaster strikes. Our relationship has been really great! And not just the sex, either. I just plain like you, Toni! I respect you as a person so very much, too. I'd love to keep seeing you — I really would! — but it's just too darned risky! Is that unreasonable?"
"Cut the bullshit, you cocksucker! This is all about you, isn't it! Not me! I don't count! You're the one who decided he wanted to start this relationship. Do you remember? Right downstairs in the bar ... is any of this coming back to you, you asshole?" Toni was furious!
"Of course I remember."
"And, now, you're going to be the one who decides when it ends. No talking it over. No mutual discussion. No respect for my feelings or my desires. Just toss me out the window like a wadded up tissue. Oh, you men! I could just scream!"
Screaming, in fact, was precisely what Peter thought she was doing. That was not, however, a fine point he was prepared to press!
Toni was not through — far from it! "What if I don't want to end it? Huh? You are such a fucking user, Peter! You know, when I think back I realize we never even had lunch together. Like friends would do, you know? Hell, we never saw each other outside of a bedroom. Not once! I can see now you cared only about my tits and my pussy. I'm not a dummy, Peter. I knew you were married. I never thought this ... this relationship was going to end up at the altar. But I didn't think I would just get used up and thrown away like some second-hand douche bag. I really thought a whole lot more of you than that, Peter. I at least expected some respect! Now, it turns out you're a scumbag just like all the rest. Fuck you!"
"Could I explain...?"
"You certainly can not! Where's my fucking purse? I'm out of here, you ... motherfucker!"
"I'm sorry, Toni ... I really thought we could end things a whole lot more pleasantly than this."
"Well, we couldn't. Not with you acting like this!" Toni's face was contorted with volcanic fury. Her giant tits were quivering in synchronized response to her anger. This time, though, Peter was paying no attention whatever to those massive bowling ball-sized glands. He just wished they would go away!
Toni raged on. "And don't think this is the end of it, you asshole!" Peter's heart sunk; he knew very well the depth of Toni's capacity for revenge. "Nobody treats me like this. Nobody! You're going to pay for this, you rotten cocksucker! I am going to get even! You can count on it, you prick! You're toast!"
Toni grabbed her purse and stormed out of the room. "Oh, my God!" Peter said to himself. "What have I gotten myself into now?" Had he, Peter wondered, at long last sailed too close to the wind?
Amanda's last student conference was over — finally! She knew that she had something on the order of four or five times the number of students dropping by for a conference than her colleagues. She noted ruefully that at least 95% of the students who came by for a visit these days were male. The gorgeous young history professor sighed. She knew she was highly attractive, and now that her figure was back to normal, the male segment of the college had returned to buzzing around her office like bees to the blossoms in a lilac arbor.
In fact, as she was sometimes wont to forget, her figure was not back to normal. Her hips and legs and stomach were as slim as before but up top — well, her bosom was not even close to normal. A 32J chest was not normal for Amanda! No wonder the boys were lined up for conferences! And then there were her colleagues — well, her male ones, anyway — who seemed to be making excuses to come by to see her again and again for one contrived reason or another. Amanda sighed once more. This attention was gratifying in a way, and certainly an ego-stroker, but it would be nice to have a little more privacy and a little less getting stripped to the bone by male eyes!
Well, everyone was gone for the moment at any rate. Amanda was finally able to review her notes for her American Intellectual History class that was meeting after lunch. She had taught the course three years running, so only a light brush up was going to be necessary.
The mid-morning arrival of mail cart interrupted her review; Tommy, the sweet Downs Syndrome-afflicted young man who worked the mail cart, handed her a thin stack of letters. "Not much today, professor," Tommy announced pleasantly. The young man really did a nice job getting the mail delivered to the faculty offices on time. And he, perhaps alone among the men she encountered around the college, did not leer! Thank goodness for Tommy!
Today's mail was mostly predictable. There was a notice of the upcoming annual meeting of the American Historical Society meeting in San Francisco; historical societies always managed to pick exciting venues for their annual meetings. Too bad she was nursing and couldn't go. The mail also included several flyers from book publishers announcing new offerings; she would check those out later.
Finally, there was an unmarked envelope that bore a Philadelphia postmark but no return address. Amanda ripped it open and found a single business card inside. It read:
|
Her curiosity thoroughly piqued, Amanda looked on the back of the card. The following note appeared:
|
Amanda's heart did a flip-flop. What on earth? This little pasteboard rectangle was a total mystery. The gorgeous professor thought for a moment, pursed her lips, and frowned. The meaning of this request from an unknown person might be a total mystery but one thing was crystal clear. The odds that this card spelled trouble — with a capital "T" — were nigh on overwhelming. This was going to turn out to be bad news. Amanda just knew it!
After mulling over the matter for a couple of days, Amanda finally called the number and talked to Toni. The woman flatly refused to discuss the matter of concern — whatever it was! — over the phone but insisted on meeting for lunch instead.
"I don't think that's necessary," Amanda stated crisply. "Can't you say what you have to say over the phone?"
"Absolutely not!" Toni replied. "It has to be in person. And believe me, professor, I would not insist on that if it were not really, really important. It is! It involves your personal life in a very crucial way! You need to talk to me and you need to do so in person!"
With extreme reluctance, then, Amanda had agreed to meet Toni at Twenty Manning for lunch the next week. On the appointed day, Amanda was walking past Rittenhouse Square to the restaurant. Her mouth was dry and her heart was in her throat. Frankly, she was scared shitless! Her mind was totally fixed on the encounter just ahead. She was so focused that she was utterly unaware of the attention she was drawing. Naturally, every male head was swiveling in amazement at the sight of this incredibly beautiful, unbelievably stacked babe in her form-fitting short dress and heels. The Rittenhouse Square area was usually full of beautiful women — especially at lunch. But this ... this! ... this was something special even for this neighborhood!
Amanda did not even notice! She was so worried about her meeting with Toni! Her apprehension was natural; it seemed inevitable that this just had to be about Peter — the young woman's words and conversational tone had seemed to guarantee nothing less. After all, what else could it be?
The prospect that some infidelity was about to be disclosed seemed just unbelievable, though. There was not a hint — nothing! — that suggested that Peter was engaged in an affair. They were so much in love, so close! He never went out at night, she always knew where he was! It was inconceivable! Yet Amanda was realistic enough to know that no one could completely know another person. It was possible, after all, because anything was possible! Who knows? Maybe he really was into nooners, or something.
Toni had said she was a medium height, shorthaired blonde around 21 who would be wearing a cream-colored skirt and a plum colored blouse. She had also said she would look for a table outside the restaurant. Amanda had told Toni she was in her late twenties, had long, dark hair, and would be wearing a black knit dress.
Amanda got to the restaurant some five minutes early to survey the scene. There was no one remotely resembling Toni's description in sight. She arranged to be seated outside on the Manning Street side and tried to prepare herself for Toni's arrival.
Her early arrival greatly pleased Amanda; it meant she was able to sit and look for Toni rather than vice-versa. Somehow, she felt, it gave her the upper hand to some small degree. She was apprehensive but now felt just a little more in control. She anxiously eyed the passing crowd, knowing that very soon her luncheon guest would differentiate herself from the milling horde.
Oh, God! Here she comes, I bet! This must be her! She's so young! Jesus! And look at the tits on her. They're enormous! Of course! The way Peter has been going bonkers over my brand new big breasts. This is just what I might expect him to go for! Yep ... this might be starting to make sense, damn it! She's not all that pretty, actually ... sort of cute, I guess. Kind of coarse looking, though. Look at that skirt she's got on! It's so short! She looks like an absolute hooker! Peter, Peter, what were you thinking of?
Toni walked up to the table. "Professor Wyeth?"
"That's me," Amanda replied curtly. "And you're Toni?" The buxom secretary nodded. "Good. Have a seat." Toni sat down and the two woman silently took each other's measure. They were eyeing each other like gladiators about to have at it in the Roman Forum.
Wow! She's absolutely gorgeous! Peter's wife is one of the most beautiful women I've even seen! What on earth was he dickin' around for? And look at the tits on her! They're enormous! Almost as big as mine, for Christ's sake! Why would Peter take a chance on losing a beauty like that for some nookie on the side? Is he crazy?
The women ordered drinks (a glass of merlot for Amanda; bourbon on the rocks for Toni) and then got right down to business. At least, Amanda did; she wanted to find out right away what Toni absolutely had to tell her and then bolt! "So, Miss Grochowski, I understand you feel you have something you have to tell me?"
"Yeah, well, it's like this ... it's about your husband."
"And what about my husband?"
"Well, he's a cheating scumbag, a rat. That's what he is!"
"And what did my husband do to earn that evaluation, Miss Grochowski?" Amanda inquired coolly.
"Well, he cheated on you ... he had an affair with me. Like for months, too ... it wasn't no one-night stand! No, ma'am!"
Yep! There it is! It just had to be! An affair! Oh, God! But can I even believe this slut? She looks like a secretary from South Jersey or Northeast or something. Not the sort of person Peter would be likely to run into or even meet! Still....
Amanda managed with great difficulty to keep her cool. "Well! I don't know what I'm supposed to say at this point, Miss Grochowski. I noted, though, that you said 'Had an affair.' That sounds like the past tense. Are we talking about something that's no longer going on, then? Something that's over?"
Toni was silent. She had not expected to be the one on the griddle. She had thought that Amanda would be in that position. She had the feeling she was losing control of this little session.
"Well, Miss Grochowski, what is it? Speak up! Please! Is this supposed 'affair' in fact over?"
"Well, yes, I guess you could say it is. But so what? That don't change things. Not one bit! What matters is that it happened."
"Well, Miss Grochowski," Amanda snapped, "I'm certainly relieved to hear it's over! Why, then, did you go to all this trouble just to tell me about it? If it's over, that is."
"I just thought you should know, that's all. Know what kind of man you're married to, I mean."
"You thought I should know!" Amanda drew out the words with slow precision and emphasis. "How thoughtful of you, Miss Grochowski! And now I do know. Thanks to you, I certainly do know! Well! Now that I do know, in fact, I don't think there's any reason to continue this luncheon, is there? This little exchange of information concludes our business, don't you think?" Amanda's voice was getting shrill and her face red. She was very close to breaking down. "In fact, Miss Grochowski, if you'll excuse me I think I'll leave right now." Amanda rummaged in her purse, pulled out two twenties, and threw them on the table. "Here's for lunch. If you'll forgive me, I think I'll say goodbye. I don't really have much of an appetite today, anyway."
As she got up and turned to go, Amanda could not resist one last shot: "But do continue with your lunch. Why not? A pretty, unaccompanied girl like you... perhaps you'll run into Peter's replacement ... lots of married men work around here, after all!"
"Hey, that's a shitty thing to say, lady!"
"Goodbye, Miss Grochowski!"
Amanda made it as far as the middle of Rittenhouse Square before she broke down and collapsed on a bench. She was soon dissolved in tears.
Peter, how could you? Wait! Maybe I've got it backwards. The question is, did you? Maybe she's lying! Maybe she tried to seduce you and you turned her down and this is her way of getting even! That's possible!
That was a comforting scenario but Amanda knew in her heart it was untrue. If Toni was the smoke Amanda could tell that she was, then there surely was fire somewhere. Probably a conflagration! Her story just had the ring of truth to it.
Those tits just clinch it! Peter's been going so wild for mine! I know he's a real tit hound. If he were going to have an affair it would definitely be with a girl with huge tits! That's why I know she's telling the truth!
Amanda suddenly sat bolt upright. An unimaginably awful thought had coursed through her fevered brain.
Julie! Julie Lamson who used to live next door! She's got the biggest tits in the world! Oh, God! Did Peter have a fling with her too? Oh, my God!
The grief-stricken woman tried to get a grip. Thoughts like this could drive a girl insane!
No, no! Stop it, Amanda! All you know is that Peter may have had an affair with this girl. May have. But even if he did, it's over. The slut is clearly getting even for being thrown over. I didn't even know he was tomcatting but apparently Peter has come back to me!
Amanda was no longer crying; she was thinking, thinking. She had always told herself that if Peter ever ... ever .... ever! ... cheated on her she out of there! Instantly! She had too much going for her to put up with treatment like that for even a second! Yet here she was in precisely that predicament. What in the world was she going to do now that she was actually faced with the situation?
Slowly, some rationalizations began to creep in. She found her reactions getting softened.
His affair is over! I guess it's over! And it did happen while I was pregnant. My mother used to tell me that if a guy is going to stray, he's most likely to do it when his wife is pregnant. So maybe it's explicable in a way! Not excusable — Hell no! — but explicable.
Amanda suddenly found herself getting angry! This particular rationalization was not helping her mood! Not one bit!
What about all those blowjobs ... night after night ... mornings, too! Not to mention weekends! The gallons of sperm I swallowed! I thought that was supposed to keep hubby from straying. If I hadn't been providing so much home cooking that would be one thing. But I was! Full time, too! How dare he sneak around when I'm giving him my all! Hell, I gave at the office! A whole lot more than most wives. That meant this sort of thing was not supposed to happen! Damn him!
The flash of anger subsided. The real question was ... what comes next?
Oh, God! What do I do now? Do I leave him? What about the girls? Oh, God! What an impossible time for something like this to come up! I've got to think this through. Carefully. Logically. Sensibly. If I can! The affair is over, after all. That I know. I've got to hold onto that — it's my lifeline! If there ever was an affair, that is! And I'm not pregnant any more so that's no longer a factor. Well, not for much longer, anyway. What the hell do I do? Shit, shit, SHIT!
Amanda sat on the bench in deep thought for an additional half an hour. She loved Peter! Their life together had been — is! — so wonderful. They were so close — or so she had thought! And now they had a family! Their relationship, their marriage, was so wonderful — or so it had seemed. One simply did not throw all that away for less than the weightiest of reasons. Of course, Amanda considered bitterly, that did not seem to have stopped Peter from sneaking around in the first place!
Then, too, there was the sex. For Peter, sex was his raison d'etre; it defined his persona. It was his life! Amanda certainly knew that much about her man! For Amanda, as for most wives, sex was further down the list. But it still was important. Very important! She dreamily played back in her mind some of the hot scenes of her marriage. What an accomplished, passionate, tireless lover Peter was! What a cock he carried between his legs!
Amanda knew that if she left Peter, she would be besieged — instantly! — by a legion of guys hungry for her company; she could actually make up a preliminary list in advance! The beautiful young wife was neither vain nor self-satisfied but she certainly knew from the reactions she had drawn from men since the onset of puberty that she was an extremely gorgeous woman. That was simply a fact. No, finding Peter's replacement would not be a problem. The problem was that she could never find Peter's equal as a lover, either in his sexual equipment or especially in the way he employed it.
But even more important, Peter was such a wonderful, loving guy. He'd be a keeper even if she did a Leona Bobbitt on him! There were, Amanda realized full well, a whole lot of reasons to do nothing drastic in the wake of this lunch with Ms Boobs from Northeast.
Amanda's beautiful face then broke into an evil grin. Leona Bobbitt! Hmmm. Now that might be the one drastic thing I should consider! Peter certainly deserves it, the asshole! Hmmm. Except in the long run I'd be depriving myself, wouldn't I? Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face! Oh, well! I guess I'd better let Peter keep his ... his ... thing! It could come in handy down the road, after all!
By small degrees, she came to a decision. She would not leave Peter. She would not exactly forgive Peter but neither would she confront him about Toni. There was no point in doing that — it was over and maybe it never was. A confrontation might cause more trouble than it would resolve. Under the circumstances, it might be best to let sleeping dogs lie.
It had always been Amanda's strong preference to confront problems head-on. Passive aggression was not in her playbook. On the other hand....
The gorgeous, deeply troubled young mother sighed. Deeply. Under the peculiar facts of this situation, she was reluctantly concluding that trying to ride it out without a confrontation might be best. Not good — but best. This was a situation with no good solution. As a result, there was no reason to allow the best to become the enemy of the good.
Yes, let sleeping dogs lie.
And as long as she was dealing in canine metaphors, Amanda was reminded of the maxim that every dog gets one bite, as they used to say in Richmond. Well, Peter just had his. He probably just had his, that is! If there was ever a second bite ... ever! ... she and the girls would be out the door in a second.
And as for forgiveness ... well ... Peter would have to earn it through being faithful. If he remained faithful ... and she meant for years ... forever, in fact! ... he would earn his forgiveness without, Amanda smiled ruefully to herself, ever knowing that he was actually in the position of needing it at all.
I'm going to watch him like a hawk, though. I know that that sort of thing can't go on forever, that endless suspicion would eventually corrode our marriage. But at least until I get over the effects of this lunch Peter's going to be under the microscope. Big time! He'd better not fuck up! if he does ... he's toast! And even if he doesn't he has a lot to make up for. He owes me! Big time again!
Amanda smiled ruefully to herself. Like so many women, she had caught her husband being unfaithful. That certainly was a position in which she had never expected to find herself! Now, she was also doing what so many women did, but which she had promised herself she would never do — excuse the bum! Worse — she was actually making excuses for the jerk! Well, she was not excusing him, exactly, but she was letting him off the hook after a fashion.
She suddenly had a flash of understanding of why women in this position were so often forgiving. Sex was an important reason — especially when it was great sex like she and Peter enjoyed. Still, the love of hearth, of children, of security — in the end these were the much more important values. And now she was buying into them. She hoped Peter would understand on some level the price she was paying for the continuation of their relationship. The bum! But yet she simultaneously loved him even at this very moment. Amanda sighed.
He's my man and I'm his woman. Fate has so decreed! That's the bottom line! I love him and I need him. And vice-versa as well. I hope! What's that line from Waiting for Godot? "I can't go on. I go on." So we do go on. We have to! Peter slipped ... once I hope ... I can forgive that. Well, I hope I can! At least until I have reason to think that this sort of thing is habitual instead of a one-time misstep. What else is a girl to do? But if there is more to it than that....