Thy Neighbor's Wife
(and Other Sins)
A Fantasy
by
RICHARD O STEELE
Copyright 2001 © Richard O Steele. All rights reserved
Chapter 32
Life settled back into a routine made different by the addition of three new faces — Ann, Jessica, and Mrs van der Puy — into the Wyeth household. Amanda had arranged to take three months off from school to care for the babies and recover from the births. That period of time almost coincided with the waiting period decreed by Dr Montgomery. The couple's everything-but-vaginal-sex routine continued to be as torrid and frequent as ever. In fact, Peter was finding that Amanda was actually going down on him deeper than ever! Do you suppose that some day...? Things were, Peter concluded, going very well indeed.
And yet ... Amanda somehow seemed different. Peter really couldn't verbalize it but she was a bit, well, clingy. Upon reflection, that seemed to be the word that best fit the situation. It was, Peter decided, undoubtedly a function of motherhood. Certainly, because she had no classes to teach this quarter, Amanda was home a lot more. She needed to be. After all, even though Mrs van der Puy had the responsibility for most of the hands-on childcare, Amanda still nursed the babies several times a day. That sort of regimen could trigger a lot of motherly instincts. Amanda, the nursing mother. Peter was sure that was it.
Yet there was something else going on. Although she often seemed clingy, sometimes Amanda seemed the opposite ... wary, almost. Edgy, even. Then, too, he had occasionally caught her looking at him in a very appraising fashion. As if she were trying to size him up. Sometimes, her looks seemed almost ... adversarial! She also seemed on the whole to be a bit less agreeable than in the past. It could be the strain of trying to balance a career with motherhood. Even though she had no teaching responsibilities, Amanda was still kept busy with college committee work, responses to reviews of her book (they were generally full of praise but occasionally contained the stray point to which she had to respond), and lots of reading in the library to ferret out ideas for her next book. For college teachers, there must always be a next book! Amanda, in other words, hardly sat around with her feet up! Of course, a case of the postpartum blues was also a possibility.
This new cast to Amanda's personality gave Peter the willies. Something was up, that was for sure! A small but insistent part of Peter's brain kept suggesting the possibility that Amanda was wise to his unfaithfulness.
This new side — or sides! — of Amanda manifested itself in a lot more ... well ... togetherness. Amanda seemed to be calling him at the office a lot more often. Much of the conversation centered on the babies and how they were doing. Peter supposed that was normal under the circumstances but still.... Her calls seemed clustered around lunchtime or at the end of the day. They centered, in other words, around the times Peter might have had a buxom-orientated frolic on his hands.
After a time, Peter actually began to wonder if Amanda were checking up on him! Was that possible? The very thought sent shivers up and down his spine! It couldn't be! Could it?
Whatever the cause, this increased contact did focus Peter's mind wonderfully. Whether he were being checked up on or not was only one issue. Of equal importance was the fact on account of her calls, Amanda was getting a good sense of Peter's comings and goings. Too good a sense! Peter knew he was going to have to be very, very careful. Some of his freedom had suddenly vanished.
For one thing, these developments required Peter to alter his lifestyle to an extent. He stopped taking much more than an hour for lunch. He had no choice. Given the frequency of her calls, Amanda would know he was spending a lot of time away from the office. As a result, the harried banker dared not take more than, say, 75 to 90 minutes for lunch on those days when his lunching was being done at the "Y" rather than at, say, Avenue B or the Palm. Even at that, he compensated by slimming down his lunch hours on those days when he was not seeing either of his buxom playmates to 30 to 45 minutes. Peter, in other words, was eating a lot more fast food at the Reading Market these days than fine cuisine in his usual haunts.
Given the minimum round trip travel times of half an hour between his office and Chestnut and 36th (Julie), and Tasker and Broad (Lakisha), these truncated lunch hours were turning his trysts with his two girl friends into relative quickies. Forty-five minutes to an hour in the sack was getting to be about it!
He felt he couldn't explain his growing suspicions about Amanda to Julie; she might totally freak out and call off the relationship! Still, she certainly noticed the shortened periods they were spending together. Peter could tell that his lame explanations about work pressures were not playing very well. Indeed, Julie was getting a bit miffed at the idea of traveling all the way in from St Davids for a hurried 45 to 60 minutes of slam, bang, thank you ma'am sex. Peter continued trying to explain it in terms of workload, blah, blah, blah, but he knew that something was going to have to give before long. Julie wasn't buying!
Lakisha was much less of a problem. Peter simply told her flat out that his wife might be getting suspicious. The gorgeous, huge-titted youngster howled with glee; she actually thought it was funny! Still, it meant that Peter was getting less than an hour a week of Lakisha's fabulous body. He rarely even had time for that third shot on goal!
Even planning the two trysts a week in which Peter felt he could dare to indulge was getting harder and harder to accomplish. For one thing, Amanda had taken to coming into Center City from time to time to have lunch with Peter. Peter certainly enjoyed their romantic lunches at Susanna Foo's and like venues, but on more than one occasion Peter had been forced to call his lover to cancel a planned get together for the next day. Twice, he had to call on the very morning of the date! Neither Julie nor Lakisha had been very pleased with those last-minute postponements!
Much worse was the day Amanda simply showed up unannounced at around lunchtime. "Hi, lover," she announced brightly as she breezed into his office. "I was shopping on Walnut Street and thought to myself, 'golly, it's a quarter to twelve ... I wonder if Peter is hungry?'" Although the invitation was naturally delivered, the tone seemed just a tad pugnacious as well. For the thousandth time in the last few weeks, Peter got that sinking feeling in his stomach that something just had to be up! More and more it seemed conceivable that Amanda knew! What was he going to do?
Peter had been scheduled to meet Lakisha at the Tasker Arms at 12:15. He had been nearly ready to leave for the subway when Amanda walked in. Thank God she wanted to use the ladies room before they left for lunch! Peter was able to reach Lakisha on her cell phone — her taxi was already at Spring Garden and Broad, ten minutes away from the hotel! — and hurriedly canceled
the rendezvous. Although the ultra-buxom youngster had always thought the idea of Amanda's suspicions was a hoot, she was clearly not amused by this last second cancellation of her hot hour of loving with the biggest dick in Philly! This was not funny at all!
Peter was still able to have a couple of hot, if abridged, assignations a week with his ultra-buxom lovers. At the same time, the unnerving sense that Amanda was definitely on to something kept getting stronger and stronger. He thought he had been scrupulously careful in engaging in these matters of the ... well ... of the cock. But there was no doubt about it — Amanda was definitely acting like a very suspicious wife! There were even little flashes of anger that had not been present before. Peter considered it more and more likely that he was in the soup! Well, long ago when he had started his pursuit of giant breasts, he knew this day could come. Was it here?
This sense of foreboding was further heightened one evening while Peter and Amanda were making hot if still non-vaginal love. At one point during their lovemaking Peter was fervently gnawing on his wife's J-cup hooters. He was moaning with passion as his flicking tongue wildly butterflied Amanda's erect nipples and his hands lightly traced up and down an amazingly big cylinder of tit meat.
"Are my new J-cup tits big enough for you, sweetheart?" Amanda queried lightly.
"You bet they are!" Peter breezily replied.
"I certainly hope so, Peter," Amanda answered in what had suddenly become a very serious tone! "I really do!" Then she added, "They certainly should be!"
Peter was suddenly overcome by the shivers. He felt as if he had been kicked in the stomach! This was clearly no random comment! What on earth did she mean by that? The return of that sinking feeling in Peter's stomach suggested that his wife really did know something was going on!
Peter wrestled for a couple more weeks with his ever-growing fears that Amanda was onto his extracurricular loving. On the other hand, only about three more weeks remained of their post-natal, no-fucking regimen. Would things hold together until then? Should he call it quits with Julie and Lakisha right now? Peter knew that was exactly what he should do; yet the joy of fucking the two beyond-buxom women was so thrilling! Why couldn't he just make a seamless transition from the two monstrously buxom women to Amanda at the moment the twelve-week post-natal waiting period drew to a close. What was wrong with that?
A couple of days later, Amanda had run back to the college after dinner to check on her mail. Peter was puttering around the house and watching the babies. Anne and Jessica were actually sound asleep, Mrs van der Puy was probably camped in front of the TV in her upstairs sitting room, and Peter had nothing to do as a result. He was bored. He had done the dishes — Mrs van der Puy's duties did not extend past childcare — and then read the Inquirer, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and even the Philadelphia Daily News (the latter task a five minute project at best!). He needed a book to read.
Peter wandered into Amanda's study to see what she might have lying around. He spotted a huge stack of books on her end table. They were probably some of the review copies she was continually getting inundated with.
One of them — about ten books down in the stack –caught his eye. It was Into The American Woods: Negotiators on the Pennsylvania Frontier, by James H. Merrell. Peter thought he remembered that the book had won the Bancroft Prize as the best history book of the year. Peter had majored in history; he liked to keep up. Besides, it was local stuff, which made it especially interesting. Accordingly, he picked up the book and began to leaf through the volume.
Suddenly his heart nearly stopped in shock. A business card was stuck in the middle of the book. It was a card with which Peter was very, very familiar:
|
With shaking hand and sinking heart, Peter flipped it over. Under the circumstances, he was not at all surprised to see the following note appended to the back of the card:
|
The fucking bitch! Yep! Toni had gotten her revenge, all right! Of so it seemed. Had Amanda actually responded to the note, though? Peter knew in his heart that the odds were 99 out of 100 that she had. Why else all the checking up on him, the overly frequent phone calls, the numerous lunches, the unannounced drop-in at the office, the waspish comments, the occasional dirty looks? Yes, Peter said to himself, there is no doubt about it. None. Nada! Nein! Amanda has talked to Toni, and Toni then told Amanda all about it. The fucking bitch! He was busted! That's what was going on!
As Peter mulled over this astonishing development, he considered the fact that Amanda had said nothing about it to him. She had certainly changed her behavior but she had not actually brought up the subject. Peter knew that Amanda was not the sort of woman to keep things bottled up. When something was on her mind, she brought it up. Not talking about this contact from Toni was very unlike her. Of course, Peter doubted that she had ever before had so momentous a matter on her mind, so that past experience was hardly an accurate guide.
Maybe Amanda was biding her time, waiting to bring the subject up at a propitious time. Maybe she had not even gotten around to calling Toni yet. Amanda's behavior, though, was inconsistent with that last assumption. Something was up, all right, no doubt about it! Amanda had made that call, all right — Peter could count on it! He could also be sure that the phone call had identified him as a thoroughgoing philanderer. No doubt about that, either!
Perhaps, Peter's fevered internal dialogue continued, she knew but had decided to let it go. If was very possible that even if she knew about Toni, she knew nothing about Julie or Lakisha, let alone Heather, Letitia, or Gina. Nothing, that is, about Peter's wholesale infidelity! If Amanda thought it was a momentary, maybe even forgivable, lapse, she might let it go. Maybe she even had her doubts about whether Toni was telling the truth. That possibility, Peter quickly decided, was the most unlikely of all. The truth was that Amanda knew, and now Peter knew that she knew. The question on the table, though, was this: What in hell was Peter going to do about it?
Task number one, Peter quickly realized, was to return to state of faithfulness. Absolute faithfulness! Immediately! He was going to have to call it off with Julie and Lakisha posthaste. Was it possible that Amanda's silence represented a chance to be faithful once again and save his marriage? If so, this was a chance he dare not fumble!
At the same time Peter knew he was frankly terrified of the idea of approaching Amanda to talk about it and ask her forgiveness. First of all, he was just plain scared! Shitless, in fact. Beyond that, though, he did not know, after all, how long the card had been tucked away in the book. Actually, since it had been weeks since he had broken up with Toni, it was likely that Amanda might have placed the card in the book weeks earlier. He would, after all, have expected Toni to seek her revenge fairly promptly. This could mean that Amanda was getting over it by now, relatively speaking that is. If Peter were suddenly to come on to her all lovey-dovey she would be bound to think "Hel-lo?" No, acting absolutely in a normal way was the way to go. Peter was sure of it!
Peter realized full well that even if this worked, he was still going to have to live with a whole bunch of skeletons rattling away in the cupboard for the rest of his life. He also realized — ruefully but completely — that there was nothing he more richly deserved! Nothing could be more just! Well, it was time to get on with it!
On account of Amanda's close attention to his daily routine, it had actually been a week or so since Peter had seen anyone. He just knew that breaking up with Julie would be the tougher task of the two ahead of him, so — his cowardice taking over — he called Lakisha first. He used a 7-11 phone card he had purchased for the purpose; naturally, he took care not to have the huge-busted youngster's cell phone number appear on any phone bill that might be attributed to him!
Well, he tried to call Lakisha! The buxom little teenager did not answer her cell phone. Peter had never given her a number by which she could call him; it would have been too risky to have the number pop up on his cell phone bill. Having her call home or the office was even more impossible, of course. Peter therefore left messages on her voice mail and kept calling the huge-titted youngster but to no avail. He certainly hoped she was all right!
Finally, Peter called Sodom and Gomorrah. The girl who answered the phone briskly told him that "Melony don't work here no more!" Peter had actually seen the busty little whore only once at the S & G in-call location. They probably would not remember him; thus, he could hardly ask for the favor of some inside information. Still, he did make the effort.
"Do you know where she's working now? I'm a client of hers and I'd like to see her."
"Sorry. We have no information on her present whereabouts." The voice on the other end was cold and official in tone. Then, however, the voice softened. "Tell you what, honey. We got some really cute new girls on staff. Some of them are really busty, too ... help you forget Melony! Would you like to make an appointment to see one of them?"
"No, no," Peter replied. "Thanks but I really need to hook up with Melony."
That was that. Peter was reduced to calling and recalling the little girl's cell phone. Unfortunately, it just rang and rang. Peter continued to leave messages but none were returned. Soon it became impossible to do even that; a disembodied voice announced one day that "the subscriber's voice mail box is filled up." What the hell was going on?
After some tortured contemplation and self-examination, Peter decided that if he failed to reach Lakisha in four days' time, he would call the police. He knew very well that escorting was potentially a highly dangerous occupation; it would be easy to run into the wrong sort of person. A very wrong sort of person! A rape 'em, strangle 'em, and toss 'em into the Delaware River sort of person!
Although the cost of going public with concern for Lakisha could be personally catastrophic, Peter knew in his heart that he could not do a Gary Condit on the overdeveloped little girl. If Lakisha was really missing, Peter was going to have to swallow hard and do something about getting the police involved. Right away, too! That included going public by telling the police what he knew, no matter what the cost. He certainly owed the unimaginably buxom little tart at least that much!
While he continued fruitlessly to call Lakisha's cell phone number, Peter was able to make a date with Julie. Although he did not tip his hand — or at least thought he had not! — he was determined to call it quits during that encounter. Moreover, he had decided that the parting just had to be sexless. A goodbye fuck — one for the road — would be utterly inappropriate. It would be an insult to Julie. Above all, it would devalue the wonderful relationship they had shared. No matter what, Peter was prepared to just say no to the idea of any goodbye sex.
As usual, Julie was in the room first. Again, as usual, Peter had to run the gauntlet of Mr Appleford's knowing smirks as he headed for the elevator. At least he would not have to encounter that little bit of unpleasantness again.
As he entered the room, Julie did not immediately rush into his arms. Instead, she stood there expectantly, as if waiting for Peter to open the dialogue. Peter suddenly realized that she seemed to know something was up; perhaps it had been the tone in his voice when he set up the date. In any event, Julie seemed to know beyond a certainty that this was no usual date. God! The two knew each other so well!
Peter's first thought was not the most appropriate one. "Jesus, she looks good!" Actually, Julie was wearing a fairly conservative dress; it was clearly the dress she had worn during her trip from home to the hotel. Its hem was only a couple of inches above the knee, and it was comparatively loose fitting. Of course, when your tits are bigger than watermelons, "comparatively" is the key word here! Even in this conservative dress, her figure was obviously sensational. So too were her legs! And then there was her hair, long, full, and blonde. And her face — so very, very beautiful. Peter knew full well that he was about to say goodbye to one of the premier pieces of ass on earth! One of the sweetest and most caring, too! Yet say goodbye he must!
Julie would normally have changed into something sexier than her traveling dress by now. She always took the few minutes between her arrival and Peter's to get really sexy-looking. This was another sign that Julie definitely knew something was up!
The unimaginably buxom and beautiful woman looked Peter straight in the eye. "What's up, Peter," she asked evenly. "And please don't tell me 'nothing!'"
"Well," Peter replied, returning her gaze with equal intensity, "This is awfully hard to say but we've got to end our relationship." There! It was out! He had actually been able to say it!
Julie sighed deeply and was silent for a moment. "Why?" she asked simply in a small, plaintive voice. "Wait a minute," she broke in with greater energy before Peter could answer. "Let me tell you some stuff before you answer that! I could tell something was up. Our shorter and shorter dates. Cancellations. The sound in your voice when you called the other day. The look on your face when I opened the door. An old, dreary story, if the romance novels I used to read are any guide. Anyway, I knew! I just knew! So I knew the 'what'. But tell me the 'why'."
Peter took a deep breath and began. "Amanda is getting suspicious. Very suspicious! I don't think she knows about us specifically but she knows something is going on. She's acting very strangely. Checking up on me. Dropping in at work at odd hours. There's just no doubt about it! As a result, I ... I just can't take the chance of getting caught. Hell, I may have been caught already — I just don't know! But if I have ... well ... all the more reason. So as much as I hate to do so, it just has to end!" Peter's voice had actually begun to quaver. "I want to save my marriage, Julie, that's what this is all about!"
Peter had omitted an important part of the story, namely, the card from Toni. But then he had never told Julie about Toni at all. Or Lakisha. Or Gina. Or even about Heather or Letitia. He therefore had to tailor the truth even with Julie, the closest thing to a soul mate among his girl friends.
Julie was silent. She gave another deep sigh. Peter could see a tear forming in the corner of her eye. Then a crooked smile formed on her lips. "Of course, I knew this day was coming ... some day, at least." she said. "It was just bound to happen! But it's still a shock! It's all been ... so ... so wonderful." Julie sniffled a little. "Too wonderful to last, I guess!" she added with a wry grin.
"It's been wonderful for me, too, Julie," Peter added softly.
Julie sat down heavily on the bed. "The thing is, Peter, I would have left Norman for you. I really would have! In a New York minute! All you had to do was say the word. But I know in my heart you never would have left Amanda for me — maybe not for anyone! — so things were always just a little unequal between us. I guess for that reason ending it is good for both of us."
"Baby!" Peter exclaimed.
"Still, it's been good for me," she continued. "There will never be anyone in my life like you ... never! ... but in a perverse way it's actually helped me and my marriage."
"How so?" Peter asked.
Julie internally rolled her eyes. She had told Peter all about this already. Several times, in fact. Were men really as oblivious as all this? Obviously, she concluded. Still, she supposed that under the circumstances she had to tell the story one more time. Maybe this time Peter would remember!
"Well, I told you before that I thought Norman was suspicious but that he was dealing with it by trying to woo me, by trying to make himself more attractive to me. And ... and it worked! Norman has continued to lose weight and to exercise. He's really got a shaped-up body now, believe it or not. He's become more attentive, and a whole lot more loving. He even switched to super-Rogaine and it seems to be working! A little bit at least! Norman is just a whole lot less nerdy than he used to be yet he loves me just as much as before. He's actually a stud ... well, sort of, anyway! I've gotten a new husband, in a sense!"
"Great!" Peter exclaimed.
"And," Julie smiled, "he's a much better lover than before! Not," she quickly added, "in your league. Not at all! But a very, very good lover just the same!"
"He should be," Peter interjected. "Look at the material he has to work with!"
"Well, that's thanks to you, too!" Julie responded. "When I met you I was dowdy and frumpy and because of you I started paying attention to my grooming and hair and such. I also started exercising, just like Norman. I mean, with tits like this I can't really go out jogging but I have toned up my body." She smiled. "If it hadn't been for you I might never have gotten the motivation to do that. I might have stayed home hiding from the world. On the other hand, I might have gotten fed up with my life and left Norman. I don't know which it would have been. But as things stand, I'm sad to see us end but I have a lot of good things in my life to console myself with that weren't there before! I mean I can see myself being happy with Norman for a lifetime. That was not true before. I actually think we're going to make it. Hell, we're even talking about having kids!"
Peter's mouth almost dropped. If Amanda went from a B-cup to an J-cup when she had the twins, what on earth was going to happen to Julie? After all, she was starting at a Z-cup-plus base!
"So," Julie continued, "if this fairy tale has such a happy ending, why am I starting to cry?" Julie's voice had started to tremble as she posed this question. All of a sudden she was bawling. Peter, who never cried, almost felt like doing it himself! For the second time in fifteen minutes! He sat down on the bed next to Julie; she took his hand in hers.
"So," she asked once she had gained a modicum of self-control, "what are you going to do for a breast fix now that you're becoming a one-woman man?"
"Oh, oh," Peter thought to himself. "We're experiencing some bitterness here after all!" Peter paused for a moment and then snapped, "Julie! Come on! I'll admit that I was first attracted to you on account of your huge bosom but I hope you know it developed into a real fondness for you, inside and out! You were never just a 'breast fix!' Far from it!"
There was a moment of quiet. "I know," Julie replied softly. "That was a cheap shot and I'm sorry."
"No problem," Peter responded. "I understand. Really I do."
"It's just that, though," Julie continued. "You really do have a real thing about big tits! How are you going to handle that?"
Peter pulled a face. He decided to answer the question without getting into the issue of Amanda's new big bust. It just raised too many complications! "Look, Amanda is such a wonderful, wonderful wife ... and friend, too. She's such a wonderful lover. I think I can settle for the fabulous qualities she does have. Besides, I'm finishing up a friendship with a girl who not only has huge breasts but, much more important, has been a fabulous lover and friend herself. I'll live off the memories — they should last a long, long time. Thank you for everything, darling Julie!"
As Peter finished this little speech, Julie's face crumpled. Once again, Julie began to bawl uncontrollably. Peter pulled her into his arms and chastely held her shaking body.
After recovering, Julie looked up with a wan smile on her face.
"Are you OK?" Peter asked.
"Sure," she replied. "Happy and sad all at the same time. There's just one final thing," she added.
"What's that?"
"I've thought and thought about what this day would be like and there's one thing I'm sure of."
"What?"
"Let's not have any farewell sex. I mean, that would cheapen everything we've had together. At least for me it would! What if the sex were awful? That's the memory we would take away with us ... for the rest of our lives that would be our strongest, at any rate our last memory of each other!"
"Agreed," Peter said. "Absolutely! I had decided the same thing. A handhold and a hug will do just fine."
And so it ended. With a long, fond, loving, but kiss-less embrace. There was this difference, though. For the first time since they starting going to the Sheraton, Peter came down from the room with Julie and hailed her a cab. He knew it was risky but this one time — this last time — he felt it was important for them to go out like a couple. Ending the relationship was an absolute imperative but giving it the proper sendoff was just as important to Peter. On this day of days, Peter was not going to allow Julie to sneak out of the hotel in her usual furtive, solo fashion. Not this time! She was going to walk right out onto Chestnut Street on Peter's arm with her head high. Peter's would be high, too. They might even mutually smile in Mr Appleford's direction, if the little jerk happened to be working the desk. Peter and Julie were going out as a couple. As a team! Proudly! Julie Lamson — wonderful Julie! — deserved no less! And Peter was determined to see that she got it!