A Wager With Sadie: 016

Sadie stared at him, that look of incredulity on her face taking on new meaning now. He said, “What do you mean? You didn’t . . .?”

“Teddy,” she said, her posture sagging, coming closer again and putting her hands on his chest. No more thumping, now she caressed him. “Teddy, baby, that story was for you. I didn’t really do that . . .”

“What do you mean you didn’t do that?” Suddenly, he was whining . . .

“Look, I know I made it sound . . . Teddy, come on, I couldn’t do . . . that . . .”

“You lied.”

“Lied, Teddy? You made me go out there, wanted me to jerk off another man, now I’m the bad guy?”

“So, what—I’m the bad guy?”

“You’re mad at me? Because I didn’t do it?”

“You really didn’t do it?”

“Fuck sake, Teddy, come on.” She stepped back again, gesturing now with her hands, stabbing them at him. “Do you think I could do that? Do you think I could go out with Quan after some yoga class, me, a married woman? Go out on a boat with him across the bay—”

“But you did do that, Sadie.”

That got her. The stabbing hands stopped.

“It was all true, Teddy, up to the part where he and I went up in the hills, there was no secret spot beyond where the tourists were. Quan and I sat in the river with a bunch of people from Britain and Germany, talking, and then we came home. All that stuff about going off with him in the bushes and that private little eddy pool, that wasn’t true!”

Now she was shouting at him. “Don’t shout at me—”

“How could you believe that?”

“Because you told me.”

“You told me to go do it, because you”—now she used air quotes—“thought it was hot. So if you’re kinky, Teddy, I get it. I’m kinky too. We can be kinky together. But I didn’t really do it, I just told you I did it to make you happy. I thought you knew that.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Are you kidding me?” she said, pointing to herself, then to him, back at herself. “You think I’m that confident? Go off with that guy I don’t even know, and then we get, you know, crazy like that?”

“Why would you lie to me?” he said, in sudden bottomless disappointment, making his knees sag. He’d believed it. And, yeah, it had been hard to take, but once it was done, now he was disappointed that it wasn’t true . . .?

Sadie could see the disappointment in his face and came closer again. “Teddy, you’re my husband. I’m married.”

“I thought you really did it.” He put a warm palm over his chilled forehead.

“It was hot. It was hot just talking about it.”

“Now I don’t know what to think,” he said. It was like he had all these formulas and diagrams on the chalkboard that were making sense and someone had just come along with a big eraser and wiped it clear. Now he was staring at these fragmented vestigial scratches still legible, trying to decipher what all that meaning had been about.

“Teddy, I mean, I’m flattered you think it’s hot, and Quan’s nice and everything—”

“Yeah, hold on,” he said, “wait a second,” taking her shoulders, getting the two of them apart so he could look in her eyes. “No, something is going on between you two.”

“No, there’s not,” she said simply and plainly.

“You’re texting him.”

“Yeah, like you said: we have a lot in common. Nothing happened between us yesterday, Teddy. Doesn’t that make more sense? That I’m texting with him now? We had a nice day together, I met his grandma, his cousin . . . I’m texting with him because he wants advice.”

He said, “I don’t think it’s advice your friend wants.”

“Oh, really?” she said, showing him a skeptical face, nodding with her lips pursed. “What is it you think he wants?”

Now he smiled. “Quan was saying to his gym buddy that you obviously want to fuck him.”

“No, he didn’t,” she said, folding her arms, still showing him that dubious face.

“Yeah, I overheard him saying it in the locker room with his friend before we ended up in the sauna.”

“Where you were looking at his dick, apparently.”

“Sadie. This is serious.”

“Well, I’m not texting Quan for that reason, Teddy. I’m not looking to . . .” She couldn’t say it out loud.

“He thinks you are. He was saying how bad you must want it.”

She scoffed, turned away from him with her arms still folded, looking out the window wall now, Quan standing with his hands in his pockets at the steps up from the villa to the walkway down to the main resort. Her figure was exquisite wrapped in that slinky fabric. The bulging sweeps of her calves and thighs, her hard round ass, narrow waist and that honey blonde hair hanging down her tanned back. Then beyond her, standing twenty feet out, the man he’d thought would have sex with her tonight: huge and muscular and ebony. Sexual equipment of gargantuan proportions that he thought Sadie was already familiar with . . .

But none of it was real?

She turned around, smiling. “Guys are so gross. That’s what he said?”

“That you want to fuck him? Yeah. I don’t lie.”

“You can’t trust me, Teddy, I’m a fantastic liar. You want to hear I gave the guy a hand job, I’m going to tell you I gave him an incredible hand job. Why the hell did you invite him out for dinner tonight if you think I’m running around behind your back?”

“I don’t know,” he said, bouncing off the wall and coming to her, putting his arms around and stroking the small of her back. “I didn’t want you running around behind my back. I want you to know you could do it right in front of me.”

She stared at him haltingly, a smile cocked and ready to spread her cheeks, but held at bay. Her eyes flicking over his, trying to assess how her husband could be so crazy.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know how I’m so crazy either,” he said to her.

“You really are crazy,” she said. “What are we supposed to do now? Go out to dinner with him?”

“Why not? He said you guys are friends and everything.”

“Yeah, but he thinks I want to have sex with him?”

“You don’t?”

She pivoted on a high heel, smiling at him now. She gave him a come-on face, saying, “Teddy . . .”

“What, you don’t?”

She lowered her brows at him. “Teddy, be real.”

“We should go to dinner,” he said.

Sadie said, “This is going to be awkward.”

He put his hand out, and she put hers in it. He pulled her close and kissed her. He said, “Especially since I’m pretty sure Quan thinks I want to watch you have sex with him tonight . . .”

***

Fucking Teddy. Now she was mad at him.

Yeah, okay, her story was believable. I mean she relied on the set up to do most of the work. And everything was true up until the steamy encounter in the eddy. But come on, Teddy. He really thought she’d done it?

Of course he had. The guy really wanted it.

And you really gave it to him.

Not in reality, but you spun him a hot and spicy tale you didn’t actually mind yourself either. Yeah, you’d thought about it.

When she was sitting with those tourists in the flowing water, looking at Quan’s profile, thinking, Gosh, Teddy wants me to do it . . . Thinking how she would do it. Coming up with ways to say, Hey, Quan, what’s up over this ridge? You know, lead the way. Get them somewhere private. Had toyed with the idea. Totally chickened out though.

But it wasn’t a 0% chance she would’ve done it. There was a small chance it really could’ve happened. And Teddy really wanted that . . .?

Well, it was clear and blazingly obvious. More than obvious, the guy was broadcasting it now. Sending out the signal not just to her, but actually bringing Quan to their villa. Hey, come on out for dinner with us. Did he insinuate to Quan something may happen? Most likely. Teddy was operating under the impression that she’d already done it. How had he been talking to Quan? How embarrassing . . .

Only, Teddy had said Quan thought she was interested in having sex with him, boasting to one of his buddies in the locker room about how bad she wanted it. But their texts weren’t like that at all. Their text were conversations about law school. How would Quan get that impression? Most likely because the guy wanted it to be true. Wanted it to be true, and then this woman’s husband comes to him, invites him out to dinner. A happily married couple on vacation inviting a third party for a meal and who knows what else? And that third party is a handsome Black guy built like a God, a charming young man, and who, according to her husband, had some oversized sex equipment . . . Shit. Quan for sure would be thinking something was going to happen tonight.

For crying out fucking loud, Graham.

They headed out together, clicking down the steps, Quan with his back still to them as they approached. She turned and thumped her fist against Teddy’s chest one more time, mad again. Really mad. That stupid idiot. Why wouldn’t he consult her first? You just invite the guy? She would’ve told him then he was mistaken.

God, Teddy thought she’d done it and twenty-four hours later it wasn’t enough? Now he wanted her to have sex with Quan? And watch?

She thumped him again, this time he was laughing. And him laughing made her madder. “Don’t laugh,” she whispered, but now Quan was turning. So while she’d like to wrestle around with her husband a little bit, show him her extreme displeasure, now she had to be all smiles and grace and politeness. Unless . . .

“Hi, Quan,” she said, “sorry about that. Just some things at home that Teddy needed to be caught up on.”

Quan said, “Not bad news, I hope.”

“No, no,” she said, “nothing that’ll deter us from having some fun this evening.” Now she gave Teddy a sly look. And though she’d already greeted Quan, she hugged him and kissed his cheek. It was polite to do that again, don’t you think, Teddy Bear? I mean, we’ve been separated for a few minutes. “I really am so glad you agreed to have dinner with us tonight,” she said, putting her arms around him and rubbing the bulging knots of muscle on his broad back.

Maybe Teddy needed to be taught a lesson tonight . . .

***

The spotless wine goblet looked small in Quan’s hand. Sometimes while he was talking, Teddy would look at his own hand on the exact same wine goblet, just for a sense of scale.

Quan was saying, “It wasn’t like that, you know. It wasn’t like my grandpa just had a fling. No, he had a relationship with her. In Hanoi. Saw her every day. But when it was time to go, it was time to go. I don’t know what he was thinking, guess he always figured he had more time. But when he was on the helicopter heading home, my grandma, Tran, you know the one you met”—he nodded to Sadie—“she was pregnant. But I don’t know what he was thinking, how it would work out. But it wasn’t a fling, Papa was in love with her. You know it took almost ten years before my dad came to America? Dad was eight when he came to stay with my grandpa in Pennsylvania. That would’ve been ’84.”

“Yeah,” Teddy said. “Your dad came over but your grandmother didn’t—she stayed here in Vietnam?”

“No, she came over. They got married eventually, and my grandma Tran lived in Pennsylvania for fifteen years before my grandfather died. While our family always welcomed her, she always felt more at home here. My dad had already joined the Army, and they had another son, my uncle, and he’d joined the Navy. All the kids were out of the house. My grandma came back and forth from here to the U.S. every once in a while, but mostly she just wanted to live here. Her sister’d moved to the bay here, so she lived with her sister.”

Sadie swirled her wine, sipped it. She said, “I can’t tell if it’s sad or not.”

Quan raises his eyebrows, said, “I don’t think it’s sad. Sad that she lost her husband. My grandpa. He was this great big guy. She loved him. Man, did he love her too. That’s the sad part. But she’s happy here. I try to get back as much as I can, so it was great: while I was at school, my cousin got me this job doing a sabbatical at the resort in the summers. Teaching tai chi and yoga . . .”

Teddy said, “You like to keep in shape.”

That felt really stupid. Sadie looked at him with an admonishing scowl. Shit. He didn’t mean it like that. Wasn’t trying to bring this back to sex. But here was Sadie thinking Quan was saying these nice stories about his family and growing up in the Vietnam War and loss and love and he’s just sitting here thinking about how he wanted Quan to have sex with her. He said, “It is important.”

That made it better. Kind of.

Quan said, “It’s not the fitness so much as the spiritual connection. I like the movement the T’ai Chi teaches. I like the philosophy.”

Sadie said, “I thought you were a great instructor. Best yoga class I’ve ever been to.”

Quan took a swig of his wine, said, “Nah, probably just the locale.” He and Sadie laughed together.

Teddy nodded. Feeling like a jerk now. Great instructor he might’ve been, Teddy was sitting on the beach the whole time thinking about how he could make all this work for his sexual fantasy. Forgetting that Quan was a real live human being. He said, “How’s law school going?”

Quan hugged his muscular arms, said, “Second year. Graduate next year. Once I do my two weeks here, I’ve got a four week internship at a place near Brown. Then it’s back to school, then after that, who knows?”

“What’s your kind of law?”

“Civil liberties.”

He nodded. All of his hopes dashing at his feet. Yeah. Quan was a nice guy. Sadie wasn’t kidding. A tragic lovelorn history to his grandfather, the desire to pursue civil liberties. Teddy was the dumb guy at the table thinking with his dick. It had been so exciting; when he thought Sadie had really done all that, the outrageous bewilderment had raced his heart with passion for his wife.

But nothing was ever straightforward, was it?