A Wager With Sadie: 010

It was a real shitty thing to do to him, but he wasn’t even mad right now, just so happy to see her safe and alive. It was near the Bayside Restaurant’s patio deck he caught up with her, but still stayed twenty yards back, ducking aside to keep himself hidden behind the hefty wooden post supporting a slanted awning.

Sadie wanted to cross through the Bayside Restaurant, but he could see in her timid posture she knew she wasn’t dressed appropriately. He’d gathered up their belongings from the beach and brought them to their villa before camping out at the bar and awaiting her return. All she had was her bikini, flip-flops, and a sheaf of colorful silk fabric. And there she was, beautiful Sadie, scanning ahead of her and up the next tier, trying to spot him somewhere at the Bayside seating, tying the sarong around herself clumsily, walking slow and unsure, lifting up on her toes to get a glimpse of the Bayside’s deck.

And he was right behind her, heart thundering—Sadie turned almost completely around to look behind her, and he ducked further behind his cover. Sadie chewed the corner of her mouth, looked worried. What did that mean? What had she done that would worry her?

Then Sadie was moving again, passing below the hand-railing of the Bayside’s patio at her shoulder’s height, two middle-aged men peeking down to get a look at this unbelievable woman in a sarong, bare tanned shoulders, only an arm’s reach away from them.

Now he was hustling to catch up, breaking from his cover and into the sunlight, trotting in her wake, passing below the two middle-aged dudes who’d ogled her, sounding like they might still be talking about the hot piece of ass that just passed them by, surmising the things they would do to her in bed—but they’d never get the chance.

Then he was past the Bayside, heading into the tree cover, trotting up the stone steps under the overhanging branches of the bamboo and. mangrove, working his way up into the hillside where the luxury villas were located. He imagined he smelled her perfume. Smelled her Sadie smell. But that was impossible. She didn’t even wear perfume on vacation. And if she did, it would be long gone, worn off wading out to the boat, doing who knew what out there . . . out there for hours . . . And how the hell did she get that sarong?

Up onto the hill’s mid-level circular courtyard, paths extending from the hub in spokes, he took the uppermost one, heading up to their hilltop villa. Taking steps two at a time, coming up until he saw the thatched roof of their four-person abode for the next week. Up and heaving breath, passing by their small square swimming pool, weaving past the chair where he’d left his book out this morning, almost finished.

Slid open the smoky glass entrance door, stepped into the cool interior. Found Sadie. She was in the dim, her back to him, but hearing the heavy glass doors wheeling on their track, his wife turned and regarded him over her shoulder. The expression on her face was thick with fear and what he believed could be horror. She’d done it. She’d fucking-A done it, hadn’t she?

Could she have done it? . . .

***

Sadie stepped back now, putting a foot out behind her, the proverbial action of the horror movie female character when confronted by the guy in the hockey mask. She really had done it.

He shook his head no. Disbelieving. He took two steps toward her, and this time she didn’t retreat. But she closed her posture off, her arms folding across her front, her left hand closing over the elbow of her right arm, sunlight reflecting off her engagement diamond, a spark in the dim tropical space.

He took a few more steps, all sorts of quips and funny things he would say in this moment completely squashed. There was no humor in him right now. Only fear. Fear she’d actually done what he’d asked her to do.

They got closer, and at least she didn’t turn away. But her eyes would only glance over his before looking away again. No smile from Sadie now, her mouth narrow, quivering. When they were face-to-face finally, still half a dozen feet apart, he dipped his knees, trying to get her to look up at him. Their eyes met.

He said, “What’s his name?”

Sadie’s eyes darted up, over, down. “Quan”

“Quan? What kind of name is Quan?”

“Vietnamese,” she said.

“He’s Vietnamese?”

She nodded. He took a step toward her, his psyche a swirling confused whirlpool of contradictory emotions. If he were a weaker man right now, he could break down onto his knees before her and burst into tears. If he were even weaker he might lay a hand on her. If he were timid, he might plead for answers.

Instead he touched her chin. That pointed but squared jaw edge of her beautiful face; touched her lower lip with his thumb. He stepped, guiding her backward with his thumb against the under-curl of her soft lips until her back was against the wall, both of them framed by the fronds of potted palms in their luxury villa.

“Quan?”

She nodded, tilted her chin so their eyes met. His heart beat a staccato, his neck felt tight and swollen with rushing rivers of heart-raced blood. He asked the question with his eyes, and when his wife didn’t answer, used words. “Did you do it?”

Sadie’s mouth worked open; no words came out. Those dazzling eyes darted right and left and right again.

“Did you do it, Sadie?”

She nodded, lips pursed.

And there was that whirlpool winding up again inside him. Emotions whip-cracking through his system. Spiking adrenaline, spiking cortisol, rage and jealousy and lust stabbing upward through his core. With his wife’s beautiful face held in his hand, he examined those feelings, plucked from them the ones he wanted. Got them under control, let them caress him rather than bewilder him; he grew hard in his shorts. “You didn’t . . .”

She shook her head no.

“You didn’t?”

Now she looked like she might cry. He said, “Don’t. Just tell me.” She sniffled, looked at him. “Did you do it?”

She nodded again. And while for the last two hours he sat at that bar knocking back whiskey sodas trying to ice-numb his brain, the whole while thinking of her with another man, thinking of her white woman hands running over hard slabs of black muscle, putting her hands in the yoga instructor’s shorts and surely finding the biggest penis she’d ever felt, all he thought of now was her. Any thought of the trainer whose name was Quan or Kwan, whatever, Vietnamese, a Black man, one that said Hey in plain American when you passed him on the beach . . . None of it mattered. His central focus was on the woman he loved.

She ran her hand up and down her elbow, nervous of what her husband might do, maybe nervous over what she’d done. His left hand went to her wrist and steadied her hand, his thumb circled her engagement diamond. He dipped, took her mouth in a kiss and she melted against him.

If she did, she did; if she didn’t, she didn’t. Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t, maybe only told him she did because he’d asked her to do it. None of it mattered, all of it was only about her. About them.

The fear and worry washed away, love pumping from his heart, its swirling eddies washing out the grit from his nooks and crannies, the accumulated blackness and fear, regret, shame and horror at what he’d requested and what she’d done. All of it flushed from his system because he loved Sadie so much.

“Teddy,” she said in a gasping breath, the two of them with mouths working over one another. Her hands caressed him, he grabbed her ass pulled her up to his hips and she locked her legs around him. He heard her flip-flops clatter to the terra-cotta floor behind him.

Still kissing, he walked with his wife clung to his body, into their bedroom that opened out onto a tropical flower garden, all the windows, sliding glass doors pushed open, a wind swaying the light linen curtains. They fell on the bed together, him over top of her again. Like last night, all these shared dirty things exposed to one another. She’d told him about her lust for hand jobs, told him about the secret notes she used to collect like a perverted scientist. And he told her what those things did to him. Told her what they inspired in him. What he wanted. And she done it.

While they kissed he untied the knot of her sarong, the question on his lips—where did this come from?—extinguished by his Sadie’s mouth sucking, teeth biting on his hanging lower lip. Got it free, his wife’s lean body writhing underneath him. His hand touched between her breasts, fingertips bumping over the spandex trim at the center of her bra cups, down over her sternum and over her flat stomach, seeking an answer to its own question.

And finding it.

Sadie letting her legs part, letting her husband stick his hand down the front of her bikini bottoms. Sadie was soaked. Completely gushing. Warm, slick, furrowed flesh crackling between his stroking fingers. “God,” he mumbled in her ear, hating the crashing wave-thought that fell on his shore: Is this her wet? Or is this Quan’s seed spilling over? Did Quan fuck her on that fishing boat, maybe on a beach, on a secluded island, dumping the contents of his balls inside this beautiful hockey-playing lawyer? Or was it just her own juices inspired by spending a day—a romantic afternoon—out on the waters in tropical Vietnam in the company of a man built like a god?

Now his body was taking over, autonomous thought squashing out conscious mind. Dumbly thumbing aside the crotch of her bikini bottoms, other thumb shoving down the front of his shorts, pulling his blazing hard erection out and spearing the woman he loved. The hard steely-straight flesh of his cock ran through her with no resistance. Sadie so lubed up she couldn’t even get a grip on her husband. She gasped though, feeling her Teddy enter her body. And he grabbed the back of her neck and bit her throat. Pounded into her, eyes so tightly shut all he saw were sunburst of red like distant dying suns . . . and then he was snorting, grunting, bucking, ejaculating a wild orgasm into his incredible wife.