A Wager With Sadie: 007

Sadie was a real riot, and she left him chuckling, sitting in the lounger watching his movie but thinking of what she’d said. She’d sashayed all the way up the beach, swinging those hips, and he watched until those flip-flops of hers mounted the back steps to the deck, and she disappeared beyond the tall doors of the hotel.

He smirked. “Thanks, Sadie. I guess I’ll find the server myself.”

The server found him in due time, and he ordered a Dos Equis with two limes. Then he returned to Extraction, putting both ear pods in, ice cold beer in one hand, Chris Hemsworth kicking ass on the small screen in his lap. But dammit if he still wasn’t thinking about Sadie.

She was just trying to rile him, being playful. Ever since she’d told him about her hand job diary, his sexual curiosity was piqued. She was reluctant and resistant to his persistence, and yet . . .

The thoughts were distracting and he couldn’t focus on the movie. Plus he’d seen the movie before, so it was easy in the duller spots for his mind to wander.

“You got me thinking about dick.”

Imagine your wife saying something like that to you.

He chuckled to himself, knocked back his beer, set the empty bottle in the sand next to his lounger. His mouth worked around as he considered it. Playful talk from his wife. They’d both been quite playful. In some ways, his request to her was a joke. But was it a joke? There were times he was telling himself he was joking, but maybe he wasn’t. Shoot, he wasn’t.

He shifted in his seat, closed up his iPad and set it on the table. He watched the surf for a while.

“You got me thinking about dick.”

What if that was true? What if all his provocation had his wife thinking about dick, for real. Like trying to picture the dicks on those two guys playing Frisbee down in the surf.

The thing was—and the more he twirled this whole thing in his mind, he came to admit it—it had been a joke up to the the consideration he expected her to say no. And he was okay with that, and enjoyed taunting her about how she had to go through with it. But what if Sadie had said she would do it? Like she wanted to do it. He wouldn’t have stopped her.

Dammit, he was sure of it now, hands clutching the ends of the teak armrests and squeezing. No, he would not have stopped it. He did want it. Deep down he knew he did. Why? Because it was safe. . . . But why was it hot?

That was a question for another day. It just was hot.

The idea of his beloved wife, who he loved completely, and knew was completely loved in return, maybe making out with another guy—was that gross or hot?—and she’s drawing down the guy’s fly, or pulling forward his swim trunks . . .

“Shit, Sadie,” he said now, squirming in his chair. He was getting hard. Sitting here by himself. Sadie off at the yoga class doing God-knows-what. Stretching out that beautiful body of hers. What if there were guys in the class? . . .

Then he was up, leaving the empty beer bottle in the sand, grabbing his iPad and tucking it under an arm. He adjusted the front of his swim trunks until his half-hard pecker scooted sideways and stopped pressing out the fabric.

Yeah, Sadie, you are a real riot.

***

A left turn in the cavernous hotel lobby brought her face-to-face with the harmless sign Teddy had described with such chagrin. A cloudy galaxy, yes, astrological signs, and the black silhouette of a figure sitting crosslegged in the Ohm position like he was floating in space.

“So uptight, Teddy,” she said, then hiked past the sign and along the terra-cotta tiles between the tall potted ferns inside until she came out onto a side deck into afternoon light. No wonder they scheduled it for 12:30. The sun was high overhead, but the small square courtyard where the yoga class gathered was protected by an overhead canopy of palm trees. An idyllic and picturesque spot with a view of the Bay beyond the bamboo railing that ran around the edge. The courtyard floor was wood-paneled, probably raised up so it had some flexibility. Across it were interspersed bright blue yoga mats, and about a dozen women gathered nervously getting themselves ready for the yoga class, a few of them knowing each other and talking quietly to each other.

What she thought might chase her away from yoga class was her bikini. There was no time to run back to the villa and get into shorts and a stretchy top, but it didn’t matter, she wasn’t the only one wearing a swimsuit. There was another young girl, even younger than her, a teenager, also wearing a bikini. No wrap, even.

Aside the entrance to the small courtyard sat a small bamboo-leg table, behind it a man in a black T-shirt tucked into pair of white shorts with pleats. As she crossed some imaginary threshold, the man nodded, then stepped forward, and accepted her graciously. “Please, come in.”

She asked: “This is the yoga class?”

“Yes, yes,” he said, “right this way.”

She said, “I’m in the High Hill Villa.”

“Yes, yes, I know. On the hill. This way . . .”

The gracious attendant escorted her to one of the blue yoga mats at the corners. Right up front, where she figured he would be leading the class.

“What style yoga?” she asked him.

“I can find out,” he said.

“I thought you . . . oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought you were the teacher.”

He made a funny face, showed a big smile, did a wiggling thing with his arms, like a break dancer, saying, “Me? . . . not flexible,” then laughed to himself as he walked away.

He craned his neck forward, looked down the hallway from where she’d come out of the hotel, and said, “Instructor coming now,” bowed to her again and returned to his spot at the table.

When the young man who would teach their yoga class strode into the courtyard, she knew she was in big trouble.

***

Instead of following in Sadie’s wake, where he feared he’d be spotted and suddenly enjoined in the class, he avoided the inside of the hotel, instead circumambulating the Bayside Restaurant’s outdoor deck, and coming up to the raised garden edge of where he thought they might be holding the yoga class. If he stepped out from the hotel-side into the yoga area to peep her, his hilarious wife would think it was extra hilarious to wave an arm above her head and shout his name, encouraging him to take a spot next to her, reveling in his irritation, all the other women in the class thinking he was cute, and how cute Sadie was wanting her cute husband to join her. No, thanks. He’d rather spy from a safe spot.

The Bayside Restaurant’s bar served as a barrier from their dining room, so a guest could order a cocktail without crossing the dining room and bothering the dining guests. If you circled to the right of the bar to order, you were just below the raised edge of where he believed the yoga class took place.

He sidled up to the bar at a gap between two couples, both in their fifties, and waved. to the bartender to get his attention. Though he’d prefer a beer, he instead ordered from the bartender a daiquiri—a drink that would take some time to prepare. As the nice young guy backed off, bowing, Teddy also backed away, heading off the bar, nodding to a woman on the stool next to him, her husband standing with his hand on the small of her back. With hands in his pockets, he loitered, a guy just staying out of the action while he waited for his drink. Wandered his way over to the raised edge, but couldn’t get close because of a barrier of planters. Plus, the raised courtyard was also dotted with potted palms and barricaded by a bamboo hand-railing perimeter and the trunks of towering, full grown palm trees. But he heard the tell tale sound of what he’d consider yoga music; Asian flutes or something.

The hand-railing didn’t meet the flooring of the courtyard, instead it attached on a raised lip of stone, about a foot high. The yoga class was on the floor, he figured, because now he could see the points of a woman’s knees. They must all be laying on their backs, probably doing breathing exercises or the like. There wouldn’t be much time before his drink was ready, but he’d like to get a bead on Sadie and see what she was doing.

Further along to his right there was a six-inch gap in the stone base of the hand-railing for drainage, so if the rain got heavy the courtyard wouldn’t become a swimming pool. It took some side-stepping and he had to squeeze under the blades of a potted palm, the stiff fronds touching his neck and tickling at his ear, giving him goose bumps, but at last he got a peep into the yoga class. It was all women he could see, all of them on their backs, fingers pressing on their bellies as their breathing sucked their stomachs in concave.

And, wait, yes, there, if he angled it right, he could see at the very front of the class a skin-tone and a leg he recognized as his wife’s. Eager Sadie right up front, making sure the teacher knew she was there to learn. All the ladies tucked their chins forward, then nodded, rolled over at the hidden teacher’s instruction, and raised up like they were dogs, getting on their hands and knees, bowing their stomachs forward as they arched their back. Jesus, Sadie, he chuckled. His hot ass wife in there with these regular girls and she’s wearing that bikini, her wrap tossed in a bundle by her—

Now from the courtyard floor, a behemoth rose to stand at the front of the class, and Teddy reared, surprised. The teacher was a Black man, tall, athletic—no, muscular—and he strode now to the corner of the class toward Sadie. He wore a white tank top, which made his skin look darker, and the sun, heat, and effort brought a sheen of sweat that made his muscles glisten in shimmering humps. The ambient sound of the bar and the yoga flutes drowned out what he said to the class, but after he spoke he smiled the brightest smile Teddy’d ever seen. His heart pounded.

The guy was handsome. Young and handsome. Eyes hidden by a pair of sunglasses, cornrow hair that led to a knot on the back of his head, and from the knot, long braids hung past his shoulders. He paused, standing above Sadie, appraising her, this perfect, toned woman with honey-blonde hair and the tight body of an athlete. He said something to the class Teddy couldn’t hear, then crouched at Sadie’s side. Now he guided Sadie’s leg rearward, his wife on all fours but straightening one leg so it was level to the ground. The yoga teacher’s hands held Sadie’s leg level, one big hand on the front of her thigh, just above the knee, the other smoothing down her shin to her foot, guiding that sexy tootsie to bend sharper.

“Jesus,” he sighed, watching in disbelief.

The teacher was demonstrating to the class, and showing Sadie off as a good example, and now his hand moved northward and Teddy’s toes tightened on the foam beds of his flip-flops. Yeah, holy shit, the guy lay his huge hand across the small of Sadie’s back, making it bow deeper, his other hand gripping her ankle, and bending his wife like he was an archer.

The guy’s hand on Sadie’s back got his heart fluttery, his breath going thin and tight, and a prostatic somersault happening just under his sweaty balls.

“Hey, buddy?”

A hand touched his arm and he jumped. He turned to see the older guy who’d had his hand on the small of his wife’s back thumbing toward the bar, saying, “They got your drink here, we were calling you.”

“Oh, yeah?” he said, glancing in the gap again to get a taste of that sickly sweet medicine that did crazy thing to his mind and soul, but once he’d moved, the angle through the drainage gap was wrong and he’d lost sight of his wife. Behind the man who’d come to retrieve him to collect his drink, other bar patrons watched him. He emerged from under the fronds of the potted palm like a caught Peeping Tom, blinking in the sunlight, sweaty, rubbing his slick hands on his T-shirt, muttering, “Just, yeah, uh, my, uh, my wife’s in the, uh, class, I think, I . . .”

He let it hang before he made himself look guiltier, standing straighter. The bartender handed him a perfect icy daiquiri with a straw, icy on the heat of his palm, and he took a long draw that stabbed his brain and brought him back to the land of the living. It was like what he’d seen was a fantasy, and he had to consider a moment he’d imagined the whole thing. It was too good to be true. or it was horrible. Or it was his fantasy come to life.