A Man Possessed Pt. 01

Harmless flirtation. That's all this is.

I see the signals he's throwing. The extra split second his eyes linger when we talk. The weak smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth when he offers a playful joke.

It's OK. I like the attention. No reason to feel guilty. Definitely no need to tell Dan. There's nothing to tell. I'm not crossing any lines. Except...

I feel the mild infatuation, too. There is a sensation that passes through me when I talk to him. He makes me laugh. When I find myself admiring - despite myself, despite my every effort not to - the line of his jaw, there's a surge somewhere beneath my breastbone. And when those dark eyes of his lock on mine, there's a flutter somewhere lower. It's like he could look straight through me. Does he know? Does he sense it? Does his heart smile a little bit with the warmth of affection when I'm around, the same way mine does in his presence?

Not knowing is a thrill. An innocent, little thrill.

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I'm tearing through the house. I don't even know what I'm looking for. I am chasing the scent of a phantom.

I am rifling through the bedside table. Her side of the bed. For some stupid reason, I think to search for a diary.

She doesn't keep a diary, Dan. You know this.

But I have this vision in my head I can't shake. In it, I slide the drawer slowly open and see emerging from its shadowy recesses a right angle: one corner of a small book with a hard cover bound in pink fabric. I will grab it by that corner and slide it into the light, open it, and find inside it black ink flowing in a graceful script spilling out the secretly filthy thoughts that run through her mind.

I imagine her writing in it as a young woman, detailing the swelling between her legs the first time a boy kissed her with an open mouth, the feel of his soft lips warm against hers, the slippery sensation of his tongue writhing over hers and the thrill of being wanted causing her to ignite with the thought of being touched elsewhere. She annotates her emerging desire: the burning from her breastbone to the spot between her legs, the conflicted shame when she gets home and slips her hand down inside her clothes to touch herself only to find the crotch of her panties already wet with arousal.

She pens all this extravagantly, with a quill dipped in ink, like a virginal lass betrothed to a wealthy man in eighteenth century France. And now I know I've gone too far, drunk on my own wild fantasies. My mind returns to the present, to the dark wooden drawer before me, which holds naught but my disappointment personified in a few unremarkable belongings: lip gloss, jewelry, some Kleenex, and the remote control, set aside when we chastely went to sleep the night before.

I worship her. She is my female goddess of love. When we sit on the couch and she rests her feet in my lap, my hands caress the graceful curve of her calf. When she sits in skintight pants at the dinner table, I admire her from the side, my eyes tracing the way the muscle of her thigh curves away towards the floor. When she stands naked in front of the closet as she gets dressed, I lust after the round contours of her ass. When she straddles me in bed, I gaze with something akin to awe and dread up at her eyes half closed in ecstasy, at her hands tangled in her own hair as her hips grind against mine like she were riding a horse, and at her firm round breasts, which I reach out to cradle in my palms in reverie.

She will destroy me. Her warmth envelopes me and brings me to my dissolution inside her. Oh sweet explosion. My discrete surface opens up and I erupt forth. I die a thousand deaths. If she bestowed this on another, what would I do.

And yet, that is what I am picturing. I secretly long for her to lust after other men. I have never said a word to her of this. I see her as if in a fog. She is kneeling on a bed draped in a gauzy canopy. Her naked ass is pressed against her heels, her hands resting sweetly on her bare thighs, like an obedient schoolgirl awaiting to be told what to do. She looks over at me with a kind, but knowing smile. Not a word is spoken as her eyes meet mine, and as my eyes move away to see that she is sitting between the thighs of a naked man.

His face is hidden from me by a fold in the white lace cascading down to the floor. He is restrained by bonds tied from the four posts of the bed to his wrists and ankles. Directly in front of her, rising above the flat expanse of his stomach, is his cock. From my abstract vantage, I can tell: it is completely hard, and it looks huge to me. She turns away from me and reaches out to it and gently tucks the fingers of her right hand underneath it and pulls it towards her. She pulls it slowly, as if lifting a great and powerful weight, her grip encumbered by its stubborn rigidity.

I long for that wanton tenderness. My quest is like hunting in the forest for an elusive creature. You catch a glimpse of it flitting between the trees. You pursue. It flees. You flag, until you wonder if it was only ever a figment of your own potent imagination.

When our love was young, she held me like that. Her lips sought out mine. Her hand draped on mine with that slight pressure that asked for more. She teased me with her naked body beneath a raincoat at the door or a spontaneous striptease in the bedroom just to watch me grow hard.

Now, we make love. It is kind. It is compassionate.

The way she leans forward towards the faceless man's member is none of that. It is animalistic. She is hungry. She is on all fours, her ass bent roundly over, her lips hovering near the veiny surface of his dick. She turns to look at me one more time, lust in her eyes, before she parts her lips slightly as if breathing hard. It is the look they wear when she is suspended in the very instant when the tension that has suffused her body underneath my touch has reached its peak and is a mere moment from releasing her from her agony. Those same lips now turn and slide over the bulbous head of his manhood and down the length of his shaft. Her sex is visible from betwixt her legs, and as she slides her tongue up and down the burly surface of his cock, I see her drip down the inside of her thighs.

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I'm with him again. We are the only ones in the office.

"It's getting late," I tell him, "I need to go."

"Big plans?" There's that twinkle in his eye. There's the slightest upward movement of an eyebrow. He knows I'm married, but he must not care.

"I wish." As soon as I say it, I want it back. It sounds like a complaint. "We're probably just going to watch a movie."

"Netflix and chill?" Oh smart man. Push the boundaries just a bit. See if I push back.

"Something like that." I play it cool and play it off. "If that's what the kids are calling it these days."

"Well, it sounds a good deal better than 'VHS and fuck.'"

I know I shouldn't laugh, but the juxtaposition of his frank turn of phrase next to the coy colloquialism catches me off-guard. By reflex, I reach out my hand and touch his forearm.

The laughter stops, and I pull my hand away. This is worse. We're looking each other right in the eyes in complete tense silence. And in that moment, he leans forward and kisses me. I want to feel his lips against mine, and I kiss him back. My mouth opens and I breathe him in, and I let myself kiss him. The polite distance I had always assumed would be maintained is annihilated and for a second and a second more, I let myself enjoy this before reality reasserts itself and I pull away.

He's quick to apologize. "I'm sorry. I don't know what..."

"It's okay." I reassure him. It happened. It can't happen again. I need to go.

I collect my things quickly and tell him I'll see him tomorrow. I all but run to my car, open the door and slide behind the wheel. The dome light goes out and I am plunged into the darkness of the deserted garage. I rest my hands on the wheel and sigh, my head tossed back. My cheeks are flushed with guilt...and something else. I close my eyes and try to ignore the warmth rising up inside, but the more I try, the less I succeed. I put the key in the ignition, but my hand wanders away. I reach down inside my waist, beneath my panties to relieve the swelling between my legs. My finger is only there to massage away the ache, but I am already wet. There in the dark before I turn the key and drive away, I touch myself, my finger sliding over the surface of my clit again and again until the tension grows and grows. The muscles of my stomach clench my head rolls back and with a gasp, my mind explodes. My guilty, guilty mind.