Her Secret Life

There was nothing wrong with her marriage, at least not on the surface. In a strange way, she wished there were.  Then she would have an excuse for her actions. To be able to say ‘my husband neglected me’, or ‘he beat me’, would have made her feel better.

But of course, it would have been a lie. Her husband was just a man. He worked, he came home, he slept. An ordinary existence. Sometimes the effort of containing herself within the bounds of its normality made her want to scream.

This was all about her. She filled a part of herself hidden from her husband, her friends, even herself, for most of her life.

How had it come to this? This nameless, emotionless sex? Why had it taken sex to stop the little voice inside of her from screaming out loud? Yet this, it seemed, was exactly what she needed.

It started with an innocent curiosity. At least, as innocent as it could get. She had been flicking through her local paper when she got to the ‘singles’ and ‘women-wanted’ adverts at the back. She couldn’t ignore the flicker of excitement the ads stirred within her. What if? What if she dared respond to one of them?

But she knew she would never dare contact someone so close. What if they recognised her, or her them? No, it would have to be someone a good distance away.

That was when she realised she was actually considering the practicalities of it. Could she really do it? Sleep with another man, or woman, or even a couple, with no strings attached? Again, there was that little buzz of excitement and she squeezed it tight inside of her.

She would get what she wanted; to fulfil that dark, secret place. To be the person she hid away.

To her husband she acted the respectable woman. She could never say to him what she wanted. She could never tell him that she wanted him to push his finger into her ass, or to fuck her with something hard and blunt.

But to a stranger? To someone she would never see again – well, then maybe she would be able to say whatever the hell she liked.

So at first she just answered some adverts, making sure she would have to travel to reach them. Naturally her husband asked where she was going, and suddenly her capacity to lie was a brazen as her recent actions. Friends – one’s she insisted he had met, only now forgotten – were invented to visit.

The first ‘date’ had been a couple. For some reason this had felt easier, the intensity spread out over three instead of being focused on two. Filled with anxiety that they would not want her once they saw her in the flesh, she had spent too much money on sexy, yet classic lingerie.  But as soon as she saw the look in both of their eyes her worries vanished. She was their fantasy. They wanted her as much as she needed them, and the fact held her and gave her the confidence she needed to go through with it.

It had been her first time with another woman, though she had fantasized about it often. It had been so very different; the cautiousness, the curiosity.  How, when the woman had slipped her fingers inside her, she had whispered into her ear, ‘is that okay, am I hurting you?’ Words a man would never have even bothered thinking, never mind saying.  Her only answer was her moan of pleasure and the way she had sunk deeper onto the other woman’s hand.

The man had been like most men she had been with; selfish and rough. She had not wanted that.

But when it was over and she was on the train heading home to her husband, she had to clamp her thighs together to stop the waves of her orgasm rippling through her again, like an aftershock.  Walking back through the train station she held her head high, storing her secret inside of her like a little nugget of hope.  She felt stronger, tougher, sexier.

Within the week she had answered another one. A single man this time. It had been better, and she had allowed some of the words she had kept clamped inside of her out of her mouth.  Lick me here...Fuck me from behind...Let me suck your cock. He, also, was too eager at first, but when she started telling him what to do he quickly became her willing slave.

He had wanted to see her again. She had told him ‘no’. The sex had been good, and she wanted more, but not with him. The same person could lead to attachment and that was the last thing she wanted. She had attachment at home, and look where that had got her?

Her confidence grew.  She started propositioning strangers face-to-face.

Standing in the queue at the supermarket, she saw the young man in his mid-twenties check her out as he stood behind her. She leant in close to him, whispered in a barely audible voice;

"You can have me if you want me."

She had seen the look of shock on his face, how his cheeks had coloured at her suggestion. He bustled past, embarrassed, but that did not faze her. Her confidence was too high to be dashed. Instead she found she enjoyed the thrill.

The young man would not be her last.

She propositioned the man on the train;  the woman who had glanced at her in a certain way on the street.  So far none had accepted, but she enjoyed watching the surprise on their faces, that these ideas could come from such an ordinary person.

She wanted to put in an advert of her own, but she was terrified her husband or a friend would see it. Her anonymity was the key to her success. No names. No details. Just good hard fucking, and then walking away.

It was like a drug, a fix. Once she had started there was really no way she could stop. It occupied her thoughts constantly. Her husband questioned the new bounce in her walk. Her excuses for her absence grew more tenuous, but her husband’s late hours and after-work drinks meant that he rarely missed her. Maybe if he had been home more...?

But no, it was too easy to blame him. If it had been his fault then surely she would have been craving his attention, wondering if all of his late nights were what they seemed. If he had not worked late then she would have found some way around it. Excuses – a girl’s night out, visiting relations, going to the gym or taking an evening class.

He just made her deception easy.

She sat at a low table in the bar, fiddling with the stem of her chilled glass of white wine. The outside of the glass had clouded with condensation and she ran a finger across it.  It gathered and dribbled, reminding her of sweat on a lover's torso. Her stomach was filled with nervous anticipation and she lifted her glass and took a long drink, hoping to drown the nerves.

On the table, beside the glass, was her purse; a purple silk scarf looped around its handle. The scarf was more garish than she would normally wear, but it was her calling card. It was how the man she was meeting would know who she was.  Her rule of total anonymity meant just that – no names, and certainly no photographs.  It was too easy for people to find you on the Internet these days.

She felt eyes staring at her from across the room. Her stomach turned in that slow, lazy flip of excitement. Hoping to look both sexy and demure, she looked up and locked eyes with the tall, dark-haired man standing, staring at her, on the other side of the bar.

Her husband.

Her cheeks flushed with the anxiety of the guilty. Instantly her brain conjured up her excuses for being here; a friend cancelled at the last-minute, her son was sick. Then she saw the guilt reflected in his face. His eyes flicked to the purple scarf tied around her purse and he looked back up at her, his face wide with surprise.

The realisation of what that look meant. His recognition of what the scarf meant.

He was her date.

He could have denied it, of course. He could have blamed his presence on meeting a client from work, ignored what her being there with the scarf tied around her purse meant.  But what would have been the point?  Already a web of lies and deceit was all that was binding their fragile relationship together.  What was the point in carrying on day after day with this kind of knowledge hanging over them?

He crossed the room and stopped at her table. Her fingers trembled, her heart thumping.

“I don’t know what the etiquette for this is?” he said, always the refined business man, even in this situation.

She shook her head slightly in amazement. “I never thought...”

“You had it in you?” he finished for her, a wry smile touching his mouth.

She looked up at him and shrugged.  Me either.

“So what now?” he said.

Suddenly that little spark of bravery took over. “You came here for something,” she said. “Don’t you want to finish what you started?”

His eyes widened in surprise. Again it was as though he was seeing her for the first time – really seeing her, who she was, not just who he had imagined her to be.

Maybe the same was true for her.

“What? You mean...”

She picked up her glass and drained its contents. Grabbing her purse, she pulled off the offending scarf and let it float to the floor.  She did not wish to ever see it again.

Without another word she walked from the bar and to the small, independent hotel next door. She had already checked herself in, so she just gave a small nod to the girl behind reception and headed straight to the elevator, her husband and date, hurrying along behind.

In the elevator three glass walls mirrored their true selves back at them. They stood, awkwardly, waiting for the doors to ping open.  She told herself to grab him, to kiss him like they did in the movies, but she couldn’t quite find it in her. Instead they stood, apart, their hands at their sides, fingers twisting, hands clenching. And when the doors finally opened they both breathed a sigh of relief and hurried down the corridor towards the room she had booked, and he had inadvertently paid for.

She fiddled with the key-fob, sliding it in and out of the lock, waiting for the light to turn green, wishing for the more simple days of using a regular key. In and out, in and out, the little slip of plastic went. He watched, trembling with anticipation.

Finally the light turned green and they burst into the room. She slammed the door behind her, and he grabbed her and pushed her against it.  He kissed her hard on the mouth, his tongue probing, full of anger, but also need.  She returned the kiss, touching the inside of his mouth with her own tongue, little teasing snake-like darts, then deeper.

She tore at his clothing, pulling his jacket from his shoulders, his shirt from his chest. She kissed her way down his neck and then bit his shoulder, too hard.  He pushed her again, winding her against the door, making her gasp for breath.  Then he too lowered his head and bit her on breast. Their punishment to each other.

She groaned in both pain and desire. Pulling up her own skirt, she grabbed his hand pushing it between her legs.  She knew she was wet. The expensive lace damp between her thighs.

He continued his journey down, getting to his knees. Her skirt was bunched up around her waist, but she didn’t care. He put his face against the damp lace of her panties, his tongue pushing against her most sensitive spot, and she held the back of his head, pushing him harder against her.

His tongue lapped at her, creating a friction. She wanted to feel him inside of her. Reaching down she pulled the panties to one side, such a tiny slip of lace. Then his tongue was pushing between her folds.

His hands reached up and grabbed her ass, pulling her even harder against his face, his tongue reaching deeper.

She moaned again, her fingers knotted in his hair.

“Do it,” she said. “I want you to fuck me.”

He got to his feet, loosening his belt, unzipping his fly. He was harder than she had ever seen him before and within a moment he pushed inside of her. She gasped for breath. He kissed her mouth again and she could taste herself on him, that musky scent of woman.

She clung to him as his movement became more frantic, his own breathing heavy in her ear. Her orgasm was just moments away and she clung to its wave like a life-boy.

And this time they rode in together.

When it was over they held each other, panting into each other’s skin. Neither of them knew what was going to happen now.  Was this going to be the start of something, or the end? She had no idea. Maybe they could get through it, now they both saw each other for who they really were. Or maybe they would find they did not like these new people, that they could not live with the deceit they had both already encountered.

Either way, life was real now.

The dark, secret place was no longer a secret.

Please return on September 20th when Marissa will be reviewing the novel 'Diary of a Manhatten Call Girl', by Tracy Quan!

Copyright © 2010 Marissa Elliott

All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental. No portion of this work may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.