Out of His League: A Hotwife Novel Read online

  I certainly wasn’t going to open up to Charlie about it when we met up for beers, or a late summer barbecue in the lavish garden of the latest house I was finally close to finishing. He dug around for gossip—but even if, as my former shrink, I knew he’d keep details confidential, I wasn’t going to reveal my embarrassing secret.

  “Courtney still seeing that BMW guy?” he’d ask me, teasing a little, but knowing how much it had clearly affected me.

  “He’s just an old friend,” I’d say, or something similar. “I don’t need to worry about that kind of thing.”

  And then one afternoon Courtney sent me a text message telling me I shouldn’t come by her office that evening, that it was another public clinic day and she was expecting to be done especially late. She’d never sent me instructions to keep away from her after work. Sometimes she’d give me an ETA if I expressed interest in collecting her, but she’d never preemptively advised me not to come at all before.

  I felt snubbed, unwanted. And working on a brand new house, tearing out an old outdated kitchen, I had some time to myself to turn that feeling of rejection into some kind of conspiracy theory. The best I could come up with was, how did she know she was going to be particularly late? Had there been a flood of injuries from the nearest high school, some football game that had turned nasty?

  I did wait until later, when her public clinic days usually ended, but then I went round there anyway. I carried a big cup of her preferred Starbucks coffee, just in case I needed a valid excuse. “Oh, well, honey, I thought you might need a little something to get you to the finish,” I’d say, handing it over before fleeing, to show that I wasn’t checking up on her or anything, just trying to be helpful on my way home.

  God, I really was turning into a stalker.

  On this occasion, though, I turned up at the Center to find a very empty parking lot, and Shawna heading out of the front entrance, fastening the last few buttons of her coat as she turned toward her regular parking space.

  “Oh, hey John,” she said, apparently a little startled I was there.

  “Courtney done yet?” I asked with a broad, innocent smile.

  “She’s just... uh... seeing her final patient of the day,” the receptionist said, sounding a touch uncertain for some reason. “Told me to just head home.”

  “Right,” I nodded, acting calm as my runaway paranoia immediately jumped to the conclusion that Courtney’s final patient might be one Harry Richards, and my wife might have sent Shawna away for a little private time with him.

  “I can wait a little longer if you need me to,” Shawna said, now unfastening her coat buttons again. As though I needed a receptionist to be present if I was going to wait for my wife in the waiting room.

  “No, it’s okay. Go home,” I told her. “I can just sit and wait for her to finish, no reason for you to be there.”

  “Okay...” Shawna said, not seeming too happy with the plan. “Well... have a good night, John.”

  I went in through the automatic doors to find most of the lights in the Center switched off. I really did feel like a stalker as I found a seat in the waiting room outside Courtney’s door. Hiding in the shadows. This really wasn’t healthy, whether I had a big vat of Starbucks sugary coffee on hand for her or not.

  Stillness as I waited. Uncomfortable stillness.

  I couldn’t hear anything from her office. Again, I had the strangest sense of disappointment, that I couldn’t hear obvious signs of adultery, no matter how faint, emerging from her door. I told myself these were soundproofed rooms, the doctors needed to protect their patients’ privacy.

  Fifteen minutes went by. I was starting to get really antsy, really jumpy. I couldn’t sit down any longer, and especially not in the shady parts of the room. I started to be afraid that Courtney would think me creepy, hiding in wait for her, ready to jump out at her from the shadows. In many respects, that was exactly what I was doing.

  Another ten minutes went by. The coffee cup in my hands seemed lukewarm at best by now. I could hardly barge into her office and present it to her now, while a few more minutes would make this completely undrinkable. My excuse for being there had become unconvincing. I wouldn’t be able to say I’d simply dropped by, it would be obvious I’d been waiting a while, deliberately going against her wishes by being there.

  Discomfort soon turned to nerves, and nerves soon turned to outright fear. What would I say if she came out with Harry Richards? Perhaps laughing and blushing and glowing with perspiration, her usual smart appearance slightly disheveled, her crisp dress creased and rumpled. Uh... no, honey, I’m not checking up on you. And anyway, what’s been going on with this new patient of yours?

  I dropped the coffee cup, full and untouched, into the trash by Shawna’s reception desk, and walked out of there. I was a mass of conflicted feelings. I was shaking with anxiety yet burbling with bizarre, perverted hope.

  I found my battered old Volvo and swung into the driver’s seat, fired up the old but comforting engine. Cranked it into Drive and stepped on the accelerator.

  I felt so stupid, told myself there wasn’t anything to worry about—there never had been. I was just a ridiculous, stupid man, who distrusted his wife because she was gorgeous and other men desired her, when I really had no cause whatsoever to do so.

  Then on the way out of the parking lot I drove past a sleek, black BMW that seemed hauntingly familiar.

  I didn’t stop. I couldn’t turn around. I continued on toward home feeling physically sick, cold, and yet more turned on than I could remember, a huge erection lurking there in my pants.

  Jesus.

  Chapter 3

  This wasn’t paranoia, I told myself. Again and again, I focused on that thought, even as I fought to breathe, even as I began to hyperventilate on the way home. This wasn’t like Jason. This wasn’t all in my head. I knew that I hadn’t imagined it. I’d known since the first day I met Harry.

  The sleek, black BMW pulled into an open spot on the opposite side of the road, and out stepped Harry and Courtney. Harry put his hand on the small of Courtney’s back and led her across the road, to where Charlie and I were sitting, waiting. Watching.

  It was that hand on her back that clued me in. They didn’t just know each other from before, they’d been intimate. Worse, Harry hadn’t seemed embarrassed when Courtney introduced me as her husband. He did drop his hand from her back, only to hold it out and squeeze mine in a numbingly hard shake.

  “Harry,” he said. “Nice to meet you, Josh.” Even his voice, deep and resonant, was annoyingly masculine.

  “It’s John,” I corrected. How could he mess up as simple a name as John? “And this is our friend, Charlie.”

  We’d exchanged pleasantries. Courtney had explained that they knew one another from college, but had said no more. I knew better than to dig, even after we’d finished our drinks and had all gone our separate ways, even when it was just the two of us, alone in our apartment. We’d been down that road before, years before, when we were just dating, with a guy named Jason, and it had nearly ended us.

  “But this isn’t in your head, man,” I said aloud as I pulled into the basement garage of our apartment complex. I sat there for the longest time, engine running, wondering what the hell I should do.

  I pulled out my phone, turning it over and over.

  I could call Charlie and talk. That would be the most sensible thing, even though he’d pick my brain apart and would get me to second guess everything.

  I could call Courtney. That was the most confrontational, although it also sent a jolt through me as I imagined her answering her phone, out of breath, as Harry plowed into her from behind, his hand splayed across her taut ass.

  I could text her, which was the more passive aggressive way to handle this whole mess.

  Or I could do nothing.

  For now, I did nothing. I put my phone away, took a deep and hearty breath, adjusted my erection so it wasn’t painfully pressed against my trousers, and got out of
the car.

  I managed to make it up to our apartment before breaking down again. I pulled my phone out, composed a text, then stared at it without pressing send.

  [Me]: Just got home. Should I order a pizza or something?

  I read it over and over, trying to discern whether there was any way to read into it. Of course there wasn’t, but I hesitated hitting send anyway. I knew I’d read a lot into her response, and the amount of time it would take for her to send it.

  I dithered for nearly a minute before hitting send, then sat on the sofa and stared at the screen, waiting for her response. When she didn’t immediately start typing, my chest clenched.

  “Okay, there’s plenty of reasons why she didn’t immediately respond,” I told myself. If she’d been seeing a patient, she wouldn’t have been able to respond right away. She kept her phone in her office, so she might not even see it until it was time to leave.

  Or she could be in one of the patient rooms, splayed out over an examination table as Harry rocked into her naked body. I could hear the crinkle of the examination paper beneath her. My stomach dropped.

  I stared at my phone until I couldn’t stand it anymore, then darkened the screen and tossed it onto the kitchen counter. My heart drummed against my chest. She wasn’t going to respond, there were a lot of rational reasons why not, but I wasn’t going to think of any reason but the most sordid.

  And it left me hard. So very, painfully hard. I needed to pee, but could barely do it with my erection. I contemplated cooking, but after standing in front of the refrigerator for a solid minute, cool air belching out around me, I gave up trying. I grabbed my phone—still with no messages on it—and ordered a pizza.

  Waiting was going to be no good for me. I could already feel myself spiraling into a very dark place. I had to talk to someone, so at last, I picked up the phone and called the only person I could trust about this.

  “John, what’s up?” Charlie said, sounding concerned.

  “Um, why are you asking like that?”

  “Well, first of all, it’s a Friday night and you’re calling me, rather than texting. Also, you’ve been kind of MIA these last few weeks, which I would normally think had to do with that new house you’re working on, except that I also know about the BMW guy—”

  “Yeah, it’s that,” I interrupted, cursing myself for calling a shrink. “I need to talk about...him.”

  “Just him?”

  I could almost imagine Charlie looking at me over his glasses as he scratched something into a notepad.

  “She’s with him. Right now, she’s with him.” Saying it out loud took my breath away.

  “Okay, that doesn’t sound good. How do you know?”

  “I kind of...followed her. To her office.”

  I gave him a short version of the past few hours: the text not to pick her up, the empty parking lot, Shawna’s nervousness, the waiting, and the BMW parked outside. Charlie listened quietly, turning it over and over in his head, analyzing, breaking it down, coming up with the most infuriating and frustrating reason for all of this.

  “I texted her about a half hour ago or so. Maybe twenty minutes. She hasn’t responded,” I finished out-of-breath.

  He didn’t speak immediately—long enough that I almost asked him if he was still there. Then, he said, “John, why didn’t you go into the back and tell her that you were there?”

  I rubbed my forehead in frustration. This was exactly why I shouldn’t have called him in the first place. “Because she asked me not to get her.”

  “You’re upset,” Charlie said.

  “Of course I am. My wife’s cheating on me.”

  “You don’t know that for sure. This guy is a patient, right?”

  “A patient who needs more than an hour of personal attention? Doesn’t that sound suspicious to you?” I heard my voice rising, but didn’t bother stopping it.

  “Why haven’t you called her?”

  “‘Why haven’t I...?’ Charlie, whose side are you on?”

  “I’m sorry, John. Yours, of course.” Some of the cold logic thawed in his voice. “I’m just hoping that I don’t have to take a side here.”

  “But she’s—”

  “Yes, maybe she is.” Thud, a blow to my stomach. I took a hard seat on the ground as his confirmation—as hypothetical as it was—worked its way through me. “But maybe she’s not. And the question you need to ask yourself is this: do you really want to know?”

  “How could you even ask that, man? Of course I do.”

  “So why didn’t you go into those back rooms? Have you called her directly?”

  “I texted,” I said, realizing how thin it sounded.

  “Right. This is Jason all over again. We’ve been down this road.”

  “But Jason turned out to be a mistake. On my part. I was a total idiot. This time, there’s so much more evidence—”

  “Sure, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”

  I groaned. “Stop talking to me like a shrink! Talk to me as a friend. Please.”

  Charlie sighed. “Okay, I’ll lay it out for you plainly. When you confronted Courtney about your suspicion that she was cheating on you with Jason, and she not only denied it, but proved that she wasn’t, how did you feel?”

  “Relieved. Embarrassed. Stupid.” And I felt all of those things, but I knew the real confession he wanted from me. I’d felt disappointed.

  “That all?”

  “What are you implying?”

  “Look, I’m your friend. Maybe your best friend, if grown men still have those. So please don’t take this the wrong way, okay? But have you ever considered the possibility that maybe you wanted her to cheat?”

  “That’s insane,” I said, too fast, too defensively. I knew it was a lie as soon as it left my lips. “I don’t. I don’t.”

  Charlie was quiet for an uncomfortable amount of time. “I’m sorry I suggested it, then. But...but before you confront her again, I’d suggest that maybe you wait. At least until you’re certain. The last time you accused her, she almost left you, if I remember.”

  Those had been dark times. “Thanks for talking, Charlie.”

  “Always. Hey, John, let’s get together sometime, okay? It’s been too long.”

  “Sounds good.”

  I hung up without saying goodbye.

  When I checked my phone, I saw that I had a text from Courtney that must have come in while we’d been talking.

  [Courtney]: Sorry, just saw this. On the way home now.

  Just saw this, still sweaty from the last hour of sex she’d been having with another man. I imagined Courtney holding her phone before her, standing naked with Harry Richards behind her, his fingers stroking her hip. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of this, she’d say over her shoulder. Maybe we have time for one more round?

  When I didn’t pick her up, Courtney rode her bike to the office. It wasn’t far, and because she could thread through traffic, it would only take her about fifteen minutes.

  Of course, she could also get dropped off by Harry, which would probably take about the same amount of time, but mean more time they could spend together—

  Stop. I paced over to the window, wondering why thoughts like that turned me on, even if they made me so jealous—why the thought of Courtney leaning over as Harry drove her home, unzipping his pants, and sucking his dick as he worked through traffic left me hard and breathless. She didn’t do that kind of thing in real life. Ever. That wasn’t the kind of woman Courtney was.

  Have you ever considered the possibility that you wanted her to cheat? Charlie’s suggestion was preposterous. Of course I didn’t want her to cheat on me. I loved her, loved the life that we had. The thought of living a life without her was a devastating one. She was so much better than me, smarter, more successful, a hell of a lot more attractive. Why would I ever want to lose that?

  Movement caught my eye. A figure on a bicycle, dressed in a pink, short-sleeved bike jersey and black cycling shorts, gracefully c
utting along the street, turning into the parking garage. Courtney was home.

  The pressure I felt in those next five minutes, waiting for her to lock her bike up and take the elevators, was unreal. Like I was swimming to the bottom at the deep end of the pool. My ears popped. My chest caved. I couldn’t breathe. I could barely stand.

  And then the door opened and everything cleared again. There stood Courtney, posing in the doorway like a superhero in her cycling getup, her helmet balanced on her hip.

  “Hey, welcome home,” I said. “I ordered pizza.”

  “Thanks for taking care of that. I...I’m sorry I’m late.” She sounded strange, hesitant in a way that wasn’t her normal self. In a guilty way?

  I felt numb. Numb, yet also hyper aware of how turned on I was, like I was floating behind myself, a scientist making the observation more than me myself. “Hey,” I heard myself say, “it’s just after 7. That’s when a lot of people are just getting off.”

  “Yeah.” She nodded, although she didn’t seem to accept my excuse for her. There was something distant with her, and that distance frightened me. She seemed to be searching for something, the courage to speak, to confess, to tell me something that would change us forever.

  I stepped up to her before she could find whatever it was she was looking for. She blinked, seemingly startled to see me so close. Even in her bike shoes, she was practically as tall as me. I ran my hand down her arm, and she turned to watch my fingers leave a trail of goosebumps on her skin.

  I leaned in and kissed her neck. She smelled like sweat and... what? Cologne? Was that the musk of another man? I scanned her skin for hickeys, marks, but there was nothing out of the ordinary.

  “John...” She began. A confession. A question?

  I didn’t let her finish that thought. Instead, I kissed her, pushing my tongue past her lips before she would say something that we’d both regret. I cupped her butt, toned and tight beneath her bike shorts. For a moment, she lost herself in the kiss. Her hand clutched at my shirt, the other working up the back of my neck.