Madeleine Wakes (A Wife-Watching Romance): Book One of the Madeleine Trilogy Read online

  Madeleine slipped the straps of her dress over her shoulders, revealing her bare breasts to the world if only it could see her in this darkened apartment. She startled him a little with her sudden near-nudity, not so much from the possibility of being seen from this apartment, but from the idea that she really hadn’t been wearing much during her business dinner, or whatever else had kept her out until two.

  Jealousy and fear burned bright within him at the apparent confirmation she’d been lusting after someone else, and might be doing so now.

  And yet he could not deny just how exciting this was, how thrilling to observe her sexuality unleashed—the way she moved when she was genuinely turned on, free from any fear of judgment from her husband. He was so hard as he watched her.

  Curiosity ultimately helped him tear himself away from the vision in their living room to tiptoe quietly back into the bedroom, to see who it was his wife was watching.

  That late, only a smattering of apartments across the street had lights on. Only a few, as far as Hugo could see, offered a view of actual people.

  She had to be watching the guys directly across. College students—or at least, they appeared to be. For a moment, Hugo thought they might even be high school students, they looked so young. But they had that air of nonchalant self-confidence that couldn’t come from high school. If they were college students, then they were wealthy ones, or trust fund babies, to be able to live over there. Reminded Hugo of that TV show Madeleine had liked to watch, Gossip Girl. Impossibly good-looking students living impossibly glamorous lives.

  Their apartment, like all of those across the street, offered high ceilings and large windows. Furnished with designer-looking trappings of affluence, probably regularly cleaned by a professional cleaner, this was not the squalor Hugo remembered from his own college days.

  He couldn’t tell who owned the place, or even who lived there. Five guys lounged around on couches and armchairs, a few girls. Looking as though a party was coming to an end, they were all sipping wine or beers in glasses, rather than cans or bottles. Talking, smoking, laughing, care-free.

  Which guy was Madeleine watching? They all looked well groomed, wearing smart clothes and with trim figures. The blond one? The dark-haired guy? The Asian guy? One of the two guys who looked like twins, but probably weren’t even related?

  It was so easy to see into that apartment, to watch everything that went on. What had she seen in there over those weeks and months? It was kind of hot to think of her catching sight of illicit scenes, being so naughty in her voyeurism. Hugo looked at the college guys, at how young they seemed, and he actually smiled. Madeleine could dream of them all she liked, maybe even more than one of them. Somehow it was reassuring that they were so young—as though the age gap confirmed he could never lose her to them.

  What would her family and friends think, if she shacked up with someone ten years younger?

  Quietly pleased, he returned to the bedroom doorway, and then after a moment monitoring the situation for risk, he crept back out to the end of that little hallway, and the corner by the kitchen.

  He could see she’d sunk down onto the cushioned window seat—sitting in that now-familiar position up against the far wall. For a moment Hugo worried that she’d spot him watching her, that she’d be angry at him. But she didn’t notice him at all, he remained in the shadows. She seemed to be in something of a daze now—no longer so concerned about the threat of being caught.

  So beautiful sitting there in her underwear, both hands sweeping over her body as she settled into a stable, comfortable position. Her legs parted so that she was almost sitting cross-legged, leaning back against the wall, her hands now trailing up her thighs to find the center of her womanhood, and glide over the thin black lace covering it.

  Hugo felt such an urge to go to her, to join her, to indulge in her beauty—to taste her, breathe her in, ravage her. But as had been the case all through her depression, he felt that invisible barrier blocking his way—paranoia, anxiety, fear of rejection.

  In the still darkness, he caught the subtle but irresistibly sensuous sound of his pretty wife’s heavy breathing, with those elegant hands of hers gliding over her heaving chest, up to sweep her hair out of her face, diverting it to flow down one side of her head.

  The way she had slats in the blinds angled now, she had to believe she was safe from others looking in on her, though she could watch her new Romeo across the street. She was so brazen, jutting out her chest, her breasts so pert and full, her nipples impossibly hard. Hugo had to stifle a moan of his own as she pushed her pale, creamy breasts together and fondled those prominent little rosy buds, uttering a quiet gasp as her fingers grazed over her sensitive flesh.

  There was no way he could disturb her and get away with it now. The way his quiet throbbing hard-on strained to be touched, if he went out now it would be quite clear to her that he’d been watching her for a while.

  And anyway, he wanted to watch her, wanted to see. He felt vulnerable clinging to that exposed corner, but there was no alternative. Each moment he let her lie there and continue her wanton display he felt the tension edge up a notch, the risk, the danger, the potential for anger when eventually she did discover him. But he could not pull himself away. Hugo had to force himself to keep calm, breathe deeply, remain silent.

  Madeleine was absolutely breathtaking.

  Maybe if he continued watching, he’d learn a little something about how to give her pleasure.

  Hugo could hear Madeleine’s deep breathing almost as easily as his own now, as he saw her slip a hand under the waistband of her little panties. In the still of the night, even with the faint traffic hum from far off, he could hear the whisper of her fingers running over her skin.

  He couldn’t help himself, couldn’t avoid quietly slipping his hard cock out of his fly as he watched her tuck her thumbs into her panties, and gently lift her hips to draw them out from under her, slide the scrap of black lace slowly up her divinely rounded thighs, over her knees, down her calves and away.

  She looked like a goddess bathed in the horizontal lines of streetlight, and watching her made Hugo want to bow down and worship her.

  Madeleine turned her head to look out of the window again. Her gaze into the glass was so knowing, so self-confident, so raunchy. She was beautiful, powerful, irresistibly sexual, and he was enthralled by the sight of her peach-soft flesh unclothed and unrestrained.

  Was she getting off on her display? It almost seemed that she was playing with the idea of being seen, though with the cover of darkness and the shield-like blind keeping her safe. Safe, but then something about being there in the window, the risk that somebody might actually see—that excited her. Hugo felt a ripple of pleasant surprise at being sure of it.

  Madeleine had never mentioned any exhibitionist fantasies before. Come to think of it, she’d never revealed any real fantasies before, period. She was something of a mystery, even after so long as his wife. He was pleased she was exploring her desires like this—it had to be healthy given what she’d been through, relieving her tension. Even if he wasn’t involved at this stage.

  God, she was so sexy.

  Madeleine moved her knees over towards her husband, keeping the juiciest sight of her personal area away from any onlookers across the street, but in so doing offering it all up to Hugo, who had just enough light to see between her thighs, catch the little golden dusting of hair pointing to her treasure.

  Hugo had to be careful to maintain his self-control as her hand slipped over her stomach and over her mound, her graceful fingers applied to her tender folds and sensitive clit like those of a concert pianist laid on the ivories and ebonies.

  Madeleine moaned long and low as her fingertips began to slide over her moistened lips, and strum her aching button.

  Her husband watched while gently stroking his rigid shaft, his breathing growing shallow and rapid as though it was difficult to absorb the oxygen from the air. He was suffocating from the raw sexual
ity of his exquisite wife. It was the most thrilling sensation he could remember.

  He felt his guilt melting away as he watched her. It made him feel out-and-out wonderful—almost above the rampant excitement she inspired in him from her physical display. To see her cry out and arch her back as a torrent of sexual energy rushed through her sweeping curves, gave him the impression she was finding release even though he as her husband was failing her.

  Her orgasm was exquisite, the sight of her quivering like that, trembling at the sheer power of the feelings swamping her system, shocking and delighting him. The sweet sound of her plaintive cry at just how glorious she felt.

  Hugo kept himself back from the edge of his own climax, his attention on her, wanting to enjoy the moment without being distracted by his own messy orgasm. Then he realized the moment was over, and unless he made himself scarce, she would find him there in a humiliating state.

  He slipped back away from the door, back to bed and safety. Heard her enter the bedroom, going into the bathroom. Lying there, he managed to make his heavy breathing seem like quiet snoring, as he played the sleeping husband once again.

  When she came to lie with him, he could smell soap and moisturizer rather than that dark scent of female arousal. It was faintly disappointing, but at least he could still smell that unmistakable sweetness that didn’t really come from any one product or fragrance, that aroma that was characteristically her.

  It drove him wild, and he had to lie on his front so that she wouldn’t accidentally brush against his erection, giving the game away.

  Five

  Hugo found it hard to concentrate at work the next day, his head replaying every moment from the night before, particularly the conversation Madeleine had had with Lucy. For the sake of his sanity, he had to assume from her side of the conversation that his wife had been resisting any suggestions from her best friend that she would actually cheat on him.

  But it had been eye-opening that she apparently thought he wasn’t ready for sex—that this was the issue keeping them from reengaging after their long hiatus.

  I don’t want to put any pressure on him right now, she’d said.

  The same excuse he gave for not initiating anything with her, she was embracing herself, only with roles reversed.

  Was there something in what she’d said? Did he need time?

  She was the one attending regular therapy sessions. Perhaps she was having professional analysis done on him by proxy. And Dr. Simeon’s analysis suggested he wasn’t ready for sex.

  The other eye-opener Madeleine had dropped into her conversation with her best friend had been the professional recommendation that she flirt with men around her. Hugo couldn’t help dwelling on that point while he was supposed to be fashioning a press release about the launch of a limited edition sneaker.

  Madeleine had been enjoying flirtatious encounters with other men—all perfectly innocent, from what she’d said. But what was flirtation? The dictionary of Google defined it as “behavior that demonstrates a playful sexual attraction to someone”.

  So Madeleine was demonstrating her playful sexual attraction to other men.

  There was something both uncomfortable and deeply erotic about that idea. It made him feel both slightly queasy and powerfully aroused. At the end of the day, the arousal added to his sense of discomfort, purely because it was so shocking that the thought of Madeleine hinting at attraction to other men made him feel in any way good.

  She was his wife. He wasn’t supposed to casually embrace knowledge of her making eyes at other men, no matter how controlled and limited her intentions were with them.

  And she was certainly sexually attracted to them – to at least one of them, the man who lived across the street. One of the college students, Hugo’s deductions had suggested. She had sat there in the windows on God-alone-knew-how-many nights and watched him while stroking herself to orgasm.

  Why did that all seem so exciting to Hugo? Was it some kind of mental shield set up by his brain to protect itself from the expectation of imminent pain? Like the shock that cushions a trauma victim from the pain of a serious injury. His body was protecting his mental state from the prospect of his wife cheating on him by turning the idea into a bizarre fantasy.

  Underlying his own personal exhilaration at this divergent behavior of his wife, was the revelation that her flirting was part of her treatment regime, it would appear. A treatment regime, Hugo noted, which had had more of a success in tackling her debilitating condition than any other.

  By the end of the working day, Hugo felt resolved to support Madeleine’s illicit flirtations, if only in the name of her continuing to succeed with her treatment. If he happened to enjoy the thought that she was giving herself little sexual thrills in doing so, then that was merely a happy coincidence. Maybe when he finally got up the courage to just initiate sex with her, the feelings coursing through his veins might help him sustain his performance and prevent the kind of sexual disasters that had happened while they’d been in the middle of their dark period.

  “Coming out, Hugo?”

  Hugo looked up from his desk to see the imposing form of his colleague Lowego Mars. Jesus. Had he spoken his thoughts aloud? Blurted his terrible secret? Would Lowego tell everybody, was he going to be a laughing stock for ever more at this company?

  The man who gets off on his wife flirting with other men.

  “Huh?” he said, startled, dazed.

  Lowego smiled. “We’re going out for a drink or two – remember? To celebrate.”

  Hugo heaved a huge sigh of relief. Secret safe. The sales team had won a big contract – a bunch of the guys were going out to the nearby Polish bar, and then according to some, a strip club, which seemed oddly incongruent with the image of this PR company as a slick 21st Century bastion of political correctness.

  “Oh, right. Yeah—I’ll come for a few. Can’t stay out too late, though,” he said, quashing any disappointment in Lowego in advance that there was no way he was going to any strip club.

  “Know exactly what you mean,” the big bearded man smiled, holding up a hand to show off his own wedding ring in some kind of sense of solidarity.

  Hugo returned his smile, nodded. “Maybe another night, when she’s out with her friends...”

  “Maybe when we’ve flown to the other side of the country to seal a contract, and we’re not expected back at all,” he laughed.

  It irritated Hugo slightly, that he couldn’t go home until later on this particular night, when he felt so very anxious about what he had to say to Madeleine. He just wanted to get home, get it over with.

  He texted Madeleine to let her know he was going to be late, he wasn’t sure what time he’d be home. She’d been hounding him to do this kind of thing anyway. To bond with his own co-workers, perhaps form a few friendships.

  > Hey honey, that’s fine—I’m on the late shift tonight anyway, remember?

  Her reply brought mild consolation: he wouldn’t be able to talk to her about anything anyway until much later. Perhaps a few drinks in the mean time would give him the heart to say what he needed to say to her.

  *

  Sitting in a Midtown bar after work, he found his thoughts drifting elsewhere as his colleague George Ray recounted his latest conquest—he didn’t even hear who it was this time—the intern in accounts receivable, the redhead executive from Marmaduke’s Cookies, the hooker who offered to share his cab on the way back to the hotel in Detroit?

  “It’s the newness,” he explained, in one of the few conversations with Ray that ever made an impression on Hugo. “Strange pussy. It makes you feel alive, you know? Like, I ain’t ever gonna love someone else—so it’s not really cheating, right?”

  “But you don’t tell Shona about any of it.” Hugo acting the journalist one more time, throwing the curveball.

  “She wouldn’t understand. See, some women—a lot of women—can’t sleep with a guy without it turning into this emotional mess. So they assume we’re the sam
e, right?”

  “Maybe, some of them.”

  “But, see, for us, it’s just sex, right? Two people rubbing up against each other a little, you know? I go home after, and she knows I love her’n the kids. I probably would be tempted, you know, to leave, if I didn’t get that strange.”

  Hugo had to be diplomatic, nod and smile, because Ray had been the one that got him the job, encouraged him down to the Big Apple, doubled his pay check. He couldn’t show disapproval for what Ray felt like disclosing after a few JD and cokes while the piano tinkled away in the background.

  “You think she’d tell you to stop, if she ever found out?”

  “I guess,” he sniffed. He normally didn’t like to talk about Shona when they were at a bar. “Hell, she probably doesn’t even care. Stopped thinking about anything to do with sex long, long ago.”

  “Maybe she’s getting some strange while you’re at work.”

  Ray laughed at that. As though it wasn’t even a remote possibility.

  “If she understood it was just like scratching an itch, and then I’m done and it’s back to real life, maybe I would tell her,” he said. “But if I told her and she said stop, that might be the thing that killed our marriage, you know? ‘Cause why should loving someone have to mean never experiencing the real pleasures of life ever again?”

  Hugo couldn’t help thinking about this philosophy of Ray’s on the way home. From his perspective, it quickly turned on its head, becoming a question of whether he had been preventing Madeleine from experiencing the real pleasures of life. He knew these feelings were driven by the guilt he’d borne for the year years of Madeleine’s depression. That she might be better off with someone else, that another guy would keep her so happy, she wouldn’t even need treatment. He’d read up on it, he knew it was merely psychological transference, but that guilt remained nevertheless.