Pictures at Ten Page 2

  “You know I want to end up back here. But I gotta start somewhere else, somewhere smaller. So, yes, it's what I want.”

  “What if I said no?” Daphne's tone indicated she was serious. We had already gone over this. She knew my answer.

  “Well, I'm not going without you. So I guess I'd politely tell them to stuff their job offer.”

  My wife held her face still. She was thinking, or so she would have me believe.

  “I have been getting used to living without a job.”

  She scowled.

  “Sleeping in 'til ten. Having beer at lunch.”

  Daphne's scowl started to crack as I watched.

  “Eating ice cream out of the tub as I lay on the sofa, watching my shows.”

  She finally broke and started laughing. “Or you could just get a fucking job here.” Her smile belayed her words. She knew I had been looking for a job here, all kidding aside, and that no one was hiring. “Okay hubby. You head home and start packing. I'll go give my notice.”

  We both got up and headed back to the reception area. We stopped and kissed goodbye at the exit.

  “See you around six?”

  “I might be a little late. The girls will want to take me out for drinks after I spring the news.”

  “I'll have dinner ready by seven.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Daphne turned to head back to her office but stopped after only a couple steps. “One more thing.” She came back to me. “You owe me big for this, buster. And I won't forget it.”

  She kissed me on the cheek and strode away.

  I smiled to myself, fully aware she wouldn't.

  Chapter 2

  So we packed up what little we owned into our pickup truck and drove seven hundred miles to our new home.

  Getting settled in was rough. I was producing the noon newscast and that meant I had to get up at three in the morning to be at work by four. That meant most of the burden of getting our apartment set up fell on Daphne.

  She took it well, considered it a vacation, she said. As she told it, unpacking our stuff, buying new furniture, and arranging the home was a breeze compared to the drudgery of making the numbers add up at the hospital, but I knew she missed work and couldn't wait to get back to it.

  “Good show, today.” Daphne was putting a few books on a shelf she had put up on our living room wall.

  It was my one month anniversary at the station.

  “Thanks, hon.” I kissed my wife on the cheek. “But you have to say that. My boss would beg to differ. He had a whole page of nits to pick with me.”

  “Poor thing. Let me get you a beer.”

  Yes, I drink beer at one in the afternoon. It's the end of my day. I was re-arranging the books, putting them in alphabetical order by author, when she returned with a glass of Harp.

  “That's the last one.” Daphne pointed the bottle she was drinking out of, at the empty cardboard box at my feet.

  “We should celebrate. How about I take you out to dinner?”

  “It's a work night.” Daphne was reminding me I usually went to bed at seven.

  “You saying I need that much beauty rest?” I slapped my wife playfully on the ass as she placed the last book on the shelf; it was out of order, I'd have to move it later.

  She turned to me with a stern look. “Hey, watch it.” She held her jaw tight, her brow furrowed for two beats, before she started giggling. My wife looked so beautiful when she laughed. Her face lit up with amusement, her lips parted in an active smile.

  It was moments like this that reminded me just how lucky I was to have Daphne in my life.

  I grabbed her around the waist and kissed her. “That's it. We are officially, no longer, living out of boxes. We have to go out. I'll take a nap, we'll get an early seating at Sam's, and I'll be in bed by eight.”

  We kissed and hugged and Daphne said something about taking a nap with me. We usually ate lunch together at this time; it was the only meal we shared during the week. Today we skipped it and headed to the bedroom.

  I intended to get some rest so I wouldn't be too tired at work the next day. My wife had different plans.

  Because of our mis-matched schedule we hadn't had sex in over three weeks. Either I was too tired, or Daphne had too much organizing to do.

  When we got to the bedroom, Daphne set me down on the bed, got on her knees in front of me and began taking my pants off.

  “You don't have to do that.” I prayed she wouldn't listen to me.

  “Oh, I know that Richard dear.” She started stroking and leaned in to lick a drop of pre-cum off the tip of my swelling member. “It's been too long since I've had a cock in me.” Daphne took me into her warm mouth and bobbed a few times. “So you're going to have to put out for me this afternoon.”

  God had answered my prayers. I flopped back and closed my eyes as I enjoyed the wet sensation of my wife's mouth around my erection.

  After a too short moment of bliss I could feel my climax approaching and was about to shout a warning.

  “Oh no you don't buddy.” My wife could also tell I was close. “You need to satisfy me first.”

  We switched positions after removing the rest of our clothes. I breathed deep the musky aroma of my wife's sex. My head felt at home between her thighs, licking along the neatly groomed edges of her labia, drawing my tongue across her pebbly skin, delving deep into her warm dewy lips before lapping her clit like it was candy.

  Despite the recent lack of action, our sex life was good. We both enjoyed pleasing each other orally and digitally. Sometimes I would direct our actions, other times, like today, Daphne was in control. It was a true partnership and at the moment I was tonsil deep in my wife's pussy and loving it.

  After she came, I moved up her body. My face was slick with her juices but she didn't shy away from my kiss. Instead, she devoured my lips, consuming her own essence.

  “Put it in.” She nipped at my ear lobe as I drove my steely hard cock between deep inside her.

  I started thrusting, hard and fast. I could feel her muscles pulsing and I knew she was close to another climax.

  “Shit, Rich. That feels so fucking good.”

  I said nothing.

  “It's been so long. If you'd brushed me off, I was ready to go out and buy a vibrator.”

  I must have been losing my touch. I picked up the pace of my fucking and my wife stopped speaking in coherent sentences and just started mumbling a series of ohs and ahs and fucks.

  I could feel a knot of pressure building at the base of my cock, three weeks of pent up sperm waiting to be released; actually it was a week and a half, but I didn't feel bad about it, I'm sure Daphne rubbed out a few since our last coupling.

  As I erupted, shooting several strong ropes of cum into my wife, I felt her pussy walls begin contracting, like she was sucking the semen from my body, consuming every single drop of me.

  It was joy.

  After we came, we both fell asleep from exhaustion. We ended up sleeping longer than we planned so, instead of going out, we ordered Chinese delivery. We opened a nice bottle of Cabernet to enjoy with it.

  I did end up getting to sleep around seven-thirty, so that was good. Daphne stayed up to watch a DVD. I was dead to the world and didn't know when she finally came to bed. She was peacefully dozing next to me when my alarm went off at three.

  ***

  It didn't take long for Daphne to find a new job. Less than a week after we finished unpacking she was hired by the Iowa Medical Center to assist in their accounting department, pretty much the same thing she did in Dallas, just for a little less money.

  And from that point on, we became like trains, passing on the tracks, each going in a different direction. I was at work when she got up in the morning. She was at work when I arrived home. The only time we really saw each other, during the week, was the hour or so after she got home and before I went to sleep.

  It was a stable, if not totally satisfying, routine, but we made up for it on the
weekends. I'd take a nap after work on Friday and get up when Daphne got home. We'd spend the weekend catching up with each other's life, workplace drama, mostly. I usually had the more interesting stories, like which anchor almost got a DUI and which reporter was sleeping with his photographer. The accounting department at the hospital was bone dry in comparison. Until Brad got hired.

  Daphne had been working there almost six months when she told me about him. We were having coffee at Starbucks one Saturday morning, when his name first came up.

  “Brad was in rare form today.”

  “And who's Brad?”

  “Our new receptionist. He's been here a week and already he's hit on just about all the women in Accounting.”

  My ears perked up. “Really? All the women? Including you?”

  Daphne looked up at me, mischief in her eye's. “You worried?”

  “Should I be?” We both had lots of questions, no answers.

  My wife told me, “of course not,” but she didn't tell me if Brad had hit on her, and I didn't ask again. From then on, Brad became a topic we both used to tease each other.

  One day, my wife mentioned he'd started dating one of the nurses and I asked her if she was jealous. She looked at me with a raised eyebrow and kept right on talking.

  When I was too tired and wasn't able to pick up her birth control pills at the pharmacy she threatened to ask Brad to do it for her.

  Overall, we just loved giving each other grief, and Daphne's flirty co-worker was an ideal candidate for harmless jokes.

  Things got more interesting on my first trip away from home for work.

  Every four years, life in Iowa becomes a political carnival and the eyes of the nation turn to this flat desolate wasteland to be entertained. Iowans get first crack at voicing their preference of candidates, so this means that for the two months leading up to caucus night, there's never a day when at least two candidates can't be found somewhere in the Hawkeye state.

  As a television news producer I began to live and breathe presidential election coverage. I was following all the polls, I knew all the campaign managers by their first names and I could probably spit out their talking points better than the candidates themselves.

  Work demands left me little personal time to spend with my wife and by deep December I found myself semi-celibate; it had been almost two months since Daphne and I had fucked, fifty-six days to be exact. Yes, I wanted to spend quality time with my wife, but one of us always seemed to be too busy or too tired, even when we did have time together.

  Six weeks before the caucus, I was sent to Cedar Rapids as a member of our news team covering a multi-night debate which every candidate from both major political parties would be attending.

  After the first night's event, I was alone in my hotel room when she called.

  “God, Rich. I really wish you were here,” were the first words she spoke to me after I answered my cell phone.

  It sounded urgent. “Is everything ok?”

  “No!”

  Now I was worried. I told her if it was an emergency, I'd head right home.

  “Would you?”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No. I just need you badly.”

  “You need me?”

  “I need you inside me. God, I'm horny.”

  I didn't know if I was more pissed or relieved to hear she was physically okay, if a little randy.

  “Since you were away, I decided to go out for drinks with the girls after work.”

  “It's Thursday night. Don't you have to work tomorrow?”

  “It was only a couple drinks at happy hour. You're such a lightweight.”

  I was not a lightweight. At least, I didn't think I was. “Go on.”

  “So, guess who joined us?” Before I could say his name, Daphne beat me to it. “Brad!”

  “Was his girlfriend there?”

  “No. She dumped his ass last week. That's why he was invited, so he could drown his sorrows with cheap whiskey and we could hear some juicy stories. It was win-win.”

  I didn't ask who had done the inviting. It sounded like something Daphne would do. She had a thing for wounded puppies and she did love her gossip.

  I was afraid to ask, but I did. “So why are you horny?”

  “Promise you won't get mad.”

  I promised, but I had my fingers crossed.

  “So, anyway. Brad told us how he discovered Leslie was seeing her ex on the side. He got a peek at a few suggestive text messages on her phone and decided to confront her about it.”

  “I thought you said, she dumped him?”

  “Richard, let me finish. Anyway, he confronted her, she confessed and he forgave her. Two days later, she sent him a text saying she didn't want to see him anymore 'cause she didn't trust him after he snooped her phone.

  “What the fuck, we said. She fucked around on you and then has the ovaries to say she has trust issues. We spent two or three hours, longer than we should have, buying Brad drinks, and lending our shoulders for him to cry on, and maybe a few of us flirted with him. A bit.”

  This last line got my attention.

  “I take it, you mean, you flirted with him.”

  “Come on, Rich, he was sad and needed cheering up.”

  I'm not getting mad, I said to myself as I started getting mad. I was also getting aroused.

  “How did the flirting go?” I kept my voice as neutral as possible.

  Silence on the other end.

  “Daphne?”

  A pause and then her voice came on, low and hesitant. “I put my arm around him.” Another short pause. “I kissed his cheek. Once.”

  My hand balled into a fist as my dick turned rock hard. Why was I aroused at the thought of my wife making out with another man.

  “I might have let him, feel me up.”

  “Daphne!” I think my fingernails drew blood from my palms. I'm pretty sure my cock twitched.

  More silence. I was afraid we'd lost the connection, or worse, she'd hung up. Then I made out a few snorts, like she might have been crying, but then she started giggling. “He might have motor-boated my tits.” My wife barely got the words out through her laughter.

  “Are you shitting me?”

  “Rich, you are so easy to tease.”

  I decided at that moment to turn the tables.

  “Wow, cause thinking about your Brad, with his face in your chest, has me rock hard.” It was true. “In fact, I'm stroking myself right now.”

  I did, in fact, pull my cock out and started playing with it, rubbing a little pre-cum along the sensitive crown.

  Now it was Daphne's turn to wonder. “Really? You're aroused at the thought of me fooling around?”

  “Yeah.” And I wasn't lying. I did get hard at the thought, although I was sure I wouldn't want her to actually do it. Fantasy was one thing, real life brings real consequences.

  “What if I told you I did put my arm around him and I did kiss his cheek, but it was Phyllis who actually let him feel her up.” It didn't sound like a question.

  “So you almost had a threesome?”

  “Would you like to see that?”

  I didn't answer right away. I was jerking off and not in my right mind. I didn't want to embarrass my wife, nor did I want to encourage her to cheat on me. I did want her to continue exploring the fantasy.

  “Depends. What am I seeing?”

  She was silent for a moment and I thought I heard the rustle of clothing.

  “You still there?”

  “Just getting more comfortable. Like I said, I'm horny. You still want me to go on?”

  “Yeah.” My voice might have squeaked.

  “You masturbating?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well guess you won't mind if I join you.”

  “Not if you keep talking.”

  Daphne went on to describe her hypothetical threesome with Brad and Phyllis. “We hustled him into the ladies room at the bar and locked the door. Phyllis, the little slut, got on
her knees and took out his cock to suck it.

  “Brad just ran his hands through her hair and leaned his head back. She's blond, you know. Sucks dick like a blond, too. It looked so dirty, and sexy. I lifted my skirt and started stroking my clit, like I'm doing now. I was so fucking wet from the kissing and playing earlier. I was leaning on the sink next to them and was surprised when Brad turned to me and grabbed the hand that was between my legs. He brought it to his mouth and started licking my fingers.

  “He smiled and slipped his free hand up my skirt and resumed what he'd interrupted. God, Rich. It felt good. Feeling his thick, rough, fingers kneading my button. I don't know how long he keep working on me, but eventually he thrust his fingers inside me and I came. He covered my mouth with his to catch my screams. I could taste myself on his lips and was so good.”

  My wife's words started to slow. I imagined her, alone, moving her own fingers through the folds of her sex, perhaps pausing to taste herself.

  “I'm close, Richard.”

  Throughout her monologue I continued to stroke myself, varying my speed so as not to come too soon, but I was also close and I told her with a moan.

  “Come with me, Rich.” And then she started sighing, a breathy low sigh that rose in intensity as her orgasm grew.

  “Oh, Rich. He's. He's. Brad's putting it inside me.” And she nearly screamed and that set me off. My cock erupted, sending several long blasts of pearly fluid arching in the air to land on the carpet by the bed.

  It was so intense. We just breathed together over the phone for a few minutes. As the emotional high of arousal faded, the vacuum it left was quickly filled with jealously and guilt.

  Before I came, it excited me to think about Daphne with another man, but post orgasm, I was worried she'd be mad at me, or encouraged to cheat on me in real life, or worse, to think I might want to sleep with another woman.

  “Was it good for you?” All my worries were swept away by her words. “Cause it was great for me.”

  “I can't wait to get back home, so I can give you a proper fucking.”

  “You're heading back Saturday afternoon, right?” That would be in two days.

  “Yeah.”

  “I might go out again with the gang tomorrow night. Drinks are two for one at Larry's Place by the university.”