Caution: the following events take place between fictional characters. Don't try them in your own home. Don't even try to find out what they are if you're under age.

This story originated in a project proposed by Mat Twassel, to write a story based on a painting by Jack Vettriano viewable at http://www.vettriano-art.com/inthoughtsofyou2/html

 

Her Thoughts of Me

(after the painting by Jack Vettriano)

by Vickie Tern

 

When I awoke she was already dressed and sitting in my Regency chair -- a beautiful antique I've been told, priceless -- staring out the window at nothing in particular. She looked as always like an exquisite trophy too rare ever to be awarded to anyone, but who now and then bestowed herself. She held coffee in a bone china cup suspended above her lap like a half-finished thought. I couldn't tell if she was guarding a hot cup till it cooled down enough to sip or if it was already empty and forgotten though still in her hands. Morning glared through the window. The same sheet that had tangled and infuriated me as I'd struggled toward her body last night was still draped over the chair where I'd thrown it before finally folding her around me. She sat delicately, leaning back on the sheet, unaware that I'd opened my eyes.

Her legs were crossed as if fitted together, and they arched steeply into those spike heels I'd found so exciting last night when she'd first hurried toward me to kiss me hello and then scurry back here with me for a night of making love. She'd kept them on through the whole of our first encounter, pointing them high at the ceiling as we lurched and clung together gloriously, lowering them only after we'd cooled down. Then next, still wearing them, she'd wrapped those slim thighs and calves around my neck as pliantly and affectionately as other women hug their babies, enclosing me, drawing me into her, making me hers. And then with my face deep in her crotch, we'd kissed. She'd gazed down fondly on me, and I'd looked up into her eyes gratefully until finally she'd had to close them to pay closer attention to the intimate yearnings urged by the tip of my tongue.

Then afterward there was all that play. She'd been in a delightful, adorable, whimsical mood, she'd wanted to try all sorts of things with me, and I'd wanted to let her. Amazed by her desires, I'd agreed to everything she proposed! My loins stirred as I remembered some of them.

"Do you mean to wear those heels to the office, Gwen?" I asked her gently, not to disturb her but so she'd know I was awake.

She knew what I meant. "I have another pair in the car," she said in her even-voiced, measured manner, without turning around. "These were for you."

Then still staring out the window, she said quietly, "You won't want to hear this. I'm leaving you, Dana."

I was shocked, then realized what she meant. "You mean for now.

To get to work. You're running late."

"No, I'm going home from here. I phoned in late. It's you I'm leaving.

"Me? You're what?"

"It's over."

Now I really was wide awake! "What?"

"It's decided."

I must have sounded frantic. "'It's decided'? What do you mean 'it's decided'? Things like that don't decide themselves! Who decided?"

She didn't move, just maintained that calm poise, still looking out the window. Away. Not looking at me. Too cowardly?

"I did. I decided. It's done."

She leaned down and with one hand set her cup and saucer on the floor, then turned toward me. I glimpsed her face only fleetingly before it disappeared into the silhouette of her head, dark as her hair against all that diffused light. No, not cowardly, not at all! Rather, strangely unconcerned. She'd been furtive when we started this affair a month ago, self-conscious, aware of others watching, but then increasingly open, as if she no longer cared what other people in the office thought, not even what her husband might think if he knew. Now, at her ease, she was telling me we were no longer lovers.

"It's done. It's over."

Did she know what pain those words inflicted on me? Was she avoiding all thought of it? Was it that hard for her to bear thinking about it? It wasn't over! It couldn't be over!

For a moment I couldn't speak. I couldn't move. I lay there, scarcely breathing. Then, "Gwen, why?"

"I can't do this to my husband any longer. He needs me."

"Gwen!" I was reaching for words. Anything! "Do what? Do what to him? He doesn't know! He doesn't know anything!" I was fighting for my life, yet the still morning light filtering through the curtain hid her face and kept the peace.

"Harry? Oh, I think he knows. And I know, Dana. Only you don't know. It's done."

She shook her head, seemed to struggle to hold back tears. She took a deep breath. "Of course he knows." Then her voice was calm again.

A sob exploded out of me. Of exasperation? This was unbearable! She felt guilty? I struggled to sit up on the bed, but I couldn't. I wanted to console her, hold her close until this mood passed, but I couldn't. I didn't dare intrude on her feelings, I was myself their cause, I was myself what had brought on this spasm of remorse. My coming near her now could only make matters worse. She had to deal with it alone. But if we both stayed perfectly still, maybe her grief would disappear back into her again, like a child's pail of water poured into the sand?

Instead she suddenly stood up and adjusted her skirt. "Thank you for everything, Dana. I've enjoyed all of it. Last night especially. Last night most of all. You were wonderful." She paused and began looking for her purse. She didn't seem as devastated as I felt, but she really meant it! She was leaving!

"Gwen, you can't do this!" I bellowed. I was helpless and utterly out of control. "You can't leave me like this!"

"Of course I can," she replied. Then like any matter-of-fact housewife, "I have to get home. Harry must be wondering what's keeping me."

"Please!" I said, real tears in my eyes. "What'll I do?"

"That's up to you, Dana. Lie there and think about me I suppose.

Think beautiful thoughts. That'd be nice."

"Gwen, I'm all tied up in knots! I can hardly breathe. I can't undo them alone!"

"No, I don't suppose you can. You poor dear, you poor, poor prisoner of love. But Mavis will be coming by later. Talk to her about it."

This made no sense! Mavis was Gwen's assistant at the office.

"Mavis? Why Mavis?"

"Because she'll never believe me, that I've won. She'll want to see for herself! So I told her to come by and see for herself."

"Believe what? About us? Mavis knows about us? Won what? How?"

This was getting more and more complicated. Irksome. Annoying.

Worse, embarrassing. Why was Gwen leaving me here?

"Of course she knows about us. Everyone in the office knows about us. We scarcely kept this a secret, the way we'd greet each other in the morning, and then disappear for two hour lunches."

My heart was sinking. "But why leave me like this?"

"That was our bet. She bet I couldn't do this to you, you were too cock sure of yourself. I bet she was wrong. In fact I knew she was wrong. I've done this to Harry many times, I know how to get a man to agree to things like this, even get him to beg me to do them to him the way you were begging me toward dawn. In fact Harry's been tied to our bed ever since last night when I left him to come to you. And I really must get back to him now, he'll need the bathroom, and he needs time to cleanse his make-up and get dressed properly so he can get to work. I do these things to him and I ask him to do them to himself, and he does them. And he trusts me to return in good time from wherever I've been, and I won't betray that trust."

"And I don't need to get to work?"

"No, not necessarily. You're less important than you think, Dana. You won't want to come in today anyhow, not when I tell everyone this afternoon. You won't want to be there. Tomorrow the earliest, give people a chance to settle down first, then take your ribbing. They'll need time to gloat. Big boss macho man, kingpin supervisor, the office Casanova, the sexist terror of the secretarial pool, has now finally been brought down to size. A perfect size 14 it turns out -- that nightie fits you like a dream. I'm glad that last night you promised to wear the bra too if you couldn't perform. That made it so much easier. You did seem pretty confident it would never happen. But when I want something, it does happen, men have always had that problem with me. It's a very pretty nightgown, do keep it, and the bra matches perfectly, enjoy them both. Keep the cosmetics too, I've left all of them the night stand. Everything you're wearing right now, lipstick, eyeliner, everything. Exactly the way Mavis should see them. Are you ashamed she'll see what a pretty girl you are now, Dana? That she'll realize you wanted to look pretty just to please me? Well, don't be ashamed. You're actually very cute. I'm especially glad you let me pluck your eyebrows, your expression now is priceless. "

There seemed no way I could avoid this humiliation. Yet last night everything had been glorious! I'd been ecstatic! Gwen had been so marvelous, so caring and playful, she'd loved everything she was doing and my heart had overflowed with the pleasure she felt.

"Mavis will untie me, then? You'll tell her to untie me?"

"You can hope she will. That's between you two. I did tell her you give lovely head. And it's true, you can be very sweet when you're subdued beneath a girl's private parts, when you stop all that swaggering and poking about and your face is tucked snug under someone's pussy. She knows that, so that's something you can use if you need to negotiate your freedom."

I got desperate! And angry! "Gwen, this is kidnapping! You're holding me here against my will!"

She tossed her head. That dark hair flew across her neck and then settled back down again, pert and perfectly groomed. "No, Dana, this is your little hideaway around the corner from the office, with its perfect bone china coffee service to impress women with your good taste, and its perfect Regency boudoir chair for milady's convenience undressing, and its instant candle-lit atmosphere, and its perfect water bed. This isn't kidnapping, honey, it's bondage. Though if I hear another such outburst it'll be blackmail too --

I'll send Alice here instead of Mavis, maybe Alice will be willing to untie you and take you home, and maybe not. And maybe I'll leave a tape recorder running somewhere so we can all hear afterwards how you explain your perversions to your own wife. It's only a five dollar bet I've got with Mavis. I can afford to lose it if Alice comes instead of Mavis and then Mavis doesn't believe me. My winnings won't begin to cover my outlay even for last night. Your perfume alone ...."

"All right." She wasn't moveable. But now a new worry. "Does Alice know yet?"

"That you've been tom-catting around the office for years? Maybe around town too? I'm sure. In fact one of the receptionists, that summer replacement Kim, you remember her, she told me in tears that she'd gone to your wife to beg her to stop you from coming on to her, that she was engaged and that her fiance ... well, she would have to quit a perfectly nice job to avoid trouble if you didn't quit it. She says Alice apparently kept a stony face and said nothing, and a week later she did quit. I guess you've got Alice intimidated too."

"You won't tell her about us, though, will you? About this? My lying here dressed like this, looking like this, all tied up like this?"

"Oh, sweetheart, I told you, you look cute! There's nothing to be ashamed of! I know guys who would hit on you right now! Especially right now! Maybe I should send one of them up?"

For the first time, she smiled. She enjoyed her little joke, I hoped that was what it was. She even seemed to appreciate me in a new way for being part of it.

"Why should I tell Alice anything? She'll hear soon enough. This will raise a lot of talk at the office, and that talk will certainly reach her, though as always she'll believe whatever she chooses to believe. And I've got no quarrel with you, honey, far from it! I started in on you a month ago mainly to distract you from distracting the girls in bookkeeping when they swarmed in on us for our annual audit. I don't regret a thing, I've had a wonderful time this past month! I always do with my men -- there are advantages to being small and thin and willowy and self-confident and pretty, and knowing just what you want and how to get it. With a husband like Harry who loves me exactly the way I am. And that's why I love him, too. I share everything with him, everything I can possibly bring home, stories, leftovers, whatever. He'll love this story! He was once very much like you!"

Suppose he does love this story, I was thinking. No matter, I did bang his willowy wife for a month, and if he gets off on that, well, good for him. But if that's so, why am I sad? Not furious because I was tricked, not gleeful because I'd cuckolded a lovely woman's husband, not even fearful of awful humiliations soon to be endured. Just sad. As if I had lost something irretrievable.

Gwen was now near the door. She turned to say a few more things in that quiet, gentle way of hers. "You know, Dana, you might think of sharing more of yourself with Alice. You're a little self-centered -- no, let's face it, that's all you are -- but you did become a fine lover once I taught you to feel more ... tender toward me. To be concerned for me. To care. I think you might even have been in love with me for a while. Even last night, the way Harry always is whenever I do things to him. I even enjoyed that fat four-incher you think is God's gift, once I learned not to try to ride it up and down but to roll you around by it, and to clamp it down whenever you tried to move it in or out. And your mouth is heavenly. If you weren't so cock sure of yourself and always on the make to stick it into some hapless girl, you'd have women lined up around the block eager to feel your tongue push itself into their most secret places."

I now had nothing further to say. There was nothing more for me to do, either. She saw, and understood, and nodded at me, and turned and left, setting foot ever so delicately out of the apartment on those high, high heels of hers. Almost prancing. Gone.

I turned heavy eyes back toward those windows, heavy maybe because of the mascara still stuck to my lashes. I'd been a clown for months, years, obviously. What I was now was nothing. Morning sun was pouring into the room. There between the windows was that odd candelabra, looking as always like a music stand, holding atop itself the three candles I kept handy for making romantic atmospheres. That sheet was still draped over the Regency chair where Gwen was no longer sitting. It was no longer warmed by her body, and her empty cup sat in its saucer on the floor. This time I knew it was empty.

 

 

 

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© 2003 by Vickie Tern. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.