Part 4 - Payback

I woke up the following morning. Daniel slept next to me. I awoke with sore and stiff muscles from the tiring day with Geoffrey. The guilt had been washed away after Daniel's affair with Rachel was exposed. It is as if the veil of blackness was gone from my heart and only an ethereal feeling of freedom lingers. I knew that I could not blame him then. I had to think, plan what I was going to do. The walls of our marriage had collapsed, and I had to decide if I wanted to rebuild them or begin on a new foundation. Revenge entered my head, exposing Rachel's husband, Ruan. But then that would expose my secret too. Let's lying dogs lie, I said to myself. Let him remain in his ignorant bliss for now.

I had done it too, I had no right to criticize. But, he proceeded and slept with Rachel in my bed. The house was the same way I had left it, the warm glow of dawn seeping through the windows, projecting shadows on the floor. Andrea phoned later, hours later, effervescent in tone, none the wiser about the tempest raging in me. "How was the masquerade?" she asked. "It was a shock," She flashed, suspecting something was wrong but so self-absorbed as not to notice the signs. "I have to go, I'll call you later."

The weekend dragged and concluded in a weight of suffocating despair. I lived, I smiled where I was supposed to, I laughed where I was supposed to, but there was this broken piece of glass inside me, one wrong step and I'd break into pieces. Daniel and I danced with each other, tango-ing through deceptions, our gazes skirting the truth between us like a minefield. He had come back to work on Monday and had kissed me on the cheek but not touched me at all. The irony was not lost on me. He had found his pleasure outside of me, and I had found mine too, but now we were trapped in a mood of silence with each other, neither of us giving in.

Andrea called again on Monday afternoon, I picked up the phone with a sigh, no flash of humour in my tone. "What's wrong, Hettie?" she asked, a bit more anxious than accusatory. "You've been odd since the party."I took a breath, the crushing pressure of unsaid words squeezing around my chest. "I learned something, something I didn't seek out," I sneered, choosing each word like they were tender seeds that might develop into a garden of truth or a weed of deceit. "When I came home on Friday evening, Daniel was screwing our next-door neighbor Rachel." Andrea let out a sound, and the line was quiet for a second. "Are you sure?" she finally gasped. "Yes," I said, my temper rising like a stormy sea.

It had been Andrea who was the catalyst, who had led us into this quest, but even she was surprised at this development. "What are you going to do?" she asked, her tone flavored with confusion. "I don't know," I replied, staring at the wall, the pattern in the wallpaper blurring as I considered my choices. "But I know I can't act like it never happened. I can't just continue on like nothing had happened." Her silence was louder than anything she might have spoken. Both of us knew, and she knew, that the game had changed. We had gone further down the dark path than we could have ever imagined, and now I was at a crossroads, my marriage in jeopardy.

"Geoffrey called me." Andrea's voice was so much a contrast to the contemplative quiet that had occupied my afternoon. "He's in heaven. He says he had the best time with you." I swallowed, his name hitting me back in a flash of remembrance to the party and then the next day at his house. The feeling of his hands on my skin, the taste of his tongue, the way he looked at me like I was the only woman in the world. It was a bag of half-and-half emotions, half of them wanting so desperately to be ashamed that I had done what I had done, and the other half of them this weird feeling of freedom. "What did he say to you?" "That it was a wild ride." She laughed again, her laughter ringing at the far end of the phone like a growl. "You know the way he gets when he's like that. He demands more, Hettie." "To be honest, me too." I'd spoken, before I could unsay the words.

The line fell silent again, and I worried she'd hung up. "So what's it going to be?" she finally said her voice now stern. "I don't know," I told her, the burden of the question firmly on my shoulders. "But I do know one thing for certain, I can never turn back to how it was before." Andrea and I had an odd relationship. We were best friends, but both of us were enabling each other's worst behaviors. We had been drawn to each other like moths to a flame, sharing secrets too hot to be kept. At least Martin, her husband, knew about her escapades and even participated. Daniel and Rachel had done something that neither of us could ever imagine being done.

Rachel's husband, Ruan, was a giant of a man, with a laugh that could thunder and a heart as big as his biceps. He had no clue his wife was having an affair, and I couldn't help but feel sorry for him. Rachel was a petite woman, with reddish-brown hair that flowed in loose waves down around her dainty face. She was always the type to fade into the background, disappearing into the crowd of the block party with a blush on her cheek. But I was seeing her differently now. She had claws, and she'd sunk them deep into Daniel. Ruan is a mainline pilot and gone from the house for periods of weeks at a time, and I think this made Rachel feel shut out. The irony that it was because I was alone with her husband that I had been in the arms of a married man was not lost on me.

My affair with Geoffrey did not cool and we screwed like animals in rut, our trysts happening more and more frequently and less and less privately. We did not care who knew about it. I longed for the fierce passion that he could elicit from me, far from the pallid affair that I had had with Daniel. The more I could consider Daniel and Rachel, the less guilty I would feel for my own sins. Truth was, I had come to adore the power I held over Geoffrey, the manner in which he looked at me as though I was the sun and he a planet circling around me.

Andrea liked the freedom as well. She and Martin were swingers, and she believed my setup was the solution for taking our foursome to the next level. But while I reveled in the excitement of it all, I couldn't envision myself in the swing lifestyle. Oh, Hettie," she teased one evening over a bottle of wine. "You're halfway there already. Why not just go for it and live a little?" "But it's different," I protested, swirling the rich red wine in my glass. "You and Martin are a couple." You know and you agree." I couldn't envision myself as a. a. single swinger. What is a single lady swinger called? what?

" Her eyes sparkled with mirth.

" A unicorn, sweetheart. But you're not solo, are you?" she taunted me with a sly grin. "Well, Geoffrey and I are not a couple, are we? "I protested, stung by the bite of my own words. "But you could be," she teased, her voice seductive. "You two have something special, something hot. Why not make it official?" "I'll consider it," I told her, not ready to make such a radical change in my life just yet. I observed Rachel more carefully in the days following that.". I had Ruan in a good old-fashioned homebody mindset, so the chances of her trying to make a break for it were slim. Looking at the two of them, playing the submissive wife, playing the obedient husband, I felt like I was going to be ill. Still, I said nothing. I held on to my secret, my best kept quiet weapon in this new game of cat and mouse that we were now going to play. I went to the office, I came home, I played the game of appearance all along, biding my time waiting for that golden moment to pounce. That moment presented itself when Daniel went away for a golf weekend. It was over the Easter long weekend. Geoffrey was away on business and Andrea and Martin were away on holiday. I was poolside when a voice was calling; "Hi there neighbour!" It was Ruan, looking over the fence at me. "Hi Ruan," I replied with a smile, my heart racing. "How's Rachel?" "She's away on some sort of health retreat," Ruan told me, his eyes scanning my body. I blamed myself for leaving Daniel and Rachel alone at the weekend. The fury that had been simmering inside me for days erupted like a volcano. "Ruan, may I ask you something?" I asked, sweetness dripping from my voice.

"Anything I can do to assist you, Hettie," he said, his eyes not wavering.

"I have a bottle of wine I could use some assistance in opening," I fibbed. Ruan looked surprised but delighted. "Oh, I'd like to," he said, and a shiver of victory ran through me. Rachel had been his for so long, and now I was the one who would upset their world. He pushed over the fence with unseemly eagerness for such a large man. I was in the kitchen, extending the bottle of wine, and our hands touched." He paused for a moment to savor my touch, and I knew I had hooked him. "Thanks," I whispered throatily, my voice low and intimate. Would you like to come on in and have one with me?" He nodded, his eyes blazing with need. We sat at the patio table, wine flowing like water between us. We talked of the trivial of life, weather, neighborhood patrol, his job, but beneath the surface, tension was building. It was so palpable you could cut it. I leaned in a little closer, my breasts on his arm. He did not push me away.

Our conversation became more volatile. We bumped elbows, we joked, and I watched the furrows on his face ease and his guard drop." I got up to head to the fridge to grab a second bottle of wine, my heart racing because the thought crossed my mind in my head. I made myself bump my leg against the patio chair, a soft thud which was not lost on him. Ruan's eyes followed each of my movements as I bent, the fabric of my sundress clinging to my buttocks. I felt the heat of his gaze and shuddered. "Ouch, I'm so clumsy today," I exclaimed in play, acting my part to the hilt.

He did likewise and touched me briefly, and his hand came to rest on the small of my back. "My mother used to kiss it better," he said, grinning. I turned around and hit him with a playful smile, "Well, fix me then." I pulled my sundress up onto my knee and indicated on my hip, "Right here," I said with an innocent haughty expression. Ruan bent forward, his mouth on my flesh, and the heat of his breath had shivers running down me. He lingered there, his hand tracing the shape of my inner thigh, and I felt that he was there with me at that moment. It was soft on my skin. I opened my legs to give him more access to bring his hand higher. His hand was at panty line level. "Better?" he inquired, his face hopeful. "Yes, but so do my lips," I whispered, and I pushed my mouth closer to his. The kiss took him by surprise, but it was what I craved. His hands moved up my body, and I could sense his hunger for me. It was dizzying. I had him exactly where I wanted him, and the control was exhilarating. We broke apart, panting for breath. "Drink this in," I taunted, pulling him into the house by his hand.

Into the dark, cold living room. Ruan's hand came up to cradle my face, and he kissed me more fiercely again. His hands on my breasts, and I did not push him away. I pushed Ruan down onto the couch, straddling him, our kisses more frenzied. Our clothes were all that separated us, and those were blazing. Under the kisses, I opened his shirt buttons, hands cupping his warmth against his naked chest. His hairy chest was rough and broad and anchored me somehow in a messed-up perverse sort of way. We stumbled towards the bedroom and clothes simply fell off us like leaves falling. Ruan never once took his eyes off my face as he took me entirely naked, his desire reflected in his own eyes. We struggled onto the bed, our bodies wrapped around each other like lovers being torn asunder by a hurricane.

Our lovemaking was brutal, a passion dance.

Ruan was wild but careful, his hands exploring every inch of my body as if he were trying to burn out the memory of everyone who had ever lain there.

His lips grazed my neck, my breasts, my belly, and I surrendered to his kisses, shaking.

His penis was small but it was curved upwards. It rubbed against my g-spot so when he entered me with his penis, I was already moaning. His arms were around my hips, rocking me back and forth as he pumped harder into me and hitting my g-spot with every thrust. A bolt of lightning piercing through my system, the feeling so in-your-face and overwhelming. Anouther first time with a curve cock. It was a sensation I never felt, and at that moment, I knew this was not revenge. This was reclaiming what belonged to me. We filled the space around us with noises of muffled screams and creaky beds that rattled our bodies against each other like one entity. A single climax overpowered me like a storm that broke down walls into dust between us. Ruan's face was a picture of pure ecstasy as his eyes met mine with him pumping his load at both of us simultaneously.

We just hung there in strained agonized gasps, holding onto each other for a while. "Hettie," he rasped, his voice hoarse. "What are we doing?" I looked at him in furious disgust. "We're evening things out," I snarled. "You believe Danile can push Rachel around and nothing occurs? Fine, I'm a player in that game too." "Want to know what?" He took a sharp breath, his eyes wide in shock, and I could sense the guilt color his face. "I do. And now you'll be part of the equation." I sat on him once more, my eyes burning with resolve. We met more and more frequently, and with each meeting, I could feel another piece of Rachel's grip on Daniel loosen. It was a dangerous game to play, but one that I was happy to gamble on. I knew that I could keep it from Daniel, not only due to my engagement in my relationship with Geoffrey, but also because I did not wish him to know how distressed I was. Ruan informed me that their own had continued for over two years. undefinedRachel had initiated it since she was bored, and Daniel had fallen into it, a moth to Rachel's flame. The news didn't worsen my feelings about my own infidelity, yet it did provide a perverse sense of satisfaction that Rachel wasn't the innocent victim of my imagination.

I had opened Ruan up to a world of desire that Rachel was never going to be capable of matching, and it was addicting.