The Last Button

Ludo had told the story about the backhoe that fell into the slurry pit, and Valérie laughed so hard she had to put her fork down.

She laughed with her head thrown back, one hand on her chest, tears in her eyes. It had been a long time since I'd seen her laugh like that. Karim was wiping his eyes with his napkin. Stéphane kept shaking his head and repeating "in the slurry, up to his neck," and that set everyone off again. We were on the cheese course, on the second bottle of Burgundy, and the evening was turning into one of the best we'd ever had in that house.

Valérie was warm. She'd undone the second button of her blouse while she caught her breath, without thinking, the way you loosen your belt after a good meal. The white silk collar had fallen open over the top of her chest, over the mole I knew by heart, on the left, just above her breast. Under the almost sheer silk, you could make out the rest.

She hadn't even noticed. The three men had.

I'd seen Ludo drop his eyes for a second before lifting them very quickly to his glass. Stéphane had kept talking about the slurry as if nothing had happened. Karim had looked away, politely, and then his eyes had come back.

I'd gripped my fork so hard my fingers hurt. Valérie thought she was having dinner with three colleagues from the agency. She didn't know I'd found them online, that I'd met them in a bar a month earlier to see what they were like, and that every one of them knew exactly why he was sitting at our table.

I'd started dreaming about another man in our bed around the time I turned fifty.

I couldn't say where it came from. A film watched late one night. A conversation in a bar with a colleague who'd told us, laughing, that he knew a couple who "did that." Or just Valérie's body, which I knew by heart, and which I suddenly wanted to see through someone else's eyes. Her heavy breasts, her round hips, the way she bit her lip when she came. I wanted to see what another man would do with all that.

Valérie was no saint. We'd always had a happy sex life, the two of us. She liked making love, she liked being looked at, she never said no to a slightly short dress when we went out. The first time I told her about my fantasy, in bed, whispering that maybe there was another man in the room, she laughed. She even played along that night, making up a neighbor watching us through the window.

But when I tried to take it further, things got stuck.

For our wedding anniversary, I took her to dinner at a restaurant on the coast, a restaurant with a bar upstairs where couples went up. A club, really. At dessert, she saw the couples climbing the stairs hand in hand, she understood, and she put down her spoon.

"Patrick. Seriously?"

"We could just go and have a look."

"A look at what? Strangers screwing in corners? No thank you."

We went home. She didn't hold it against me for long. In the car she even patted my thigh and said, "Keep your movies in your head, sweetheart. You're all I need."

Another time, I booked her a massage at home. A masseur I found online, a tall guy in his forties. She loved the massage, right up to the moment the guy's hands went a little too low. She sat up, she laughed, she said, "Okay, I think we'll stop there," and she got dressed without making a fuss. That night in bed, she put her arms around me.

"You're incorrigible, you are."

She wasn't shocked. She just wasn't interested, that was all. The idea of making love with another man in front of me, let alone several, had never crossed her mind. She told me so kindly, the way you tell a child there's no Santa Claus.

I didn't give up.

One evening in January, I posted an ad on a dating site for couples. A few lines, no photo: Married couple, 48 and 52. Husband would like to see his wife with other men. She knows nothing about it and has never done anything like this. Looking for patient, funny, respectful men for an evening where nothing will be forced.

I got dozens of replies. I sorted through them. I kept four, and I suggested we all meet, the four of them and me, one Thursday evening in a bar in the retail park, forty kilometers from home.

All four of them came.

Stéphane, forty-five, short salt-and-pepper hair, a well-ironed shirt, a steel watch. Divorced, two grown-up kids, a technician for a boiler manufacturer. He did most of the talking, calmly, in a steady voice that made you want to trust him.

Karim, thirty-eight, tall and dark, with gentle eyes behind thin-framed glasses. A PE teacher at a vocational high school. Married, but his wife knew, he told me, and she didn't care as long as he was home on Sundays.

Ludo, forty-one, a stocky guy with a shaved head and forearms covered in tattoos. A heavy-equipment operator on building sites. Single. He laughed all the time, he told horrible stories with a cheerfulness that disarmed you, and after ten minutes I felt like I'd known him forever.

And Franck.

Franck was in his fifties, leather jacket, a big signet ring on his finger. He ordered a whisky before he even sat down. Five minutes in, he asked me for photos of Valérie. I said no. He insisted. Then he said, laughing:

"Anyway, you'll see. They all say no at first. After three drinks, they all say yes."

Stéphane put his beer down. Karim looked away. I felt my stomach knot. I didn't say anything at the time. But when I got home, I deleted his number. I never contacted him again.

To the other three, I said the same thing that evening before I left. I said it again by text, twice, the day before the dinner.

"You're coming for a good evening. That's all. Don't expect anything else. My wife knows nothing, and I'm warning you, it's far from a done deal. If she doesn't want to, nothing happens, and you go home with a good meal in your belly."

Stéphane replied: "That's how we see it." Ludo sent a thumbs up. Karim wrote: "We're coming for you and for her. Not for us."

Now I had to get them into the house.

I'd never mixed work and home. Valérie barely knew my colleagues from the agency; she'd met two or three of them at leaving drinks, no more. I told her three new guys had started in the autumn, three guys I got on really well with, and that for once I'd like to have them over for dinner.

She raised an eyebrow.

"You? Inviting colleagues over? Are you ill?"

"They're nice. You'll see."

She shrugged, and she started thinking about the menu.

On Saturday afternoon, I laid an outfit out on the bed for her. A black pencil skirt, bought the week before, that came to just above the knee and hugged her hips. Nude stockings. Low-heeled pumps. And a white blouse in fine silk, almost sheer in the light, with little mother-of-pearl buttons down the front.

She came out of the shower with a towel around her hair. She looked at the bed.

"What's this?"

"For tonight."

"For your colleagues?"

She picked up the blouse and held it up to the window. You could see the daylight through it.

"It's see-through, Patrick."

"A bit."

"With a bra, it's going to look awful."

"Then don't wear one."

She turned to me, the blouse in her hand, frowning. She knew me by heart.

"I can see exactly where you're going with this."

"You know I love it when people look at you. Do it for me. Just for me."

She sighed, a long sigh, rolling her eyes at the ceiling.

"You're a pain. You're going to be playing movies in your head all evening."

"Maybe."

"Definitely."

But she put the blouse down on the bed, and she picked up the stockings.

When she came out of the bathroom, dressed, I couldn't say a word. The skirt gave her a superb backside, round and high. Under the white silk, you could make out the shape of her breasts, their weight, the darker shadow of her nipples. She'd put her hair up in a bun, she'd put on lipstick. She'd buttoned the blouse all the way up, except for the top button at the collar.

She looked at herself in the wardrobe mirror, from the front, from the side. She put her hands under her breasts, lifted them a little, watched the silk stretch over them.

"You can see everything," she said.

"You can't see anything. You can guess."

"That's worse."

She laughed. She didn't change her blouse.

They rang the bell at seven-thirty on the dot. Stéphane with a bunch of flowers for Valérie, Karim with a bottle of champagne, Ludo with a box of chocolates. Jeans and shirts, clean-shaven, smiling. Three work colleagues coming for dinner.

Valérie kissed each of them on both cheeks. I saw Ludo glance at her blouse as he stepped back, half a second, and I saw Valérie see him do it. She didn't say anything. She just gave me a quick look that said, "See? I told you."

I opened the champagne. We settled in the living room for drinks, with smoked salmon toasts and cheese puffs. They asked her about her job at the dental practice, about patients who faint before the needle even goes in. Ludo told them about his first visit to the dentist at eight, when he bit the dentist's finger. Valérie told them about a gentleman who'd kept his hat on through an entire extraction. We were laughing already.

At one point, she looked around at the three men on the sofa and the armchairs.

"But tell me, don't you have wives? Am I the only one?"

There was a little pause. I felt my heart stop.

"I'm divorced," Stéphane said. "Three years now."

"My wife's at her sister's in Lyon this weekend," Karim said. "She sends her love."

"And nobody wants me," Ludo said, spreading his arms. "Look at this face."

Valérie laughed.

"Poor thing. You'll end up an old bachelor."

"Too late," said Ludo.

She didn't push it. But she looked at me, and I saw a little question flash across her eyes, very quickly, one she didn't ask.

At dinner, I served a white with the starter, a Burgundy with the gratin, and I made sure her glass was never empty. She noticed, I think. Once, she put her hand over her glass, looking at me. The next time, she let me pour.

The evening flew by. Ludo with his building-site stories, Stéphane with his boilers exploding in little old ladies' houses, Karim talking about his students with real fondness and doing impressions of his head teacher that had us in stitches. Valérie held her own. She'd always been funny in company, with a quick wit she got from her father. She told holiday stories I'd never heard her tell in front of strangers. She called them by their first names now. She teased them like old friends. Ludo had started it.

And they looked at her. Not crudely. But all the time. I saw their eyes slide over the white silk when she leaned forward to serve, when she laughed with her head thrown back. I saw Valérie notice. She didn't blush. She acted as if she didn't see a thing. But she leaned forward a little more often than she needed to.

Then there'd been the story of the backhoe in the slurry pit, and the second button.

When it was time for dessert, she got up to fetch the chocolate fondant from the kitchen. I followed her with the dirty plates.

She was leaning against the counter, both hands flat on the tiles, her cheeks pink, her bun starting to come undone.

"I'm getting tipsy," she said. "You've been pouring too much, you."

"Having fun?"

"They're funny, your colleagues. I didn't know you had such funny colleagues."

She picked up the knife to cut the fondant. She stopped, the knife in the air.

"They're horny too. You know that, right?"

I didn't answer.

"Ludo's had his eyes down my blouse since the drinks. Stéphane pretends he isn't looking, but he is. And Karim, with his teacher's-pet glasses, he's the worst."

She cut a slice of fondant, very carefully. Then she turned to me and looked me straight in the eye, with her little mocking look.

"I know you, Patrick. I can see exactly what's going on in your head. You'd love it if they fucked me, wouldn't you?"

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

"But dream on," she said.

She patted my cheek. She picked up the dish of fondant. She pushed the kitchen door open with her hip.

"Who wants dessert?"

From then on, I stopped topping her up. She filled her own glass.

After coffee, I brought out my father's bottle of Poire Williams, and we moved to the living room. Valérie sat on the sofa between Karim and me. Stéphane and Ludo took the armchairs opposite. She took off her pumps and tucked one leg under her, the way she did when she was comfortable. Her skirt had ridden up over her stockings.

It was Stéphane who suggested the game.

"You know truth or dare? We used to play it at summer camp. You spin a bottle, and whoever spins asks the question to whoever it points at."

Valérie laughed.

"We're not at summer camp anymore, though."

"You're never too old to have fun," said Ludo.

She looked at me. I shrugged, as if to say why not. She shrugged back.

"Go on, then. But I'm warning you, I'm not answering just anything."

Stéphane poured the last of the Burgundy into his glass and laid the bottle on its side on the coffee table, in the middle of us.

Ludo spun first. The bottle turned on the wood, squeaking, and stopped on Karim.

"Truth," said Karim.

"Your worst date."

Karim told us about a woman he'd met online who'd turned up at the restaurant with her mother. Her mother had ordered for both of them and asked him how much he earned. Valérie doubled up laughing.

Karim spun the bottle in turn. It slowed, hesitated, and stopped on Valérie.

"Truth," she said straight away.

"Your first time. Where, and who with."

She rolled her eyes at the ceiling.

"Nineteen. A guy called Didier. In his old Renault 4, in a supermarket car park. It was rubbish."

Everyone laughed. Ludo asked if the Renault 4 had survived; she said yes, but Didier hadn't, she'd dumped him the following week.

Her turn to spin. The bottle turned for a good while and stopped on Stéphane.

"Truth," he said.

"Right."

Valérie thought, her chin in her hand. Then she got a little sideways look I'd only ever seen in our bedroom.

"Your last time. When was it, and who with?"

Ludo whistled. Stéphane laughed and put his hands up.

"She doesn't mess about, your wife, Patrick."

He answered anyway. Three weeks ago, a sales rep from one of his suppliers, one night at a trade fair, in a hotel by the station. Valérie nodded knowingly, like a journalist.

"And was it good?"

"It's not your turn."

"I'm asking anyway."

"It was very good."

She took a sip of pear brandy, her eyes bright.

Stéphane spun. The bottle stopped on me.

"Ah, the husband," said Stéphane. "Truth or dare?"

"Truth."

"Has your wife ever made a jealous scene?"

Valérie snorted before I could answer.

"Once! The woman at the campsite in Argelès. He carried her cool box for her."

"She was seventy," I protested.

"So what? She was making eyes at you."

I spun in my turn. The bottle stopped on Ludo, who chose dare, and I asked him to do an impression of Johnny Hallyday. He murdered "Que je t'aime" standing on the rug with his hand on his heart. Valérie filmed it on her phone, howling with laughter.

Ludo spun again. The bottle stopped on Valérie.

"Truth," she said.

"Again? Don't you ever pick dare?"

"I'm scared of your dares. You've got dare faces."

Ludo thought about it.

"Somewhere other than a bed. Apart from the Renault 4."

"Once. In a cornfield, on holiday at my in-laws'."

She looked at me as she said it. I remembered. The stalks scratching our backs, and her fear that my father would turn up on his tractor.

She spun. The bottle landed on me again. She gave me a dare: sing the Marseillaise standing on the sofa. I did it. Karim sang along with me, hand on his heart, and Valérie cried with laughter, her head on the armrest.

Then, two rounds later, it came back to her. Ludo was asking.

"Dare," she said. "All right, fine. But nothing nasty."

"Nothing nasty," Ludo promised. "Come and give me a kiss on the neck."

She rolled her eyes. She stood up, walked around the coffee table in her stockinged feet, on tiptoe, laughing, and leaned over Ludo to give him a quick peck below the ear. He closed his eyes and pulled an exaggerated face of ecstasy, and everyone cracked up.

She came back and sat down, her cheeks a little redder.

Her turn to spin. The bottle stopped on Ludo.

"Truth or dare?"

"Dare. I'm a man, me."

She thought for a moment. She glanced at me. Then she said, very fast, as if so she wouldn't have time to regret it:

"Take your shirt off."

Ludo burst out laughing.

"Ah, finally!"

He unbuttoned his shirt with a little wiggle, whistling stripper music, twirled it over his head and threw it onto the sofa, onto Valérie's lap. He had a broad chest covered in tattoos, an anchor, a snake, a woman's name half faded. A good-living belly. Valérie looked. She picked up the shirt with her fingertips and put it on the armrest.

"Not bad for an old bachelor," she said.

Ludo spun. The bottle stopped on her again.

"Truth," she said.

"Have you fantasized about one of us tonight?"

Silence fell all at once. Valérie went red up to her forehead. She looked at her knees. Then she looked at me. I didn't move. I just held her gaze. She went back to Ludo.

"Maybe."

"Maybe isn't an answer."

"A bit."

"Which one?"

She put her hand over her mouth, laughing.

"No, wait a minute. That's not fair."

She sat up on the sofa and put her glass down.

"This game isn't fair. I'm the only woman. Half the time it lands on me, and there are three of you asking me questions. Three against one isn't playing fair."

Stéphane nodded seriously, like a referee.

"She's right. We'll make a rule. Every time Valérie does a dare, one of us takes off a piece of clothing. And she chooses which."

"And for truths?"

"For truths, you can ask all three of us the same question."

She thought about it. She glanced at me. I raised my hands, as if to say it was nothing to do with me.

"All right. Then I won't answer right away. I'll ask you first. You, have you fantasized about me tonight?"

All three answered, one after the other. Ludo first: "Since the drinks." Stéphane: "Since you opened the door." Karim took longer. He pushed his glasses up his nose.

"Since you laughed, at the cheese course."

Valérie went scarlet. She laughed nervously and drank some brandy.

"Right. Right, right, right. Karim, then. It's Karim."

Karim looked down, smiling. Ludo let out a cry of protest, his hand on his heart, as if he'd been shot.

It was Valérie's turn to spin. The bottle hesitated, and stopped on me.

"My husband," she said. "Truth, and no dare, I don't trust you."

She turned toward me on the sofa, one leg tucked under her, her glass of pear brandy in her hand.

"Would you be jealous if one of your colleagues kissed me?"

Silence fell over the living room. I could hear the fridge humming in the kitchen. I could feel Stéphane's eyes on me, Karim's, Ludo's. Most of all, I could feel Valérie's.

"No," I said.

She didn't laugh. She just nodded, once, very gently. Then she drank her brandy.

The game went on. But we laughed less loudly, and more often. The silences were longer.

I spun. The bottle stopped on Stéphane, who chose truth. I asked him what he'd thought of Valérie when she opened the door. He said he'd thought I was a lucky man, and that he'd been afraid he wouldn't know where to put his eyes all through dinner. Valérie rolled her eyes, but she smiled into her glass.

Stéphane spun. The bottle stopped on Valérie.

"Dare," she said, without hesitating this time.

"A button on your blouse."

She looked down at her chest. There were five buttons left. She turned her head toward me. She was looking at me, and I felt like she was asking my permission, or daring me, I didn't know which. I nodded, once.

She brought her hand to the third button. Her fingers were trembling a little.

"And you," she said to Stéphane. "Your shirt. That's the rule."

She undid the button. The blouse fell open to the middle of her chest. You could see the valley between her breasts, the inner curve of each, the very white skin. Stéphane took off his shirt without a word, without clowning around like Ludo. He was lean and wiry, with gray hair on his chest.

Valérie stood up.

"I'm going to get some water. Do you want water? I'll be right back."

She went off to the kitchen. I followed her.

She was standing at the sink with the jug in her hand, and she wasn't filling it. She was looking out of the window at the dark garden.

"You okay?" I asked.

"I don't know."

She put the jug down. She turned to me. Her cheeks were burning, her bun half undone, her blouse open over her chest.

"I want to play, Patrick. It's weird. I'm having the time of my life."

I went up to her. I put my hands on her hips.

"Then play."

"Have you seen where this game is taking us?"

"You know my fantasy. You've known it for years. You can go wherever you want. I'm right here."

She stared at me without a word. Then she gave a little laugh, very low.

"Dream on. I'm playing, that's all."

She kissed me. A real kiss, deep, tasting of pear brandy. She pressed herself against me, and I felt her breasts against my shirt through the open silk. Then she pulled away, filled the jug, and went back to the living room.

Valérie spun. The bottle stopped on me.

"Truth," I said.

"You ask him, you," she said to Karim. "I already know everything about him."

"Would you rather watch her or touch her?"

Valérie turned to me. She was waiting. I could still feel her kiss from the kitchen on my mouth, the taste of the pear.

"Tonight, watch her," I said.

She looked away. But I saw her cheeks go even redder, and her hand, resting on the sofa between us, closed on the fabric.

I spun. The bottle stopped on Valérie.

"Truth," she said.

"What are you wearing underneath?"

She slapped my arm.

"You know very well, you."

"They don't."

She blushed.

"On top, nothing. You can tell, I think. Down below, panties."

She asked the three of them, as the rule allowed. Ludo said boxers with skulls on them, and pulled his jeans down a little to prove it. Stéphane, black briefs. Karim blushed.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" Valérie repeated.

"I'd run out of clean laundry."

She laughed until she cried, her head in her hands. I laughed too. But between her fingers I saw her eyes slide toward Karim's jeans, half a second, and come back.

Her turn to spin. The bottle stopped on Karim.

"Truth or dare?"

"Dare."

"Massage my shoulders. My back's killing me after all that cooking."

Karim stood up. He went around behind the sofa. He put his hands on her shoulders, over the silk. Valérie closed her eyes. He started massaging, gently, with his thumbs, the base of her neck, her shoulder blades. She let out a little sigh.

I was sitting right next to her. I could see another man's hands on my wife, long brown hands on the white silk, and I felt my heart pounding up into my throat. It wasn't only jealousy.

Karim slid the silk off the tops of her shoulders to massage her bare skin. She didn't stop him. His hands went a little lower, over her upper arms, then toward the top of her breasts, at the edge of the silk. Valérie opened her eyes. She looked for me. I didn't move. I couldn't move. She closed her eyes again.

"That's lovely," she murmured after a while. "Thank you."

Karim came back and sat next to her, closer than before. Their thighs were touching. She didn't move hers.

Karim spun. The bottle stopped on Valérie.

"Dare," she said.

"Two buttons."

She looked at her buttons. She didn't look at me this time.

"One," she said. "I'll give you one. And Ludo, your jeans."

Ludo cracked up. He stood and took off his jeans, hopping on one foot, and stayed standing there in his skull boxers. He was hard. You could see it. He wasn't trying to hide it. Valérie looked at him, and she looked away, and she looked back, and she undid the fourth button.

Three were left, at the bottom. The blouse was barely holding. You could see almost all of her breasts, except the nipples, which the silk still covered, stretched tight over them. I knew those breasts by heart. Twenty-six years I'd seen them every night. I'd never seen them like this, half offered to three men holding their breath.

Nobody was laughing anymore. The squeak of the bottle on the coffee table could be heard all over the living room.

Valérie spun. The bottle stopped on me.

"Truth," I said.

"Right now, what are you thinking?"

I looked at Valérie, beside me, her blouse open, her cheeks on fire.

"That I've never found you so beautiful."

Valérie lowered her eyes. She put her hand on my thigh without a word, and she left it there.

I spun. The bottle turned, slowed in front of Karim, in front of Valérie, and stopped on Stéphane.

"Truth," he said.

"If my wife let you," I asked, "what would you do to her?"

I didn't know where the question had come from. It just came out. Valérie turned to me, her mouth open. She slapped my thigh.

"Patrick!"

But she didn't protest any further. She turned to Stéphane, and she waited, like the others.

Stéphane took his time. He put his glass down. He spoke to Valérie, not to me, in a calm voice, without taking his eyes off her.

"I'd start with your breasts. I'd take them in my hands, I'd kiss them for a long time, until you asked me to go lower. Then I'd go lower."

He stopped there. He picked up his glass again.

"The rest, I'll keep to myself."

Valérie said nothing. Her hand tightened on my thigh. I looked at her face, and I saw that she was imagining it. I watched her swallow.

"Right," she said at last, her voice a little hoarse. "Stéphane, your turn to spin."

The bottle stopped on her.

"Dare."

Stéphane looked at Ludo, standing by his armchair in his boxers. The skull boxers were stretched, bulging.

"Put your hand on Ludo. There."

Valérie followed his gaze. She saw the boxers. She put her hand over her mouth.

"Are you serious?"

"It's the game."

"Over the top, then. Not inside."

She looked for me. I didn't move. My mouth was dry. She looked at the boxers again. She got up and walked around the coffee table in her stockinged feet, her blouse open, the pencil skirt tight over her hips. Ludo sat back down in his armchair to wait for her. She leaned over him. She laid her hand flat on his boxers, on the hard cock underneath.

She stayed like that, her hand resting there, not moving. Ludo closed his eyes.

From where I sat, I could see my wife's hand, her wedding ring, on another man's boxers. I could see her nails, painted the day before, for the dinner. I could see the bulge under her palm. I could see her face in profile too, her mouth half open, her eyes lowered to what she was touching. She wasn't laughing. She was looking.

"Well," Valérie said, very quietly. "Well, well, my friend."

She laughed nervously. But she didn't take her hand away right away. She closed her fingers a little, to feel the shape. Ludo let out a grunt. She straightened up all at once, as if she'd just realized what she was doing.

"The rule," she said quickly. "Stéphane. Your trousers."

Stéphane took off his trousers. He stayed in his black briefs, and he was hard too.

Valérie came back and sat down. Her hand was shaking when she picked up her glass. She looked at her palm for a second, as if she expected to see a mark on it.

Her turn to spin. The bottle stopped on Ludo.

"Truth," he said.

"The craziest thing you've ever done. In bed, I mean. Or not in bed."

Ludo thought about it, scratching his head.

"A wedding, five or six years ago. The maid of honor. In the cloakroom, in among the coats, while the DJ was playing Céline Dion. She lost an earring. We never found it."

Everyone laughed. Valérie too. She asked which Céline Dion song, and Ludo said "Pour que tu m'aimes encore," and she laughed even harder. But when she'd finished laughing, she sat quiet for a moment, staring into space. I wondered whether she was thinking about the coats, the cloakroom, the door that could open at any moment.

Ludo spun. The bottle stopped on her.

"Dare," she said, before anyone could ask.

"Come and sit on my lap. And act like you're doing it."

She stared at him.

"Doing what?"

"You know."

She knew. She burst out laughing and hid her face in her hands. Then she looked at me between her fingers. I didn't move. She let her hands drop.

"Dressed," she said. "We stay dressed."

"Promise."

She stood up. She had to hike the pencil skirt up her thighs to be able to spread her legs, and she did it laughing, tugging at the narrow fabric until it was rolled up around her waist. We saw the tops of her stockings, the white skin of her thighs, and a pair of black lace panties, brand new. She'd bought them for tonight. She hadn't told me.

She straddled Ludo in the armchair.

At first, it was a joke. She wriggled about laughing, going "oh, oh, oh" like a bad movie, her hands on Ludo's shoulders, and Karim and Stéphane were laughing too. I laughed a little. Then she sat lower. I saw her freeze for a second. I knew what she'd just felt. Through the lace and the boxers, Ludo's cock against her pussy.

She started moving again. She wasn't laughing anymore. Her hips rocked back and forth against him, chasing what she'd just found. Ludo put his hands on her backside, and she let him. Her breasts swayed under the open silk, right in front of his face. She closed her eyes.

Nobody spoke. You could hear the armchair creaking, and Valérie's breathing, shorter and shorter.

I watched my wife's backside, round and tight in the black lace, rocking on the thighs of a tattooed heavy-equipment operator. I watched her hands clenched on his shoulders. I felt like my blood had stopped. I was so hard it hurt, and at the same time I wanted to stand up and say stop, and I knew I wouldn't.

She stopped all at once. She opened her eyes. She climbed off Ludo's lap, her legs shaking, and came back to sit on the sofa between Karim and me, without pulling her skirt down.

Ludo had his head thrown back against the armchair and his eyes closed.

"The rule," he said without opening them. "You're forgetting the rule."

Valérie looked at the three men. Ludo in his boxers. Stéphane in his briefs. Karim, beside her, still in his shirt and jeans. She went even redder.

"Karim," she said very quietly. "Your jeans."

Karim looked at her. She held his gaze. She knew very well what was under those jeans.

He stood up. He pulled his shirt off over his head without unbuttoning it, then undid his jeans, unhurried, and pushed them down. His cock sprang out, hard, long and slender, curving up a little.

Valérie looked at it without a word. I watched Valérie look at it. I'd never seen that look on her. Not embarrassed, not mocking. Attentive.

Karim sat back down beside her, naked. He didn't hide a thing.

It was her turn to spin. She pushed the bottle toward Karim.

"Spin for me. I'm shaking too much."

He spun it, but I don't think he was even watching it. It stopped on Valérie.

"Dare," she said, in a voice you could barely hear.

Karim looked at her. He hesitated before he spoke.

"Touch me. Just once."

Valérie looked down at his cock. Then she looked at me. For a long time. I never knew what she saw on my face at that moment. All I know is that I couldn't breathe anymore.

She reached out, very slowly. She took it in her fingers, the way you'd pick up something you were afraid of breaking. She stroked it once, up and down, then a second time. Karim closed his eyes.

She stopped. She kept her hand on him.

"This isn't a game anymore," she said very quietly.

Nobody answered. Nobody moved. Ludo had opened his eyes. Stéphane, in his armchair, had his hands resting on the armrests. They were waiting. All of them. Me too.

She took her hand away. She looked at the bottle lying on the coffee table. She gave a nervous little laugh.

"Whose turn is it?"

It was hers. She spun the bottle, and it stopped on Ludo. He chose truth, and she asked him, in a voice that seemed far away, what his favorite dish was. He said "tonight's gratin," and everyone laughed, and that laugh did us all good.

Ludo spun. The bottle stopped on me.

"Dare," I said.

"Kiss your wife. Everywhere. For five minutes. Stéphane, you time it."

Stéphane picked up his phone from the coffee table. He set a timer.

"Go."

I turned to Valérie. She was looking at me with a little air of defiance, her eyes shining.

"Everywhere, huh?" she said.

"Everywhere."

I kissed her on the mouth first, like in the kitchen. She still tasted of pear, and her breath was quick against my mouth. Then her neck, below her ear, the spot that always made her shiver. She let her head fall back against the sofa. I moved down to her throat, the top of her chest, the mole. The last three buttons resisted. I undid them one after the other, and she raised her arms so the silk would slide off her shoulders.

Her breasts were bare. White, round, with wide brown areolas and hard nipples. In front of three men. She didn't cross her arms.

I kissed them. One, then the other. I took a nipple between my lips, and she moaned, and I knew the other three had heard that moan too. It went through me like an electric shock. I was kissing her for her, and I was kissing her for them, so they'd see, and I no longer knew which of the two turned me on more.

"Two minutes," Stéphane said, very low.

I wasn't just kissing her anymore. My hands had started caressing her, her breasts, her belly, her hips. I moved down to her belly, to the soft folds of her belly. I kissed the inside of her thighs above her stockings, where the skin is so soft. She was trembling. I could smell her pussy through the lace, stronger than I'd ever smelled it.

When I lifted my head, Karim had moved closer. He was right up against her on the sofa, naked, and he was looking at her. Valérie turned her head toward him. She looked at him for one long second.

She was the one who kissed him.

I sat up. I watched my wife kiss Karim, her mouth wide open, one hand on the back of his neck, while my own hand rested on her thigh. Karim took one of her breasts in his palm. She moaned into his mouth. Her free hand slid down, blindly, found Karim's cock again, and took hold of it.

Ludo got up from his armchair. He came and knelt on the rug in front of the sofa, next to me. He didn't touch her. He was looking at me, as if asking for my permission. I didn't know what to answer.

Stéphane came over too. He sat on the arm of the sofa, on the other side. He laid a hand on Valérie's bare shoulder, very lightly, and she didn't flinch.

Stéphane's phone rang. The five minutes.

Nobody moved. Stéphane switched off the alarm without looking at the screen.

Valérie pulled her mouth away from Karim's. She looked around her. Ludo on his knees, Stéphane on the armrest, Karim against her, me in front of her. Her lips were swollen, her breasts bare, her skirt rolled up at her waist, and her hand still wrapped around Karim.

"Is the game over?" she asked.

Nobody answered right away.

"Yes," said Stéphane. "If you want it to be."

"Good," she said.

Ludo put his hands on her knees, next to mine. He looked at Valérie, then at me.

"Can I?"

It was Valérie who answered. Not me.

"Yes."

I sat down next to her on the sofa. Ludo slid the black panties down her legs, over her stockings. He laid them on the coffee table, next to the bottle on its side. Valérie pressed her thighs together, by reflex. He put his hands on them, without forcing. He waited.

She looked at me. I nodded. She opened her thighs.

Ludo buried his face between them.

She closed her legs around his shoulders and pushed her hips against his mouth, moaning without holding back. Karim was sucking her breasts. She had one hand on the back of his neck, the other gripping my thigh so hard it hurt.

"Look at your wife, Patrick," Stéphane murmured from the armrest. "Look how much she loves it."

I looked. It was all I was doing.

She came quickly, much more quickly than with me. A strangled cry, her thighs trembling around Ludo's head, her belly clenching in spasms. Then she slumped back against the sofa, her eyes closed, and burst out laughing.

"Oh, wow," she said. "Oh, bloody hell."

Ludo stood up. He pushed his boxers down. Karim stood up too. Stéphane pushed his briefs down. The three of them stood in front of the sofa, in front of my wife, her breasts out, her skirt rolled around her waist, her stockings still on.

Ludo's was short and very thick, with a big purplish head. Karim's she'd already held. Stéphane's was the biggest of the three, veined and heavy.

Valérie looked at them one after the other. She put her hand over her mouth. She looked at me.

"Happy now, are you?" she said very quietly.

I didn't answer. She shook her head with a little incredulous laugh.

"You really are a pain."

She reached out. She took Karim's. Then, with her other hand, Ludo's.

"I've never done this with more than one," she said. "I don't know how it works."

"We'll show you," said Stéphane.

She stroked the two of them at once, clumsily at first, gripping too tight. Ludo showed her, putting his hand over hers, gentler, slower. Then Stéphane moved closer to her face. He rested his cock against her lips, without forcing. He waited.

She opened her mouth.

They were talking to her now. I kept quiet.

"You look beautiful like that, Valérie. With your mouth full."

"Suck it nice. That's it. Like that."

"Look at me while you suck it."

She took them into her mouth one after another, Stéphane, then Karim, then Ludo, and she stroked the other two while she sucked the third. She was drooling. Spit ran down her chin, onto her breasts. She was moaning. Every now and then she opened her eyes and looked for me, and when she found me, she started again, harder.

"Seen your wife, Patrick?" said Ludo. "Seen how she sucks? Your wife's a real slut."

Valérie moaned around Karim's cock.

It was Stéphane who took her first.

He laid her down on the sofa, on her back, her head on the armrest. I got up to make room for them. He settled between her open thighs, and he drove into her in one thrust. Valérie cried out. A deep cry, rising from her belly, one I'd never heard from her. He was big. He stayed still for a moment, buried inside her, giving her time to get used to him. Then he started to move.

Ludo knelt by her head, on the rug. He turned her face toward him, and she took him back into her mouth. Karim was fondling her breasts, sucking them, stroking himself as he watched her.

I sat in Stéphane's armchair, opposite, to watch. I undid my trousers. I was harder than I'd been in years.

Stéphane took his time. He moved in and out of her in long, deep strokes, holding her legs apart by the ankles, and with every thrust Valérie's breasts rode up almost to her chin. The bottle, lying on the coffee table, rolled off onto the floor, and nobody picked it up.

"Your wife's soaking," Stéphane said without stopping. "She wants more."

Valérie let Ludo slide out of her mouth. She turned her head toward me.

"Dream on, huh?" she said, her voice broken up by Stéphane's thrusts, and she burst out laughing in the middle of a moan.

Then Stéphane stiffened. He drove into her as deep as he could go, with a low grunt, and came, long and hard, holding her hips. Valérie opened her eyes, surprised. She watched him empty himself inside her.

Stéphane pulled out. Ludo took his place.

He turned her over onto all fours on the sofa, her hands on the armrest. He took her from behind, roughly, holding her by the hips. His short, thick cock stretched her more than Stéphane's had; I could see it in her face, her mouth open, her eyes half closed. Karim moved in front of her, and she took him into her mouth.

"Look at your husband," said Ludo, slapping her backside. "Look at him while I fuck you."

She let Karim slide out of her mouth. She raised her head toward me, while Ludo pounded into her, and she didn't look away.

"Is this what you wanted?" she said in a cracked voice. "Huh? Is this it?"

I couldn't answer.

"Well, me too," she said. "Me too, I love it."

And she came a second time, on all fours, looking at me, with a long wail that went on and on, her whole body shaking.

Ludo held out a little longer, then came inside her with a grunt, his hands clenched on her backside, and he stayed pressed against her for a while, his forehead on her back.

Karim hadn't moved. He was waiting.

He lay down on the rug, on his back, and held out his hand to Valérie. She climbed down from the sofa, her legs like jelly, her stockings slipping down over her knees. She straddled him. She guided him into her with one hand, fumbling.

She sat up, her hands on Karim's chest, and she started to move. Slowly at first, finding the rhythm. Then faster. Her breasts bounced. Her belly too. She'd stopped trying to hide anything.

Karim held her by the hips and looked at her with a kind of wonder. He didn't say anything. Then he murmured:

"I told you. Since the cheese course."

She laughed, and she leaned down to kiss him.

I jerked off watching them. Stéphane and Ludo, sitting on the floor against the sofa, were watching too, getting their breath back.

Valérie came before him this time, a third time, more softly, pressing herself against his chest. Karim followed a little later, with a small muffled cry, holding her tight. She stayed lying on him, her head in the crook of his neck, not moving.

I came in my hand, in the armchair, without her seeing.

They left around two in the morning. They kissed Valérie on both cheeks at the door, like at the end of a dinner with colleagues. Stéphane said, "Thanks for the gratin." Ludo picked up his shirt from the arm of the sofa. Valérie laughed. She still had her stockings on, her skirt pulled back on crooked, and my jacket over her shoulders because she couldn't find her blouse.

She never asked any questions about the agency. I never told her any more.

We went to bed without saying a word. She fell asleep right away, against me, her head on my shoulder. I lay awake until dawn, staring at the ceiling.

The next day, she came down at eleven, in her bathrobe, her eyes puffy. She poured herself a coffee and took two aspirins. She didn't look at me. All morning, I was afraid she'd say nothing for weeks, or make me pay for every minute of the night before.

In the afternoon, she tidied the living room. I was in the garage; I could hear her vacuuming. Then the noise stopped.

When I came in, she was on her knees in front of the sofa, one hand under the cushions. She stood up. In her palm was a little mother-of-pearl button.

"The blouse," she said. "There's one missing."

She'd found the blouse behind the armchair, rolled into a ball. It had lost its last button, the bottom one, when I'd undone it too fast.

"Do you want me to sew it back on?" I asked.

She looked at the button in her hand. She closed her fingers over it.

"No."

She slipped it into the pocket of her bathrobe, and she went to put the vacuum cleaner away in the cupboard.

Thank you for reading! More stories and a bonus epilogue: see my author profile.