Captainstrangecollector - Strange Collections

My girlfriend and I are at a friend’s apartments for a party.

The laughter and loud conversation are interrupted by the delicate sound of a pie fork being tapped lightly against a wine glass. Our friend strides into our midst and announces that she has a surprise for us all.

A magician.

We exchange a look. Were this anyone else’s party such news would have had us heading discreetly toward the door but this friend is wealthy and brilliant, with exquisite taste, so our curiosity is piqued.

She makes a theatrical gesture toward the parlor door, where a handsome, dark-eyed man looms in a well-cut gray suit. He smiles kindly, angling his head briefly to acknowledge the smattering of polite applause, and we as a group all gather closer.

He wanders among us, his hands warm in our own, as coins turn into cards then into feathers and wrist watches somehow switch wrists before vanishing completely.

At one point in his performance he asks for a volunteer. There are murmurs and whispers for an impossible moment, then my girlfriend gives my hand a squeeze and steps forward.

So brave, he says, taking her hand with a flourish and bowing slightly, and so lovely. She blushes, to cheers and whistles.

Hands in front of you, palms up, he says and she compiles. And so obedient, he says, gestures toward her and motioning for a round of applause. She laughs and flushes crimson again.

From the inside of his jacket he withdraws a length of rope and a bracelet-size silver ring. He places the ring flat on her outstretched palm of her left hand, then loops the rope through it and lightly around her wrist, draping the remainder up her arm, over her shoulders, then down around her waist.

He steadies himself, takes a deep breath, then whips the rope away. A gasp goes around the room: The silver bracelet now dangles from her opposite wrist.

Applause and open mouths. He smiles broadly, then raises his eyebrows and holds up a finger. He takes my girlfriend’s left hand and places it over the bracelet on her right hand, then withdraws another, identical ring from within his jacket, and places it onto the back of her hand. He loops the rope through the ring, then lays over her hands three times, back and forth and back again. He steadies himself and, with surprising vigor, he whips the rope away again. 

More gasps, louder this time: The bracelet is around her left wrist but both bracelets are now looped, one through the other.

My girlfriend struggles to separate her hands but the rings are too narrow to slip off. Help, she wails comedically to robust laughter.

He holds up a finger again. Oh what now, she moans, to more laughter. From inside his jacket he withdraws another ring, larger this time, and he places it, with great ceremony, on top of her head.

I’m never coming to one of your parties again, my girlfriend says loudly and the hostess’s laughter is loudest of all. 

Carefully he threads the rope through the ring, then winds it around the back of my girlfriend’s head, over her shoulder, and down between her manacled hands. He takes a moment to stretch his fingers, then, gripping the rope tightly, he sets his feet, breathes in and out deeply, and pulls.

Gasps again: The rings on her wrists clatter to the floor and the one on top of her head now rests snugly around her neck.

The applause is loud and sustained. My girlfriend looks stunned, her hands going instinctively to the collar around her throat. We surround her and run our fingers along its curved shape but the chrome is unbroken and unyielding.

The magician takes a deep bow and blows a kiss with both hands to the hostess, who leads us all in fervent applause. 

Excuse me, my girlfriend says at an exaggerated volume. A little help please?

More laughter, then the music fades back in. 

I’m in the kitchen, refilling our drinks, watching her recount the story over and again animatedly, the collar shining brightly against her skin, when the magician reappears, hat on his head, overcoat draped over his arm, case in his hand. 

Thank you again everyone, he says, giving a wide wave and turning to leave. My girlfriend heads after him, catching him by the arm in the narrow hallway entrance.

So seriously, she says to him. How do I get this thing off?

He smiles broadly. I’m so sorry, he says. It doesn’t come off. 

She laughs then tugs on it helplessly. Seriously though, she says. I can’t just walk around with this thing on for the rest of my life.

I’ll make you a deal, he says. Have a drink with me and I’ll see what I can do.

Deal, she says, taking his hand and turning back toward the party. What’ll you have?

No no, he says. Not here, not now. Next week. You pick the place; I’ll buy the drinks.

 She laughs again, her finger hooked around the metal loop as she shakes her head slowly. Fine, she says finally, looking up at him

He extends his hand and out of thin air a business card appears between his fingers. My number, he says.

You know I have a boyfriend, right? she says, tilting her head, her smile side.

I know, he says. But he can’t come.

For the rest of the party I watch her from across the room. She glows and beams and poses with people for photos. 

Better keep an eye on that, someone says to me as I empty and refill my glass, touching up the smile fixed on my lips.

That night I lie awake, staring at the silver glinting in the streetlight as she sleeps beside me.

I hope you’re not jealous, she says. It’s Tuesday afternoon of the following week and she’s getting ready to meet him. It’s just a drink or two, which I think you have to admit he earned with that show.

She kisses me, then again, opening her mouth to me and for a moment all I think about is crawling into bed with her. But when I put my hands on her face to pull her closer I feel the smooth steel warmed by her skin.

She disappears into the bedroom to change. I hear the sound of leather sliding and I feel the bottom of my stomach drop out. She’s going to wear those pants, the ones she knows I like, the ones she bought herself for my birthday, that she wears whenever she wants to get everything she wants.

Another moment more and out she walks. Sure enough, she’s wearing them, her special occasion pants, pairing them with a clingy sweater and a pair of whisper-thin stiletto heels. She wants to look good for him. And she does.

Another kiss, just a peck this time, brief but long enough for me to catch a whiff of a perfume I don’t recognize. 

Have a relaxing evening, she says, breezy but measured, as if she’s eager to leave but doesn’t want to show it. And don’t forget, as soon as I get this collar off I’m all yours again.

It’s midnight when I finally give up waiting and turn off the light. 

A hall pass

I can’t remember now when I admitted to my then-girlfriend that I was interested in her cuckolding me.  The desire preceded the relationship, and it has stayed with me in the years since that relationship ended.

She knew, though, before she left for a college reunion the last fall we were together.  As I remember it now, I feel like she must have noticed a spark when she mentioned looking forward to seeing all of her old friends.  The college was a plane trip away from where we lived, and this reunion was her five-year, so most of her friends were still unattached and living interesting lives in the big city she had left.  She missed them; she would find a way to go up for the weekend and see everyone she could, staying in her friend’s empty apartment.

One of those friends, Luke (for our story, but his real name will never leave my mind), had not attended the school, but came to know that my girlfriend would be traveling to the city for the weekend.  I’m sure I had heard about Luke beforehand, but always in the context of some other guy friends of hers.  Maybe they were buddies from her post-college job or the bar they all went to.

One night, a couple of weeks before the trip, my girlfriend called over from the other room and told me to “make an angry face” while she pointed her phone in my direction.  The picture was for Luke, she said, who had teasingly suggested she bring along some lingerie for the reunion weekend.  As I recall, I didn’t have the faintest idea that their text conversation might have taken that turn, and I’m sure the blood ran from my face and just as sure where it went.

My girlfriend thought it was funny, and I convinced myself that it was just an improbable joke, almost certainly not having to do with my fantasy.  But I didn’t want to let the opportunity pass to explore it either.

That night I asked her in bed whether she might break away from the college group and get to see Luke and her buddies.  She touched me while she asked if that was something I wanted.  I touched her as I asked her to describe Luke to me.  He is extremely well-built, funny, just never single at the right time, one of the ones who got away.

Before I came, I was desperate to outline the breadth of my fantasy again, reminding her that she had every right to see whomever—and do whatever—she liked, at home or while on a trip, far away from everyone we knew.

---

She left for the reunion.  Luke had been called away on business for the weekend she was going, so our bedroom talk had softened.  The realization, though, that she would consider an affair, engaging me in the fantasy with a particular name—a particular person—had electrified our relationship and dominated my thoughts.

She went to the cocktail parties and the football game, sending back social media pictures of her group of friends in their team’s colors at each of the different events.  Sunday morning, she went out with her girlfriends to brunch.  Between pitchers of mimosas, she called me and put me on the phone with her old friends, who interviewed me.  Even after a couple of years of dating, I had never met them, so I got questions about my intentions with my girlfriend and plans for when we might fly to see this friend or that friend.

Eventually my girlfriend took the phone back and walked away from their table.  She asked me almost immediately, “Were you serious about the hall pass?  Luke is coming back a day early.”

I was stunned.  I managed to say yes and offer her encouragement without, I think, making myself sound desperate that she go through with it.  I also don’t remember ever using the phrase “hall pass.”  She had spent time with the thought, rationalizing it.

She called later that afternoon to say that she had made plans to see Luke and her other buddies, and that she had made Luke aware of the fact that she was staying at her friend’s empty apartment, all alone.

The next time I heard from her was the following morning.  She texted to let me know she made it to the airport, that she had had fun the night before and that she had a story for me when she got home.

---

I still don’t know if Luke was aware of my fantasy or not.  My girlfriend always found ways of skirting the point, keeping private some element of her interactions with him.

I do know that by the time he arrived at the apartment, after he had been out with her and their buddies to the bar, meeting her at the door where she greeted him in a sweatshirt and sheer panties, he had explained that he had a girlfriend.  As they kissed and she began to remove his clothes, pulling him to the couch, he explained that he would have to draw a line—somewhere—short of sex.

When my girlfriend told me my story, that Monday night, I am convinced that she told it in episodes.  Each one slightly more damning than the previous, in case I lost my permissive resolve.  I held up, so the details continued to grow more vivid.

She always denied having sex with him, but what began as making out on the couch eventually moved to the bedroom.  First with clothes, and then without them.  She touched me as she asked, “Are you happy that I touched him like this?  He was very happy.”  My girlfriend described Luke’s toned body, naked beside her, and the sweetness of his kisses.

They played with each other all night, not falling asleep until five in the morning.  Before he went to work, they shared a lingering kiss at the door.  He left his wallet and had to come back a half hour later.  She told me, “the last kiss was my favorite part of the whole trip.”

---

She seemed to feel different to my touch that night, although I’m sure in my mind I wanted her to.  I am guilty of looking at her email once to search for Luke’s name, finding a conversation they had about a “shower party” (her quotes) a few days after she came home.  She did love to make love in the shower.

My girlfriend would ask me occasionally what I wanted to do about the experience.  I imagined with her, for her, a weekend where my apartment would be empty so that Luke might come to our town, perhaps on business.  I could be gone whenever she liked, I said.

She wondered if I might want to participate, suspecting that I would want to enjoy Luke alongside her.  She never articulated that specifically, but I could tell she always wondered what else could possibly motivate such a fantasy.

Really, though, her night with Luke helped me to see it more clearly than ever.  I wanted only for her to feel in control, untethered from me and not especially concerned either.  I wanted her to have sex or not have it, with a man or with a woman, to tell her friends or Luke or not to tell them.  It didn’t matter to me what came of her decisions, only that she was making them.

I was happy to wait at home to find out my fate; to learn from the person in control just what had happened to her and to us and to me.  I begged to know.

Gateway Drug

…she means it…not that i would know…{blushing}…<3 emmie @ le cocu quotidien.

…not if you wear it while having sex with ryan after you return home…{blushing}…mad, crazy, almost-passed-out-dizzy sex…{double-blush}…‘cause ryan didn’t know about your date with cody…{triple-blush}…<3 emmie @ le cocu quotidien.

btw, he has great taste in lingerie…which gives one pause to wonder…