In Too Deep, Book 2, Part 2

 [image: VitalikRadko]

Chapter 12: The Hotwife Husband

“Yes, I’m here.”

And there she was. Amanda as Amanda. She wore black leggings and a loose, striped blouse that hung off one shoulder, revealing the slender strap of a black bra. She looked sheepish and shy, fidgeting with her fingers as she stood in the doorway of what must have been the bedroom.

Seeing her standing there before me, every part of me ached. It was like exhaling a breath I’d been holding for weeks. All my anger was gone in that sublime moment. I went to her, pulling her close. She felt warm and real in my arms. She smelled fresh. Before I kissed her, though, I suddenly felt shy about it, this illogical fear of rejection, despite our marriage and our history and our former life.

“You’re here,” I parroted back at her, barely a whisper.

Her smile was warmth on my face. Her smile was relief. We kissed, softly, lovingly, taking our time to reconnect. The last time had been sudden, there and gone in a flash. The last time had been overwhelming, and so much had happened since.

“Hey, you,” she said when we finally broke the kiss.

Julia cleared her throat, reminding us that she was still there. “I’ll let you two… talk. You’ve got two hours, and then you need to get back to the club.”

“Right.” Amanda nodded, and I felt her draw a fortifying breath. She didn’t release me from our embrace. “I’ll be ready.”

“You stay here,” Julia said to me. “I’ll come get you later on. Do not leave this apartment.”

Amanda seemed to finally lose her tentativeness. “Is this really necessary, Julia?”

“You know it is.” The blonde’s smile was cruel. “Have fun, you two.”

When the door was shut, things suddenly felt awkward between me and Amanda. Suddenly, I didn’t know what to say to her. She looked at me, chewing on her lip, seeming to go through her own struggle as well. She said, “I’m so sorry.”

I wasn’t expecting that, and it threw me off. She nuzzled her forehead to mine, shutting her eyes, trying to find peace but unable to.

“I’m so sorry,” she repeated. When she opened her eyes again, she looked more resolved. “I’ve been awful to you. You don’t deserve that. When they sent me home, it was to check on you. To see if you recognized me.”

“You knew I was there?”

“I did. I didn’t see you, but they told me about it after.” She took me by the hands and guided me to the couch. “They were worried that you’d blow everything.”

“So you came home,” I said, trying to follow. “But you know that I actually wasn’t sure until I saw the tattoo, right?”

She nodded. “I told them. I told them that it was a bad idea, but I also… I also, selfishly, wanted to see you again. So I didn’t protest too much. They wanted to make sure that you didn’t come back, just to confirm or something.”

“I wouldn’t have. You know I wouldn’t have—”

“I know. They didn’t.”

“When I told you, you went so… cold,” I said.

She nodded. She didn’t deny it. “I was scared. I know, I know, it’s not an excuse, but I was so scared. I’ve done things… and I was worried that you’d find out and would leave.”

“But Amanda,” I said. Now that I’d had enough time to think this through, I couldn’t just sit there. I stood, starting to pace as she watched me from the couch. “That doesn’t make sense. You say you’d put it back into a little box when this was over, but you know that’s not true. You have to know that.”

She nodded. “I do. I told you what I wanted to believe, but you’re right. Undercover work changes people,” she said. “Especially deep cover work. You have to embody the role. Like method acting. It’s sink or swim, and I was determined to swim, damnit.” There was the familiar fire in her eyes again. I winced, ready for her to revert back to the invulnerable persona from before. This time, she didn’t. This time, her eyes refocused and she saw me. “It all kind of snowballed. Each time I crossed a line, I told myself that this would be it, that I needed to do this one thing, and then that was it. Yet I did it over and over. To get in. To infiltrate. To make them all think that I was one of them.”

She took a loud, steadying breath in through her nose.

“And in the process, I forgot about you. About us.” 

“You forgot about us? But Amanda, what happened to me being your whole world?” Standing there before her, running my hands through my hair, I felt lost. Amanda saw it, too. She reached out to me and took my hand, guiding me back to the sofa beside her. “I’m sorry, that’s not quite right. Maybe…” She squeezed my hand. “Maybe more like I lost myself. I got caught up in it. Got wound up in being Raven.” She shut her eyes and shook her head. “And when I came home and saw you—that same, sweet man that I’d fallen in love with back in school—I realized who I’d become.”

“I…” I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to say. I was conflicted. “I knew what I was signing up for, when we got married.” I snorted. “Well, I thought I did, anyway. I knew that I’d always share the space in your life with your career. I just never thought it would lead here.”

“And here’s where it ends,” she said. “I’m going to get out. Enough is enough.”

I knew how hard this was for her. It wasn’t a decision that she came to lightly, nor did she come to it just now. Amanda wasn’t impulsive like that. Or, at least, she hadn’t been before.

“If I’m honest with myself,” she said, adding, “which isn’t very much these days, then I knew this was what I had to do since I came home for those few days. I was hoping to wrap the case up, but it just seems to slip further and further from me.” She clenched her fists, like she could hold on through sheer physicality. “But I can’t do it anymore.”

Julia had said much the same, although she’d tried to pin it all on me. I was the baggage. I’d always been the baggage, right from the beginning, no matter what Amanda said about forgetting about us or losing herself.

“I wish you’d told me,” I said. “We could have done this together.”

“I probably should have, but…”

“But you hid behind protocol,” I said.

“I hid behind my own pride.” She shook her head, eyes closed, head hung low. “I thought that I could do it all on my own.”

And that, right there, was Amanda’s critical flaw. Fiercely independent, she took everything on herself. “But you’re never alone. You have the other agents. You have Julia and Bradley Hirsch, the rest of the bureau.”

She nodded, but didn’t seem to agree.

I pressed on. “And now, you’ve got me again. Open up to me. Let me help you.”

She seemed to collapse, her face falling into her hands. “I can’t.”

I put an arm around her as she began to cry—like I said before, Amanda never cried. She shifted, turning in toward me to wrap her arms around my body. I smoothed my hand through her hair, holding her close. “I’m here for you, Amanda. But you need to meet me halfway.”

“You will hate me,” she blubbered. “And I don’t know that I can take that right now. You mean so much to me, David, and I feel like you’re slipping away.” My stomach squirmed at that. What had she done that she was so frightened to tell me?

“Give me more credit than that, Amanda,” I said, gently, firmly. I kissed the top of her head, then drew back. “I saw the video, you know. The… the blowjob.”

“I… know. Julia made sure to text me every time you started it up again.”

My face went bright with shame. “She did?”

“She’s a real piece of work,” Amanda said.

I finally got Julia, though. At least sort of. “In a twisted way, I  think she was trying to help. You know why she brought me here?”

“Because I asked her to?” Amanda said.

She did? That was actually comforting, but also not what I was getting at. “She wants me to convince you that I’m the kind of guy who’s okay with… with Raven.”

“Ah, yes. Makes sense. That one’s always got schemes within schemes.” There was no love lost between the two women.

I pressed on. “But you know something?” I took a deep breath. “She’s not completely wrong.”

“What are you saying?”

“What you did hurt. I didn’t ask for any of this, but despite that…” I took a breath. “...it turned me on.” It really wasn’t a lie. I wasn’t whatever Julia accused me of—a hotwife husband or a cuckold, or whatever—but there was no denying that some aspect of this turned me on. Maybe it was as Ty said, I had a stripper for a wife. “I watched that video, and it killed me a little inside each time—”

“I’m so sorry about that—”

“But I kept watching,” I finished. “I, you know…”

“Jerked off?” Amanda’s question was so casual, another uncomfortable reminder of the woman she’d become.

“Yeah. And I’m so sorry. You’re being exploited. You’re having to sell yourself for this case. I should be disgusted.”

“It’s okay,” she said quietly. She wasn’t looking at me, but instead, was wringing her hands. I knew that face, her expression. She was processing it all, weighing all the angles. “It’s okay, because it… it turns me on, too.”

Boom. The hammer landed.

Yet the blow didn’t knock me down as much as I’d thought. Like I knew that she had this inside of her all along. It was my greatest fear manifest. It was also a fantasy come to life.

Amanda stood, gesturing back at me. “You want a drink?” she asked.

It was 9:30 in the morning. “Please.” And 5 o’clock somewhere else.

I watched her move about the apartment, opening cabinets and pulling out a half-empty bottle of bourbon, marveling at how intimately familiar she was with the place. Because it was her place. 

“I was raised a Tom Boy, you know?” She poured out a couple glasses of liquor and set them on the island counter between us. “I wanted people to notice me for my abilities, rather than my appearance.” She pushed the glass around as she worked out her confession. “Raven is the opposite. She wants people to notice her looks and ignore the rest of her. It gave me an excuse to be someone I’ve repressed most of my life. Like I said, it happened in little increments. I could tell myself that I was just getting into the role. That I needed to behave a certain way for them to believe me.”

“And then you started to become her,” I helped out, but Amanda shook her head.

“She’s always been there. This just gave me an excuse to let her out.” She picked the glass and tossed it back, gulping down the booze without even a wince.

She’d said this before, when she visited—that there were things she’d need to do undercover that she’d never do otherwise. I just didn’t have the full context.

I followed her into the kitchen area of the apartment, but kept the island counter between us as she refilled her glass. “Come on, you’re not going to let a girl day-drink alone, are you?”

She held my glass out, and I took it, twisting it around in my hands. Had I been holding her back? Had I kept her from letting loose, the way Raven could let loose? It was too scary a question to ask aloud. Instead, I asked it in a simpler way. “So you like sex?”

Amanda nodded. “I like dirty sex.”

My heart hammered. My blood pumped. My pants tightened.

“The things I’ve done, David…” Heat climbed up the base of my skull.

“Tell me.”

Amanda stared at me, weighing the pros and cons. To tell me was a risk. Not to tell me was worse. She finally seemed to realize it. She didn’t dither anymore. She didn’t ask if I really wanted to know, because she knew we were past all of that. 

“When I first started dancing at the club, I got propositioned. I was with one of the other dancers in the back room, and the guy we were with wanted to fuck her while she ate me out.”

“Jesus,” I whispered.

She looked at her second glass of liquor, her expression almost wistful. Then she tipped the drink back before finishing the story. “We ended up meeting up with him after the club closed. We took turns doing him. I told myself that I had to do it to keep up appearances. That the other stripper might be working for the people we’re going after. That if I didn’t do this, then it would get back to someone that Raven doesn’t do extracurriculars. But I knew, even then, that I was rationalizing. I wanted to go back and have sex with a random stranger. I wanted to experience a threesome.”

My mouth was dry. My cock hard. “A threesome? So you and the stripper…?”

“Let’s just say I’m no longer bi-curious.”

“I never knew you were bi-curious. That’s what I’m talking about. We could have talked about it. We could have… I don’t know… explored it together.” I colored, realizing how that came off, but Amanda understood what I meant and didn’t tease.

“I know. We never talked about this stuff.” She unscrewed the bottle of bourbon and corrected herself. “I didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Because you worried that I’d lose respect for you.”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “And now I might lose you because I didn’t talk to you about it.”

“Sometimes the coverup is worse than the crime,” I said. “So it’s just sex?”

“It’s just sex,” she confirmed. “Raven is down to fuck.” I swear, she almost sounded disdainful of her own persona. I circled the counter just as she started to pour another glass for herself. 

“You don’t need that,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She shot a defiant look from the bottle to me, but capped it anyway.

“I told you before we got married that you don’t need to choose one thing or the other, but you can’t leave me in the dark, either. I need to know where I stand, Amanda—where we stand in this whole mess.”

“You are my husband, and my partner, and my life.” She ran a hand down my arm, lacing her fingers into mine and lifting our hands up between us. “And I won’t leave you out of it anymore. I understand now. It’s just… it’s not easy. And I’m still scared of losing you.”

“Me, too,” I admitted. And then I matched her, vulnerability for vulnerability. “And honestly, I’m… I’m scared that I’ve been replaced by someone—”

“No, David!”

“I’m scared that… that we’re falling apart.”

“I love you, David. You have to believe that,” she insisted. “I need you to believe it.”

I believed her, yet still I couldn’t just let her off the hook. Saying a thing was one thing, but she needed to back her words up with action. “These last two weeks have been torture. I can’t go back to that. We can’t.” I put my free hand around her, pulling her close. “You need to start talking to me. Take a risk. Tell me. I want to hear.”

“Okay,” she said quietly.

I decided to help her out, although the question was so hard. “So you like having sex with other men.”

And Amanda nodded.

It made me feel dizzy. I thought of the guy who’d hit on her back on the night of our proposal again. I thought of Ty and how jealous I’d been during his failed pursuit of her, back before we’d even gotten together. Then I thought of Ty’s confession that they’d actually slept together later on.

The angst was still there, and still strong. Even now, even remembering Amanda as Raven dancing in some guy’s lap just last week, left me weak and uneasy. All it would take was a word and she’d let it all go. I’d gone from powerless to having all the control.

When I took a breath, even that was unsteady. We both heard it, the quavery, shaky draw of air into my lungs. I leaned in and kissed her neck. “You like dirty sex with other men,” I whispered, kissing her along her jaw. “You like fucking other men.”

Our eyes met, and neither wavered anymore. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”

And like that, we were kissing, groping at one another. I lifted her onto the counter as she peeled her loose shirt off. Her black bra made her already full tits look enormous, and I swear she was looking more tanned than the last time I saw her.

“Tell me more,” I said, working on the buttons of my shirt. “Tell me how dirty you can get.”

“I like the submission…” She still sounded tentative, and now I understood why. Amanda was anything but submissive, and she knew it. “Raven gets off when men use her and… so do I.”

I reached up and started to tug at her leggings. She lifted her butt off the counter, helping me out. She wasn’t wearing panties beneath, and her clean shaved snatch opened before me, glistening with excitement.

I moved down between her legs, the smell of excitement heady and strong. “Like how?”

“Like… they come all over my face and tits, and I love it.”

I started eating her, lapping at her pussy, so deliciously smooth. I’d never given Amanda a facial, pretty sure she’d slap me if I did.

“I… I love anal sex.”

“Uhn,” I grunted, shuddering. I looked up at her, just as she unlatched her bra. “You do?”

“Yeah,” she said, less hesitant now. “If he knows what he’s doing.” 

So crazy. So wild. She’d never done that before. We’d even talked about it once, and she’d said that she had no desire to try. Then again, she’d never shaved her bush or titfucked a stranger to get a stripper job.

Our eyes met. Hers were on fire. “It really does turn you on.”

I nodded.

“Turns me on, too, just… thinking about it… thinking about a nice, thick cock… stretching out my tight, little asshole… ahh!”

She seemed to go wetter, groan louder, undulate her hips faster as she talked about it.

“Yes, David. Eat me. Finger me. Make me… make me come…”

I touched her asshole, pressing a finger against it. She gasped, moaning even louder. I applied pressure, and a moment later, the tip easily passed into her, and Amanda went off. She tightened her thighs around my head and raked her fingers through my hair. “Oh, fuck, yes!” 

I lapped at her clit, extending her orgasm as it spun up and up. She flopped back on the counter, unable to support herself on her hands any longer, and gulped in oxygen when I finally let her go.

I stumbled back, staring at her naked body, splayed on the island counter like it was a stage. Which made me think of Raven. Which brought me back to the reality of what she had done.

“How many guys have you had sex with as Raven?” Even with the liquid courage and all the adrenaline pumping through my veins, my question felt raw and scary.

Amanda lifted her head, half-propping up on an elbow. “I…”

My jaw tightened, anticipating her claiming ignorance. The Amanda I knew would keep track of how many men, how many women, what she’d done, what she’d been told to do. She’d keep an internal ledger on all of it. She’d know how many men, and if she denied it, we’d be right back to square—

“Twelve,” she said. I drew in a sharp breath. She was staring at me, now further propped up. She pushed her dark hair out of her face. “I’ve fucked twelve guys as Raven.”

“Including me?”

“No, not including you. And you’re the only one I’ve fucked as Amanda.” She slipped off of the counter and took my hand. “You get to be my lucky thirteen.”

She led me into the bedroom—Raven’s bedroom. Like the rest of the apartment, it looked lived in rather than a set or a prop. There were photos around the mirror of people that I didn’t know. On the bedside table, there was a Kindle, the cord of an iPhone charger, two empty glasses—which was very Amanda.

She turned to me, and we were kissing again, so hard that our gums hurt and our teeth clattered. She groped at my shirt, which I hadn’t taken off yet, trying to work one button before growing frustrated and tearing it open. The buttons popped as Amanda broke the kiss, breathing hard, like a predator about to pounce.

“So you want to fuck Raven?”

“Yes.” I pulled off my torn shirt, feeling her assessment along my upper body. It was the first time in a long time I felt judged by my wife. I used to feel that all the time, when I worried how out-of-my-league she was. I felt it now, squeezing my shoulder blades and lowering my shoulders.

“You’re hot, David.” She ran her fingers along my pectoral muscles. “Good thing, ‘cause Raven only fucks hot guys, or rich guys, and you don’t strike me as a man with money.”

She sat back on the bed, opening her legs without a shred of modesty. “Take your pants off. Show me that cock.”

It was like a switch had been flipped in her. She really was Raven now, a version of Amanda unleashed and unbridled. I did as I was told, lowering my pants. My erection sprang free, as full and as long as ever. “Very nice, David. Not quite as big as a thick BBC, but not bad for a white guy.”

“BBC?”

“Big, black, cock,” she said, enunciating slowly. Her words were devastating in all the right ways, and she knew it. 

“You… you like that?”

“Raven likes it all, baby.” She caressed my hips with her feet. Her toenails were painted red, and on each foot she wore a small, silver toe ring. “As long as it’s hard and the guy knows how to drive it.”

She ran her other foot up my shaft, stroking it between her toes in a practiced way that couldn’t have been accidental. I gasped, and when I looked at her, she was staring back with wild mischief.

I leaned on my role, just the way Amanda had leaned on hers as Raven—I was the hotwife husband. I needed to convince her that’s who I was. It wasn’t hard, because deep down, I wanted her to be Raven, too. 

“You’re so fucking hot,” I groaned as she jerked me off between her toes.

I crawled over her, kissing her body as she enveloped me in her silky smooth legs. I slotted into her, easily sinking to my balls with a sigh. She was so wet. “Oh, fuck, Amanda…”

“No, no, dear. You’re fucking Raven—”

“No.” I found my backbone, straight and titanium strong. “I’m fucking you, baby.” I braced my hands on either side of her head, staring down at her. “No more games. No more aliases and covers. Whoever you were when you went in, this is who you are now.”

Her heels dug into my back as I fucked her hard, her lush body rippling beneath me, her full tits bouncing hard.

“Say it,” I said. “Let go of it.”

“Yes…” Her eyes were shut, her head back and lips parted.

“It’s okay, Amanda. We’re going to be okay.” I kissed her neck. Her blood pulsed just beneath her sweaty skin, a torrent, a river in a storm. “But you’re going to need to say it.”

“Yes, I’m her. I like sex.”

“You’ve always liked sex.”

“I’ve always liked sex.”

I fucked her harder. “You’ve always wanted dirty sex.”

“Yes. Fuuuck… yes…” I dipped in, licking the bottom swell of her tit.

“You got off, blowing that guy for the job.”

“Mmmm…”

“And getting paid for sex.”

“Ugh!”

I thought of her being the flavor of the month. “How does it feel to be some thug’s plaything?”

“So… wrong.” She said it like it wasn’t a bad thing. “I’ve had to do things…”

“Tell me.”

“He… he likes to watch,” she said. Even the pronoun—the mere suggestion of another man—was like fire in my veins. “He likes watching me fuck other men.”

“And you like to perform for him.”

“Mmmm…”

“And now you get to perform for me, too.”

I felt her pussy tighten around my cock as I said it. I couldn’t hold my orgasm at bay. I’d edged as far as I could edge. I’d pushed it as far as things would go before toppling off into the abyss. I fucked her harder—the way Raven liked it. The way the new Amanda wanted it.

“Yes, baby, that’s it…” She raked her fingers through my hair. “Give me your come. Make me yours again.”

Her words were like a shove, and over the edge I flew. I buried myself all the way into her, my dick deep and pulsing. She arched up, pressing her whole body against mine, her heels on my back, her tits against my chest, her mouth against mine. She clenched my hair until my scalp burned. Until I wanted to scream. The pain was like spice sprinkled onto the sweet release of our shared climax. I didn’t want it to end.

But it did end, just as everything ends.

Chapter 13: Moving Forward

In the aftermath of the most intense sex of my life, all my insecurities and angst started to creep in. Fucking Amanda after she’d confessed to the last two and a half months of secret, extramarital liaisons didn’t immediately absolve her of her sins. She’d still… cheated. There, I’d said it. Or thought it, at least. Excuse or no excuse, cover or no cover, she’d still had sex with other men—twelve other men—behind my back.

“I know this isn’t a dream, but it sure feels like one,” Amanda asked, snuggling up to me. “I keep waiting for that moment when I wake up, and you’re gone.”

“Yeah, I’ve had that feeling, too. Maybe this is a shared dream, although…”

“Although?”

I cringed. Why couldn’t I have left that statement alone? Why couldn’t I quiet the turmoil in my mind? “Just that, maybe, it’s not a dream I ever thought I wanted.”

Amanda nodded, running her hands along my body, like she was still expecting me to vanish. “Guess that’s the thing about dreams—we can’t control them, as much as we try. You know I never wanted to get married?”

“Ouch. What a thing to say—”

“I never wanted to get married until I met you. You didn’t figure into my plans.” She laughed at herself. “And I’m so glad that I decided to take that detour.”

“So is that what this is? A detour?” I asked.

“Yes.” She rose over me, straddling my body. I wasn’t hard, but I wasn’t soft, either, and her smooth mound felt wonderful against my cock. “I will come back to you.” She rolled her hips, reminding me of her stripper training, rubbing me with her pussy. “And I cannot wait to tell you all the naughty things I’ve been up to with Raven.”

“I’d like that,” I said, stiffening enough to slip back into her.

Amanda moaned softly, eyes closed, enjoying my dick as I hardened inside of her. I wondered who she was thinking of now, or what crazy experience, and that speculation got me even harder. 

“You’ll tell me everything?” I asked.

“Everything.”

Whatever my reservations were, I was definitely excited, and I loved what this implied—a future that involved her storytelling was a future where we were together. I could get behind that.

“Do what you need to do,” I said as Amanda started to bounce on me faster. “Fuck who you need to fuck.” Saying that outloud was like shooting adrenaline into my veins. “Just remember that I’m here, I’m your partner.”

“Yes!”

“And you don’t need to do any of this alone. Okay?”

“Mmm, David. Thank you. Thank… you…” She came quietly, shuddering and shivering, softly lowering her body onto mine as her orgasms continued to shiver through her. We kissed. I held her. I didn’t want to let go, but knew that she had somewhere to be, and that life needed to go on.

“Remember this,” Amanda said, squeezing me. “I cannot predict the future, and this whole assignment, like dreams, cannot always be controlled. But remember this moment, whenever you're having doubts. Okay?”

I nodded, and we kissed, slow and languid. “Okay.”

We snuggled for a little longer before Amanda slipped out of bed and went to the shower, needing to start her day.

I glanced in her nightstand. There was a vibrator, a pair of leather handcuffs, and a box of condoms. The box was mostly empty. I started to feel a panic attack coming on, pulse pounding in my ears, chest tightening, my vision blurring.

I swear I could hear Amanda moaning, grunting, begging to be fucked. I looked over at the other side of the bed, and was almost surprised that she wasn’t there, vigorously riding some dude. Strangely, the guy looked like the man who’d been hitting on her the night that I’d proposed—a man who’d haunted my dreams ever since. Biting his lower lip and squeezing Amanda’s juicy tits, he’d look over at me and say, ‘She just needed the excuse, cuck.’

I sat up, running my fingers through my hair. I ripped the sheets off like they were smothering me, only to find that I was hard again. 

Amanda liked sex. She’d always liked it. She’d always wanted dirty sex. It was an honest confession, yet now that I had it, I didn’t know what to do with it. It was easy to be upset at the betrayal, but much harder to reconcile my excitement. 

I mean, on the one hand, who didn’t want a wife who liked to have dirty sex? On the other, I couldn’t stop the insecurities that came with that realization. If this was really who she was, if this was the kind of sex that she’d always wanted, had she been just settling with me all these years? Had I been holding her back?

I wandered over to the mirror above her dresser. It was adorned with photos along the edge, all affixed in perfect alignment—that was so Amanda. Most must have been staged or doctored. They depicted trips she never took with vistas in places that she’d never been. There was the one with her and three girlfriends in bikinis so small that I could see most of their bare mounds. There was a photo of her and a young guy at a ski slope somewhere, his arm around her shoulders. That one sent queasy ripples through my insides. Was he one of the twelve?

I could almost buy this fantasy. She looked happy. It made me wonder if she would have been happier without me.

“Only one is real,” Amanda said. She was standing in the door of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her body like a tiny dress, her hair wet. “Can you spot it?”

I searched the photos as she sidled up next to me, smelling clean and fresh. She still used the same shampoo.

I saw it, mixed in amongst all the fantasy—one photo that I actually recognized. It was just a pair of hands, fingers entwined, a simple, golden chain on one wrist.

They were our hands—mine and Amanda’s. I’d finally gotten her a ring, and this was the moment taken just before I’d slipped it on. The fact that she had this here, with all her fake boyfriends and girlfriends, amongst the life of Raven, was like a glitter of hope.

“That one,” I said, pointing. But how real was it? I thought. The hope dimmed.

Amanda pulled it off the mirror, where it had been stuck with tape. “I think about this a lot,” she said, quietly. “It was a formality. You’d proposed already. I even told you that I didn’t need a ring. It was old fashioned. Why was it that the woman needed to wear a special piece of jewelry, when men didn’t?”

I remembered us talking about that, too, yet I still wanted to get it for her. I was the romantic, and I wanted that moment.

“But when you took my hand, when you looked into my eyes… when you reached into your pocket, I knew…” Her eyes now were far away, and a smile played across her face. “I didn’t need a ring, but deep down, I wanted one. And I was so happy when you put it on me.”

It had been only the second time that I’d seen her cry, up until that point. She’d thrown her arms around me before I could get it on and squeezed me until I couldn’t breathe. It all came back to me. That was real. That was genuine.

“Who’s that?” I asked, pointing at the guy she was with at the ski slope.

“An AI image,” Amanda said with a laugh. “All of these are. Pretty good, right?”

“Scary, actually,” I said. “It’s already hard enough to tell what’s real and what’s not.”

This drew a sharp look from Amanda. I’d been trying so hard to hide my insecurities, but she knew me too well. “This is still real, David,” she said, holding up the photograph of our hands. She pressed it back into place, refilling the spot amidst all the fake memories. “You are my rock. You remind me of who I am when even I can sometimes forget.”

Twelve other guys.

You’re the hotwife husband.

That is your role.

“I know,” I said to Amanda, forcing myself out of my own head. “But so is this,” I said, waving at the apartment. “And I want to be a part of it now, too.”

She nodded stiffly, like she wasn’t quite sure how to do that, or even if she could. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” And as I said it, I knew it to be true.

She eyed me carefully, slowly nodding. “I’m glad. I never realized how exciting it could be to tell you about all of this—and then when you reclaimed me…” She sighed in delight. I reached up and stroked her cheek. She closed her eyes and leaned into the touch. “I can’t wait for that again.”

Backing away, she went to her closet and dropped her wet towel to the floor, standing there naked. She was definitely more tanned now. 

“I still can’t give you all the details of the case,” she said as she rifled through her dresses—most of them short. “I’ve put you too much at risk already. But I won’t shut you out, and I’ll do my best to include you.”

I liked the sound of that—and was scared as hell by it.

Amanda pulled a couple of dresses out and turned. “Which do you think?”

She stood there, completely at ease with the nudity, and at first I couldn’t even focus on the dresses—one long, the other so short I wasn’t sure it was even a dress. I was too mesmerized by her naked body—my wife who wasn’t quite my wife anymore. I couldn’t stop staring at her large tits each time she switched dresses, too large for her slender frame. My cock twitched each time she flashed her bald gash. On her hip, there was a reverse tattoo where she must have worn a sticker in a tanning bed—a small sunburst. I wondered if that was one of the things she couldn’t talk about.

She shook the dresses, saying, “The short one or the long one?”

“Uh, sorry. The short one.”

“I thought you’d say that. You always wanted me to wear dresses like this.”

“This sounds like a trap.”

“Not a trap. Just an honest question.” She pulled on a black thong before stepping into the emerald green dress that I’d chosen, forgoing a bra. The dress was ludicrously short, skin-tight, and entirely backless, fastening behind her neck in a way that teased her side-boob.

“I… I’m not going to lie. When you’ve got a wife who looks as hot as you, I’ve definitely fantasized about you wearing something like that.”

“You never asked me to put one on,” she said. But she also understood where I was coming from.

“You would have smacked me if I did.”

There was the smile I loved so much. Her laugh was like a release valve. “Probably.”

“And now?” I asked.

“Now I may entertain the idea.” She winked before moving back into the bathroom to blow dry her hair. It was another change. I’m sure that we owned a blowdryer, but I’d never seen her use it.

I followed her in, sitting on the toilet as she finished with her hair. “Where did you learn to do that?” I asked, watching her apply her makeup with an expertise that I’d never seen from her before.

Amanda was carefully running a mascara pen along her eyelids. “YouTube,” she said, focused on herself in the mirror. “Also, Julia gave me some pointers. Does it look okay?”

She glanced at me. Her lashes looked long and sexy, and she’d put little flourishes of eyeliner at the corners of her eyes. “No, it looks really good. I’m just not used to seeing you wearing that much. And I’m… not sure how I feel.”

She picked up her lipstick, uncapping it, but didn’t apply it at first. Her look softened. “I’m glad that you’re conflicted,” she said. “That’s the man I fell for. If you weren’t, I think we’d have some real problems. I’m… I still struggle with it. With this…” She held up the lipstick. “There isn’t a day that I don’t wake up and wonder what the hell am I doing.”

“And yet you keep doing it.” I licked my lips. “Is it just to catch the bad guys?”

“Yes,” she said firmly—yet I saw the insecurity there. I lowered my head, staring at her flatly. “Yes, mostly. But I’m also discovering things about myself.”

“That you’re going to lock away in a box when this is over?” I didn’t mean to put as much bite behind the question, but it came spilling out anyway.

“I could,” she said, then added, “I think I could.”

“I don’t think you should.” I stood up and got down beside her. “I don’t think that’s healthy. For either of us.”

She nodded.

“When this is over,” I said, “we’ll talk it through. For now, do your thing.”

“Thank you,” she said, emotion threatening to undo her mascara. She took my hand in hers, our fingers entwined. Her smile was Amanda’s smile, old and new, full of love. “David, again, I’m sorry. About before. And… and I’m sorry for whatever may happen in the future. I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t know what will happen next. Just… trust me, okay?”

I wasn’t ready to do that. Not yet. But I knew what she needed to hear. “Okay. I will.”

“And…” Seemed like there was one more thing she wanted to hold onto. “And don’t trust Julia.”

Not what I was expecting. “I know you don’t like her, but she’s your handler, right? Isn’t trust kind of the name of the game?”

“It should be, yeah.” 

She left it at that, so I nodded. “Okay, sure. Don’t trust Julia.” I wasn’t sure that I trusted anyone.

Amanda finished applying her makeup as I wrestled with what she meant. We parted at the door. I hugged her tightly, kissing her gently enough that I didn’t mess up her makeup.

“I’ll see you soon, David. Don’t worry. It won’t be like before. I promise.”

I nodded.

“I love you, sweetheart,” she said. “Thank you again for being you.”

“I love you, too, Amanda.”

***

I wasn’t supposed to leave until Julia came to get me, so I hung out in Amanda’s fake apartment. My shirt was also torn open, so it wasn’t like I could leave anyway.

I took a shower of my own, clearing my head. I called in to work sick, and then wandered around her apartment, which proved surprisingly normal. There were pots and pans in the cupboard. There were bills to be paid by the door. She had a guitar propped in the corner beside a beginner’s guide to guitar on a stand.

I’m not sure what I was expecting—dildos in the shower, a sitcom set with an empty fridge and fake furniture? Instead, it was just a normal apartment that a young professional would actually live in—-a little upscale for a stripper, but not conspicuously so.

I went to the mirror again, needing to remind myself that we were still there, mixed in amongst all of the mess, our hands clasped.

I wandered into her closet, where I found a man’s clothing hanging—mostly suits with designer labels that I barely recognized. The shoes were Gucci, polished black and size 12s. It sent a wave of angsty arousal through me. I headed back out into the living room, only to find Julia there, waiting for me just inside the front door. “Done sniffing her panties?” she asked.

I hated this woman. Could I really trust her? Ignoring the comment, I said, “It’s all very convincing.”

“Amanda’s very convincing, isn’t she? You get her head on straight?”

“We had a heart-to-heart. We’re good.”

“Are you?” If I didn’t know Julia better I would have thought that she was expressing concern.

“I told her that I wanted her to be Raven, and that I want to be a part of it,” I said, simplifying everything.

“And do you?”

The second guessing was getting irritating. “What do I need to do to prove it to you, Julia?”

“Funny you should ask.” She pulled out a folder and set it on Amanda’s kitchen table. “Come sit. Let’s go over your cover…”

Part 3 will be out Tuesday, July 2 (can you believe it'll be July soon!?).