Learning Lessons // Book 5 // Laid Bare: Chapter 3

Petey asked her: “What’s this bowl?”

“Yeah, what’s this bowl?” Andy imitating his brother.

“What do you mean?” Jess said, knowing what they meant.

“Where’s our favorite bowls?”

It was pasta night tonight. Straight spaghetti for the boys, fettuccine for Tyler and Jess and Pete.

Jess looked over from the stove, saw Petey and Andy looking at the new bowls she’d bought. They weren’t happy. Practically the same bowls, maybe a little smaller and a different color.

“I threw them out, boys, I bought you better ones.”

“Threw them out? Why?”

“It was just time for new bowls, all right,” she said, dropping fettuccine into the new bowls for the rest of them. She’d put the old bowl back after she’d shaved Tyler, cleaned it with bleach; then, standing at recess today, she’d had a virtual panic attack. She could let the bowls sit in bleach for a year and it couldn’t erase the image of Tyler’s big, slippery cock and his heavy balls practically filling up the bowl. It was one bowl out of six. Russian Roulette. Who was going to be eating from the cock bowl?

So she stopped at the Save-Mart on the way home, frantic, bought the best ones she could. She’d taken the old ones from the cupboard and put them in the garbage. Then she’d tied it up, and dropped it on the garage floor a few times, made sure the bowls were cracked and broken in there.

“I like these bowls better,” she said and brought dinner over for Tyler and Pete—both of them oblivious to this conversation, to the implication. Tyler might have figured it out but he wasn’t paying attention.

The boys dropped it, and she was thankful. She had too much on her mind. She couldn’t even eat. She’d nibbled while she cooked, and that was going to be enough. She watched the four men in her life gulp their food down, resting her elbows on the counter.

Petey asked her: “You’re not eating, Mom?” He was so attentive. So in tune with how other people felt. He was the greatest kid.

“No, Petey. I think I ate too much already while I was cooking.” She wouldn’t tell him about the butterflies in her stomach. How his mommy was going to pull the craziest stunt of her life tonight. She wasn’t going to mention that her belly was so tight in anticipation that food could not pass. It would fall right back out of her mouth.

“You looking forward to staying at your Auntie Patty’s tonight?”

“Mmm,” Petey hummed, brow furrowed. He looked nervous.

She sensed that there had been some sort of falling out between Petey and Jacob. Little boy stuff. They would work it out.

“Do I have to go, Mom?”

“Yes, Petey. You always have such a good time.”

“Why can’t I stay here? Where are you going?”

Jess turned to the table, bit the inside of her lower lip. She could see the beaten slope of her husband’s shoulders as he slumped over the table eating his dinner, his back to her. He wasn’t helping. Tyler had checked out. Either really disinterested in the whole thing or worried that this family stuff could kill the mood, stifle an erection.

Tyler was as hard to figure sometimes as her husband. What was he doing here? Why was he still here? He was young and handsome. Incredibly fit. Obscenely hung. Shouldn’t he be out all the time, meeting people his own age? He never talked about being fired. Not seriously. Only to defend himself, say they were in the wrong. Was he really hurting from this? She had started to suspect that he was. That he was getting some sort of spiritual nourishment living with her family.

“Petey, we just have some grown-up things to do tonight. Obligations. We won’t be here for you, kiddo. It’s almost near bedtime, anyway. You’ll get there and before you know it you’ll be asleep, okay? Then I’ll pick you up first thing in the morning.”

Petey didn’t answer. He kept eating. A little more slowly, pensively. He nodded.

Andy watched his brother. Whatever Petey would do, Andy would do. Ultimately, it didn’t matter what they wanted. They couldn’t be here. She needed one night for herself. Needed things to not be difficult. Everyone performing their parts.

This had been a tough week. They were getting close to the time that Tyler should be leaving, and she hadn’t had a real chance to be with him. She brought him in because it was the right thing to do, but she wanted more. She had an ulterior motive. It wasn’t hidden. Tyler knew it, and Pete definitely knew it. It hadn’t happened, though. And being so close, so familiar with Tyler, had put a real fire between her legs. To sit on the couch with him, see him in the morning in his tight t-shirt, watching him work out, running into him in their narrow halls, wishing she would get a chance to be with him . . . But it never happened. Not until yesterday. Shaving Tyler had been incredibly erotic. More exciting than she’d anticipated. And the blowjob? Well, that was almost entirely for Pete. She enjoyed every minute of it, but tonight was what she really wanted. Ached for. She wanted to be pounded. To feel him hurt her between her legs; punish her girl parts. Feel his hot, hard cock naked inside her. Feel his muscle under her fingers, taste his lips—feel his seed.

“Come on, boys. Let’s get your things together, grab your gear.”

“All right, Mom,” Petey said. He was going to go even if he didn’t want to. He hung his head while she walked him and Andy down the hall.

She couldn’t believe her luck when Patty took her aside at the Halloween Party. Patty wanted to know if Jess could take Jacob and Tammy for an overnight on the weekend of the twelfth. Of course, Patty, she told her, then without the slightest hesitation, asked, Would you take mine on the Fourth? Patty said, This Friday? Yeah, sure, why? Jess gave her a pained expression, said, Don’t ask—it’s just a lot, you know? She shook her head, acted like it was too hard to explain. Patty said, Yeah, I can’t imagine.

*

Pete couldn’t shake the worried look his sister had given him when he’d dropped the boys off. The guilt he felt was enormous. It was just a sleepover to the boys, but it was bigger than that for Pete. He needed them out of the house so he could watch his wife with her lover. It was a terrible thing. Could Patty read it on his face? Suspect that something strange was up? What would his sister think? More likely that Patty would assume there was trouble between Pete and Jess. That they needed some house-time to have a real shouting match. Didn’t want the kids to hear that. After all, Pete’s wife had invited another man into their home—it would seem natural that her husband would find it too much. Were there holes in his game? Was it possible that his sister could figure out what was really happening? Had Pete let something slip somewhere along the way, had Jess ever let something slip? What would his sister think of him? How mad would she be at him? He would be mortified.

Pete got out of his Buick, looked up at the eighteen-hundred square-foot two-story he and Jess had been living in since they were married. Could see his bedroom was dark, but the light in the master bathroom was on. Jess was getting ready. The light was on in the garage, two pill-shaped windows in the gray-painted roll-up, bright white in the dark. When he walked up the path to the door he could see into the garage through the narrow windows in the brick wall. Tyler was in there, working up a sweat. Pete watched him, one of those cannonballs with the handles in each hand, curling them, alternating right, then left. Tyler shone with sweat; his arms were pumped, glistening, bulging—his veins stood out, crisscrossing under the dark lines of his tattoos.

He didn’t know if he could ever get rid of the image of his sweet Jess sucking that big cock of Tyler's until it came inside her mouth. She just seemed to enjoy it so much. He knew she got off on teasing him. He could tell there was a piece of Jess thrilled by knowing Pete wanted her to do it, wanted to watch her perform—but that mostly it wounded him deeply. She performed it perfectly, too. Surgical precision, slicing her blade right through the tough meat of his leathery heart. She had prepared Tyler, shaved him. Slice. She teased Tyler, kept his orgasm at bay; playful, devious. Slice. She had a surprise ending; she let Tyler defile her mouth. Slice. Another surprise: she liked Tyler's taste. Slice. She turned Tyler into a high-school bully, and herself into the pretty cheerleader. Slice. She kissed Pete on his lips leaving the traces of her lover’s seed on him. Slice, slice, slice. She’d dissected him.

When he had made this arrangement with her, confessed to the woman he loved—the mother of his children—his deepest, darkest desires, he had no expectation Jess would be so good at tuning into his hurt, his pain. She had twisted his knob, found the frequency, and the signal was loud and clear. She got it. She either loved him so much she wanted this for him, or he was finding out that part of Jess really did hate him.

He poured himself a whisky once he was in the house, shoes off, Sargent out in the yard. He took a sip and looked around the dark kitchen. He smiled. He couldn’t feel the dread. It wasn’t there right now. It could, of course, jump out of the shadows at any moment, but right now, when he concentrated, he realized all he could feel was excitement. Anticipation. He felt like tonight Jess had brought him back into the fold. They were a couple again. This was for them both. Tonight he was going to watch the woman he loved receive pleasure. He couldn’t wait to hear her make those noises again. That kid in the garage with the big biceps was going to fuck his wife, make her scream, make her come. He was happy for her.

He went upstairs to the bedroom, heard the hiss of the shower. He leaned in the bathroom doorway, pushed open the door wider with a middle finger. He saw the flesh-colored shape of his wife behind the frosted vinyl curtain. Saw her head turned up, facing the shower head, saw the movement of her arms as she scrubbed herself, one leg bent. He felt aroused watching, even though he couldn’t make out a single detail. But he knew all those details. Didn’t need to see them. He knew what Jess felt like under his hands, knew what she smelled like, how she liked his tongue between her legs. She hadn’t been with him now for almost two weeks. Part of her game. He knew it. The message: Why fuck you when I have a big-dick stud? Don’t waste my time. The torture was exquisite. He didn’t deserve her. Tyler did. Or Jess deserved Tyler, more accurately.