Stella: Just this one time

It was foolishness, I know that now. If I were to try to justify it, to explain it, it would sound too much like a silly cliché. Tired wife, two small children, husband always at work.

Loneliness.

And daydreaming, too, as I bathe the little ones and get ready to put them to bed, and they growl and squeal under my hands, and I imagine what it’s like to escape it all for a small, brief moment. I long to disappear for a moment, to live the life of someone else, bolder, freer. To step into the romantic scene of my favourite show, dressed like my favourite character, talking like my favourite character, acting like my favourite character. And above all, that’s exactly how I feel.

Of course, every housewife does.

That’s how I explain to myself that I did that stupid thing. A small, unintentional mistake that can’t be undone, but one that I’ll run to instead of fictional stories in soap operas.

His name was David. At least that’s what he told me.

He was different, different from my husband, the man I would lie down with at night and wake up before his alarm went off to take care of our brood. David is tall, thin, a little older than my husband, and he doesn’t look so angry.

I met him at the gym.

The two hours twice a week that I allow myself to reserve for myself, the time when my husband breaks away from work and goes home to watch the kids or sends his mother to do it for him, I go to the gym to unwind, to get a glimpse of the adult-only world. Two hours with no crying, no demanding, no screaming, two hours with no fairy tales or wet diapers.

Two hours where I feel sexy and desirable, even in sweaty leggings and a short top. It’s not angry sweating, it’s not exhaustion, or stress, it’s pure endorphin and wonderful muscle fatigue and clear head. A state of mind where I think anything is possible, that I’m bound only by my own web of preconceptions, and it was at this stupid moment that I thought of the stupid thing and put a note in David’s towel that he had folded before the workout.

I know, it’s a stupid thing that only works in romantic movies. I had no idea if David liked me, hell, I had no idea if he even knew I existed. I felt a little embarrassed, so I turned around and practised with my back to him so I wouldn’t see his reaction. But I imagine he was about to put his towel on the bench to practice bench when a little pink slip fell out, torn from my notebook.

Did he look surprised? Amused? Annoyed? Confused?

But for all I knew, he approached me. I had just been working out with triceps weights, knee propped up on the bench, butt out, and I know I have a very nice butt.

“Stella?” He said.

I froze. I couldn’t turn around, the barbell was stiff in a position where it was going to hurt soon, but I didn’t notice. Luckily he noticed and gently pried the barbell out of my hand, placing it on the floor in front of me, and this time our eyes met and he smiled. He had very dark eyes and hair and a swarthier complexion, looking like a Spaniard.

The note said: Do you want one? I do. Stella.

Just this. I don’t even know what movie it was from, or maybe it was a TV show. I could feel the excitement just writing the note, my hand was shaking a little. I wasn’t thinking. I love my husband, and out of respect for him, I don’t write his name. It’s been so long since another man touched me. It’s been so long since I’ve heard anything but those same words while my husband and I made love quietly under the covers in case the older baby walked in, afraid the locked door would scare him away.

It’s been a long time since absolutely everyone in my life was more important than myself.

David leans toward me. Just close enough not to break our eye contact, but close enough that I’m the only one who hears his low, guttural, “I want to. A lot.”

He took my hand, and I didn’t have time to protest. I didn’t have time to tell him that it was all just like, it was an innocent game and he’d gotten it wrong. He took my hand and led me away, and I watched the people working out at the gym, terrified, to see if they noticed us. If they saw David taking me away, but no one paid any attention to us. No one cared.

I felt both excitement and fear. My body trembled and I felt lust, lust. Fear? I don’t know what exactly. Probably that my husband would find out. Of telling him myself. Or of David? A man I only see fleetingly, muscular body straining under baggy singlet, sweaty chest, sweaty back, with whom I’ve never even exchanged a few words.

I’m not afraid he’s a pervert. That he’ll do something to me I don’t want. I don’t. On the contrary. I’m afraid he’ll be awfully nice, afraid he’ll listen to me instead of complaining about his idiot boss at work. I’m scared he’ll hold my hand in his and look me in the eye the way he did when he came up to me and whispered that he wanted me.

I’m almost certain that if we had made an appointment for later, I would have backed out. I would have realized that I have two fucking amazing kids and a loving husband and I don’t want to lose them.

“A friend lives two blocks away,” David whispered. “I have keys.”

I was incapable of resistance.

When he unlocked the door of someone else’s apartment, I could still change my mind. What if David gets rude? What if he lunges at me and does it to me, quickly and without regard for whether I like it? What if I’m unfaithful and still feel humiliated and violated?

I think I’d like that. For the audacity, for the stupidity.

But David was anything but a selfish lover.

He poured me a glass of Chardonnay, then sat down next to me on the big grey couch, took my hand and told me I had the most beautiful brown eyes he’d ever seen. I thought he was going to kiss me, but he leaned in close, stroked my cheek, took a lock of my hair between his fingers, and gently asked.

“Who are you?”

“You know,” I replied, confused. “Stella.”

He shook his head.

“Who’s the woman who leaves invitation slips at the gym?”

I didn’t know what to say to him. Explain to him that I’d never done this before? I’d look stupid and naive. That I do it sometimes? It’s weird, but I guess I’m more comfortable being a slut who knows how to ask for it than I am being a dumb homeboy who wanted to cut a cheesy, cheesy scene from a dumb romantic comedy live.

“The question is whether you get messages like that often,” I retorted.

He smiled, then the smile grew into a laugh, and he laughed genuinely. Then he ran a finger over his growing moustache and this time leaned down to kiss me.

His lips were dry and soft.

“I’d say,” he whispered in my ear, I could feel his breath on my skin, his lips touching my hair, “that this is the first time we’ve both been in this. What are we going to do about it? Do we keep dreaming? Can I include your beautiful breasts in the dream I’ll remember? Will you show them to me?”

I opened my lips, but no sound came out.

He was already taking the top off my workout outfit. I don’t normally wear a bra, I have smaller, firm breasts, but I wear a tightening bra to the gym.

So my breasts were bigger than he expected and he took them in his hands, kneaded them, then took one nipple between his lips and sucked.

I didn’t know what to do with my hands. Does he expect me to take off his pants and take it in my hands? I’m not used to this, it was always my husband who took the initiative and was practically always hard. So there I sat, a glass of wine in one hand, my naked breasts bared and David telling me I had beautiful breasts.

He takes the glass from me, puts it on the table. Then he gets up, takes my legs and gently lifts them up, turns me around and lays me on my back on the full length of the couch like an altar. He kneels down in front of me.

“You are beautiful,” he says. His voice is gentle, so foreign and yet so familiar.

He unties the laces of my sneakers and then takes off my white socks. He gently lifts each foot in turn and kisses my toes. He lifts himself up, he’s on top of me now, and I arch my hips. I want him. I wish he would stop touching me gently, I want him to take me, to dominate me.

David gently caresses my naked stomach and continues through the thin shorts, his fingers stopping unceremoniously at my crotch, finding where my labia meet through the fabric and running his index finger there. As he does so, he looks into my eyes, his lips parted.

I can’t help it. I close my eyes and let out a moan.

It’s not that his touch turns me on so much. It’s that he’s touching me too gently and I want more.

He’ll understand. He’ll sense it. Or he wants and needs more himself.

He grabs my shorts at the hip area and pulls them and my panties down, then pulls the piece of cloth down over my legs until he pulls them over my hookers and throws them away.

I’m lying completely naked in front of him and he’s still fully clothed.

My hands are placed along my body, waiting. My body is taut as a spring and I can feel the wetness of my own vagina in the air. He must be feeling it too, his nostrils are gently twitching.

I wait for him to run his hand between my legs and this time, without any cloth as a barrier, he’ll slip his fingers inside, open me up and play with me. But he won’t. He’s still looking at me and I don’t know how to ask for it. How to tell him I need it. Now that things have gone this far, there’s no point in backing down and preserving my vestiges of loyalty to my husband.

David, still bent over me, takes my legs again and lifts them. I let him. I don’t know his intentions, but I know I want him to do something. Now. Now. And he bends those legs and lets one of my feet fall off the couch to make room for himself.

He manages to pull his shorts down in one swift motion and then he’s lying on top of me, and I feel his hard, hard cock thrusting right into me.

I move, relaxing and letting him slide in even deeper.

Before he comes for the first time, David kisses me on the lips. Hot, hot, passionate. Then he comes. It hurts a little, I’m not used to his size, his shape. I’m not used to David at all, but my vagina quickly adjusts and accepts him.

He doesn’t wait.

He’s coming.

I can feel his hot breath on my face, his hands playing with my breasts. He grunts, he smiles, it’s intimate, it’s exciting. I feel him all over me, he’s hard and insistent and I relax.

For a brief moment it’s just the two of us, me and David. There is nothing else, there is nothing else.

He whispers how beautiful I am, how beautiful my body is. How he wants me, how he’s wanted me for so long but didn’t dare. He thanks me for finding the courage to reach out to him and I wish he would keep quiet, I just want to savor the moment.

He lets his right hand slide from my breasts, heading lower, over my sweaty belly, stopping only with his thumb on my clit. He runs the pad of his finger over it, and the arousal that has been consuming becomes completely unbearable in that moment.

I close my eyes, I have to, in that moment everything engulfs me and something explodes, it’s pleasure, it’s lust, it’s desire and it burns me, it grips my insides and I climax. It lasts a moment or it lasts forever. I don’t know.

Then I regain control of myself.

I open my eyes and look at David’s face, he has a satisfied smirk on it. He still nods, but for me the spell has worn off. Now it’s just a stranger in a sweaty T-shirt, a stranger’s face that’s uncomfortably close to mine.

I close my eyes again. I wait it out. His movements quicken, I feel his spasms inside me, hear his heckling, and then I stay lying there, feeling the wetness on my stomach where he came. Finally, I stop feeling his body on top of me.

I get up and find the bathroom. I take a quick shower.

When I walk back into the room, I find David sprawled contentedly on the couch, his eyes closed. Maybe he’s asleep, maybe he’s just resting, his chest still heaving.

I pick up my outerwear from the floor and find both of my discarded shoes. My purse is still next to the door where I put it. I quickly get dressed, quietly slam the door behind me, and run down the stairs. I run out of the house and walk quickly to my car, parking right in front of the gym.

I find my key in my purse, click it and the car flashes as it unlocks. Before I get in, I see a dumpster nearby.

I rummage through my purse, find the gym member card, and throw it in the trash can.

I get in and drive away. None of this happened. It was just a dream, it was a scene from a romantic movie that didn’t even come close.

It’s just that.

How about a cheeky donation? Just this one time—make it the best time!