Another Moment of Promise

The cab turns crazily onto eighty-seventh street, rocking the three of them together in the back seat, not that they mind. The man, his wife, and the woman who sits between them have taken note of something chemical here, something greater than the sum of its parts, and so they quietly left the gathering together, much earlier than they anticipated. A strange, gorgeous current pulls them along, and each of them speculates silently on what will come next, in the next few minutes, in the hours that follow.

The man watches his wife, her profile made all the more dramatic by streetlights rushing past. The blonde woman between them, the subject and the object of so many unspoken questions, presses softly into his side with her many curves. And then it begins, with a gesture so simple it almost, almost, speaks of innocent intentions: the woman reaches up with one hand, tenderly pulls his cheek downward with the tips of two fingers, and barely brushes his lips with hers.

The kiss is so light and so slow that he feels the bottom of his heart fall away when his wife looks at him in the dark, then at the driver (who, strangely enough, is not watching them), then smiles, just a little.

He relaxes, closes his eyes, feels the woman's fingertips trail a path along his stubbled jaw and down the side of his neck. The woman is all curve, no lines, no angles; her softness melts into him, and he imagines what it might -- what it will -- be like when she undulates beneath him, later, while his wife watches. He imagines his wife next to them in the bed, illuminated by the streetlamps outside their window, and thinks of the mild, metallic sound the springs will make with every thrust.

The woman sighs into his mouth and leans away, toward his wife, but he can still feel her flesh pressing along his thigh. And then his wife leans in to bury her hands in the woman's hair, and she pulls the woman in to kiss, and he experiences that reckless, fallen feeling again.

He watches the way their heads move as they devour each other -- the woman kisses his wife more deeply than she'd kissed him, he notes with a little envy -- and the woman's weight shifts as she reaches for the wife, curls her arms around her waist. When the woman's lips drift into the hollow of the wife's throat, when her teeth catch the raised line of her collarbone, he watches the woman's hand trace a path underneath the wife's breast.

He remembers, with precision, the tang of sweat he's tasted there. He can practically feel the weight of that breast in his own hand, and against his chin; it makes him ache.

The cab turns again, too fast; with this momentum the woman breaks the kiss and leans back against him. He shifts a little in her direction, gets more comfortable in the seat; when his arms curl around her she lets her head drop backward to rest against his shoulder, her arm still outstretched, her fingers now tracing his wife's nipple. He takes another kiss from the woman from behind, turning her head roughly toward him and driving the tip of his tongue between her teeth.

The woman shivers, so he lingers there. He imagines that she feels overwhelmed by his body and his arms around her, and it excites him. He refuses to glance forward at the driver, doesn't want to break the spell. By now he is sure they're being watched, but doesn't want to know.

When the woman moans into his mouth, which arouses him yet more, he sees that his wife is caressing the woman openly now, not bothering with discretion. One hand traces the outer curve of a plump breast, and the other travels along the woman's slowly parting thighs, under her flowered skirt. As he watches the hand disappear he imagines his wife's fingers finding the ethereal smoothness where leg meets hip, the hollow just inside. He is certain the woman is deeply aroused, and if she is wearing panties at all, they must be so wet that they're almost pointless.

He feels the woman writhe and imagines his wife pulling her fingers away, seeing them glisten in the dim light, and raising her hand to her lips.