Chapter 6

"Now, Ted," Mary giggled, dancing back away from the wicked hand. "If you don't stop this minute, you're going to be stuck here another fifteen — and you're already late!"

Ted Dawson smiled contentedly at his wife, whose lovely form was clearly displayed through the translucent negligee by the morning light playing into the kitchen of their house. It was Monday, a week after their return from the company lodge. And, Ted reflected, a week since their lives had turned for the better.

"Can I help it if you tempt me so much?" he asked.

"Listen, Mr. Dawson, it's fifteen after nine, and you are going to have to wait until tonight ..."

Ted caught the message in her suddenly purring voice and grinned as he remembered.

"Hey, that's right. We're going to Frank and Alicia's tonight." He watched her eyes for a positive response, because he still hadn't quite awakened to the reality of his wife being as willing as he was to swap with their best friends.

"You bet we are," Mary laughed, even though her enthusiasm still sounded a little strange in her own ears. "And I think we'd better both save our energy, don't you?"

"As long as I get all the love," Ted said, with the slight continuing awkwardness caused by the newness of their situation.

"You know you do," Mary said gently, her eyes looking warmly into his. "And you always will," she said with a sudden intensity as she drew his face down to her own and kissed him fully, wetly, on the mouth.

"Now get going," she said as she drew her face back from the spell of the kiss.

When he had left, Mary set about cleaning up the breakfast dishes. While she worked she hummed happily and planned her day. Then she went back to the bathroom to shower before she dressed.

Looking in the mirror, Mary was again taken aback by the complete lack of change in her appearance, when so much else had altered about her. She still looked the same as she had two weeks before, when she had still been the innocent puritan, the self-righteous prude.

Stepping into the shower, the young blonde felt a continuing sense of unreality, as if part of her had not caught up with the rapid changes that had taken place in her life. The sudden blast of the needling streams cast her mind back to that moment a week before when she had lain huddled on the floor of the shower at the lodge thinking the world had come to an end.

When Mary had finally gotten up the courage to step from the shower, she had found Ted asleep on the bed. Relieved at not having to confront him right away with a lying smile, she had stretched out carefully beside him and fallen fast asleep.

Awakening about two hours later, she had found Ted's place on the bed empty. Ravenous, she had dared a quick walk to the kitchen for a sandwich and had been happy to run into nobody until, turning from the cabinet, she had bumped into Alicia.

Alicia had asked her what was wrong, and by that time Mary had been so close to tears for so long that she had simply broken down and started crying against Alicia's shoulder, begging the taller woman's forgiveness. Finally Alicia had managed to coax the whole story out of her distraught friend. Then the tall woman had quickly assured Mary that she was not jealous in the least, and she was sure Belle wasn't either. Mary had been surprised to hear that her raven-haired friend wasn't even demanding revenge, at least the right to sleep with Ted, and had been grateful. Mary, blushing all the while, had gone on to tell Alicia that she had overseen the Carpers and the Sturmons the night before, and she now wished that she and Ted could share that kind of pure sexual pleasure and abandon. Yet she couldn't see how to get Ted to go along without exposing the fact that she herself had already made love to the other two men.

Alicia had thought about this for a minute, then had quickly outlined a plan for that very night whereby Ted would be seduced into the group coupling, with Mary seeming to be an unwilling partner. Mary still had her doubts and reservations but she could see no other way of saving her marriage from a cancer of lies.

The plan was this: Mary would enter the bathroom and again overhear the sexual play from the next room. Again she would watch through the keyhole and begin to masturbate. Then she would call Ted in to join her, to fuck her from behind. Just when he was really getting under way, Mary would shout for him to take her in the asshole. That would be a signal to Dick and Alicia in the next room. They would open the bathroom door abruptly and invite the Dawsons to join them. Alicia had been sure that Ted would be willing. Mary herself was to pretend uncertainty and then to finally give in.

The happy young wife, a wonderful week later, turned off the tap and stepped from the shower. Contentment warmed her body even as she dried herself with the towel. The plan had worked. Ted had not found out that she had already been unfaithful to him, even though she now knew, because Alicia had told her, that Ted had been unfaithful to her at the same time. But that was all right because part of it had all been part of a larger plan, and the week that had just passed had proved the planners right. Eventually she would be able to tell Ted the whole truth, and the confident young blonde knew that it would now make no difference.

Thank God for friends like Belle and Alicia. And, of course, for friends like Frank and Dick. Mmmmmmm, yes ...