Tell Me Everything Read online

  We were still kissing when Ella came tromping down the back stairs and into the kitchen. She was in pajamas, a pair of blue shorts and a matching top. Her curls were pulled into a messy bun.

  “Oh my god, gross!” she said. “Seriously, guys. Get a room, okay? Nobody needs to see that.”

  “What, this?” I said, teasing her. I gave Jake another full-on kiss, making fake groaning noises as I did. Jake laughed against my mouth, but joined in on putting on the show for Ella.

  “Oh, baby,” he said in a fake, swoony voice. “Kiss me harder!”

  “Ewwww!” Ella said as she opened the fridge and grabbed a raspberry seltzer. “Stop!”

  “Stop what?” Tucker asked, as he entered the kitchen, too. He was wearing sweatpants and a red T-shirt. His normally gel-spiked black hair was soft and flat after taking a shower.

  “They were making out,” Ella said. She screwed up her face.

  “Gross,” Tucker commented.

  “That’s what I said!” Ella laughed, and the rest of us did, too. Jake and I had never purposely shied away from kissing or hugging in front of the kids, but thinking it about, now, I realized that Jake had often pulled away from me, almost reflexively, when they would walk in the room, in order to focus on what they needed. But tonight, he hadn’t. It felt good to show them what a healthy, loving, adult relationship looked like in terms of physical affection. I never wanted them to feel the same kind of shame I did the night my parents walked in on Ryan and me.

  Jake released me from his embrace. “Is the pizza all gone?” he asked, grabbing my hand and pulling me around the island toward the stairs.

  “There are a few pieces left,” Tucker said.

  “Dibs!” Jake said. He let go of me and raced up the stairs.

  “Not if I get there first!” Tucker yelled. He spun around and chased after his step-dad.

  Ella and I grabbed a bag of cheddar popcorn and a package of cookies from the pantry. A few minutes later, we were all settled on the large sectional couch in the family room, eating junk food and watching some mindless teenage melodrama the kids had picked out. My thoughts raced with images from our experience with Will, from the subsequent encounters Jake and I had had since that night, and I shivered.

  Jake put his arm over my shoulders to pull me closer, and nuzzled my ear. “You good, baby?” he asked.

  I turned to look him straight in the eye. I felt more than good. “I want to do it,” I said, under my breath, so the kids wouldn’t hear. “Alone.”

  THE weekend went by quickly, with Saturday morning games and afternoon chores. I spent Sunday morning preparing for an open house, and then the afternoon chatting up potential buyers as they strolled through to check out the property. Half of them were looky-loos—occupants of nearby houses taking advantage of the opportunity to snoop through their neighbor's home—but at least three agents confirmed that they would send me an offer by the end of the day.

  The next morning, after the offers were in and the highest had been accepted by my clients, I decided to do a little research on this new development in our sex life. I had my suspicions, but wanted to know more about what it meant to experience this kind of intense arousal from a clearly non-traditional behavior. Were there a lot of other people out there who enjoyed this? Or was there something twisted about our reaction, about our relationship, about us?

  I opened a search engine, and posed my fingers over my keyboard, unsure of what to type. I could search for information about threesomes, and I was sure a ton of links—most of them porn—would come up, but it was more the dynamic of me being with Will alone and telling Jake about it later that I was anxious to know more about. That, I couldn’t name.

  After a moment, I typed in the only thing I could think of: “Men who like to hear about their wives having sex with another man,” and a long list of articles and blog posts came up, most of them including one of two terms: “hot wife” or “cuckoldry.” I clicked on the first one that caught my eye, entitled, “The Psychology of the Hot Wife,” and began to read, relieved to learn that it was fairly common for a man to fantasize about his wife having sex with another man. The author, a sex therapist, stated that most people expect that a husband would feel threatened by and jealous of such an experience, and wouldn’t get why he was aroused by it. The article explained that heightened arousal from this particular sexual dynamic was due to the “sperm competition reaction.” Basically, if another man puts his sperm into a man’s wife, one very straightforward method of trying to ensure that the other man’s sperm doesn’t impregnate her would be to fill her with his own. The human penis, the article said, was designed to work as a suction pump when thrust in and out of a vagina, the glans around the penis basically scraping another man’s sperm out of a woman’s body.

  “Holy shit,” I murmured, finding it fascinating that at least for Jake, biology was at least part of the reason he was so turned on by watching me with Will.

  I copied the link and emailed it to Jake, with the subject line: YOU HAVE TO READ THIS, and then clicked on one of the recommended articles about cuckoldry at the bottom of the post. But as soon as I read that most women in a cuckold dynamic got off on humiliating their husbands by sleeping with other men and then telling their spouse how much better a sex partner the other man was, I went back to the first article, because nothing about what I experienced with Jake and Will had to do with humiliation. Nor did I want it to. Even if I slept with Will on my own and came back home to tell Jake every little detail, it would be for pleasure to be experienced together, not about making Jake feel like he wasn’t enough.

  As I was about to click on another link, I got a return email from Jake. “Interesting. So, I guess you’re a hot wife.” The words were followed by a devil-horned emoji. “Isn’t that what I’ve been telling you all these years?”

  I smiled, and wrote back: “Flattery will get you everywhere.” His compliments meant more to me, now that he was backing them up. For the most part, since our night with Will, I’d stopped keeping track of who had initiated sex, because it no longer seemed to matter who reached out first. What mattered was that we didn’t seem to be able to get enough of each other.

  My phone rang, then, and I had to stop reading, but I bookmarked the article. “Hi, this is Jessica,” I said, absentmindedly as I put my cell to my ear.

  “Jessica! It’s Tiffany!”

  “Oh, hi, Tiff,” I said, part of me wishing I’d checked my caller ID. She tended to be chatty, and I’d already wasted enough time online. I needed to get to work.

  “What are you up to?” she said, brightly.

  I paused. I’m doing research about why it’s so hot to fuck a man other than my husband, Tiff. What about you?

  “I’m at the office,” I said, instead. “Can I help you with something?”

  “Well, I know you weren’t at the bake sale planning meeting—”

  I coughed. “Yeah. Sorry about that. I had to show a property in Issaquah that night.” What I’d actually had was an extra glass of wine with dinner so driving wasn’t an option. Not to mention the fact that if I’d shown up with booze on my breath, a few of the moms of Queens Ridge—possibly including Tiffany—would be buzzing about my need for rehab within the week.

  “That’s fine. But I wanted to keep you in the loop, in case you still wanted to be part of it.”

  “When is it, again?” I asked, tucking my phone between my shoulder and ear so I could use my right hand to navigate to my online calendar. With the inordinate number of social events the kids’ middle school had throughout the year, they needed a calendar all their own.

  “Day after tomorrow,” she said. “We still need two gluten and sugar-free batches of cookies. Do you think you can handle that for me?”

  I grit my teeth at the slight condescension in her tone—I wasn’t her bake-sale-bitch. Still, with my years of practice dealing with sometimes-snippy clientele, I managed to remain polite. “Sure, I’d be happy to.”

  “I�
��d do it, but my mom fell and broke her wrist last night, so I’m swamped helping her out.”

  “That’s awful,” I said, feeling bad for how I’d reacted to the way she’d worded her request. She was probably just stressed. “Is she okay?”

  “Other than complaining a lot, yeah,” Tiffany said, in a tired voice. “I’ve ordered a meal delivery service for her for the next couple of months, and a cleaning company to come take care of the house, but nothing I do seems to be good enough. It’s like she forgets I’ve done anything, at all.”

  “I can relate,” I said, feeling an unexpected thread of connection form between us. “Your dad’s not around?”

  “He’s out of the picture,” she said, in a way that made it clear the subject wasn’t one she wanted to discuss. I didn’t know much about Tiffany’s upbringing, but that was only because I’d never bothered to ask. I made a mental note to make a better effort to actually talk with her at school functions, maybe even ask her to coffee.

  “I’ll bring the cookies with me when I drop off the kids on Wednesday morning,” I said. “If I can rearrange a few meetings, I’ll try to stay a while and help out.”

  “That would be great,” she said, in a softer tone. “And oh, while I have you, have you heard about this new app everyone’s talking about? It’s called ‘Neighbors.’ Everyone in Queens Ridge is signing up. It’s used to discuss community issues and events. There’s also a want-ads section, so you could use it to post about the houses you’re selling, too. My girlfriend in West Seattle told me about it. It sends notifications when someone posts something, and you can respond publicly or privately. It’s a fab way for everyone to stay connected.”

  “Sounds great,” I said, actually intrigued by the want ad section. I was always looking for another way to market properties or find new clientele. “Can you send me the link?”

  “You can look it up in the app store on your phone and create a log in. I’m the moderator for Queens Ridge, so I’ll approve you right away!”

  I thanked her, and we hung up, and as the app downloaded, I texted Charlotte. “Tiffany needs me to bring two batches of gluten-free, sugar free cookies to the bake sale Wednesday. HELP?!?”

  She wrote back almost instantly. “I got you, girl. My baker will knock them out for you along with the vegan brownies she’s making for me!”

  “Thanks, lady!” One of the benefits to being best friends with an event planner was her unlimited access to vendors who were willing to help her out in a pinch. I liked to bake, but I didn’t have time to fuss over the dietary requirements. “Cocktail date later this week?”

  “Yes, please!” she replied, followed by a long line of x’s and o’s.

  I had a stack of forms in my inbox that I needed to get through before I met new clients for lunch at noon. But I kept going back to everything I’d read about the “hot wife” practice, cycling through the facts over and over again, looking at them from different angles. Having learned even a little bit about why Jake and I both might be reacting so strongly to this dynamic, I started to feel more excited about fucking Will without Jake there. We weren’t freaks; we weren’t mindlessly responding to our more primal impulses. Jake and I didn’t have to indulge this particular fantasy. In fact, I imagined many might say that indulging it was wrong—that once a couple got married, they should only have sex with each other. But since we both wanted to explore this experience, why shouldn’t we? We weren’t religious, and because Will was single, we weren’t breaking up anyone else’s relationship. As long as we were thoughtful and safe, if we continued to communicate and check in about our feelings, playing out this fantasy might actually be good for our marriage. It felt like it already was.

  I picked up my phone again, staring at Charlotte’s text. Everything in me was burning to talk with her about Will, about how incredibly empowered and sexy and strong I’d felt after what I’d done with him and Jake. It was a high like I’d never felt before, and I wanted to tell my best friend every detail. But I still worried that my having sex with Will—especially now that I was planning to do it without Jake there—might strike too close to the idea of infidelity for Charlotte, triggering painful memories of Alex. She’d worked too hard to put those behind her; I wasn’t going to be the one to bring them back up.

  No, I couldn’t tell her. Talking about it with anyone would be too much of a risk.

  Nine

  I walked into the Tipsy Sailor at quarter past eight on Friday night, hoping that Charlotte hadn’t been waiting for me too long. It was rare for her to not be working an event on a Friday, but she’d recently hired a manager whom she said was more than capable of handling the 75-guest wedding her company had been hired to plan.

  “The bride is fifty,” she’d texted me. “The groom is twenty-eight. Robbing the cradle, much? And can you imagine the sex? Lucky bitch.”

  Now, I scanned the nautically-themed bar, which was a tad cheesy, but the only non-national chain establishment in Queens Ridge that served a decent vodka martini. It was the place Jake and I would have stopped if we hadn’t made the impulsive decision to have a drink at the Cove last month. I couldn’t believe it had already been six weeks since we met Will, and two since we went back with him to his apartment. I’d emailed him to set up a time for just the two of us to get together, and we had decided on Saturday night, since the kids would be at Peter’s, but then my mother called and said my dad had back-to-back surgeries at the hospital all weekend so she wanted to fly in from Boise and see her grandchildren. I couldn’t exactly tell her she wasn’t welcome because I had plans to have sex with another man and then come home and tell Jake all about it. Instead, Will and I rescheduled for the following Saturday, and for the rest of the week, when I wasn’t working, I cleaned the house and snapped at the kids to pick up their shit in preparation for my mother’s scrutiny.

  I heard my name called out behind me, and turned to see Charlotte already sitting at a table in the corner of the bar. I smiled and waved, then made my way over to her, teetering a bit on the heels I’d decided to wear, having eschewed the sensible flats and two inch pumps I’d taken to several years back for practicality and comfort. I liked the way the higher heels made my hips sway when I moved; it reminded me of the short walk I’d taken down the hallway to Will’s bedroom, the way I’d been acutely conscious of his and Jake’s eyes on my ass.

  “Hello, gorgeous,” a man said to me, as I passed by his table, where he sat alone. He was older, probably in his early sixties, with silver hair and tan skin etched with lines, but he had an irresistible twinkle in his blue eyes, which he used to quickly look me over from head to toe. “Buy you a drink?”

  I smiled, and shook my head, flattered by the compliment. Other than Will, I couldn’t remember the last time a stranger had hit on me out of the blue like that. “Thank you, though.”

  He lifted his drink. “My loss.”

  “Oh no,” I said. “I’m positive it’s mine.”

  He smiled, and my cheeks flushed as I made my way to the corner. Where had that come from? “Sorry I’m late,” I said, dropping into the chair across from Charlotte. “Ella forgot her laptop so I had to run it down to Peter’s house. She needs to do her homework tonight, before her grandma gets here.” Peter and I had agreed to swap weekends so the kids could spend time with my mom, but he still wanted them to spend Friday with him. However mismatched he and I had been as a couple, I couldn’t fault his commitment as a father. He was never late on his child support payments, nor did he flinch when I asked him to pitch in on things that fell outside of normal costs, like summer camp or medical bills. He had followed through on his vow to be a more present, involved parent than either of us had had, both of us ever-focused on what was best for our kids.

  “No worries,” Charlotte said, taking a sip of her drink. She waved for the server, and I ordered a top-shelf vodka martini. “Loving the curls, by the way.” She gestured toward my head. Her top was dark green, and her shock of red hair was, as usual, stra
ight and smooth.

  “Thanks,” I said, reaching up to touch my hair. “Jake says they make me look like I just got fucked.” I laughed, and Charlotte did, too.

  Our server arrived with my drink, and Charlotte waited for him to leave before giving me a pointed look. “Okay. You two are obviously having way more sex than you used to. What gives? Are you sneaking Viagra into his coffee?”

  I was in the middle of taking a sip of my drink when she said this, and I almost spit it out. “Uh, no. No Viagra. But yeah. Lots of sex.” I grinned, unable to keep the gleam from my eyes.

  “I’m so jealous! You said he’d been spending more time with the kids than between your legs. What changed?”

  I shrugged, having to bite my tongue to keep from telling her the truth. “We just...started talking more.”

  “About what?”

  “Our sex life. What really turns us on.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m not telling you that.”

  “Why not? Is it weird shit? Does he like things up his butt or something?”

  I laughed, loudly enough that the people at the table a few feet away from us turned to look at me. “Jesus, Charlotte!”

  “What?” she said, innocently. “It’s not like I’d judge him if he did.”

  I shook my head, still chuckling. “He likes the idea of having a threesome,” I said, deciding I could trust her with at least that. If it remained a hypothetical, maybe it wouldn’t upset her.

  Charlotte rolled her brown eyes. “Please. Every man on the planet has that fantasy. Two women, pretending to be lipstick lesbians for their enjoyment. Live-action porn.”

  “No,” I said. I took a measured breath. “Two men, and me.”

  “So, like a bi thing?” Charlotte tilted her head. “He wants to play with another guy’s dick?”

  I laughed again. “No!”

  “What? I had a boyfriend in my twenties who was straight, but told me he occasionally liked to trade oral with other guys for the kink of it,” Charlotte said. “Not when we were together, of course.” Her expression changed, and I knew she was thinking about Alex, of the many women he’d been with while professing his loyalty and love to her.