*Content note:* >!This story involves a person being punished nonconsensually by their partner(s) for misbehaving. Although the sex acts described involve at least nominal consent, there’s a lot of unwanted touching/constraint and the sex occurs in a coercive environment!<*.*
“So,” Jeff asked, “what does Clara have planned for your birthday?”
We were sitting together, along with our other coworkers, at a table in the shitty dive bar across the street from the office. This was ostensibly to celebrate my birthday, but last week it had been in honor of National Snail Appreciation Day, so it hardly felt personal. I’d already explained that I’d have to leave earlier than usual.
I’d been married to my wife Clara for a little less than a year. She was something of the envy of the group: beautiful, clever, and (at least as I told it) utterly devoted to me.
“Clara? Oh, she said she was going to have a friend over to celebrate with us,” I replied.
Luke waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “What does that mean, I wonder?”
“It’s not like that,” I said. Much as I loved Clara, she was brainy and sophisticated — not the kind of woman you asked to finger your asshole, much less talked to about a threesome. “We’re probably going to play boardgames or something.”
“Is that what they’re calling it?” said Matt with a wink. The jokes at the expense of my sex life continued, and I stifled a sigh, trying to play along. I tried to prevent my mind from drifting to Alex, the sexy barista I’d been seeing for a few months. I wondered what she was doing tonight. I fantasized about canceling on Clara and texting her, but it was only an idle whim; I hypothesized that Alex knew that I was married, maybe even got off on the fact, but I couldn’t let Clara suspect.
A few minutes later I sat in my car, key in the ignition. I pulled out my phone and looked through photos marked “Clara.” Clara, kissing me on the cheek during a graduation selfie (hers, not mine), her long black hair puddling on my shoulder. Clara, shaking a sponge at me, playfully admonishing me to do more dishes. Clara, giving some sort of cute talk to a bunch of kids about science. Clara, blowing a kiss. “Good luck on your first day,” I remembered her texting along with that one.
Then, with a twinge of guilt, I pulled up a hidden file on my phone. Alex didn’t have Clara’s delicate features, and her hair was short rather than flowing, but she was stunning in her own way. In her selfies she struck confident poses, gazing knowingly into the camera, positioning the lens just enough to reveal her substantial cleavage. Alex was my secret, I told myself. As long as I was discreet, fucking her wasn’t hurting anyone. If anything, it was helping my marriage.
I started up the car and headed home.
*
Clara must have heard the car in the driveway, because she was at the door. She wore a small black dress and uncharacteristically dark lipstick, and her wavy black hair was pulled back with a barrette. “Hey, babe,” she said. Was it my guilty conscience, or was there less warmth in her voice than usual?
I kissed her on the cheek, kicking my shoes off. “Is your friend here yet?”
“She’s in the dining room,” Clara responded.
She. Clara’s workplace was male-dominated, like mine. I knew she had women friends, but I couldn’t think who was close enough to come over for a birthday dinner.
Clara took my hand and pulled me into the dining room. There, at the table, was Alex. “Hi, Steve,” she said.
*
Panicked, I tried to leave the room, but Clara’s grip on my wrist tightened. “Oh, no, you don’t,” she said. Turning to Alex, she said, “Told you he’d try to run. He’s an avoidant fucker.”
Alex laughed. “Yeah, I got that impression, too. Hang on a sec.” She rummaged around in her purse. “Can you sit him down?”
With surprising strength, Clara dragged me to a chair. After a moment, Alex produced some rope. While Clara held down my shoulders, Alex deftly crafted two pairs of cuffs, which she used to tie me to the chair by my wrists and ankles. “What the fuck, Alex,” I said.
“Using me to cheat was a mistake,” Alex responded, planting a kiss on my forehead. “I don’t mind sharing, but lying isn’t cool. I won’t be complicit in that shit.” She returned to her chair.
“What was I supposed to do?” I asked, wriggling around. Alex’s knots were effective and seemed to get tighter the more I struggled.
“You could have talked to me, to begin with,” Clara interjected, hand still on my shoulder. “I asked you about nonmonogamy several times and you were always evasive.”
“I thought those were just intellectual exercises!” I said. It wasn’t completely true — I just couldn’t bring myself to communicate to Clara that my desires were so base, so lowly.
Clara leaned over me, her hair falling into my face as she spoke. “I don’t buy that,” she replied. “You know what I think? I think you liked the lie. I think it made you feel powerful.”
“I agree,” Alex chimed in. “You never seemed to have a problem talking about sex with me; but Clara here tells me you avoided her many attempts to broach the topic. We had a name for that in my gender studies class: the madonna/whore complex.”
“I am no madonna,” Clara said. Her voice was cool, and her tone was one I had never heard from her before.
“And, much as I support sex workers and their labor struggles,” said Alex, “I’m no whore.”
Source: reddit.com/r/sexystories/comments/udw248/my_wife_and_girlfriend_found_out_about_each_other