Page 27 of Watch Me

As the years went on, we learned to be more ethical in our collaborations, and, until I married Rebecca, David and I had our fair number of threesomes and participated in more role-playing than any of our friends could ever guess at. At one point, my kink of voyeurism dovetailed nicely with David’s girlfriend’s kink of cuckolding, and on several occasions, I participated in their sex life by sitting in the corner and watching them fuck. Not something the other guys in our group—already settling down with wives, kids, and Costco memberships—could have even dreamed of. Not something a lot of guys could have dreamed of, period.

“I can’t get her out of my head,” I admit, staring straight ahead and not looking at him. “There’s something about her that’s really gotten under my skin, and boundaries are getting blurred. But I can’t touch her. It’s fucked. She’s Tate’s girl.” I squeeze my hand around the neck of the bottle, wondering if I could crush it with my sheer strength. I’m so tense with pent-up desire and frustration that it almost seems possible.

“Okay,” he says slowly, like he’s noodling over a problem to solve. “And now Tate’s gone, and you’re alone with her. So… what’s the plan?”

A plan is the last thing I have, but as I sit here under the night sky with my closest friend, some alternative solutions start teasing my thoughts. What if there was another way to satisfy my obsession with Zoë without betraying my son?

* * *

The lack of structure in my life is messing with my sleep habits—at least, that’s what I tell myself when I’m still awake when Zoë comes in the door at two a.m.

The TV is on, my laptop is open beside me on the couch, and my phone is in my hand, but nothing can hold my attention. I’m mindlessly looping through all three, restless and dissatisfied.

She leans in the doorway and gives me an unreadable smile, looking sexy as fuck in a loose shirt over leggings and heavy, black platform boots. Her hair hangs in loose waves, and her eyes are lined with black. She looks older and wiser than the innocent girl I watched sleeping the night before, but everything about her still grips me with that immediate, ferocious longing.

“Come hang out a minute,” I suggest, gesturing to the chair across from me.

Zoë unzips her boots, and steps out of them and then accepts my invitation, pulling her socked feet up onto the chair and tucking them under her butt, wrapping her arms around her knees. A low ache is snaking through me as my eyes flit down the back of her thighs and over her hips, remembering the show she put on for me last night, knowing she heard me moan when I came.

My preference is not to speak about it, to leave the indiscretions of the night where they lay—partially to keep the fantasy intact, partially to keep what remains of my boundaries intact.

“How was work?” I ask.

She eyes me thoughtfully before answering, unknown calculations happening behind those green eyes.

“It was good,” she says at last. “Lots of lap dances tonight.”

We’ve never talked about how we met, and there’s a defiance to how she brings it up now. She’s daring me to address it, and why not? Tate is gone, and we’re left to our own devices, trying to navigate the weirdness of our circumstances. Most of my good intentions have already gone by the wayside.

So I don’t insult her by playing dumb. “That’s good. Right?” I say levelly. “For the money?”

“Yes.” She tilts her head, flashing heavily lined eyes at me. “For the money, and… I like giving them.”

Until that moment, for some reason, I had never really thought about all the men she gives lap dances to—countless and different men, night after night. Zoë arching and bending and rolling her nude body on strangers’ laps while they paw at her and stroke her flesh and enjoy the privilege of having access to her. Men who, like me, go home to their normal lives afterward, tight with craving for her, and jack off in bedrooms and showers and cars while clinging to the memory of her in their hands. It’s the first time it’s occurred to me that she’s been with so many men like that, and the mental picture of it is breathtakingly hot.

“What do you like about it?” I ask, hoping for a neutral tone, but there’s a hoarseness to my voice that belies the dark, lascivious longing pulsing through me. I want to hear her describe it, to get turned on by her words, already at war with myself over what I’m asking her to do and my resolution to put space between us.

“It turns me on to be objectified. To simulate sex with strangers. Does that shock you?”

“No.”

“You’re the only one I’ve ever let touch me… like that.” The girl who just told me she likes to simulate sex with strangers blushes. “Normally, it’s just dancing.”

“I liked touching you like that.” The words come out before I can think them through. “And I liked watching you touch yourself last night, too.”

A small smile curves her lips. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was asleep.”

The moment is a line in the sand. A decision point I can turn and walk away from—an exit she’s giving me.

But I don’t take it.

“You played that loud music to lure me down there.” I close my laptop, put it aside with my phone, lift the remote, and turn off the TV. “That turns you on, too, doesn’t it? Exposing yourself and getting a reaction out of people. Did it make you feel powerful to get my attention like that?”

The flicker of confusion that crosses her expression warms my blood.

“No,” she answers, a note of uncertainty in her tone, like she’s not sure if she’s in trouble.

She is—because if we’re going to play games, I’m going to be very clear that they have to be according to my rules.

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