Chapter 4: Golfing with Temptation
The Texas sun was a hammer on the back of Ryan’s neck. He squinted against the glare bouncing off the emerald fairway, his grip on the driver slick with sweat. It felt absurd, being here. The pristine order of the course, the muted pastels of the other players, the gentle thwack of distant shots—it was a universe away from the shattered intimacy of his bedroom four days ago.
Timothy Dante stood a few feet away, relaxed, lining up his shot. He looked younger in the daylight, his beard neatly trimmed, his smile easy. He wore the expensive, casual golf wear like a second skin.
“So, you and Rebecca talked,” Timothy said, not looking at Ryan. He took a smooth, practiced swing. The ball launched, a perfect arc against the blue sky. “Damn. That one felt good.”
Ryan watched the ball land. “We did.”
“And?” Timothy slid his driver back into his bag with a calm finality. He turned, his eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses. “Where’s your head at, Ryan?”
They began walking, the clatter of the golf cart trailing behind them. The air smelled of cut grass and damp earth.
“My head is in about fourteen different places,” Ryan admitted, the words torn from him. “Most of them are places I didn’t know existed.”
Timothy chuckled. “That’s normal. It means you’re actually thinking about it. Most people just… react. They fetishize the idea without understanding the weight of it.” He pulled a bottle of water from his bag, took a long swallow. “The weight is the point. The trust is the heaviest thing you’ll ever lift.”
They reached Ryan’s ball. It sat in the first cut of rough. He selected an iron, his mind churning. The silence stretched, filled only with the buzz of cicadas.
“Rebecca said she thought about Titania,” Ryan said, the name feeling strange on his tongue in this bright, open space. “In your bathroom.”
Timothy’s smile was slow, knowing. “Yeah. T said she felt the current in the room. A good current.” He leaned on his club. “Your wife has incredible energy, man. She’s… vibrant. Curious. It’s intoxicating.”
Ryan’s knuckles were white on the grip. He took a swing. The contact was poor; the ball hooked left, disappearing into a copse of trees. “Shit.”
“It’s okay,” Timothy said, his voice dropping, becoming more intimate despite the open space. “The game’s just a game. The other thing… that’s real.” He moved closer as they walked towards the trees, his voice a low, confident murmur. “Titania wants her. Badly. She hasn’t stopped talking about Rebecca’s mouth. About the way she laughed. She wants to taste her.”
A jolt, pure and electric, went straight to Ryan’s groin. He stumbled on a tuft of grass.
“And you?” Ryan asked, his voice rough.
“Me?” Timothy stopped at the edge of the trees, where the shade was deep and cool. They were hidden from view. He took off his sunglasses, and his eyes were bright, intense. “I haven’t stopped thinking about fucking her since I saw the way she looked at you that night. That mix of love and… hunger. It’s rare.” He stepped closer, invading Ryan’s space. “I want to make her scream. I want to bend her over your expensive bed and drive into her from behind while she claws at your sheets. I want to see those gorgeous tits bounce. I want to come on them, and then watch you lick it off her skin.”
Ryan’s breath hitched. The imagery was graphic, violent in its specificity. It should have enraged him. Instead, his cock hardened painfully against his zipper. The betrayal was of himself, of every idea he’d ever held. The visceral picture Timothy painted didn’t feel like theft. It felt like a offering. A shared, profane worship.
“She’d like that,” Ryan heard himself say, the words a ragged whisper. “She… trims. She likes it neat. She’d want you to see.”
Timothy’s nostrils flared. A low sound escaped him. “Fuck, Ryan.” He looked at the bulge in Ryan’s golf pants, then back to his face. “You’re getting hard just talking about it.”
“DUDE!” Ryan spat out the word. "Too much!"
“Do you want to watch?” Timothy’s question was blunt, devoid of poetry. “Do you want to see my cock in your wife’s mouth? Do you want to see her lips stretched around me while she looks at you?”
Ryan leaned against a tree trunk, the bark rough through his shirt. He felt unmoored, dizzy with a permission he’d never granted himself. “I think about it. When I’m with her now. I fuck her and I imagine… you. There. In the room.”
“Tell me,” Timothy commanded, his own arousal evident now. “Tell me what you imagine.”
Ryan closed his eyes. The clubhouse, the sun, the genteel pretense of the sport fell away. There was only the dark behind his eyelids and the filthy truth. “I imagine her on her knees. Between your legs. You’re standing. I’m sitting in a chair, just watching. I see her head in your hands. I hear the sounds she makes. The wet, sucking sounds. I see her throat work when you push deep.”
“And what does she do?” Timothy’s voice was taut.
“She loves it. She’s a fucking goddess at it. She takes all of you, and she looks up at me with those eyes, and she’s proud. She’s showing off for me.” Ryan opened his eyes. Timothy was right there, his gaze burning. “Then I imagine Titania leading her to the bed. Laying her down. Kissing down her stomach. Putting her mouth on her while I watch that, too. Seeing Rebecca’s face while a woman goes down on her for the first time. Then I come behind Titania and just... Just fucking give it to her, you know. I want to watch her scream into my wife's pussy while Rebecca looks back at me, balls deep in another woman. It's intense, alright?”
Timothy reached out, not touching Ryan, but gripping the tree beside his head. His breath was warm and quick. “It can be real. This weekend. Our place. We have a guest house. Very private.” He paused, letting the offer hang. “It doesn’t have to be a swap. It can be a… sharing. An exploration. You set the rules. You can stop anything, anytime.”
The momentum of it was terrifying. It was a train leaving a station, and Ryan was both conductor and passenger.
“This weekend?” Ryan’s heart pounded against his ribs.
“Why wait?” Timothy’s smile returned, a flash of white in the dappled shade. “The desire is the engine. Don’t let it cool. Let’s stoke it.”
Ryan pushed off the tree. He looked towards the fairway, the distant flag a bright pinprick of color. His old life was out there, orderly and predictable. Here, in the shadows, was something monstrous and magnificent.
He met Timothy’s hungry, waiting eyes.
“I’ll talk to Rebecca tonight.”
The drive home was a blur of sun-bleached highway and noise. Ryan’s hands were tight on the wheel, his knuckles pale. Timothy’s words played on a loop in his head, a filthy, captivating soundtrack to the suburban sprawl. Bend her over your expensive bed. Come on her skin.
He pulled into their driveway, the garage door groaning open like a mouth. The silence of the house felt different now, charged. He could hear the soft, rhythmic scrape of a palette knife from Rebecca’s studio upstairs. The scent of linseed oil and lavender met him, a familiar combination that now felt like the prelude to something unknown.
He found her standing before a large canvas, her back to him. She wore an old paint-smeared shirt of his, nothing else. The curve of her bare calves, the shift of muscle as she worked, struck him with a force that was almost painful.
“How was golf?” she asked, not turning. Her voice was careful.
“Informative.” He leaned against the doorframe, watching her. The shirt slipped off one shoulder. “We’re invited to their guest house. This weekend.”
The palette knife stilled. She placed it on the table with a deliberate click. She turned slowly. Her face was a mask of calm, but her eyes were dark pools, unreadable. Paint speckled her cheekbone like a constellation. “I see.”
“He talked about you. Explicitly.” Ryan’s throat was dry. “About what he wants to do.”
A flush crept up Rebecca’s neck. She didn’t look away. “Did it excite you?”
“Yes.” The admission was a gut-punch of truth. “It fucking terrified me, and it excited me. He asked if I wanted to watch.”
The air between them crackled. Rebecca took a step, then another, closing the distance. She smelled of oil paint and her own warm skin. “And what did you say?”
“I said I’d talk to my wife.” He reached out, his thumb wiping at the paint on her cheek. It smeared. “He described you on your knees. He described Titania’s mouth on you. And all I could think was… I need to see that. I need to see you that lost, that free.”
A small, sharp sound escaped her. Her composure fractured. She grabbed the front of his polo shirt, her fists clenched in the fabric. “I’ve been thinking about nothing else. I dream about her hands. I was painting and all I could see was…” She shook her head, words failing.
“Tell me.” It was his turn to demand.
“I see her between my legs,” Rebecca whispered, her breath hot against his chin. “I see you sitting in a chair, watching. I see you getting hard watching her eat my pussy. I want you to see how wet I get. I want you to see everything.”
Ryan crushed his mouth to hers. It was not a kiss of love, but of consumption. He tasted her, bit her lip, his hands gripping her hips through the thin shirt. He could feel the heat of her, the absence of any underwear. He broke away, breathing ragged. “We’re really doing this?”
“Are we?” Her eyes searched his, desperate for anchor. “It’s a door, Ryan. Once we walk through it…”
“I know.” He rested his forehead against hers. The fantasy was a white-hot coal in his mind. The reality was a cold, vast ocean. He pictured walking into that guest house. Pictured handing his wife, the mother of his children, over to the hunger of virtual strangers. The sheer, amoral magnitude of it stalled his breath.
RYAN HESITATES.
The momentum faltered. The vivid, pornographic images Timothy had painted suddenly seemed like traps. What if it broke them? What if he saw her with Timothy and felt only a hollow, sickening jealousy?