She's a Star (a Hollywood Hotwife story) (25 page)

I said, “You’ll never be just another Hollywood blonde.”

“Well. I have to do it now—and I kind of like how it attracts attention.”

“That’s not just the blonde, you know.”

She grinned again, loving the whole thing. “The studio’s given us the green light—everyone just wants to get going again, with the first one doing so well at the box office.”

“That’s fantastic,” I said, leaning over to risk a hand on her back, stroking her proudly. “You’re fantastic.”

She smiled. “Well, I just know I wouldn’t have been able to do it without such a supportive husband.”

I laughed. “I really didn’t have anything to do with it, you know that? It was all you.”

Hayley shook her head. “You remember it was all going horribly until you encouraged me to start flirting with Aaron.”

“I’m sure things would have warmed up soon enough.”

“No. I was nervous about his reputation. I was afraid he would do something that would make you angry, make you want me to quit the movie.”

“We could have talked about it. You had to know I’d never be angry about you doing anything with Aaron if you wanted it.”

She laughed, “I don’t know. What I’m trying to tell you is that if I’d married anybody else, I don’t think I’d have been able to do that movie. Or at least do it as well as I did. I wouldn’t be here, where I am now.”

It did warm me inside to hear her say how important I was to her, I had to admit. I just wasn’t used to crowing about my own importance in any way. I said, “Well you are married to me, so it doesn’t really matter. As long as you stay married to me, I’m okay with whatever happens. Whatever you need to do.”

She smiled. “You know, after we’re finished in Europe, Aaron wants to take me to Antigua for a week?”

“Yes, I know. I think you’ll need the time off.”

“And you’ll be okay with it? We’ll be on Aaron’s private yacht, drifting around the island.”

“Of course,” I said, though I felt my stomach squeezed at the thought of Hayley being alone with Aaron for a week, away from me.

"I might be able to squeeze a few days at home after that."

"You'd better."

“And then we’ll be touring around Asia…and then once that’s done, not too long after I’ll probably be shooting Prisoner’s Wife 2, whatever they’re going to call it.”

“Sure.”

I saw the concern in her face, the pity, the great apology. “It’s your life now,” I said. “You’re a movie star. You have to travel to make movies—and to sell movies.”

“I'll be away from home for a few weeks -- sometimes longer,” Hayley said. “And it’s not fair to ask you to travel with me, whether in secret or not.”

Oh God. I felt my stomach fill with molten lead. Was she giving me The Talk? I thought I’d never hear it again after I got married. The dreadful surprise, the awful reality of what had to be—the ghastly finality of it all. I thought I’d been lucky enough to meet Hayley while I was in law school, and that would be the end of the kind of rejection I’d received twice during college. But here it was again.

I thought about pleading. About groveling. About telling her that I’d wait for her, that she could do as she liked. But I held my tongue. If this was the way it needed to be, it was the way it needed to be. And judging from the way Hayley set her face, she’d made her decision. In her mind, something had to change.

I held my breath, waiting for that awful phrase: “we can still be friends”.

She said, “I love you so much for being the way that you are, but it’s going to be hard for both of us being apart weeks at a time. and at least I will have Aaron while I’m away from you.”

I paused, took a deep breath. Tried to think of anything else to talk about with Hayley that would keep her from saying the most appalling things she could utter to me: It’s over. We can’t do this any more. We’ve both moved on. It’s not right for either of us to be this way any more. I want a divorce.

Then as we sat there, gazing across the room, Liona turned to us briefly, and gave us a quick wave and a warm smile.

We both smiled back at her, and Hayley waved, then my wife’s agent turned back to the actor she was attempting to snare. Hayley said, “You know, I’ve been trying to understand you.”

She peered at me, and added, “You know—really understand.”

I remained silent, not knowing what to say, not knowing where she was taking this.

She said, “I mean, I understand the logic, I think. I told you I did, didn’t I? I couldn’t have done anything with Aaron unless I was completely sure you really did want that to happen.”

“I was sure,” I said. “I’ve always been sure.”

“I can understand the logic that you want me to be happy, that you like the idea of me having the experience of another man, a new relationship and so on. That you like the idea of other guys wanting me. I think I understand that you feel a little nervous about losing me, that you’re a little jealous that someone else gets to have me—but that the whole thing about me being…well…so naughty…is so exciting to you that the jealousy doesn’t matter…”

“You understand me perfectly,” I said.

“I understood the theory,” she continued, “and in the end, I liked the idea of being with Aaron with your consent. If you were happy, I was more than happy. And then…when you were watching us…I don’t think I’ve ever been as turned on.”

“It was pretty hot,” I said with a half-smile. “Wasn’t it?”

“But it wasn’t the same as feeling what you feel.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant.

She leaned forward, and over to me, speaking quietly. “I’ve been thinking…how would I feel? Maybe I feel bad about you being all on your own while I travel the world, while I make movies, while I spend night after night with Aaron Simpson.”

“It’s okay, really. It won't be so long that we're apart each time.”

“So I start thinking: what if you had someone to keep you company? You know... when you really needed it.”

“Look, it’s never been about that—”

She shook her head. “So I try to picture it…to visualize it, to imagine it really happened. How would I feel? So you go out on a date with another girl…so sure, I’m jealous, I’m desperately afraid you’ll like her more than you like me…that you’ll never come back to me.”

“You know it would never be like that—”

“I know. I trust you. I love you, and you love me. So I have to play on that trust. I’m your wife, you love me, you’ll come back to me. She’s pretty, the other girl, but maybe I have to trust that she’s not the kind of girl who would want to steal you away from me.”

“I’m not sure I understand—”

“Just let me put it out there,” she said, stopping me from interrupting her. “So, okay. I know I’m not going to lose you. I know the girl we’ve both agreed on is not going to steal you. Are you going to want her more than me? I don’t know. That makes me a little jealous, still. But let’s move on. You spend time with her, you go on a date with her.”

She was gazing across the room again, and following her gaze, I saw that she had to be looking at Liona. Was she picturing me going on a date with her agent?

“I try to imagine it from your point of view,” Hayley continued. “You’re flirting with her over dinner—it makes you feel good. It’s nice that she makes you feel wanted, feel appreciated, feel desired. You want her. She’s pretty, she’s sexy, she’s nice. But you’d never do anything because you’re married, and because I’d never accept it.

“Only, what if I did accept it? What if I was the one to encourage you to date her in the first place? So you want her. You both want each other—because I know for a fact that she wants you, David.”

A couple of partygoers drifted by, stopping Hayley in her tracks. And then, another waiter appeared to top up our Champagne. I wanted to ask her if she wanted to go some place more private to talk about this, whatever it was. At the same time, I didn’t want to break her flow.

Coast clear, she said, “So I try to think about how it would be. And with all that trust in place, all the negative feelings, the anxieties dealt with, I think about you…you want her…you’re so hard at the thought of being with her. At the end of dinner, you find a hotel room and you’re making out like teenagers—and it’s so exciting, this new sexual relationship.

“And you’re fighting to tear off each other’s clothes…and she sees your beautiful cock, your beautiful hard cock…and she wants it inside her so badly. Maybe she feels envious of me, because I get to have you whenever I want it—I’m still your wife, I’m still the most important to you.

Hayley smiled. “Anyway. In my head, I’m watching you. I’m watching you lie with her, I’m watching you touch your cock in between her thighs—I see you pressing it against her…her place.”

“Her place?” I gave my wife a wry smile.

She blushed, but battled on. “I see you slide inside her, and I see how it makes her feel—I know exactly how you make her feel—but now I’m thinking: God, this is it. He’s inside the first woman other than me for ten years. He’s basically cheating on me, except that I know it’s happening, I’ve let him do it. It’s so wrong…and yet, somehow, so hot. There’s no guilt, there’s no blame, because I’ve allowed it to happen.

“And here I am, my husband is having a wonderful experience…and he’s being so naughty…and now I just want to steal him away from her, and take him myself, bathe in his wickedness, while reclaiming him as mine.”

She drifted off for a moment, lost in her thoughts. Then she turned to me. “I think I can see why it’s such a turn-on,” she said. “Giving your partner consent….”

“What are you saying?” I asked her. “What are you saying, Hayley?”

But then our view was filled by blonde energy, in the form of a very smiley Liona, bouncing with cheerfulness.

“My favorite two people in all the world!” she said, dropping down between us on the couch.

“Success?” I asked her. I could feel the heat of her thigh, and a slight quiver I took to be elation that she’d pitched her minor actor and won.

“Of course,” she beamed. “You’re looking at someone who now represents Oliver Harwood.”

“Congratulations!” Hayley hugged her.

“So what’s up with you two?” Liona grinned. “Deep conversation in a darkened corner? Everything okay?”

Hayley smiled. “I was just telling David about the curiosity I have….”

“Curiosity?”

“About how it must feel…you know…to allow someone you love to… to experience other people.”

“You want to know how it feels?” Liona asked her, her voice hushed, concerned that nobody else should hear this conversation.

Hayley shrugged. “David’s going to be on his own every now and then, maybe for long stretches at a time, sometimes. When I’m away from LA. So I wondered how it might feel if—”

“If you let him see someone else as well?” I heard Liona catch her breath.

Hayley smiled. “If it was someone I trust… sure.”

I wanted to stop her, wanted to tell her that this had never been about me wanting to see someone else, and that she shouldn’t feel guilty that she was enjoying the company of Aaron Simpson while we ourselves were apart—because in my own way, I would be enjoying the thought of her being with Aaron Simpson. But all that had been said already.

No, now it struck me that perhaps Hayley really did want to experience for herself the strange mix of emotions that came from letting your loved one enjoy the excitement of a new sexual partner.

I owed it to her to share that experience, too.

“You have anyone in mind?” Liona said, and I felt her thigh trembling a little.

Hayley put her hand on the blonde’s thigh. “I thought it should be someone who likes him, at least. Someone we know well, someone we trust. And, of course, someone who’s here so we can try it out.”

Liona glanced at me, and then back at Hayley again. She seemed a little stunned by Hayley’s idea.

“You really want to do this?” I asked my wife. Now the shoe was on the other foot—and I was experiencing the feelings that Hayley must have been going through when I’d first confessed. But was she doing this because she wanted to leave me? Was she setting me up with someone in order to cushion my sensibilities when she ran off with Aaron?

And even if I trusted that she wasn’t intending to leave me, that she was honestly just wanting to experience the unusual thrill of a partner’s consensual infidelity, I worried whether Hayley really could cope with the reality of it. What if she liked the fantasy in theory, but then couldn’t deal with it when it became reality?

What if I crossed the line, only to find that I couldn’t cross back, that doing something with another woman would forever tarnish me in Hayley’s eyes?

“I do,” Hayley said to me seriously. “I really do.”

“So what happens next?” I asked her.

I think all three of us hesitated, awkwardness suddenly lining everything with a layer of ice. But then Liona hopped up to her feet, and grabbed my hand to pull me up with her.

“What happens next is that I demand a dance from our hero, here,” she said with a dazzling smile.

Chapter Twenty-Three