Wicked Part 1

A Stranger

Steve lowered his head and pushed his arms around the back of Grace’s shoulders, cradling her as he moved his dick back and forth, lingering a little on the up stroke which allowed her clit to get some attention.  He knew right where to get her, the exact spot to make her spill over. The firework had been lit and it made her burst into colour. As the waves of her orgasm shook her, she felt a hot liquid hit her inside. Steve gasped. He was coming. It gave extra power to the last few pulses of her orgasm and finally they lay side by side in satisfied silence.

She almost started to laugh as she thought of Hazel’s adamant declaration that her sex life was boring, and she certainly felt guilty for complaining to Hazel that she wasn’t getting enough of it as she would have liked. Steve must have just had an off couple of months, because the amount of sex she was getting right now was just perfect. In fact, they hadn’t made love so frequently since they had been in their early twenties. Grace didn’t know why that started to make her feel something that felt like doubt—it just did. She could sense the fluttering of it deep down in her belly.

Why was Steve suddenly so virile and horny? Why after all these years had he suddenly been so up for trying something new? These last few days, he’d been acting kind of different, and because Grace didn’t know the reason for this, it seemed a little strange. It had kind of started out of the blue—for her, at least. She had never been the overly analytical type. Her thought processes over this were a new and unwelcome development. She had never needed to be too analytic before. When all her friends at college were going through hormonal angst and doing ‘does he love me?’ quizzes in magazines, while they were falling in and out of relationships trying to find their soul mate, Grace had already found hers.

More than that, she was secure and confident in the fact that Steve had found his, too. She had never known jealousy—their relationship had always been transparent and implicitly trusting. Was Hazel finally getting to her, as Steve had suggested? Or was it something more sinister? Her gut seemed to think so. Hazel’s words came floating back into her head, something about trusting your instincts as they were usually right. As much as she tried to bury them, she couldn’t help but notice that her instincts were signalling to her that something was very, very off right now.

“Hey. You okay?” Steve bought her back to the present with his question.

She nodded at him. “Yeah, just daydreaming. Are you ok?” She tried not to make it sound loaded, even though it was.

“I am perfect.” He kissed her on the tip of her nose and slid out of bed. “I’m gonna have a quick shower before sleeping.”

Grace exhaled, irritated by having these thoughts going round in her head. Honestly, what was her problem? Her boyfriend found her hot right now and was insatiable and she thought there was something wrong? Wait. What if he was so up for it all the time because someone else had spiked his sexual attention? She pummelled her fists against the mattress in frustration. Stop it, stop it, stop it, she ordered her brain.

Over on the cabinet next to Steve’s side of the bed, his phone pinged. Grace froze. It wasn’t like Steve never got messages, he had plenty of friends—all of whom she knew. What froze her was the instant temptation to have a look. To find out for good and stop herself from going completely insane with unfounded paranoia.

She couldn’t, could she? I mean that was just the height of not trusting someone—a downward spiral. What evidence did she have really for spying on her boyfriend? None. Just a stupid feeling. On the other hand—Steve asked her to check his phone for him all the time. Sometimes if it went off and she was closer to it than he was, he’d ask her to read the message. So it wouldn’t be spying, really. She’d tell him that she looked. It’d be fine.

Justification done, she swiped up the phone and lay back to open the message. To her relief, and shame, she discovered that it was just from Dave, a friend they’d had since school, wanting to know if they wanted to meet him and his girlfriend for dinner that Friday. Feeling very foolish, she leaned to place the phone back on the nightstand and then stopped herself. She just wanted to check his inbox. If you were gonna do something…do it right, she figured. Scrolling down, she saw nothing but innocuous messages from people she knew. Then, for some inexplicable reason, she went onto his email account. It was like something had taken over her, like a force was trying to lead her to find something—anything at all.

Stabbing the sent messages with her thumb, Grace’s heart stopped.