Annie’s Night Out

We were staying at the best hotel in the city for our third annual “braless weekend and summer getaway.” It was our way for a middle-aged couple in their forties to put a little zest in their relationship. After an afternoon of indoor delights our appetites were sharp and it was time for supper and a night out on the town.

I went to the closet to find something appropriate for the occasion. I chose a pin stripe button down shirt, khaki slacks, tie and blue blazer. The hotel’s restaurant was definitely on the upscale side. Annie straightened her clothes and went into the bathroom. She came back out in a few minutes, freshened up, wearing bright red lipstick and a hint of blue eye shadow. “Do you think it’s too much?” she asked.

“Not at all,” I replied, “very classy.” My cock, amazingly, became hard again. Annie looked like a fantasy come to life. The combination of high heels, silk skirt and blouse, satin camisole and make-up gave her an incredible erotic appeal. She looked elegant with an understated sexiness. And I loved the idea of her going without a bra, displaying her large, firm, beautiful breasts in all their glory to strangers, knowing they would be looking at her wherever we went and, that I would be there to watch their reactions of amazement and pleasure.

“You’re sure?” she asked again. “I don’t want to go out looking like a streetwalker.”

“Not to worry, my sweet,” I reassured her. ” Definitely not a streetwalker I thought to myself- maybe a movie star, fashion model or very expensive escort.

In the elevator I couldn’t help myself. I kissed Annie and felt her up like a horny teen-ager. It was a game we often played: me trying to get her nipples hard, she trying to stop me. She slapped my hand playfully. “Don’t do that!” But she was too late. She looked down at her blouse to assess the damage. Her nipples were puckered and hard, pushing through the layers of satin and silk like pencil erasers. “You naughty boy, look what you did. If you want everyone staring at my breasts, they will now.”

I smiled. Annie knew what I had in mind and was becoming more and more comfortable with having men appreciate her. “Come on honey,” I ventured, “you like the attention. You’ve got the most beautiful breasts a woman can ask for and you know it. If I had those tits, I’d be President by now. You’ve got tits to die for.”

“Yeah, sure. You always say that.”

“It’s true. You’re so pretty- nice face, lovely legs and those gorgeous breasts. If you got it, baby, flaunt it. Strut your stuff! Seriously, you should be proud you’re so gorgeous.”

“It just feels so risqué but I’m starting to like it… feeling more confident I guess. Feeling more comfortable about my body and as I do, feeling okay about other people liking it too.”

“Well, I sure do,” I said. I gave her another squeeze right before the elevator stopped. “Other men should get to enjoy those tits as much as I do. I mean, it’s the right thing to do.”

As we went through the main lobby to the restaurant Annie stood up straight instead of walking with her usual bent at the shoulders slouch. The effect was electrifying. The high heels gave her body a little wiggle, making her breasts bounce up and down with each step, and easily noticeable through the sheer blouse. You had to look close to see that she wasn’t wearing a bra but I noticed that a number of the men we passed were indeed giving her a careful scrutiny, savoring the sight of a voluptuous young woman.

At the restaurant, the maitre’d led us to our table, a special one overlooking the river. As he held Annie’s chair for her his eyes dropped momentarily to her chest. He gave us our menus and a warm smile.

Our waiter, a handsome young man in his thirties, kept on stealing glances too. As he took our orders, he tried to be professional but kept on looking over at Annie to enjoy the view. My cock became hard again as I caught him furtively checking out at my wife. During our meal he seemed more attentive than is usually called for and both Annie and I knew that he was feasting on the display she was giving him. Whenever he came over to our table I swore Annie’s posture improved and that she was thrusting her chest forward to focus attention on her still erect nipples, trying to tease the lucky fellow.

The meal was delicious, made even more so with the sight of my wife’s show for the pleasure of a stranger.

After desert, we left our waiter a big tip and went out for a stroll on the Promenade. “Sweetie,” Annie asked, “did you realize that he was looking at my breasts?”

“I kind of thought he was giving us pretty good service.”

“C’mon now, a woman can tell these things. He was trying not to be obvious but I could tell.”

“Did it bother you?, I inquired.

“It was a little scary at first and then I started to get aroused- knowing you were there and watching you watch him watch me. I got that feeling of power again…. being the object of such desire. I know I couldn’t dress like this unless you were there. It makes it feel safe and okay. In fact, makes it kind of sexy, like I have a freedom to experiment and act in ways I normally wouldn’t- without getting nervous or too embarrassed. I guess I have to say that I liked it. The tricky part is when I get this horny my nipples get hard and stay hard. I’ll bet he could see them too.”

“I had a feeling that you liked it. You seemed to really relish giving that poor guy a special thrill.”

“It didn’t bother you?”

“Far from it,” I replied. “Made me feel proud that he was enjoying those lovely tits of yours. It was getting me a little horny too.”

“So my husband gets off on having his wife go around showing off her breasts to total strangers….”

“Yup! Doesn’t every waiter like to get a big tit… ah, I mean tip… for good service?”

We walked and talked, holding hands, feeling the warm, romantic glow of a beautiful city. The path led us back to the park we had been at in the afternoon. “I feel brave,” Annie said. “Why don’t you go sit down on that bench over there and let me give you a show.” She chose a bench directly opposite me, facing mine, with about eight feet of path between us. She sat down with her hands folded in her lap, looking prim and proper. The setting sun was at the right angle, shining through her blouse to highlight her camisole. It was if the filmy blouse had become invisible and she was sitting there with just the camisole on, every curve and contour of her breasts evident. The sun cast shadows on the tips of her protruding nipples against the taut satin, making them seem even more prominent. I captured the exquisite scene in my mind, knowing that I would play it over again and again in memory.

Looking at me with a mock, sultry smile, Annie reached into her purse, making believe she was trying to find something. She bent over, taking stuff out of the purse and then placed a foot on the bench, her leg bent at the knee, as if she was trying to get more comfortable. With her other foot on the ground she gradually spread her legs, giving me a progressive view of her black slip, nylons and garter belt. The final touch was a shot of her new panties, the satin a glowing silver in the warm sunlight. She looked over at me and grinned. I responded by putting my hand over my chest as if I was having a heart attack.

Caught up in our little game, we didn’t hear the footsteps. A young couple strolled down the path between us. Annie froze, not knowing quite what to do. The man’s eyes dropped to Annie and I saw him look briefly up her skirt. His girlfriend didn’t notice a thing. After they passed us, he put his arm around her. I grinned at Annie and whispered across to her, “you are magic for romance.”

We continued our early evening walk. “I have an idea. Annie,” I said, “do you feel like dancing? There might be a club in the Old Quarter we could go to.”

“Hmmmm, sounds good,” she replied. “You know I love to dance. If I knew this outfit would inspire you, I’d have worn it a long time ago.”

“Sounds like a tremendous loss of missed opportunities, my dear,” I said in a mock serious tone of voice.

We made our way down the promenade, just the two of us in the fading twilight. Passing a small copse of trees set off from the path, Annie took my hand and guided me into the darkness. Hidden from anyone, she pulled her skirt up and drew me close for one of her famous French kisses. As we kissed I ran my hand over her slinky slip, stroking her wet, eager cunt. “Boy, you’re getting bold,” I said.

“Told you I was feeling brave.” She reached into my slacks and stroked my cock. “I never thought I’d get off on showing myself off to strangers but it’s such an incredible turn on. I’ve been walking around for the last few hours so horny I can barely stand it. If I wasn’t so nervous about it, I’d have you fuck me right here.”

I pulled up her slip and inserted a finger inside her. Annie was literally dripping. She took my hand and pressed it hard against her as we kissed. I felt the same way she did. Part of me wanted to take my cock out and fuck her standing up; the other part wanted to continue our adventure. “C’mon, my little cum bunny,” I said, “Time to go dancing.”

With some difficulty we ended our embrace and continued our early evening stroll. In the Old City we heard music and followed the sound until we came to a club. It was on the second floor of a large, very elegant eighteenth century loft like building. A man at the elevator took our money and wished us a good time.

When we got to the second floor and stepped out of the elevator a swing piece from the big band era of the forties was playing. “I think I’m going to like this place,” Annie said enthusiastically.

The club was crowded with people of all ages- from young, twenty something trendies to middle aged couples. The women were dressed for a night out, most of them with skimpy tops, short miniskirts and revealing blouses. I noticed quite a few of them were fashionably braless. Annie fit right in.

I spied two empty seats at the bar and guided Annie through the mass of bodies. The bar stools were high and unless you were six feet tall you had to perch your feet on brass rungs. We sat down and ordered drinks.

Annie swiveled around to face me and get a better look at the dance floor. The way she was sitting, high heels on the top rung of the stool, elevated her legs, knees slightly higher than her waist, giving a perfect view up her skirt to the luscious valley between her thighs. Even with the uneven lighting I could make out her slip and panties. She was so excited with the idea of being out in a night club with some of her favorite music that she was unaware of her skirt gradually riding up her nylons. When she bent over to mention something to me the skirt rose even further. The clasps of her new garter belt holding her stocking tops appeared. I was in heaven.

The bartender came back and served us our drinks. His gazed openly at the front of Annie’s blouse with her nipples, erect from the over active air conditioning, poking through the thin silk. Annie seemed blissfully ignorant of his interest and I sat back and watched him. After a while he looked over at me and gave me what seemed a sly smile. He knew that I was enjoying showing off my wife’s lovely tits.

I slid off the seat and went to the men’s room. On the way back I took my time and blended in with the crowd in front of the bar to enjoy my wife as others were enjoying her. Annie had turned around fully on the stool to face the dance floor. The DJ had turned up the lights for a fast jitterbug number. Without realizing what the effect would be, she had spread her legs wide to get more comfortable and leaned back to rest her upper body on the edge of the bar. The bottom of her shimmering black half slip lay draped over the edge of the seat. Annie’s panties were fully exposed, almost to her waist. I caught the outline of the delicate lace trim of her garter belt under the tight satin.

Her panties were like a white, shining beacon under her skirt, attracting others’ interest. A man standing in front of me turned to his companion and said, “look at the cute babe over there flashing the silk.”

“Hmmmm,” the other man murmured. “I love it when a sexy woman likes to show off her cunt. I’ll bet that little hottie is one good fuck.”

A shudder of excitement shot through my body. When I looked over at the erotic display Annie was so unwittingly and casually giving a roomful of strange men, my cock became a steel pole in my pants. I stayed with the crowd for a while to watch them watching. Finally I went over and stood in front of Annie. Her eyes were on the dance floor, mine were on the patch of sleek white satin, looking like a light at the end of a sensuous tunnel formed by her skirt, slip and black nylons. “Do you like the music, Sweetie?” she asked.

“I love the music- among other things.”

Her eyes widened in shock as she realized what I was referring to. She looked down and quickly closed her legs. “Oh, my God!” she whispered, “could you see anything?” She tugged her green silk skirt down but it remained at mid thigh because of the seat. Her garters still peeked out from beneath the hem.

I leaned over, whispered in her ear, touching a knee as a signal for her for her to resume her visual gift, “just the silken sweetness of your lovely body.”

Annie hesitated for a moment and then slowly parted her legs again. “I’m feeling so horny. Can you really see up my skirt?”

“Nah.”

“You liar.”

I looked down at . “Nah, can’t see a thing my dear.” I grinned. Her panties were damp from arousal.

“Oh, it feels so good to be naughty,” Annie said in a low breathless voice. “I can’t believe I’m letting a room full of strange men look up my skirt. Do you mind if they look at your wife’s cunt, Bunny?”

“I love it,” I replied. “I love the idea of these strange men looking up your sexy little skirt and what I really like is that you like it. I’m gonna bet that you’re making a lot of men very happy tonight.”

Annie smiled and seductively licked her lips with tongue. “How about a dance?”

“Sure,” I said, helping her off the stool and getting another lovely upskirt view in the process.

The band was playing Glen Miller’s theme song, “String of Pearls.” We went out into the middle of the floor and started our own version of the Lindy. Annie closed her eyes as if in a trance and moved in time with the music. Her breasts swung back and forth under her blouse; her sweet nipples, easily visible and rock hard, rippled the almost see through silk with every motion of her body. It was joyfully apparent she wasn’t wearing a bra and I feasted on the sight. I took her hand and twirled her around. As I had hoped her skirt flew out and up to give a view of her legs up to her nylons and garters. I twirled her around again, quicker this time. The light green silk ballooned out again, this time exposing her panties. I could see some of the men watching her, surprised and delighted with her little show. Annie, caught up in the music, was oblivious to the admiring stares.

We danced three or four numbers. I lost count. As the song from My Fair Lady put it, I could have danced all night… just watching the attention that the audience lavished on my wife’s exuberant displays of swinging, bouncing breasts and the visual treats of the satin world under her swirling skirt. I caught men glancing our way, some staring intently as Annie did another jitterbug type spin.

We finally stopped. We were both hot and somewhat sweaty from the bright lights. “I’m going to the lady’s room,” Annie said. “I’m so hot I feel like i’m boiling. This blouse keeps in all the heat.”

“Take it off then,” I humorously suggested.

Annie smiled mischievously. “Oh? Would it bother you if I did?”

“What do you think?”

“You’d probably like it, you dirty old man… have me showing off my breasts to everyone.”

“Well, you’d fit right in with this crowd. If you haven’t noticed, bras aren’t too popular here.”

“Dirty old man.”

“I’ll be right back,” she said and then turned and left the dance floor. I went back to the seat at the bar to wait. Annie was gone for about ten minutes when I spied her coming across the room, threading her way through the dense crowd. I’ll be dipped, I thought to myself, she’s done it! She had taken off the silk blouse and was wearing only the skin tight camisole. Even at a distance I could make out her breasts, jiggling and bouncing as if they had a life of their own.

She climbed back on the bars stool, her face flush with excitement. “What do you think, Sweetie?”

For once I was speechless. “Isn’t this what you wanted?” she asked.

“Oh, yes,” I replied in a soft voice. One of my biggest fantasies had come true.

Annie rested an arm on the surface of the bar and threw her chest back to exaggerate her chest. I could make out every ridge and pucker of her nipples through the clinging satin, even, very faintly, the pink circles of her aureoles. “Nice tits, huh, big boy?” she joked. “They’re going to cost you another dance.”

“Well worth it, my dear.”

She turned around on the stool to get a sip from her drink and in the process inadvertently spread her legs wide. I stared up her skirt astounded. The bottom part of her panties were bunched at her cunt with her enlarged lips almost surrounding the narrow band of satin. Her entire pubic mound was in plain sight. Annie pulled her panties tight like this whenever she masturbated. Ah hah, I thought to myself, this was why she took so long in the lady’s room. “Ah, Sweetie,” I said, “looks like you have been busy, you naughty girl.”

It took Annie a minute to figure out what I was referring too. When she did, she blushed and look horrified. “Oh, my God! Can you see my vagina?”

“Yup, and it looks lovely. I’ll bet I know what you were doing.”

She turned beet red. “I’m going to go back and fix myself.”

I took her arm and held her to the stool. “It’s all right. In fact, you look great. Might get you horny.”

“It is getting me horny. The material keeps on rubbing against my clitoris. Gets me so horny I can barely stand it.”

“Then keep it that way. Enjoy the sensation. C’mon let’s have another dance. No one’s going to see.”

As Annie slid from the stool the satin tightened against her cunt. She closed her eyes for a second, awash in feelings of lust. “It does feel good,” she said in a husky voice.

The band was playing a slow number and we held each other tight. I could feel her breasts pushing into me; the tips of her hard nipples raked my chest. “Hmm,” I sighed. As we danced I moved my hand down her back until I felt the waistband of her panties through her skirt. I gathered the elastic in my fingers and slowly pulled it upwards to stretch the satin tighter over her clitoris. Annie’s body twitched as passion consumed her and she pushed her pelvis between my legs, almost humping me on the dance floor. My hard cock prodded her cunt through the thin layers of silk and satin. She was breathing heavily, barely able to control herself.

The music stopped and and the band began a spirited version of “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree.” We separated and went back into our version of the jitterbug. Annie’s big breasts rolled back and forth under the flimsy camisole that appeared molded to her body. And I couldn’t keep my eyes off of those hard nipples pushing against the slinky satin, moving around lasciviously with every step. I doubt if other men could too.

When it came time for a twirl I spun Annie around quickly. The silk skirt flew up to her stocking tops. I tried again and spun her like a top. The skirt rose higher this time, exposing her panties and giving anyone watching a brief glimpse of her furry mound. My heart almost stopped in my chest. I twirled her around one more time to let everyone have another lovely view. The bunched satin had disappeared into the inner recesses of her body, enveloped by her puffy cunt lips. All you could see was my wife’s sweet cunt, naked and available.

I looked at the inhuman face: the blind, faceted eyes and the twitching, sucking mouth. Two large feathery antennae twitched from the top of his head.

“The lovely thing about etops is that way they reproduce. They have what we call a very mobile genome, lots of variation, lots of mutation. They mutate so much that almost half the males are functionally sterile. Great genes, lots of variation, but they’re sterile. Old etops has found a way around that though. The female has multiple partners. The males take turns with the female, and one male’s sperm piggybacks on top of another’s. Hitches a ride, so to speak, so the sterile male’s DNA sneaks in on a fertile male’s. Pretty clever, huh?”

The talk of sex made me uneasy, and I didn’t like the looks of that moth, crawling around on his hand like a furry blind thing, antennae waving. I didn’t like the gawky way the feet dug their tiny claws into Todd’s hand

“I never really gave much thought to the sex lives of moths,” I said. “I just thought the female laid eggs and the male fertilized them or something.”

Todd smiled. “No. Fish work like that. Bugs have organs just like people. Well, not like people. The male has an aedaegus that deposits the semen. He also has organs down there that hold on to the female during sex, kind of like having another pair of hands or claws. Fascinating, huh?”

He must have seen the look on my face because he laughed. He was enjoying this.

“So what do you do with these things?” I asked, wanting to break the mood. “All that research and gene mapping? You trying to wipe them out, like with the cut-worms?”

He put his hand back under the cloth and shook the moth off.

“What do I do?” He gave me a knowing, satisfied smile. “Whatever I want. I can do pretty much manipulate their genes to do whatever I want to with them. Make them brown, white, black; short wings, big wings, no wings at all.”

‘So you can make them big or small too? Change their size?”

“No trouble at all,” he said.

From the house, the kitchen light started flashing on and off like a fire alarm. Todd smiled.

“That’s Faith signaling up to come in for dinner. She refuses to come outside anymore at night. She hates the bugs, especially the moths.”

Todd covered the cages and walked over to the light switch. I realized that this was my last chance to say something to him alone before we went back into the house. I didn’t want to talk to him in the yard with the moths fluttering against my face.

“Listen, Todd. I really appreciate the offer to put me up for the night, but I think I’d rather stay in that motel, so I think after dinner I’ll just—”

“Oh come on! Faith is having a ball seeing you. I haven’t seen her looking so happy in months. It’ll break her heart if you don’t stay. Besides, I really have to get back to the lab after dinner. She’ll be all alone and, despite what she might have told you, I really hate leaving her alone.”

I was embarrassed. “No. She hasn’t said anything about that.”

Todd smiled. “Well, whatever. I know I work terrible hours and it’s hard on her. Things will change soon though, once I finish this one project.”

Todd turned back to me and lowered his head conspiratorially.

“And, look: if something were to happen between you two… Well, let’s just say I understand. Faith and I have a very open relationship, know what I’m saying? It’s okay with me. I know how much you mean to her.”

I felt the blood pound in my ears like surf on a beach, but before I could think of anything to say, Todd switched the lights off and hustled me out into the yard. I tried to wait for him as he locked up, but the moths were growing bolder and had been joined by other bugs: some delicate but maddening lace wings that seemed to aim for my nose and mouth, and huge, stumbling beetles that buzzed in flight like old war-time bombers and dragged their scratchy chitonous legs through my hair. I waited for as long as I could stand it, but then I turned and just ran to the house as fast as my dignity would allow.

~ ~ ~

I didn’t know what to do, and if Faith noticed my silence during dinner, she didn’t say anything. I pretended to be tired and excused myself, leaving Faith and Todd alone. Faith showed me the room and got me some towels, and showed me where there was an extra blanket if the AC got to be too much. Several times she seemed about to say something, but I didn’t give her the chance. I needed to sort things out.

From the bed I could hear them talking downstairs as they straightened up, although they didn’t say much, and Todd left shortly after. I heard Faith clearing away after dinner, and then I heard her come upstairs and go into her room. I lay in bed looking at the moonlight and shadows in the walls and trying to ignore the soft thump of the moths against the window screens.

It had been hot and dry all day, and although the AC was on inside, it was still stifling and still outside. Somehow the heat communicated itself to me lying in bed with just a sheet over me and made me sweat. Occasionally I could hear Faith moving around in the house. Despite the extensive overhaul, the old floors still creaked softly and the house itself seemed to groan as it settled. The sound of those soft bodies hitting the windows was maddening.

I heard her come up the stairs and stop outside my door, and then go back down again. I heard her come up and go down the hall to her room. I heard her lie down on her bed and then get up again. I knew exactly what was going through her mind

It wasn’t a happy home. There was a kind of clinical sterility about it that was so unlike Faith that it made me nervous. I tried to sleep but kept on waking up, hearing the sounds of the moths. I fancied I could hear that soft, dry, cooing sound I’d heard in the greenhouse above the soft pattering of their bodies against the screens. I finally took my tee shirt off, rolled it up and threw it on the floor to make the room feel more lived in. I dozed.

I was instantly awake when she tapped on the door and pushed it open. I’d been expecting it. I didn’t say anything when she came in. Through the mottled shadows of the moths on the window screen I could see she was wearing old sweat pants and a tee shirt, what she always slept in when we were together. She closed the door behind her and walked over and sat on the side of the bed without saying a word.

I knew I shouldn’t. I knew it would only lead to trouble and do neither of us any good, but I knew that she wanted it too, and I might have been able to deny myself, but I couldn’t deny her. I never could.

I took her wrist in my hand and I pulled her down, and she resisted only briefly before she fell down on top of me, her hair was hanging around her face and curtaining us off from the world. Her lips were warm and so soft and yielding and the way she needed me so much, the way we fit together so perfectly, the smoothness of her skin under my fingers was all too much. Nothing had changed and everything had, and suddenly it was just the way it had been last January and yet this time the hunger was for each other, not to save ourselves, but to give ourselves away, and as she kissed me I knew that despite her engagement I wasn’t the only one who had felt so lonely.

I sat up, kicking the sheets off me and Faith lifted her arms up so I could pull her tee shirt off and then leaned back on her hands, giving her tits to me, knowing how they drove me crazy. We didn’t say a word. I filled my mouth with her flesh and thrust my fingers between her legs and she fell back with a groan, her hips working against me, desperate for my touch.

I’d known how much she could hurt and now I learned how much she could want too, and she pushed me over on my back and pulled my shorts down, panting with excitement. She got up on her knees and dragged her tongue over me.

“Faith… Wait!”

She opened her mouth and impaled it on my cock and sucked me with a voracity I’ve never felt from a woman before, her cheeks hollowed, brow furrowing as the shadows of the fluttering moths clouded her face. She went down on me, groaning, but when she dragged her lips up me all I could see was Todd, sipping his drink through his pursed lips. There was something insect-like and obscene about it, with Faith splayed over me like a female mantis with her prey, and I reached down and pulled her off. I didn’t want to see her like that.

She rolled over onto her back with a gasp and lifted her hips, and I pulled her sweat pants off. She was naked beneath them and wet, and my fingers found her out as I kissed her and she sobbed into my mouth, wrapping her arms around my neck. This time I had no problem getting hard. I was erect and throbbing as soon as I kissed her. She spread her legs shamelessly and I could see her already glistening with wetness. I plunged into her softness and she sobbed with pleasure. Immediately she started to fuck me, throwing her hips up at me with a wildness that took my breath away.

I’d never dreamed she could be so passionate and so athletic in bed, but now when I held her wrists down and buried myself inside her, she met me stroke for stroke. I fucked her hard, and when I flagged she fucked me back, curling her body up to mine with a biological urgency that went beyond mere lust, as if her very survival depended on it. She squeezed me inside, drew me into her and milked me, threw her legs around my back and held me deep as she worked against me. She took what she needed from me too, holding my hair in her hands and kissing and licking my face as her hips worked whorishly beneath her.

“Come in me,” she hissed. “Shoot it in me, Davey. I need to feel you come. You don’t know how long I’ve wanted this!”

She was slick and tight and as sweet as the earth, as strong as the night and I couldn’t have held back if I’d wanted to. I looked down into her face clouded with her rapture, and I gave her everything, pouring myself into her as she went wild beneath me, clawing my back and biting my shoulder, and when at last I fell back exhausted she peeled her body away from mine and kissed me all over, down my chest, trailing her warm lips along my belly.

I pulled her back down in bed and got up on my elbow, leaning over her. For the first time since that day last winter I got a chance to look at her body, and what I saw made me gasp in alarm. She was marked all over with those little circles like she’d shown me in the kitchen, scraped as if she’d been worked over with a metal rasp.

“My God! What happened to you?”

There were those circles all over her breasts and shoulders, going down her belly and laid along the tops of her thighs, some old and fading into bruises, some new and still red, and her body was streaked with lines a scabs and strange red scratches. There were two bruised areas on the outsides of her hips that looked as if she’d been flayed with a whip, as if she’d been held.

“Faith? What the hell’s going on here?”

“I told you! I told you but I guess you didn’t believe me! I don’t know what it is, Davey. You tell me.”

“Does he do something to you? I mean, when you make love. Is he kinky or something?”

“No. I mean, I don’t really know. Half the time I can’t remember. I just seem to wake up all bruised like this, with these marks all over me.”

I sat up. “We’ve got to get you out of here, Faith. We’ve got to get you to a doctor or something. Maybe even the police.”

“Shhh, shhh.” She put her fingers over my lips. “Whatever they are, they don’t bother me. I feel fine, except that they’re kind of sore. These cuts on my hips are the worst. They hurt when I bend or stretch.”

“Faith, Faith…” I didn’t know where to begin. In the moonlight her eyes were clear and calm and I couldn’t look away. “Look, We’ve got to talk. I love you, Faith, and I made a horrible mistake. I know that now. And you’re making one too, marrying him. We belong together. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

It all tumbled out of me then, all the feelings I had for her and the ones I didn’t even know I had, all my need and loneliness of the last seven months after she’d moved away. I tried to be fair. I tried not to say bad things about Todd, but I had to tell her how I felt, and I had to tell her how wrong he was for her. Still, I didn’t mention what he’d said to me as we were leaving the greenhouse. There seemed no need for that.

“I know, I know,” she said at last. “Everything you say is true. I love you too, Davey. I’ve known it for months now. You’re the one I want, but I can’t just walk out on him now. I’ll have to break it to him slowly, talk to him. I care for him, Davey, I really do. I just didn’t know.”

I burned with anguish, with fear and desire. I held her, and it was like old times, us crying together in each other’s arms, but now they were a different kind of tears, and it made all the difference in the world. Just the feel of her in my arms set off my lust, and I wanted her again.

“I have to go,” she said. “He’ll be back soon. I have to get back to bed.”

“But what’s going to happen now?” I asked. “How am I going to be in the same room with him with you around?”

Faith sat up naked on the edge of the bed. In the moonlight, even with the shadows of the moths crawling over her, even with the marks and scars, she looked beautiful.

“Oh, it’s not like that,” she said. “You don’t have to worry about that. Todd’s all for this, for us being together like this. He told me.”

“He told me too, Faith. He’s crazy. But he can’t have thought this would happen, that we’d feel this way about each other.”

“No,” she said. “No. He couldn’t have.”

She reached down and picked up her tee shirt and put it on.

“I have to go. You’ll just have to let me handle this in my own way, Davey. Please. I’ll tell you all about it later. For now just let me handle it. You sleep. Leave it to me.”

I tried to pull her back to the bed and she leaned over and gave me just one kiss, one long hungry kiss. I wanted her to stay with me, but she pulled away. She bent and picked up her sweats and carried them out of the room, closing the door behind her with a finger to her lips, and I lay back staring at the shadows on the ceiling.

~ ~ ~

I might have heard Todd’s car come back. I might have heard their voices on the stairs. Whatever it was, I awoke from a troubled dream to find absolute silence in the house and silence outside, and the room seemed unnaturally dark and enclosed. Then I saw why: all the moths outside had stopped their wild flitting against the windows and were clinging to the glass blocking out almost all the light. They were slowly moving their wings, trembling as if breathing, a slow, almost hypnotic sight.

Through the gaps in their patterns I could see the moon high in the sky, thin clouds razoring across it. Outside the cicadas had stopped and the crickets were shrill in the dying grass and in the fields that stretched away from the house like a sea of green. Beneath the forlorn stridulations of the crickets I could hear that soft, furry sound again, loud this time, and not so much loud as present, as if the air were full of it and I could feel it as a soft pressure somewhere against my body, a small, curling thing, as if cotton balls were raining down on my skin. I heard it with a part of myself I don’t usually use for hearing things, and it made me think of dark things, of life under rotting logs and in the secret spaces beneath the bark of trees, the dry coolness below the surface of the soil where the blind bugs live.

There was a creaking, a rhythmic metallic sound, and I realized with alarm that Faith and Todd were having sex. The sound and the steady tempo were unmistakable, the old rhythm of copulation. Whatever Faith’s plans for handling Todd were, they involved fucking him first. My heart sank. There was no way I could go back to sleep or even try.

I should have stayed in bed. Everything told me to stay in bed, but the same time something made me get up. I swept the sheets off me and got to my feet. The shadows of the moths on the windows showed a sudden trembling agitation. I put on my pants and went to the door and opened it.

Moonlight in the empty hallway, the moving shadows of the moths made giant on the walls; the moving shadows of leaves on the trees. Now the creaking of the bed stopped, to be replaced by another sound, a kind of scrabbling sound of something hard scurrying or clawing against the polished wood floor. Then that soft, spluttering explosion of moth song again, like puffs of air against my skin, like dry bubbles somewhere in my chest.

I already knew what was happening. I don’t know how I knew, but I knew without looking, yet still I had to look. I tiptoed out into the hallway, keeping near the wall so the floorboards wouldn’t creak. Their bedroom was just down the way; the door stood ajar, moonlit darkness beyond it. Somehow I already knew what I’d see.

The room was filled with moving shadows and when I pushed the door open there was a violent furry as its wings began to beat. Faith was naked, on her back, and the thing was between her legs, it’s furry thorax pumping at her with a slow, obscene regularity. The wings beat harder and I felt the wind on my face, smelled the odor of wet leaves on the forest floor and damp things beneath rocks, life half-formed emerging from its glistening chrysalis, the musty smell of insect pheromones coupled with the scent of human female arousal. Between the beating of its wings and the scrabbling of its horny legs I saw the organ enter between the columns of her thighs, dark and shiny. I saw the dull, moon-knowing faceted eyes, the long, sucking mouth, the feathery antennae stroking her breasts, and I watched as the clawed feet scratched at her flesh with urgent, instinctive need. Two hooked appendages emerged from its thorax and held her hips up off the bed so that her legs hung limp on either side, and her thighs flexed as she took the steady mechanical thrust of the thing’s appendage.

It saw me, or it knew I was there, but that didn’t stop it, and there was nothing I could do myself but stand there in horror, breathing the reek of the thing and watching that furry abdomen pumping against her again and again. Faith seemed unconscious, but her lips were slack and her eyes closed as if in beatific pleasure. The wings went still and the thorax suddenly trembled and I knew the thing was ejaculating.

I dove at it then, and my hands closed on its soft, waxy fur. The body was cool and hard and massively heavy. I pushed at it and pulled, but it was not till it was done that it climbed off her with awful twitching legs and got down from the bed and turned to face me. It stood on its hind legs like a man, the body enormous, the eyes blank and each facet reflecting the light of the moon through the window.

There was no intelligence in its face, nothing but blind instinct, but what it new it knew perfectly: the sounds of the night and what happens in the shadows where blind white root meets sucking mouth in the darkness of the soil. Where sex is a force like life and hunger and eating and being eaten. The wisdom of the insects, the knowledge of the moth.

It rushed at me then and I covered my face and fell as the wings struck me, dislodging a storm of pearly scales that filled my nose and mouth as I fought to breath. There was the sharp hook of insect legs on my flesh as it scrambled past, easily throwing me down and scrambling over me. Then the next thing I remember was fighting back my blind horror as I grabbed Faith and wrapped a sheet around her and carried and dragged her down the stairs, through the immaculate kitchen and out the back where the moths still hadn’t stirred. I carried her across the lawn, my bare feet crushing the writhing furry bodies, and threw her into the car just as the moths began to stir and flutter up from the weeds around us.