I Asked My Husband to Find Me a Stranger

James sat in the armchair with his legs crossed, the lamp behind him catching on the gray threading through his hair. He looked up from the page, smiled at her without speaking, and returned to the novel. The small sound of paper turning was the loudest thing in the room. Eleanor’s needle moved through the hem she was mending, each stitch precise, the cotton warm from her fingers. She loved this hour: the hush, the shared breath of two people who had done this for twelve years and still wanted to be in the same square of lamplight.

Then the needle snagged. While she eased it free, a picture opened behind her eyes: a stranger’s chest slick with sweat, shoulders blocking out the light, a thick ridge of flesh shoving into her so hard her feet left the sheets. The image arrived complete—salt smell, the grunt that wasn’t James’s polite cough, the raw stretch she had never actually felt. Her stomach hollowed. She looked at her husband’s familiar hands, the wedding band glinting as he turned another page, and felt the first needle-prick of guilt, sharp as the one in her thumb.

She pushed the thread through again, tighter, as if the small pain could cancel the other. It didn’t. The fantasy man grew clearer: cropped dark hair she could grip, weight pinning her wrists, a cock she could taste in the back of her throat. She shifted on the couch; the seam of her jeans pressed exactly where she suddenly needed pressure. Stop, she told herself. She had baked scones that morning, had kissed James goodbye at the exact angle that avoided lipstick on his collar. Good wives did not inventory the veins along imaginary forearms while their husbands read Booker long-listed novels within arm’s reach.

Yet the want kept swelling, stupid and bright. She pictured herself on all fours, breasts swinging, James’s startled face in the doorway while someone else drove into her again and again, balls slapping her clit until the sound filled the house. She bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted iron. When James looked up, she smiled the same mild smile she gave the neighbor’s children. He nodded, satisfied, and kept reading.

Eleanor set the needle down. The room smelled of bergamot and laundry detergent, the small empire they had built together. She imagined striking a match, letting the curtains catch, and watching the tidy flames race across the carpet. She could love the life she had—did love it—and still feel the draft of something wild rattling the windows, asking to be let in.

The glass was slick with soap, and when it slipped, it seemed to fall in slow motion. The sound when it hit the porcelain was explosive, a bright shattering that made Eleanor jump back, her hands flying to her chest. Shards scattered across the sink, some skittering into the drain, others catching the overhead light like tiny knives.

"Shit," she whispered, her heart hammering. She hadn't meant to let it go. Her fingers trembled as she reached to turn off the tap, water still running over the broken pieces.

James appeared in the doorway, his book closed against his chest. "You alright?"

She nodded too quickly, not looking at him. "Just being clumsy."

But when he stepped closer, she felt something

The sheets were cool against her calves, but her chest burned. James had turned off his bedside lamp; the only light came from the streetlamp outside, striping the wall in thin gold. She listened to his breathing level into sleep-rhythm and felt the same restlessness claw. The glass had been swept up, the cut on her thumb plastered, but the inside ache had widened all evening.

She rolled onto her side. “James?”

A soft grunt.

“Are you awake?”

“Mm.” He shifted, hand groping for her hip. “Everything okay?”

She swallowed. “I keep thinking about…the glass. And why it broke.”

He waited. He was good at waiting.

“I wasn’t thinking about dishes,” she said. “I was thinking about being…taken. Like, really taken. By someone who wouldn’t ask first.” The words felt obscene, hanging there in the ordinary dark. Her pulse thudded in her ears.

His fingers tightened, not comforting now, more like anchoring. “Taken how?”

“Pinned. Hard. No room to decide.” She forced a laugh that cracked. “I know it’s awful.”

“It isn’t awful.” His voice was low, steady. “Tell me what he looks like.”

She hadn’t expected that. “Taller than you. Bigger. Shoulders that—” She stopped, ashamed of the comparison.

“Keep going.”

“He pushes me against a wall. My feet barely touch. I can feel him…everywhere. And I’m scared, but it’s the kind of scared that feels like being alive.” She was breathing through her mouth, as if she’d run upstairs. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He drew her hand under the covers, laid it flat over the fly of his pajamas. He was erect, heat pulsing through the cotton. “Feel that?”

Her fingers curled instinctively. “You’re—”

“Because of you. Because you’re telling me.” He kissed her temple, lingered. “Does he finish inside you?”

The question shot straight between her legs. “Yes. No protection. Just…spills.” She heard herself moan, small, mortified.

James pushed her palm harder against him. “And me? Where am I?”

“Watching.” The word tore out. “Tied, maybe. Or told to be still.”

He exhaled, shaky. “Christ, Ellie.”

She slid her hand inside his waistband, found the slick tip, spread it with her thumb. “I don’t want to lose us.”

“You won’t.” He kissed her, open-mouthed, tasting of toothpaste and urgency. “Tell me the rest. Every bit.”

So she did, whispering how the stranger would flip her onto her stomach, fist her hair, drive into her so deep she felt the thud in her throat. How James would be made to see every thrust, every gleam of wet on her inner thighs. How she would come screaming a name neither of them knew yet. While she spoke, James rocked into her grip, breathing hard through his nose, until he shuddered and spilled over her fingers, silent except for a cracked sigh.

After, he cleaned her hand with his T-shirt, pulled her close. “Thank you,” he said into her neck.

She waited for shame to crash, but it didn’t come. The room smelled of sex and laundry, the same as always, yet the air felt newly porous, like anything might pass through.