A year had passed since the night I had paid for my infidelity. It was winter again, and the season resurrected ghosts from the time I sat across from Linda and Stephan in the Excelsior hotel bar. Linda and I had walked home through the city streets together in the snow. At the time, I feared it was the end of us, but we had found a new beginning by summer. Early snow flurries teased me with returning memories of that night, along with all the emotions that accompanied them. The first snow seemed to put Linda in a melancholy mood, and I wondered if shadows of our history haunted her as well.

I watched from our bedroom window as the snow fell. It was just after sunset, and the streets were still busy with early holiday shoppers. From eight stories up, the fine, tiny flakes floated and whirled in a deceiving promise the storm might wait until daylight before blanketing the streets and paralyzing traffic. The city had just begun to put up holiday decorations, and the snow sparkled as it danced near the colored lights on its chaotic fall to the ground.

Linda arrived behind me and put her arms around my waist, watching the brunt of winter arrive as well. She gave me little hugs as we stood there together, and finally nuzzled the back of my neck with her nose.

"It seems like yesterday, doesn't it?" she said thoughtfully. "The time passes so quickly."

"Have you seen him?" I asked.

"Now and then. Work stuff. He's the same."

"Lunches with him?"

"Not often. A few weeks ago. More work stuff."

"Do you think about him?"

"I do. You know, now and then."

We stood quietly for a while longer, staring down into the street.

"There is something we need to do, you know?" she continued quietly.

"Lot's to do," I answered, then sighed.

"One thing. Tonight? A place where I can get a strawberry daiquiri?"

"This isn't a repeat performance, is it?"

"Nope." She nuzzled me again, trailing her fingers across my cheek before making her way to the bedroom.

                                               *****

The walk to the Excelsior seemed to take longer than I remembered, maybe due to my dread of what had happened there. The wind hadn't picked up yet, and the snow was light and fluffy. Linda took my arm, but we didn't talk on the way. I noticed the snow speckling her hair and remembered my thoughts, now a year old. 'Like brilliant rhinestones on black velvet'. She'd glance at me and smile, then turn her sight back toward our destination. I saw the Excelsior as a well of anxiety, but she was celebrating our new beginning. Strange how we pictured the place existing in two different worlds.

The hotel bar was busy, and they were still serving food. A waiter met us at the entrance and led us to a table at the far side of the room. Linda tugged on his arm and stopped him.

"Wait. Could we have the booth, over there, in the corner?"

He left us menus and took our drink order before rushing away.

"It's the same one, isn't it?" I asked. "Where we sat before?"

"It is," she answered, smiling at me.

She shrugged her coat off her shoulders. Under it was the same flowered dress.

"The dress too?" Now I had to smile.

"Don't you like it? Maybe you'd like me to make some changes? Maybe with the way it fits? Or something else?"

The waiter returned with our drinks, but before he rushed away again, she stopped him.

"Excuse me. Does a 'Chuck' still work here? Cute guy, in his twenties, very friendly..."

"Nope - don't know him," he said quickly, without even looking at her. "Do you want to order from the menu?"

"We're fine for now," she told him. "Oh - but could you bring us another round of drinks? That way we won't bother you again for a while."

He raced off to the bar again.

Linda sipped her daiquiri, and I downed half my shot of scotch in one gulp. I had ordered it neat, and someone had put ice in my twelve-year-old single malt.

"So, what do you think? About my dress? Any changes you'd like to make?" The corners of her mouth turned up a little. Her eyes were wide and liquid, overflowing with expectation.

"As a matter of fact, there are," I answered, smiling. "I'd like you to put your panties here, on the table, right beside my drink. Can you do that, Linda?" That got a wider smile from her. I could play this game. I knew all about the rules - there weren't any.

"I certainly can, for a big, handsome guy like you. I'll do anything you want. I'll be right back."

I grabbed her wrist before she could slide across the seat.

"No, no. I want you to take them off here, at the table. What color are they?"

She paused and glanced quickly around the room.

"Um, they're black."

"What do they look like. Describe them."

"Lacy. Very thin. And tiny. Very tiny."

"Are they thin enough to see your pussy through them?"

She cleared her throat, looked around the room again, and finally answered.

"Um-hmm. My husband likes them that way."

"Good. Let's see them."

She slid her hand under the dress near the wall, felt around for the scrap of lace at her hip, then, looking carefully out over the room, drew the panties down her legs and over her shoes. I was impressed. Where had she learned to do that? It was almost as if she had practiced it.

She left them on the seat beside her.

I tapped a spot on the table, beside my glass. "Not there, here."

I thought I was challenging her, but she surprised me when they fell from her open fist onto the table. They were black, just like she had said, and they were now a slowly expanding ball of wadded lace, resting in front of me by my drink.

"And the rest?" I asked.

"The rest?"

"Yes. The rest of what you have on under that pretty dress."

For the first time that night, Linda was at a loss for words. She looked down at the menu, smiling, and was silent for a full minute before she spoke.

"But you can't expect me to - I mean, not here in the open?"

"How difficult can it be? Tell me what's under your dress."

She glanced around again, then leaned toward me and lowered her voice.

"My bra. Nothing else. I'll take it off for you, but not here. Over there, in the ladies room?"

I fingered the side of my glass for a few seconds, then downed the rest of my scotch. She was waiting for an answer, still pressed forward over the table, eyes wide with excitement.

The waiter brought our second round of drinks. I lowered my eyes to the second glass, again with two large ice cubes, so I stopped him to complain. "It's top shelf scotch. I've ordered it 'neat' twice now. Can you fix it?" He scooped up the glass without a word and hurried away once again. It wasn't the service we remembered.

Linda raised her eyebrows. She looked surprised. "Well, my husband certainly wouldn't have been that forward. I'm impressed."

I stared for a long time at the buttons down the front of her dress. It narrowed to a snug fit just below her bust, and I could see the buttons part here and there to reveal bare skin underneath. "About your dress, Linda, and what's under it. Before you run off to the ladies room, undo the buttons. I want to see." I doubted she'd refuse. She had done the same for Stephan in that very same booth a year ago. She didn't disappoint me.

"Um, okay. But if my husband knew what I'm doing, well, he'd be very upset."

"Your husband isn't here. Now, the buttons?"

She began to undo them, slowly, running her fingers lightly over each one before slipping it through the tight slit beneath it. I wondered how far she'd go.

"Is, this what you want?" she asked, with a sober stare.

She had stopped after the third one, and the dress had burst open to show me the inner curves of her breasts and the edges of the black bra through the opening. I remembered that she had gone much further for Stephan, but the bar had been almost empty by that hour and I knew she had been swept away by anger and her fantasies of submission to him.

"Good. I see it matches your panties. Did your husband buy the bra and panties for you?"

"He didn't. I bought them so he'd fuck me," she whispered.

"Doesn't he fuck you?"

"Of course. But not always the way I want it."

Her smile grew slowly after she said it. It became wider and more lascivious by the second. It was my turn to be impressed.

I nodded toward the rest rooms.

"Don't button up. Just bring me your bra."

"I'll be right back," she said. She was still smiling as she left our booth.

I watched her cross the room, circle the bar, then disappear. Linda always turned a few heads in public, even when I was there beside her. Had I been there at the bar and saw her pass by, I would have been occupied with my own fantasies. She was a walking contradiction - at first glance, a refined, beautiful woman out for a cocktail with her husband; but after a longer look at the front of her dress, the way she moved with such a purposeful, confident stride and the fuck-me look in her eyes, she'd more than pass for an entirely corruptible wife, easily enticed by the right man with a cock she found irresistible.

But Linda had always been able to appear to be one thing to men, and then an instant later, chameleon-like, become whatever she decided they wanted her to be. She had been a late bloomer, eventually evolving into a beguiling siren in her late twenties. Even now she could reach into her past and revive the innocent but seductive woman-child I knew when we met. Boys loved it then, and men salivated over it later. She knew it, and I was sure she used it, sometimes to flirt with an attractive man, and other times just to make me crazy. It worked, for both purposes.

More than a few men looked as she paraded her breasts by them, but surprisingly, no one hit on her. I wondered if they would have if she had opened another button or two, and if she would have been daring enough to flirt, or maybe sit and have a drink with them, had they offered.

She returned with the same buttons opened, no more determined to reach our booth than the time that it took to leave it. Once in the booth across from me again I could see the bra was gone. Men at the bar must have enjoyed a surprisingly generous view of her breasts when she passed them. They were pushed upward and exposed where the dress parted, nearly revealing each pouting nipple. Still, she didn't seem at all embarrassed - in fact she looked electrified. She wanted me to see her as a wife potentially offering her body to strangers - a lust-driven, desirable woman any man in that bar would fuck if she gave them the slightest sign she wanted it. She wasn't about to lose our little game, but I was more and more surprised to see how far she'd go to win it.

"I don't see it," I said.

"I did what you asked. I took it off. See?" She pried the opening wider to show me.

"Where is it, then?"

"Oh. It's - here." She put her purse on the table, opened it, then turned it toward me so I could see inside.

I tapped the table with my finger again, beside the panties. "Here - I'd like to see it."

She hesitated and looked down at her lap. She could play "coy" just as easily as she could the lascivious, neglected wife. It was exciting to see her fall into the role so easily. I had to concentrate to stay in character; the part she played so well promised so much more.

She returned her purse to her side, carefully placed the bra on the table, and slid it slowly across to me with one finger.

I moved it closer, next to her surrendered panties, fingered the lace for a while, then looked back up at her open dress.

"Show me more," I suggested.

"More? Here? What if someone I know comes in and sees me? What if someone tells my husband?"

"Our little 'dates' have never bothered you before," I reminded her.

"You know what I mean. What if someone sees my dress open and my underwear out on the table? You've never asked for any of this before, not in public. How would I ever explain this to David?"

"Why do you do it, then? Why keep coming back for more if you're so afraid?"

"You know why. I've told you why." She looked away, pretending to be too embarrassed to answer. "Sometimes my husband, he, um, doesn't always fuck me the way I want it. Need it, I mean."

"And what way is that, Linda?"

She leaned closer, straining over the table toward me, answering in the loudest whisper she could manage without being overheard. "The way you make me crawl and beg for it! The way you tie me and torture me before you let me cum! David's a decent man, not a monster like you. Letting a monster fuck me helps me live with a little of that same monster that's a part of me. But I can only live without it for so long before -" She stopped suddenly and turned her face away from me, staring vacantly out into the room while she continued. "- before I let you use me like you do. Before I get my fix and go back to having my husband inside me again, the way it should be."

In our mutual competition of words and fantasy brought to life, she had outdone me. But she had also shown me what it might be like to be her dark, portentous, phantom lover, the one who shows her the meaning of, what was it she had said? "Off the scale?" I wondered if she was still pretending, or whether she had possibly been taken to a place she hadn't planned to go. The air was heavy with silence for a while. She wouldn't look at me.

I took a chance to lighten the mood, and I chuckled as I put my hands up in surrender. "You win - I don't think I can take any more!" I wasn't at all prepared for what might come next if I was wrong. I held my breath and waited to see who the woman sitting in front of me might become.

Suddenly, she was the Linda I knew again. It threw me, twisted me around, and sent a chill of nervous relief through me. I assumed my surrender had ended our little game. Then I watched her sly smile return as she leaned forward with both elbows planted on the table, her chin resting in the palms of her hands. The look she gave me promised my surrender was worthless.

"You mean you don't want to see me do this?" Pressing closer to me against the edge of the table, she unfastened another button on the front of her dress. And another, and another, until it was open to her waist. I was stunned. Our booth was mostly hidden from sight, sandwiched in the corner of the room between the wall and a wide, decorative column. Maybe she and 'Stephan' had chosen it in advance back then for that very reason.

"Tell me, how much more do you want?" She waited for my answer while she pulled the front of her dress open, inch by inch. "You know I'm naked under this dress. Do you want me to take it off? I will. Right here. If you make me. If you order me to."

I peered around the column to make sure no one was close by. Both her breasts were completely exposed. She thrust them forward at me, daring me to tell her what to do next.

Once again, I was beaten. "Enough, Linda. I give up! I give up! You win!" I was grinning from ear to ear.

"Really?" she said, rolling her eyes with disappointment. "I'm surprised. That sounds like something my husband would say. Now, are you going to take me back and fuck me, or not?" She gathered the front of her dress together, still unbuttoned, and recovered her bra and panties from my side of the table, unable to hold back a proud grin. I was grinning myself. It was the first time we had role played in public, and I was more than a little eager to find who the woman across the table from me might be after I took her home.

Outside, the snow had become heavy and wet. An inch of white blanketed the sidewalks, and the quarter-sized flakes that landed on our faces and hair vanished in seconds as they melted. Most stores had closed, but we stopped now and then to window shop. I stood by patiently while Linda studied the mannequins in her favorite boutique window as if she was waiting for them to twirl and pose for her.

"Would you like to see me in that when we go out?" she asked.

It was phosphorescent under the blazing display lights, with nothing I could make out that would hold it in place over her breasts. I couldn't see how gravity wouldn't take its toll and allow the shimmering material to fall, with embarrassing consequences. The thin sheath of weightless fabric was a scortching streak of red from bust to floor, with a long, open slit up the front. One of the  mannequin's thighs pushed forward through the slit, exposed nearly to the hip in a pose that was both elegant and sexy.

"Would you wear that?" I asked, trying to picture her in it.

"Mmmmm - my husband would approve. He likes to show me off."

"And what if it shows you off too much? Wouldn't other men would be all over you?"

"Ahh, but you don't understand." She turned and circled her arms around me, locking her eyes on mine. "I think that's what he likes - watching me flirt, imagining what may come of it."

"And what do you like?" I asked.

"What do I like?" She put her hand between my legs and moved it slowly, up along my thigh to my cock. "I like a man who takes what he wants - girlfriends, fiance's, even wives."

She turned her face up into the snow to kiss me. We hadn't kissed like that in weeks. It became a long, deep, probing kiss that lasted for minutes. She pulled my hand inside her coat, then under the dress she had left unbuttoned. I grazed her nipple with the palm of my hand. It was already swollen and hard, and she moaned when I rolled it between my fingers. I explored everywhere I could, her breasts, down her smooth belly, and finally lower, to that soft, yielding flesh just above her pussy that I knew made her dripping wet.

Finally, she broke the kiss, shaken and breathless. "Oh God - we have to stop." When I began to take my hand from her coat, she pulled it back inside and held it tightly against her bare breast, staring at me so seriously as she recovered. The snow was falling faster, wetting her hair and face, when I noticed a tear on her cheek.

"Don't - we're fine," I whispered.

She wiped the tear away suddenly and quickly, like some annoying pest had landed on her.

She looked up at me again, eyes full of hope, with a crooked smile that told me she tried her best to believe me. "How did I ever find someone like you?" she asked, sniffing back another tear.

I wasn't sure what to say, so I just held her there in the snow. I cursed myself for poisoning her trust in me to begin with, but clung to the hope that she'd be able to love me again the way she did the day we were married.

Eventually, we both began to shiver in the soaking snow. It hit us both at once, and we began to laugh. She hugged me tighter, and put her lips against my ear.

"Take me home and fuck me?"