The man was a little buzzed, but not as much as the two women. They seemed fine in the club, dancing, laughing, talking loud to hear one another above the music. But when the three of them stepped out into the mild night on the way to the car, they were both a little loopier than he realized, one on either side of him, each clutching an arm and taking small, careful steps, punctuated by the occasional wobble. Of course, they started way ahead of him. He saw the wine glasses on the kitchen counter when he got home from work. They were already a little giggly and goofy by the time the three of them got to the restaurant where they had dinner. More wine there, and then onto the club, where they’d all had at least two or three Patrons.

When they got to the car, Alison, his wife, told her friend Kathryn to ride up front with him. You can see better from up there, she told her.

“What is there to see?” said Dale. “It’s dark out.”

But Alison had already climbed into the back of the sedan and stretched out along the seat, prying off one shoe with the toe of another, intent on sleep.

Dale navigated the several city blocks that took him to the boulevard, then picked up the ramp to the bridge that would take them through the outbound tunnel.

“There it is,” he said. “The city at night. Get a good look.” But Kathryn had her head back against the seat and her eyes closed. He glanced quickly to the back where Alison was stretched out asleep already. Couple of lightweights. Now they were in the tunnel, where the overhead lamps bathed the interior with a yellowy glow.

He glanced again at Kathryn was surprised to see her awake, her heavy-lidded gaze fixed on him. She was attractive in a healthy, athletic, California kind of way. She was a big girl, almost as tall as Dale. Not heavy, but strong-looking, with big tits that he was pretty sure were natural. A lot of wavy blond hair. Tonight she was wearing a loose-knit sleeveless sweater—he could see the beige of her bra through the wide weave—and pale gray, flat-front trousers, tight around the ass and thighs and pegged at the bottom. She looked good.

When they emerged from the tunnel, onto the highway, and regained the darkness, he felt Kathryn’s hand on the inside of his thigh. He turned to look at her again, and she leaned across the console to try to kiss him. He pulled back and looked toward the road.

“Whoa,” he said quietly. “Driving here.” He didn’t remove her hand, though.

*****

Dale wasn’t a saint. He and Alison married a dozen years ago, right out of college, but after the first couple of years Dale started wondering if he had given the relationship the proper amount of time and thought. He liked that Alison was smart—very smart, smarter than him—and down-to-earth, and still liked to tear things up and have a good time. He’d just never really been crazy about her like he’d been about some other women. But that was one of the reasons he thought marrying her was a good idea. Crazy wears off. Then what do you do? If there was no crazy, then things would always kind of stay more or less the way there already were.

Dale managed to behave himself until their last couple years in California. He was out with people from work one night, someone’s going-away celebration. After dinner, at the bar, he made a beeline for the empty seat next to a girl named Kristina, one of their corporate recruiters. He didn’t really interact with her at the office, but he knew her. Hell, everyone knew her; she was sensational, sexy as hell. A dusky complexion—some kind of middle eastern descent. She was long and lean, with straight black hair and big wet eyes. That night she was wearing knee-high suede boots and a short, tartan plaid skirt over black tights, and a black, sleeveless knit turtleneck. She had an empty glass beside her and was thumbing her phone, tapping and swiping.

“What’s the average length of time a guy manages to stay in this seat before you tell him to fuck off,” said Dale. He probably shouldn’t have said “fuck”, but he wanted to get her attention, wasn’t sure if he could tear her away from her phone.

It worked. She looked up at him, and there was what he thought a little flicker of pleased recognition. Then she went back to texting but smiling now.

“Don’t know,” she said to her phone. “No one ever talks to me.”

All those nerdy computer guys. Most of them couldn’t manage an intelligible sentence in front of their own sisters, let alone someone who looked like Kristina, cool and dark.

“You’re out of their league,” he said.

“But not yours?”

“Oh, mine too,” said Dale. “But I’ve had a couple drinks and don’t give a shit.”

She clapped her phone screen-side down on the bar and slid her empty glass slightly toward him, like she was moving a chess piece.

“Maybe if I have a couple more myself I won’t give a shit either,” she said.

An hour later they were out in the parking lot, her back against the side of his car, Dale close up against her. Her black tights were pulled down her thighs halfway between the hem of her skirt and the tops of her boots. Her sweater and the cups of her bra were pushed up high on her chest, and she held the back of Dale’s head as he sucked on her round, coffee-colored tits and finger-fucked her. She’d unzipped him and wrangled his cock from his trousers and had it in her other hand, just holding it tight, squeezing it. She gave it a distracted stroke now and then but was focused on her own approaching orgasm, and that was okay. He pumped in and out of her. She grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled his head away from her breast when she started to come, twisting and bucking against him, as he held two fingers buried up to the last knuckle inside her.

He slowly withdrew his fingers from her when she was done. She let go of him long enough to pull down her bra and shirt to cover herself. He tried to somehow bend his erection back into his open fly but she took it again before he could and this time started jerking it quickly and steadily. They were looking down, watching her hand stroking his stiff dick, both of them breathing hard. Dale leaned forward, pressed his forehead against the top of her head, grunted.

“Shoot it,” she whispered. Dale began to pump out his load onto her bare thigh. She slowed her strokes, squeezing him gently. Watching the thick jizz spurting from his cock. He looked down. His streaks of white cum seemed almost to glow against the deep brown of her skin.

So that was the start of that.

*****

Kathryn was Alison’s best friend from California. That’s how Alison always referred to her: “my best friend from California,” as if to distinguish her from best friends from other states or geographical regions, Dale guessed. Until just recently, Dale and Alison had lived in California themselves. They’d moved out there several years before for new tech jobs. Kathryn took an internship at Alison’s company, and that’s where they met and hit it off. This past spring, Dale and Alison relocated back east, and now Kathryn was out to visit for a week before she went back for her senior year at San Jose State.

Kathryn was twelve years younger than Alison. She was a native Californian who had never been farther east than Modesto, she said. She couldn’t believe “how green everything was” out here. She was okay, still a bit of a wild-ass college chick, which is why, Dale figured, Alison latched onto her. Reliving something or other.

On Kathryn’s second night in town, Alison took her to the bachelorette party of one of her and Dale’s old college friends, and they got completely shitfaced. Someone at the party used Alison’s phone to set up an Uber pickup for them, then texted Dale a heads-up. The Uber driver who brought them home honked her horn in the driveway a few times until Dale came out.

“They need a little help,” she said.

Dale hauled Kathryn, the larger of the two, out of the car and the Uber driver helped Alison.

The driver said, “That one got sick, so I’d set her up with a bucket if I were you,” meaning Kathryn.

“Shit,” said Dale. “In your car?”

“No,” said the woman. “This one saw it coming and had me pull over, managed to get her head out the door.” 

The next morning Dale drove Alison back to get her car while Kathryn stayed behind sleeping it off. Alison was wearing dark glasses even though the morning was overcast. Probably to hide the dark circles under her eyes.

“I should have just driven you guys and picked you up myself,” said Dale, but not in a scolding way. Just as a matter of fact. He wasn’t trying to give her shit; he knew she felt like walking death.

Alison said, “I don’t know what happened. One minute I was fine and the next… Everything just got suddenly rowdy and wild once the strippers showed up.”

“More than one?”

“Three,” said Alison. “A policeman, a cowboy, and a sailor.”

“The maid of honor friends with the Village People?”

“All these women start screaming, doing shots. I just hope the bride-to-be is not pissed at me.”

“Why would she be? You said she was hammered, too.”

“Yeah,” said Alison. “But Kathryn… She was an instigator. Pushing shots on everyone. Dancing and grinding up against the strippers. She set a bit of an uninhibited tone.”

“Those college girls,” said Dale.

Alison was quiet for a couple minutes, then said, “She’s grinding up against the one who was dressed as a cop. Except now he was only wearing a hat and mirrored sunglasses and this G-string. He’s thrusting his hips, you know, and that pouch with his junk is swinging back and forth. And she just drops, yanks his pouch down, and starts sucking him.”

“Holy shit,” said Dale.

“Yeah, really,” said Alison. “You should have heard how the volume level went up at that. But there were a couple bridesmaids from the groom’s side. They looked extremely uncomfortable with it all to begin with. But that business thoroughly scandalized them.”

“So Kathryn, did she…?”

“You could tell the guy, the dancer I mean, you could tell he kind of thought about it for a second. But then he pushed her away and tucked himself back in, wagged his finger at her, like ‘naughty, naughty.’”

“Huh,” said Dale. “Maybe he was gay.”

“He wasn’t gay,” said Alison. “You’re not allowed to touch the dancers. Not their junk. They’ll let you get away with a slap on the ass here and there. But after seeing Kathryn get that guy’s cock out, some of the other women tried to get ‘naughty naughty’ themselves. The whole thing got a little raunchy.”

“I thought that’s what happened at bachelorette parties,” said Dale. “Bring in some choice cuts for the bride to have a little forbidden snack before she takes her vows. The lusty ladies all get to have a taste.”

“You watch too much Internet porn,” said Alison.

***** 

Kathryn slid her hand up Dale’s thigh and began squeezing his cock through his trousers. How far are we going to go with this, thought Dale. He adjusted the mirror to see Alison in the back seat. She was out. She wouldn’t wake up until they got home and someone shook her out of it. Unless he hit a monster pothole or had to jam on the brakes and stop short for a deer running in front of him. Shit, he thought, that could cause a whole series of problems. Forget about Alison waking up and assessing the situation; he could be maimed for life as well. No, he didn’t want to run into a deer or try to evade one while this drunk chick was sucking his cock.

He was hard, though, imagining her blond head bobbing in his lap, her big tits pressing against this thigh. Thinking about it since Alison told him the bachelorette party story. He hadn’t had a blowjob since he’d moved from California, and the idea of getting one from his horny college girl who probably wouldn’t remember it the next day even when she still had the taste of his cum in her mouth… Jesus.

She was leaning over him now, trying to find the tab of his zipper, hair falling across his lap. Her friend, his wife, less than a foot away. Kathryn was just one of those chicks who got horny when she was lit. He took her hand away, gently pushed her back upright. “Not here,” he said.

**** 

Dale got everyone home without incident and any more advances from Kathryn. He followed the two women up the stairs, both of them seeming more sleepy than drunk now. Kathryn looked a little confused when they reached the top of the steps, like she was trying to remember where the guest room was. Dale and Alison continued down the hall to the master.

Alison made straight for the master bath and Dale went into their large walk-in closet. He stripped, hung up his pants and sport coat, tossed everything else into a laundry hamper, and put on his bathrobe. When he came out, Alison was already asleep atop the bed in a white t-shirt and panties, curled up on her side, her clothes in a pile on the floor. Dale looked at her. He’d half-hoped that getting ready for bed had awakened her enough that he might get to fuck her. That would have taken care of things for him. So much for that.

He left the light on in the master bath and closed the door. Then he left the bedroom, closed that door behind him, and walked along the carpeted hallway until he got to the door of the guest bedroom. A light was on in there. He leaned close to the door and listened. It was quiet. She was probably passed out on her bed like Alison. Should he tap on the door? Fuck it, he thought, this is stupid. Don’t push it. Jack off and go to bed.

What he did instead was go downstairs to the kitchen. The room was dark. He clicked on the range hood light above the cooktop and almost shit himself. Kathryn was standing there, naked… no, she was wearing a pair of beige panties, but that was it. Drinking from a bottle of beer, leaning against the frig. Those big tits slung just a little low but not too—definitely real, the way you’d expect large natural breasts would look on a 21-year-old.

She didn’t say anything, just moved right in on him, backed him up against the stone-topped island, set her bottle on it, and started kissing him. Wet, hungry, open-mouthed kisses, hot and purposeful. He ran his hands over her sturdy, smooth thighs, and then around back to cup her ass. Then he brought his hands up between the two of them, trying to create a little space so he could fondle those tits.

They were everything he’d imagined. Natural, full and soft, with big brown areolas. He lifted and squeezed and fondled them, tonguing the tip of each nipple before settling in to suck juicily at the left one. Maybe the nicest pair he’d ever sampled. She pulled the sash on his robe and took him in her hand, first cupping his balls, massaging them, before wrapping her fingers around his very erect dick and tugging on it while he sucked at her.

****

The two men eased the flat screen television from its wall mount and placed it carefully on the floor. As they stood up, they both heard it at the same time and froze.

The taller one, in a black long sleeve t-shirt and black jeans, pulled his mask down over his head: a rubberized Batman cowl that he bought at a costume shop, covering his eyes and the bridge of his nose. The shorter man, Erik, wearing a lightweight black hoodie and black Dickies work pants, pulled down his mask too, just a plain black eye mask like Robin wore on the old TV series.

They were both supposed to have the same black eye masks. They talked about it. Erik told the taller man, Bobby, to get two simple black eye masks. “But not that cheap shit plastic kind that little kids get with their Halloween costumes.” The plastic edges on those things cut at your skin, and the elastic always broke after you looked at it, like, three times. Told him to get something more durable and comfortable. Bobby wanted to get some kind of full head coverings, like those caricature masks of former presidents.

“That’s been done,” said Erik.

“Yeah, but it freaks people out when they see it.”

“The point is not being seen, ever,” said Erik. “Masks are just a precaution. Besides, do you know how hot it gets in those things? And you can’t see shit, the eyeholes aren’t big enough, you got no peripheral vision. This is cooler, just plain black masks. Like the Lone Ranger. Zorro.”

Bobby nodded. Erik could tell he was thinking it over. “Or like The Incredibles,” he said.

Bobby came back from the costume store with a shopping bag.

“Check this out,” he turned his back to Erik, bent over, then stood up and turned around wearing the cowl.

“That’s not what I told you to get, Bobby.”

“I know, but this is cooler.”

“Where’s mine?”

Bobby pulled a black nylon eye mask from the bag and tossed it to him.

“What the fuck?”

“That’s what you told me to get.”

“For both of us, yeah,” said Erik. “So what am I supposed to be, Robin? You’re Batman and I’m Robin?”

“We can’t both be Batman,” said Bobby. “You can’t have two Batmen.”

“So why do you get to be Batman?”

“I don’t know, I just figured. You know, I’m taller.”

“Fine,” said Erik. “You be Batman. Then when someone spots you and the cops go around to all the costume stores asking did anyone buy a Batman mask recently, good luck with keeping your secret identity.”

But nobody had seen them yet, not on any of their first five jobs—or “excursions,” as Bobby called them. Now they stood there in the darkened living room, masks down, listening, and there… there it was, they heard it again, like someone moaning. To their left was a doorway leading into a dining room. They moved carefully in the darkness to the doorway, staying close to the wall, and looked in.

Across the dining room, opposite them, was another doorway with glass-paned French doors, opened in, that let on to a kitchen. Someone was in there. There was a light on, but a dim one, like from a range hood or open refrigerator door. Erik touched Bobby’s arm and they both stepped quietly into the dining room, staying back far enough that they were still in darkness, to get a better look.

Now they could see a man and a woman. The man had his back against the kitchen island and his bathrobe was open. The woman looked to be naked. She might have had panties on, Erik couldn’t tell for sure. A blonde girl with lots of wavy hair and a pair of large tits that the guy was fondling and sucking while she stroked his hard cock that was sticking straight up between them. The guy was murmuring and making little grunts of pleasure while the woman seemed mostly silent, even as the guy sucked on her big tits.

“Jesus,” whispered Erik.

When the man briefly paused his tit-sucking, the girl immediately dropped to her knees and started blowing him. The man leaned back, stretched his arms out along the island. The girl bobbed steadily, workmanlike.

Bobby made a motion to Erik, like, let’s get out of here. Erik glanced at him and held up a finger, one sec. He was thinking.

*****

Dale backed off Kathryn’s big tits, making to get a hand in her panties to start fingering her pussy, but she dropped to her knees and started sucking him. Okay. He watched her, moving his hips only just a little, her hand and mouth working in concert over his shaft and cockhead. Shit, he thought. He’d originally thought about fucking her, bending her over the island, her big tits pressed to that cool limestone while he drilled her young collegiate pussy. But she was sucking him like she wanted a mouthful, and it wasn’t going to be long before he gave her one.

Fuck, if she wanted to swallow his load, she could have it. Set her up on the island, spread her legs, and eat her out to return the favor. Maybe he’d get hard again doing that and maybe he wouldn’t. If he did, then he’d bend her over and pound her. Right now, however, he’d give her the warning.

“I’m gonna come,” said Dale, a low growl. Kathryn kept sucking. He’d been thrusting shallowly in and out of her mouth. He paused then and let loose what felt like a massive first jet of cum. Kathryn didn’t choke or gasp. What she did do was back his cock out and point it at her chest, still jerking it, pointing it first at her right tit, then her left, distributing the subsequent spurts over her large breasts. Then she took his cockhead in her mouth again and sucked hard while squeezing his shaft.

“Fuck,” Dale exhaled when she let his cock fall from her mouth and dangle between them. Kathryn’s head was bowed. She was looking at her chest and smearing his jizz over her tits with both hands. Then she looked up at him, looked him right in the eyes with a stoned expression, still massaging her semen covered breasts. Smiling. Holy fuck, he thought.

*****

It seemed like a good opportunity to net just a little bit more for their efforts. The television, the electronics… all that stuff was fine, easy to get rid of, but even so they were only looking at several hundred dollars, maybe a grand, total. With the people already in the kitchen, and about to be scared shitless, maybe they could take a bit more time and check out things upstairs. Erik didn’t expect to find any money. Only old people kept cash around. With the old people, what you did was look for coffee cans. If you looked in the cupboards or sometimes down in the basement and you saw an old Chase & Sanborn or Maxwell House can, jackpot. Or kitchen counter canisters: flour, sugar, coffee, tea. It was always in the coffee or tea canister, sometimes under a pile of teabags, but still.

These people, they wouldn’t have any cash around. But—nice neighborhood, posh digs—they would have other valuables. Erik didn’t know shit about most jewelry. Anything with what looked like diamonds he would take, maybe stuff with a sizable gem of some sort, but he wouldn’t know until he tried to get rid of it whether it was worth anything. Watches, though. A Rolex or Patek Phillipe could be worth more than twenty flat screens. The other thing: people who owned expensive watches usually had more than one. Someone with a $25,000 Bulgari probably also had a $10,000 Tag Hauer and a $3,000 Omega Seamaster for every day. Fuck the electronics.

Still, it was a risk. They would be making their presence known in order to duct tape these two to a couple of bar stools while they checked out the upstairs. Erik was wary of risks. He had planned and then backed out of more jobs than they pulled, just because he didn’t like the feel of things at a particular house. Murphy’s Law might be a cliché, but it was still a fucking law.

The elements of surprise and probably circumstance were in their favor. Bobby had a piece of duct tape over the guy’s mouth before he could understand what was going on. By the time he did, or seemed to, Bobby had pulled off his robe, firmly parked the guy’s bare ass atop one of the kitchen island stools, and taped up his hands behind his back.

When Bobby squatted to tape the guy’s ankles to the legs of the barstool, the guy started kicking out at him. Bobby gathered up the guy’s balls in one of his leather-gloved hands. “Really?” he said. “I can tape these up instead.” He said it in a gravelly movie-Batman voice.

Bobby must have squeezed a little bit because the guy stopped swinging his legs.

Through all this, though it had taken probably less than a minute, the woman remained on the floor, sitting back on her heels now and looking back and forth between Erik and Bobby and the guy. Erik took her beneath one arm and pulled her to her feet. Guided her to sit in the empty stool. Up close, she looked pretty young. He figured she must be fairly wasted, too, since she didn’t seem afraid or upset, or even embarrassed that she was almost completely naked. She smelled like beer and semen.

Erik said, “Sweetie, I don’t want to put this tape over your mouth because it’s going to hurt like hell when you finally pull it off. But that means you have to be quiet, okay?” like he was talking to a child. “If you’re not quiet, we’re going to have to do something about that, and you won’t like it. Understand?” The woman nodded. She was looking at him and he was looking at her. Erik suddenly felt a little uncomfortable; there was something odd about her.

Erik told Bobby to tape her wrists together in front of her so she could just rest her hands in her lap. To make sure she stayed on the stool, he hooked her foot behind the leg and taped it in place, then did the same with the other. The woman just watched him.

Bobby stood up and said in his Batman voice, “Hope it’s not too tight.” She looked over at Erik and then back to Bobby.

“Why, are you going to fuck me?” she said.

“I meant the tape,” said Bobby.

“No,” said Erik. “We’re not going to—. We’re burglars, not rapists.”

“Burglars?” said the woman. She looked surprised now, but only slightly.

“Now remember,” Erik said to her, putting his finger to her lips, “no more talking.”

Bobby picked up the guy’s robe and draped it over the woman’s shoulders, pulled it around her a bit.

“Thank you, Batman,” she whispered.

**** 

When they found Alison’s car the morning after the bachelorette party, Dale dropped her, told her he’d see them later, then took off to make his tee time. Her head was pounding and she needed a long, hot shower. A couple of hipster guys in summery straw fashion fedoras—the maid of honor’s house where they held the bachelorette party was in a trendy city neighborhood—checked her out as they strolled by: petite little brunette in yoga pants and tank, big Ray-Ban aviators. Christ, these skinny-assed guys with scraggly beards and thrift shop clothes and vapes. She’d take those smooth, cut, male strippers any day. Could see herself getting fucked by one of them. Jesus, she sounded like Kathryn, she thought. As soon as she spent any time with that girl, the voice in her head started sounding like Kathryn.

She told Dale about what happened at the party because she knew he’d hear about it eventually. If it didn’t get to him sooner, someone at the wedding would definitely tell him. Alison and her slutty, cock-hungry friend. God knows how the story would have evolved by then, purple monkey dishwasher. Well, so what? Alcohol and hormones and a loud, thumping beat, these things happen. And that little indiscretion was the only thing anyone saw, as far as she knew. She squirmed a little in the driver’s seat and pushed her sunglasses up on her head. Wished the clouds would clear, wished the day would get hot so she could lie out on the patio and let the late-summer heat bake some of the poison out of her body. There was a hangover throb in her head just above her left eye. She didn’t find herself hungover too often these days and had forgotten just how much it sucked. 

She put her car in the garage and came in through the door that lead directly to the kitchen. No Kathryn. Alison had left her a note, a Post-It she stuck to the mirror in the guest bath. It was still fairly early on a Sunday and after last night, Alison would have still been in bed herself if she could. She grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and went down the hallway. She could see from the foot of the stairs that the doors to both the guest bath and bedroom were open. She heard a low humming sound when she got to the top landing and went to Kathryn’s room, leaned against the door jamb.

Kathryn was on her bed in a gray San Jose State t-shirt, nothing else. She had a chrome-finished vibrator between her spread legs and was pressing the length of it against her clit. Her head on the pillow was turned toward the open doorway but her eyes were closed. She had a finger in her mouth, and she was moving her hips gently back and forth against the vibe, moaning softly. In a moment, she reached back behind her and grabbed the top of the headboard, raised her hips high and held them, shuddering, her mouth open wide now.

Alison bit her lower lip and watched her friend come. Kathryn pushed the length of the toy into her cunt as rode the orgasm, her body straining upward and pulling the t-shirt taut across her breasts. She relaxed finally as it ebbed, let go of the headboard, lying there mostly limp now, panting. She turned to the doorway and opened her eyes.

“You bitch,” said Alison in low, sort of throaty voice. “You started without me.”

Kathryn made Alison come twice, the first time by eating her out, the girl burying three fingers in Alison’s pussy while sucking on her clit. Then she produced a second toy from her luggage, a pink rabbit dildo of soft, translucent plastic with a forked protuberance curving up from the base to vibrate against Alison’s already sensitive clit while Kathryn fucked her with the ersatz cock. Alison felt limp, wrung out, after the second orgasm. But her headache was gone. Both of them lay on their backs on the queen-sized guest room bed, not touching.

“What time does your hubby get home?” said Kathryn.

“Not for another couple hours,” said Alison. She knew why she was asking. “Plenty of time. I just need a couple minutes.”

“I know,” said Kathryn. “No rush. I’m good for now. So, last night. What did you tell your friend— what’s her name?”

“Lisa.”

“What did you tell Lisa we were doing when we came back into the party?”

“I told her you were outside throwing up in bushes and I was holding your hair.”

Kathryn laughed. She turned onto her side to face Alison and propped her head on her hand. She said, “I wonder if she thought it was strange that I continued drinking shots when I came back in.”

“I don’t know,” said Alison. “She was hammered. She probably just thought you were just a crazy, fucked-up, drunken slut. Which you are.”

Kathryn started to run the tip of her finger around one of Alison’s nipples. She said, “I think she was horny, too. We should have taken her out to the back yard with us.”

Alison swatted Kathryn’s hand away. “Stop that. I think one of those uptight bridesmaids probably would have missed her and gone looking. That’s all we’d have needed.”

Kathryn said, “Are you mad at me?”

Alison didn’t answer right away, like she was thinking about it. “No,” she said.

“I thought it was pretty hot,” Kathryn whispered. “The sailor was into you.”

Alison’s eyes were still closed. She said, “I don’t think so. You were the one sucking him.”

“Yeah,” said Kathryn, “but I could just tell he was more turned on by you. The way he was kissing you…”

Alison was thinking about the stripper who was dressed as a sailor inside at the party, how much sexier he looked out in the back yard, in street clothes, leaning against the curved ladder of the jungle gym in the near dark. His jeans open and pulled halfway down his thighs while Kathryn squatted in front of him, bobbing on his erect cock. His zippered hoodie open and Alison with her hands on his hard, bare, perfectly smooth chest, her tongue in his mouth, his in hers. How he smelled of cigarettes and Altoids and some kind of aftershave and sweat. He was a head taller than her so she stood on the first rung of the jungle gym ladder. She thought that he kept looking at her, inside, at the party, when he and the other two were performing, but then thought maybe she was just imagining it because she would have liked it if he was.

Kathryn lay her head on the pillow, her lips near Alison’s ear. She whispered, “And when he started pulling your zipper down, like, really slow, it was so fucking hot. And you starting grunting real soft against his mouth. I knew he was fingering you, his cock seemed like it got really hard then in my mouth. Like he was imagining he was fucking you…”

“I don’t think that’s what he was thinking,” Alison said softly.

Kathryn said, “He definitely was. ‘Cause as soon as you starting coming he completely unloaded in my mouth.”

“It was all your work,” said Alison.

“No, you set him off,” said Kathryn. “Your tight little pussy. He was thinking about filling your tight little pussy.” She sat up abruptly and pulled off her t-shirt. She swung a leg over Alison, straddling her, then thrusting her pussy forward towards Alison’s mouth. “So much cum I almost couldn’t swallow it all,” said Kathryn, her voice a little hoarse. She was biting her thumb, looking down at Alison. “Pumping into my mouth. Pumping all that cream into my mouth, imagining it was your pussy.”

Alison’s eyes were still closed but her hands were on Kathryn’s ass now, pulling her close. Kathryn leaned forward and put both of her hands flat against the wall above the bed. “Lick my cunt,” she said.

**** 

Erik told the man and woman to just be calm, try to relax. They weren’t going to be tied up for very long, especially if they behaved themselves and didn’t make any noise, didn’t start banging around trying to get loose. Erik said that he and Batman were just going to go upstairs and have a quick look around. When they were done, he said, they’d come back, let them go, and they could get on with their evening, call the police or whatever they felt like doing.

The man’s eyes got big when Erik mentioned going upstairs, and he started shaking his head at him, no, no, trying to say something, but it just sounded like a guy trying to talk with tape over his mouth. Erik smiled and put his finger to his lips.

“Are you really going to cut them loose when we’re done?” said Bobby as they were heading down the hallway toward the stairs.

“Can’t leave them trussed up like that,” said Erik. “Who knows how long it would take for them to get loose or for someone to find them. We’ll put a little cut in the guy’s tape. Just enough to give him a bit of a start, you know. He starts working it, twisting his wrists, he’ll get his hands free in twenty minutes or so. By the time he gets the rest of himself untaped, then untapes the wife… He’ll spend another fifteen minutes tearing around the house looking for a cell phone before he realizes that we took them.”

Bobby said, “Why wouldn’t he just call the cops on the house phone?”

Erik said, “They don’t have one. I looked. We were in the living room, kitchen, that room they got set up as an office. There were no phones anywhere. Lots of people don’t have landlines these days, just use their cells for everything.”

“Makes sense I guess.”

“Yeah, until you have to call police in the middle of the night and you don’t have your cell phone. But we’ll check in the bedrooms, just to be sure. If you see a phone, any kind of phone, just take it.” Erik said, “So now the guy is going to have to put some clothes on his bare ass and go outside to try to wake up one of his neighbors. In this neighborhood, you can imagine how well that’s going to go over. Anyway, by the time the cops finally get here, we’re going to be home drinking beer and watching Netflix.”

Bobby said he hoped he was right. Erik said so did he. That was the way it all seemed like it should go, but you never fucking knew. Erik’s dad used to tell him what he called the variations on Murphy’s Law. As soon as you think you’re absolutely certain of something, that’s the moment you’re wrong. Once you’ve thought of everything that could possibly happen, that’s when you know you’ve missed something. When someone tells you they did the best job they could, that’s when you know they didn’t. When someone tells you “it’s not what it looks like,” it’s always what it looks like. Stuff like that.

At the top of the stairs they tried the first door at that end of the hall, a linen closet. The room next to that was a guest bath. It looked like someone had been using it recently. There was a floral-patterned toiletries bag stuffed with travel size deodorant, saline solution, hotel bottles of moisturizers and conditioners. The sink was crowded with make-up items: brushes, eyeliner pencils, small plastic containers filled with pale powders. There was also a hairbrush with stiff plastic bristles threaded with blond hair. Erik picked it up and looked at it, then looked at the stuff arrayed around the sink one more time. Bobby started to say something, and Erik held a finger up in front of his face. He looked at the hairbrush again.

They turned out the bathroom light and went to the next closed door in the upstairs hallway. Erik listened at it for a moment, then turned down the handle knob and looked in. There was a queen-sized bed with two nightstands on either side. One of the nightstand lamps was on. The bed was a snarl of sheets and counterpane. There was a suitcase on the floor that had erupted a great mound of women’s clothing and underwear. More clothes were strewn about the floor. On one of the pillows was a shining metal vibrator, the bullet kind with a chrome finish. There was a second sex toy on the nightstand, one of those translucent pink plastic rabbit dildos sitting upright on its base.

Erik knew that this was the blonde’s room. What he didn’t know, and was trying to figure out, was if there was someone else in the house, most likely upstairs. Maybe the guy wasn’t married, this chick was his guest, they just happened to hook up in the kitchen. But that really didn’t make any sense.

He considered that maybe the guy and the girl were both guests, but there were no men’s clothes in the guest room that he could see. There was only one other room up here and that would be the master bedroom. Would this guy really do the girl downstairs in the kitchen while his wife was upstairs sleeping? Erik thought, yeah, he would, with a ripe piece like her. Especially if this chick started it, and from the way things looked to Erik, she might have. Where were her clothes? She came downstairs to the kitchen in a house where she’s a guest wearing just a pair of panties?

Erik whispered to Bobby, “I think the lady of the house is still in the master bedroom.” Then they both heard a toilet flush.

“Nice work, Robin,” said Bobby in his Batman voice.

***** 

Alison woke up because she had to pee. She swung her legs over the side of bed and saw the bathroom door was closed and the light was on in there. She looked behind her; Dale’s side of the bed was empty. Great. She lay back down and waited and didn’t hear anything. She squeezed her legs tight and closed her eyes, thinking maybe she could actually will it away, go back to sleep. Listening for anything that sounded like he was finishing up. Did he fall asleep in there? She didn’t like to knock on a bathroom door when she knew someone was in there because she didn’t like anyone doing that to her. But what was taking so long?

After another two or three bladder-filled minutes, Alison hissed “Jesus,” popped up and went to the bathroom door. “Dale?” she whispered, tapping on it. “Dale, I really have to pee, can I come in?” Nothing. She opened the door and saw the empty bathroom, cursed under her breath again, then went in to use the toilet. Yanked her panties partway down her thighs, perched on the seat and peed.

So where the hell was Dale? Most times like this he’d be downstairs watching television, or in the office watching porn on the computer and beating off. She’d never caught him doing that; if she ever came down to the kitchen for something and looked into the office, he’d always have some sports website up on the screen, or his email inbox, something that he’d switch to if he heard her. Sitting there in his robe, probably for easy access and quick coverage. The guy lived in that fucking robe; he was like Hugh Hefner. She didn’t care. It wasn’t some big secret that people watched porn and masturbated.

But this business with the bathroom kind of annoyed her. Like he was trying to make it look like that’s where he was if she woke up and didn’t see him next to her in bed. Thinking about it, her stomach felt a little dodgy. She didn’t doubt that Kathryn, if she was drunk, which she regularly was, would fuck her husband, given the chance. The chick just got into a kind of insatiably horny haze when she was lit.

The idea of Dale fucking Kathryn pissed her off, though. She wasn’t exactly sure if it was the fact of them fucking that pissed her off, or that they were doing it while she was in the house, upstairs, asleep. Then she thought of Kathryn sucking off that stripper in the back yard while the guy finger-fucked Alison, thought of how Kathryn looked when the guy started coming in her mouth, how she grabbed the guy’s hard, muscled thighs and held tight, her throat pulsing, swallowing cum. How the guy was looking at her, Alison, when she turned her face back up to him, how he brushed the backs of his fingers that smelled so strongly of her against her cheek and kissed her again, but tenderly this time.

She decided she needed to know. She wouldn’t necessarily pull a red-handed bust. She just wanted to see if it was happening. Kathryn still had four days left in her visit. Alison didn’t want to have a scene. She’d wait, she decided, and deal with Dale after Kathryn left. She opened the bedroom door, listened for a minute, then stepped out into the dark hallway. A strong arm wrapped around her from behind, pinning her arms against her, and a gloved hand clapped over her mouth.

**** 

Erik didn’t want to have to deal with the woman. As soon as they heard the toilet flush, Erik tugged Bobby’s sleeve and was about to motion that they needed to leave, go back downstairs and get out, that it was getting too complicated. But then the woman came out of the bedroom and they didn’t have a choice.

Bobby carried the woman back into the bedroom. Bobby was repeating “Shhh, shhh, shhh, it’s okay, no one’s going to hurt you, it’s okay. Shhh, shhh.” But she wasn’t making noise, trying to yell or anything with his hand over her mouth. She was just kicking her legs around. Erik thought, like women in movies always did when someone grabs them up. She had on a pair of pink floral panties over a really nice, round ass and a thin white t-shirt.

Bobby tossed her onto the bed as Erik switched on the lamp on the nightstand, and she immediately turned onto her backside and backpedaled herself to the headboard. Pulled her knees up tight to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Erik got a good look at her now and thought, no fucking way.

The woman looked at Bobby and then Erik and then back to Bobby and said, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Erik shrugged. He stepped over to the nightstand and picked up a cell phone, put it in his pocket. He walked around to the opposite nightstand where there was a second phone and pocketed that one, too. Then he went into the bathroom and looked around. No phones in there, mobile or otherwise. He came back out into the bedroom, looked around, and spotted the walk-in.

“What do you guys want?” said the woman.

“Valuables, ma’am,” said Bobby in his Batman voice. She stared at him for a second.

“Oh, that’s funny,” she said. “That’s really fucking hilarious. Where’s my husband?”

“Good-looking guy, about my height, nice haircut? He’s downstairs,” said Erik.

“He’s fine, ma’am,” said Bobby.

“Would you knock it off,” said the woman. “Fucking Batman voice, Jesus.”

“He was dealing with an intruder when we stepped in to help,” said Erik. “Apparently, some naked blond woman with large breasts had broken into your house, and he was subduing her by making her smoke his pole.”

“Motherfucker,” the woman said tightly. “I fucking knew it.”

Erik sat down on the edge of the bed. He said, “If it’s any consolation, he didn’t bang her.”

“No,” said Bobby in his normal voice now. “She just blew him and he came all over her tits.”

“That’s when we stepped in to spare them from any further indiscretion,” said Erik. “Though we really didn’t know at the time that, you know, it was adulterous. Batman.” Erik jerked a thumb toward the big walk-in closet. “You know what you’re looking for, right?”

Bobby went for the closet. Erik turned back to the woman and flinched. She was sitting cross-legged now, her hands on her knees, leaning forward and studying him.

*****

Alison studied the profile of the guy in the black eye mask sitting on her bed, thinking she was imagining things. She rearranged herself, crossed her legs now, careful not to move too quickly. She put her hands on her knees and leaned in, leaned in as close as she could, close enough to pick up a faint amalgam of cigarette smoke, stress sweat, and… No fucking way, she thought.

*****

Erik touched his fingers to the woman’s shoulder and eased her back away from him a bit. He said, “We’ll just be another minute or two.” Then he said, a little louder, “How we doing, Batman?”

“Gettin’ there,” Bobby said from the closet.

The woman said, “So when did Robin start giving Batman orders?”

“Oh, I’m not Robin,” said Erik. “I’m Nightwing.”

“Who’s Nightwing?”

“You know, after Robin kind of graduated from Batman, stopped being his ward. He became Nightwing.”

“I see,” said the woman. “But you still work together?”

Erik looked at her. Sitting there cross-legged in just her panties and a white t-shirt. Really no breasts to speak of but with stiff nipples that showed darkly through the thin cotton. She seemed amused now, had a faint smile on her face, like she was enjoying this. Telling him that she knew, and that she knew he knew she knew. Fucking Murphy’s Law, thought Erik.

“So, should I call you Nightwing?” the woman softly. “Or… Sailor?”

Erik slipped the mask up to his forehead. He brushed the woman’s cheek with the backs of his fingers. She leaned in and kissed him.

She was still kissing him, up on her knees now, when Bobby came out of the walk-in closet. Bobby said, “Whoa. Um… Robin?”

“Nightwing,” Erik said, his mouth still pressed to the woman’s, his hand feeling her slender back through the thin shirt.

“What’s Nightwing?” said Bobby.

The woman broke the kiss finally, reluctantly Erik thought, and sat back on her haunches. Bobby was standing at the foot of the bed with a Crown Royal bag that sagged with hardware.

“Did you find the Cartier watch?” said the woman.

“I did,” said Bobby.

“You should get at least six thousand for that,” she said.

“Sorry,” said Erik.

The woman shrugged. “That’s okay. Dale gave it to me, but I can get another one. It’s insured.”

“I have no idea what’s going on,” said Bobby.

“It seems that we’ve met before,” said Erik.

“That’s not good,” said Bobby.

The woman said, “It’ll be okay.”

*****

Alison tapped the hard cell phone in the pocket of the man’s black work pants. She said, “Now you have my number, Nightwing.”

“It’s Erik,” said Erik. “I wanted to ask you for it the other night, but…”

“But you were busy coming in my slutty friend’s mouth.”

“I wanted to see you,” he said. “I told her to bring you when she asked me to meet her in the backyard.”

“Really?” said Alison. “She didn’t tell me.”

Erik took the two cell phones out of his pocket. Alison took the one in the black case. “This is Dale’s,” she said. She tried a couple different four-digit codes until she unlocked it. She said, “Gee, I’d have thought he’d make it a little more difficult.” She disabled the screen lock, tapped around a bit, then opened the phone log and found her number.

“This is me,” she showed him the screen.

“Alison,” he said.

“I’ve turned off the location services so the phone can’t be tracked, but you should ditch it anyway once you’ve written down my number.”

Erik said, “Why don’t you keep yours,” handing her the other phone. “Just, you know, pretend you’re having trouble finding it for a half-hour or so after we go.”

Alison put the phone in her underpants, then drew up close to him. She put her hands between his legs, cupped his cock and balls through his pants.

“I want to fuck you in the worst way,” she said. “So you better call me or text me. Or I’ll turn you both in.”

“Is tomorrow too soon?” he said.

*****

Dale’s shoulders hurt like hell from trying to work his hands free of the duct tape. Now they were full of pins and needles, just like his feet. He’d been listening hard but hadn’t heard anything besides a toilet flush fifteen or twenty minutes ago. Kathryn was sitting directly across from him, her head bowed down to her chest, sleeping, her mass of wavy blond hair hiding her face.

Alison walked into the kitchen followed by the two guys in masks. Dale grunted loudly behind the tape over his mouth, straining against his restraints. He watched Alison take a paring knife from a kitchen drawer. She stood in front of Kathryn and brushed back the girl’s hair. Kathryn looked up, typically bleary-eyed, and smiled.

“Hi,” she said to Alison.

“Hi,” said Alison. “You okay?”

“Uh-huh.” Then Kathryn looked around at all of them there in the kitchen. She said, “Are you mad at me?”

“A little,” Alison said as she cut the tape. She freed Kathryn’s wrists and gave the knife to Batman. “You want to make it up to me?”

Kathryn nodded. Batman knelt in front of her and began cutting her feet free from the stool. Alison put her lips to Kathryn’s ear and whispered something to her. Dale couldn’t hear what she said.

“Really?” said Kathryn. Alison whispered more. Kathryn looked down at Batman on the floor stripping the tape from her ankles.

“Uh-huh,” said Kathryn. Batman finished and stood up, put the paring knife on the kitchen island. More whispering. “Oh, yeah, definitely,” Kathryn smiled.

Alison said to Batman, “Show her.”

Batman looked over at his partner standing off to the side, who shrugged. “It’s up to you,” said his partner.

Batman made a half-turn and leaned back against the kitchen island, pulled up his t-shirt over a set of ridiculously cut abs, then opened the buttons of his jeans and pulled out a flaccid but very thick, generous cock.

“Oh, God, you’re right,” Kathryn whispered to herself. She put her hands on Batman’s jutting hip bones, bend her head sideways and opened her mouth to take in the head of his dangling cock. She began to slide her lips along his shaft, which grew as it stiffened. Soon, he was at full mast, his gloved hands weighing and fondling Kathryn’s large breasts.

“That’s so hot,” said Alison. “Suck him, baby. Suck the Batman’s big, thick cock.” Kathryn wrapped her fingers around it and began twisting her hand along its length in concert with her mouth.

Dale felt his own cock getting hard and turned away, not wanted to bone up in front of everyone. He looked at Alison.

She said to him, “Dale, we need to even up the score, don’t you think?” She unzipped the hoodie of the other masked guy, revealing his hard, hairless chest and another beautifully muscled torso. “But I’m sorry, you can’t watch.” She pulled off her t-shirt and draped it over Dale’s head. The fabric was thin but the room was dark and now he couldn’t see. He grunted his objection through the tape.

Dale heard another zipper, what he took to be the rustling of clothes, and heavy breathing coming from multiple people. He heard Batman moaning and Kathryn humming, her mouth sounding very full. He heard his wife say, “Suck him off, Kathryn. Take his load, make him fill your mouth.”

Then he heard his wife grunting softly, like she was taking thrusts of her own. “Yes,” he heard her say. “Yes… yes… yes…” He heard her say, “That’s it… fuck me… fuck me… with your… big… fucking… cock.”

Then he heard what sounded like Batman coming, grunting hard and shooting off in Kathryn’s mouth, the girl receiving it with little hums and soft grunts of approval. His own wife’s voice got louder then, asking for her fucking to continue, asking for it harder, and a more emphatic thumping now. The guy’s hard smooth stomach probably thudding up against his wife’s round, perfect ass as he fucked her right there in front of him, more or less. It seemed to go on forever, Jesus. The guy didn’t say a word. Dale felt like he couldn’t breathe. Felt like the veins in his neck were going to pop. His wife was very loud now: “Fuck! You’re gonna make me come! Make me come! Make me fucking come! Fill my fucking pussy. Shoot your thick jizz in my cunt while I come on your fucking cock!”

Dale started whipping his head around, trying to shake off the t-shirt. It’s sounded like they were fucking right next to him.

“Oh my God,” he heard his wife gasp. “Oh my God… Here it comes… Here it comes.”

The t-shirt was pulled off his head. Alison was standing directly in front of him, naked except for her floral print panties, leaning toward him. Kathryn was standing next her, a dumb looking smile on her face, wearing his robe but open. Just the two of them, no one else. Alison play-acted loudly into his face, “I’m coming! Oh God, I’m coming… I’m…”

Alison grabbed the piece of duct tape covering Dale’s mouth and ripped it off as hard as she could.

Dale screamed so loud that Kathryn peed a little.

**** 

Erik lit a cigarette and cracked the van window. He added Alison’s number to his own phone contacts.

Bobby got the green arrow and turned left onto the bridge, on their way back to the apartment they shared. Erik was about to lower his window all the way and cast Dale’s phone off the bridge and into the river when it buzzed twice, quickly, with a new text message. From a contact named “Accountant.” Kind of late for a text from your accountant, thought Erik. He opened it.

“U up?”

Erik texted back, “Yes.”

“Accountant” texted a photo, a woman shooting a selfie in a bathroom mirror. A lean, brown woman, perky coffee tits with big, stiff, dark chocolate nipples. She was holding a towel between her breasts; it hung down in front of her private parts. Then another photo followed; this time the towel was gone and she had a hand splayed low on her stomach, like her fingers were on their way to her thoroughly bare pussy. A third photo popped up, a rear view now of the woman’s long, slender frame and high, round ass, as she looked back into the mirror over her shoulder.

Accountant: “When r u cumming back to CA to f**k this ass again???”

“Shit,” Erik said under his breath.

“What?” said Bobby.

Erik said, “Looks like Dale has some other action going on.” He thought about responding but changed his mind, powering down the phone. He decided to hold onto it for a little bit, at least until he saw Alison. She might be interested in it. He’d think about it.

Bobby asked him, “So are you really going to call her?” Erik told him that he planned on it.

“I don’t really think I have a choice,” he said.

Bobby said, “I don’t know, E. The guy gets it on with his wife’s friend when his wife is upstairs sleeping. The blonde chick blows everything. The little chick lets herself get robbed and wants to hook up with one of the guys that did it. Those people were whacked.”

“I guess,” said Erik. He was looking at the stuff in the Crown Royal bag, the Cartier watch, the man’s gold Rolex Cellini.

“No moral compass,” Bobby tsked, shaking his head.

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