Powerless to Stop his Cuckolding - Part 1 (Patreon)

“Charles, you didn’t tell me your wife was so beautiful,” Mr. Adams said as he sidled up next to Charles with a glass of champagne in his hand.

Charles stared across the ballroom at his wife and smiled. Alice was exquisitely beautiful. More beautiful than any other woman at the charity fundraiser his law firm had organized. “Yes, sir, she is quite beautiful,” Charles replied as he glanced at his boss. “More beautiful than I probably deserve, if I’m being honest.”

Mr. Adams kept his gaze focused on Alice, who was nodding along as an older woman engaged in an animated, largely one-sided conversation.

“What do you think drew her to you, Charles?” Mr. Adams asked. “After all, a woman of such great beauty could likely have any man she wanted. Why did she choose you?”

“We met in college,” Charles answered as he admired the way Alice’s red satin dress hugged her hips. “I wouldn’t say it was love at first sight, but the chemistry was immediate. We’ve never really talked about why she chose me, to be honest. I never really thought about why I chose her. For me, I wanted to marry Alice after just a few months. I knew she was the one.”

“Do you think you’ve given your wife the life she deserves, Charles?” Mr. Adams asked.

Charles looked to see that his boss – and the youngest partner at the firm – had finally torn his gaze away from Alice. “I do, yes,” Charles answered. “I know I’m not quite as successful as you are, but I have a good job, I make a decent amount of money, Alice and I travel quite a bit, and she seems happy.”

“I wonder about a man that says his wife seems happy,” Mr. Adams said. “Shouldn’t you know if she’s happy, Charles? Shouldn’t you be absolutely certain that you’re doing your absolute best to meet your wife’s needs?”

Charles was taken aback by the aggressive nature of Mr. Adams’s comment. He looked across the ballroom and studied his wife for a few moments. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a bad fight and he couldn’t ever remember Alice voicing even a small sense of discontent with her life. She had a job she liked. They’d just moved into a beautiful home. They were thinking about having a family. Everything seemed to be going according to plan. And yet, for some reason Charles didn’t feel entirely confident in her happiness.

“When I look at your wife, Charles, I see a woman in need of something she’s not getting,” Mr. Adams said.

Charles looked at his wife and then at Mr. Adams, who was intently staring across the ballroom. “I don’t understand. What isn’t she getting?”

Mr. Adams looked at Charles and flashed the confident smile that had likely helped him sign countless multimillion dollar clients for the firm. “I’m afraid that’s the sort of information a man has to discern for himself, though I suspect that if you don’t already know what your wife is missing, you never will. Excuse me.”

Mr. Adams walked away as Charles looked across the ballroom. He stared at his wife as if he could figure out what his boss had seen. Nothing revealed itself, of course. Alice looked happy and beautiful, as she almost always did. She looked more elegant than usual thanks to the beautiful red satin dress and the time she’d taken with her hair and makeup, but otherwise she seemed to Charles like the girl he’d known since college.

The string quartet returned to the stage as Charles studied his wife. They picked up their instruments and started in on a slow waltz, luring several of the partygoers to the dance floor and obscuring Charles’s view of his wife.

Frustrated and dealing with an unexpected sense of insecurity set off by his boss, Charles set off across the ballroom to find Alice and share a dance with her. He felt a sudden and deep yearning to have her nearby, to feel the warmth of her body against his, to share a soft kiss as they moved to the beautifully played music of a centuries old piece.

Alice was nowhere to be found by the time Charles made his way through the crowd of slow dancing couples. He saw the woman she’d been talking with, though, and approached her with a smile on his face.

“Excuse me,” Charles said. “Would you happen to know where the lovely woman in the red dress went? The one you were talking with.”

The older woman smiled cheerfully and said, “Oh, yes, a very handsome man escorted her onto the dance floor. She seemed quite enamored with him. I assumed it was her husband.”

“I’m her husband,” Charles said.

“Ah, well, my mistake,” the older woman said. “I’m sure I simply misjudged what I saw and your wife wasn’t enamored with the man that put his arm around her and led her to the dance floor.” She turned and walked away, though not before smiling in a manner that made it seem perfectly clear she didn’t think she’d misjudged anything.

Charles spun around and studied the dance floor. There were dozens of couples, but it wasn’t long before he spotted Alice’s red dress in the crowd. Charles set out to see who’d asked his wife to dance. He made his way through the crowd as politely as he could and it wasn’t until he was just a few couples away that Charles realized it was Mr. Adams dancing with Alice.

Powered by equal parts jealousy and insecurity, Charles approached his wife and his boss and said, “May I cut in?”

Alice turned and replied, “Charles, darling, don’t be rude. Mr. Adams asked me to dance and since you weren’t anywhere to be found, I accepted. I’ll come find you when we’re done.”

Mr. Adams glanced at Charles for a moment before spinning Alice away. Charles wasn’t about to demand that his wife stop dancing with his boss – Mr. Adams had a reputation for ruthlessness – so he walked away, not unlike a puppy slinking off with his tail between his legs when he’s been scolded.

Charles drowned his sorrows in a strong drink and tried his best not to scream at the quartet to finish the damn song so his beautiful wife could cease dancing with his handsome, successful boss.

Eventually, after what seemed like forever, Alice emerged from the crowd on the dance floor and approached Charles with a smile on her face.

“Did you enjoy your dance?” he asked.

“Don’t be jealous, Charles,” Alice replied. “It’s not a good look. Your boss asked me to dance. Did you expect me to turn him down? I’m not a fool. You don’t do that sort of thing if you want your husband to continue to get promoted. Besides, he was a perfect gentleman. Not for a moment did I feel like Mark was being inappropriate.”

Charles was almost certain he detected just a hint of regret on his wife’s face. Was it possible she wanted Mr. Adams to be inappropriate? And she was now on a first name basis with him? Charles had never called him Mark. He’d seen people get yelled at for being so familiar with Mr. Adams.

“I want to dance with you, but Mark wants to talk to me about a job at the charity. He said they’re looking for someone with my marketing and social media skills,” Alice said.

“You have to do that now?” Charles asked. He couldn’t quite shake the notion that Mr. Adams didn’t have the purest of intentions. “It’s Saturday night. We’re at a party. Is this really the time to be talking about a new job?”

“What did I say about being jealous, Charles?” Alice asked.

“I’m not jealous,” he replied in a voice that was much louder than the situation merited.

Alice pursed her lips and Charles saw anger flash in her eyes. It disappeared a moment later, but he knew he’d made a mistake.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m being jealous and stupid. I apologize.”

“Mark and I are meeting in the hotel bar,” Alice said. “He said it shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes and that if I’m interested he’ll introduce me to the head of the charity so I can set up a job interview for this week. He said you could come too, but I’d like you to stay here since it seems obvious that your jealousy has gotten the best of you tonight and I won’t have you cost me this opportunity.”

Charles didn’t get a chance to apologize again as Alice turned and walked away. It would only have angered her further if he followed, so Charles downed the rest of his drink and watched her head towards the ballroom’s exit. Soon she’d be heading towards the elegant, darkly-lit bar across the other side of the massive, marble-floored lobby of the hotel.

Charles was going to stay at the dance and try and socialize with his coworkers, but then he saw Mr. Adams meet Alice just before she departed the ballroom. He put his arm around her, pulled her closer than Charles thought appropriate, and walked into the lobby with her. Charles could almost hear his wife telling him not to be jealous, but he couldn’t help it. He put his drink down and headed towards the lobby. He popped his head out of the ballroom and saw Alice and Mr. Adams step into the bar.

He crossed the lobby and peered into the bar to see where his wife and his boss had done. He spotted them sitting side-by-side in a booth in the far corner. They had drinks in front of them and it didn’t seem like they were talking about work. Alice laughed quite a bit and more than a few times she leaned towards Mr. Adams, displaying the kind of flirty desire a married woman wasn’t supposed to feel for anyone other than her husband.

“Can I help you, sir?” the beautiful young hostess asked as she returned to the bar’s entrance.

“Oh, uh, no…well,” Charles stammered as he tried to figure out a plan. Did he want to go into the bar and confront his wife? Did he want to stay out of sight and watch them? Was he out of his mind for feeling so jealous?

“I’m afraid we don’t seat parties of one at the tables or booths, but there are plenty of seats at the bar if you’d like to get a drink,” the hostess said.

Charles marveled that the bar was high end enough that they actually restricted who could sit at the tables, but rooms were at least $1,000 night at the hotel, so it made some sense. “I’ll sit at the bar,” Charles said as he eyed a seat that seemed to be almost entirely in shadow.

“Very well,” the girl said.

Charles quickly stepped past her and took the seat at the far end of the bar. Alice and Mr. Adams were facing away from him, which made it exceedingly unlikely they’d even look his way. He ordered a drink and fixed his gaze on his wife and his boss, studying every little movement and trying to guess as to the content of their conversation.

For the first few minutes Charles felt foolish as his wife and his boss seemed to be talking business. They both had their phones out and though he couldn’t see clearly from a distance, it seemed like Alice was showing Mr. Adams some of her social media work.

At some point their phones went away and the conversation seemed to get a little more intimate. Mr. Adams moved just a little closer. Alice leaned towards him. Mr. Adams touched her on the arm a few times. She brushed here hair back several times and sipped her drink in a manner that struck Charles as purposefully sexy.

If someone else had walked into the bar they would have assumed Mr. Adams was a wealthy man attempting to seduce the beautiful brunette in the red satin dress. Charles felt the same way, and yet he stayed on the bar stool and nursed his drink. Alice had been genuinely angry with him earlier, so to confront her would have risked damaging his marriage, let alone the damage it could have done to his and Alice’s careers. The only choice was to stay on the bar stool and nurse his drink.

Adhering to that choice became a great deal more difficult when Mr. Adams put his hand on Alice’s leg. It wasn’t incidental contact. He put his hand on her leg and he kept it there. He rubbed her thigh through the soft material of her dress. He was attempting to seduce her. There was no question about it.

Alice didn’t move his hand away. She didn’t leave the booth. Instead, she smiled and her legs parted just a little. Her dress was too long for Mr. Adams to do anything untoward, making it seem like Alice’s reaction was instinctual, like her body wanted Mr. Adams to do more.

Charles remained on the bar stool. He stared daggers towards his boss, but he took no action. The potential consequences seemed too high.

Then Alice slid out of the booth and Mr. Adams followed. Charles didn’t have time to leave the bar without being seen, so he leaned further into the shadow and hoped they wouldn’t spot him sitting on the last stool at the bar.

His hopes were dashed when Alice approached as Mr. Adams left the bar. She sat on the stool next to his, took his drink, and swallowed the rest of the dark liquid. “Did you know that the firm rented the penthouse suite for the evening?” she asked.

“What?” Charles asked.

Alice pulled a keycard from her handbag and placed it on the bar. “He said the view is breathtaking.”

“Why did he give you a card?” Charles asked.

Alice smiled. “Have you ever spent the night in a $12,000 hotel room?”

“No, of course not,” Charles said.

“I haven’t either,” Alice replied. “But I’d like to. Come.”

She stood and held out her hand. Charles pulled $40 from his wallet and left it on the bar before taking his wife’s hand. She led him into the lobby and towards the elevators. She slipped the keycard into the slot for the penthouse and the door opened. Alice stepped inside and Charles followed.

Alice leaned against the wall and pulled Charles close as the elevator doors shut and the car lurched to life and carried them towards the hotel’s top floor.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said.

“Thank you,” Alice replied. She smiled and tilted her head. Her lips approached his. Charles leaned closer. Just as they were about to kiss the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened. Alice slid to the side and walked out into the hallway. Charles followed as she approached the door and slid the keycard into the slot.

The suite was massive. There were two bedrooms, two balconies, a small kitchen, a living area, a dining area, and a screening room. It didn’t strike Charles as being worth $12,000, but it was unquestionably the nicest hotel room he’d ever been in.

A bottle of champagne waited on the elegant coffee table in the living area. Charles noted that two glasses had already been poured, as if someone had come to the room and prepped it for their arrival.

“It’s a lovely room, isn’t it?”

Charles spun around to see Mr. Adams standing in the doorway of one of the bedrooms.

“It’s exquisite,” Alice replied. “Just like you said it would be.”