Was My Wife the Woman in Those Photos?

It was Friday night and I was home alone. Daniela had gone out to one of her girls’ dinners, the kind they organized every month and a half: women only, no husbands or partners. She always came home happy, optimistic, and a little tipsy, and I was fine with that. I went out with my own friends from time to time.

We had a three-year-old boy, a trusted babysitter, two good salaries, and a comfortable life. Daniela came from a wealthy family, and it showed: she always wore expensive clothes, took care of herself, and went to beauty clinics that cost a fortune. We had been together for eight years.

That night I had something quick for dinner, watched half a movie, and went to bed with a novel. I fell asleep without realizing it, the book open on my chest.

The sound of a notification on my phone woke me. Probably something stupid, I thought, but I checked in case it was her, in case something had happened.

It was an email from Daniela. No subject. That was strange already, because she almost never used email; she preferred messaging. I opened it. And the ground opened up beneath my feet.

In the body of the message was a black-and-white photo. A young, naked woman lying on her back on a bed. Her arms spread wide, tied by the wrists to the sides. Her legs were tied by the ankles too, spread completely open. She wore a blindfold over her eyes, and her head rested on a pillow. The picture had been taken from the side. It was, I admit, tremendously sensual.

Below it, a text:

—“Despite the blindfold, you have to recognize her. I’m sure you’ve seen her naked many times, but not like this. Look closely: this beauty is your wife. We have her in my bed, relaxed, willing, and available. Now I’ll tell you how we got here and what we have planned.”

I couldn’t believe it. It couldn’t be. My hands and knees began to tremble. I connected the phone to the computer so I could see it on the big screen, and the image filled everything.

God. She really did look like Daniela. But I had never seen her that way. I traced that body with my eyes: long legs, a smooth belly, perfectly proportioned breasts. It could be her; she took such good care of herself… but it could also not be her. The man was right about one thing: I had never seen her in such an obscenely yielding position.

I enlarged the image, searching for certainty that never came. And then I realized something that hurt more than the picture: in eight years, I didn’t know my own wife’s body. Thirty-three years old, beautiful, and I had taken it all for granted. No, it can’t be her. He’s a bastard lying to me.

Another email arrived. Same sender, no subject.

—“As promised, I’ll tell you. An exclusive music club, the kind people with money go to. Your wife and two other friends, all in their thirties, beautiful, elegant, classy. And pretty far gone: laughing at nothing, euphoric. They didn’t even look at us, of course, with that air of superiority they have.”

—“I don’t know whether you recognized her completely. To help you, I took a close-up. You’ll recognize your wife’s pussy.”

The image filled the screen, taken almost head-on. I stared at it for a long time. Yes, it could be her. I had never seen it so close, in such detail, and that thought alone churned me up inside.

—“I’m fascinated. Look at the clitoris, so prominent—I’ve never seen one like it. That confirms it for you. It got that way after I licked it for a long while, without letting her close her legs. Delicious. As you can see, she responded. My friend says it turns him on that a stranger is taking care of her.”

I was hypnotized. It can’t be Daniela, I repeated to myself, she doesn’t have… But the truth was, I didn’t know for sure either. I had never given her oral sex; I found it awkward, and now I regretted it with a new kind of shame. I admitted, with a bitter pang, that this stranger was enjoying her more than I ever had.

I decided to put an end to my doubts and called her. It rang and rang, unanswered. The doubt grew larger: if it was her, she wouldn’t be able to answer. And if the man had her phone, neither would she. Stupid of me.

Another notification.

—“Now that you know for sure, I’ll explain how she ended up in my bed. At the club they were drinking, dancing, having fun, aware of how beautiful they were. Short skirts, bodies moving without any attempt to hide it. Yours, the most sensual of the three. Nothing unusual: three women having a good time.”

—“At one point I lost sight of them. We went outside to smoke and heard a scream in the parking lot.”

—“A guy had a woman pressed against a car, trying to take advantage of her. She was sitting on the ground and couldn’t defend herself. We moved in, the guy panicked, snatched her purse, and ran. My friend caught up with him, gave him a couple of punches, and got the purse back. And we stayed with her.”

—“It was your wife. She could barely stand. We gave her back her purse, straightened her clothes, and all she managed to murmur was ‘thank you.’ We couldn’t see her friends anywhere. So we brought her home; we weren’t going to leave her lying there.”

***

I got up and poured myself a generous whisky, nearly drinking it in one go. It did me good. I watched the screen from a distance, like a caged cat. I couldn’t go looking for her—I didn’t know where to go, and there was the boy—but I couldn’t stop looking either. I was trapped by those messages, impatient for the next one.

—“She relaxed on the sofa. Look at the pictures.”

Two close-ups. Her face turned to the side, kissing the lips of a blurred man with two days’ worth of beard. In the other, their mouths were already parted. They were so close that, against all logic, I felt an uncomfortable heat rising up my neck. I had never seen her from that angle, but the shape of her chin seemed familiar. I noticed the earring peeking out. Daniela had some like it, though I couldn’t say whether they were the ones she had been wearing that night. I cursed myself again for not paying attention to her.

—“Your wife kisses beautifully. Our tongues got tangled and I couldn’t stop. I don’t think it was only because of what she’d drunk. I want to think she liked it.”

Now the earring was easier to see. Each picture convinced me more that it was Daniela. Holy God, was she really kissing a man like that, a man whose name I didn’t even know?

I was in a kind of shock. My wife wasn’t like that. It had to be someone else. And yet—and it was hard to admit—I also felt an excitement that made me disgusted with myself. I couldn’t look away from the enlarged images. My stomach was clenched, my heart racing, my hands trembling. Would there be more?

I poured myself another whisky. I was beginning to feel its effects.

—“She loosened up before long. I couldn’t take it anymore. I laid her down on the sofa, lifted her skirt—she wasn’t wearing underwear. I went in slowly, enjoying the moment. She made it easy, very easy, as if it were what she’d been waiting for: she kissed me eagerly as soon as she felt me inside. Here’s the picture. As you can see, no one forced her.”

The screen filled with an explicit image. A man on top of a woman with her knees bent, open, their mouths joined. Her clothing wasn’t clearly visible, but her bare legs were, along with suede boots reaching halfway up her calves. Daniela had a pair just like them. I had given them to her. I felt that cold stab in my stomach again. No, no, no.

—“She moaned so much. I don’t know what turned me on more, possessing her or listening to her. And she never stopped kissing me the whole time. Your wife fucks wonderfully, though you already know that. I had to pull away because my friend was asking for his turn.”

I didn’t even know what to call what I was feeling. Anger, rage, jealousy, a dull pain in my chest. And yet I couldn’t stop looking. I noticed that the guy had a bigger cock than I did. For some reason, that agitated me too. A tear escaped me when I saw her open mouth taking his tongue. That was what hurt most: not the act, but the eagerness.

***

I needed another whisky to wait for the next message. The wait seemed endless.

—“Don’t worry about her; I should have told you earlier: we’ll return her in one piece, with everything she had in her purse. Even this expensive phone I’m writing to you from, where she had you saved as ‘husband.’”

—“My friend found a lipstick and painted her mouth, excessively. He’s a bit rough. He sat her on the sofa. Look at the pictures.”

A close-up of a woman’s face in profile, her lips painted an outrageous red. The earring was clearly visible—I was increasingly sure it was Daniela’s—and so was the line of her nose, so familiar. My Daniela, so neat, so demanding about everything, in a scene like this.

—“Without protesting, she opened her mouth. And she wasn’t bad at it at all, I assure you. For such a proper lady, she knows what she’s doing.”

I was stunned. She knows what she’s doing? Daniela had never wanted to do that for me. She said she found it disgusting. Only at the beginning, once in a while, and always with the warning that she didn’t like it. When had that changed? Or had it never been true with me?

More photos arrived, a sequence. I looked at them feeling defeated and, at the same time, aroused in a way I didn’t understand. That woman on the screen wasn’t my wife. She was someone else. A stranger with my wife’s face.

—“Then we stripped her completely. What a body, seriously. My friend got on top and went in. You should have heard the moan she let out.”

Another picture, from the side. Daniela, naked, lying there, half-open, the man halfway inside her, their mouths joined. I studied her breasts: if they weren’t my wife’s, they looked far too much like them. I assumed that stranger had fucked her. And the worst part was that she kissed him back, accepted it, seemed to like it. I drank. And once again, to my horror, I felt aroused. For God’s sake, what’s wrong with me?

—“I assure you she was enjoying it. She moaned with every thrust, the two of them kissing each other with tremendous eagerness.”

An extreme close-up of their open mouths, tongues playing. I don’t know my wife.

—“I asked my friend for my turn. It didn’t take me long to be inside her again. She accepted the switch as naturally as could be. ‘This lady fucks so well,’ he told me, ‘she’s the kind who doesn’t care who it is, as long as he’s hard.’ I don’t know whether your wife is like that. But it was one of the best fucks of my life.”

Another picture. The first man this time, eating her mouth as he penetrated her. Two men taking turns with my wife. I was shattered. More whisky. I was already drunk, and yet it still aroused me. My Daniela, eight years together, and two strangers were taking her… and she accepted it. It must be the alcohol. It has to be.

I heard the boy whimpering. He sometimes had nightmares. I went to give him some water and stayed with him for a while, stroking his hair until he fell asleep again, peaceful. That time restored some of my sanity. Not all of it, but some.

I was afraid to return to the screen. I knew more pain was waiting for me. I thought about stopping, turning everything off, and waiting for Daniela to come home and explain it all. But I couldn’t. I admitted to myself, with disgust and desire, that I wanted to keep looking at those obscene images of my wife.

***

Another email arrived. I opened it with my pulse trembling.

—“We’ve been taking turns enjoying your wife’s body. You’ve never had her taken care of so well, and nobody forced her—in fact, she liked switching and kissing whichever one of us was on top of her. In the end she came with my friend. What a racket, what a turn-on. I’ve attached the audio; I recorded it.”

A picture of my wife with that man inside her, his hand gripping one of her breasts, her mouth open, unmistakably screaming. I opened the audio. Moans, broken cries, gasps. More than a minute without stopping. I looked at the picture and listened to the screams, and I understood that Daniela was coming with a stranger whose face I didn’t even know. Whisky. She had never had such a long orgasm with me. And I got hard imagining her between the two of them.

—“She was limp and spent from the pleasure. My friend hadn’t finished, so he sat her up again. ‘Now that you’re well served, finish the job.’ And she didn’t need any persuading.”

Another picture: my wife attending to the task, his hand on her breast. This was too much. I thought that was where I would stop, that I couldn’t take any more. But I continued.

—“When he finished, she didn’t even flinch. The next time you kiss her, remember this picture.”

One last picture of Daniela’s face, her lips painted, her chin wet, satisfied in a way I had never seen in her.

I felt defeated, overwhelmed, resigned. And yet that image aroused me. It wasn’t my Daniela, the delicate, haughty one who would send a plate back if it had a speck on it. It was another woman, one I didn’t know and who, to my horror, I discovered I desired more than the one I thought I had.

I poured myself another whisky. For a moment it occurred to me to call the police, but I understood how absurd that was: no one, seeing those pictures and hearing that audio, would believe it hadn’t been consensual. I no longer believed it myself.

There was nothing I could do. I could only wait for them to grow tired of her and return her to me, as they had promised. And in the meantime, watch helplessly as they possessed my wife again and again. The image from the beginning tormented me: Daniela tied to that bed, resting, they had told me. Now I understood. But one question remained lodged in my chest, worse than all the others.

What were they still planning to do with her?