The Illusionist
Homecoming

      From time to time, we all do things we’re not proud of. Most of us, it’s little stuff like stealing office supplies, leeching our neighbor’s internet, or eating the last cookie from the jar. At some point in our lives most of us really bungle our karma – lying about why we couldn’t make Junior’s baseball match; telling the hostess our wallet’s in the car when it’s really back at home; making fun of the fat kid in middle school.
      These things happen, and a reasonable person doesn’t sit in judgment. As the Roman said, everyone you meet is fighting a difficult battle. We can’t know what the apparent jerkwad is up against, or where he’s been. Mistakes get made in the heat of the moment because we’re all terribly beautifully flawed beings.
      It’s not until these kinds of actions become habit that we start to judge. And you have to understand, a person with a gift like mine is more prone to temptation at most. Believe me when I tell you though that I take my power seriously, and only on rare occasions do I abuse it.
      Something most people never learn about me, for example, is that I have a job. It’s nothing glamorous, nothing I can brag about making the world a better place – but I work. The people I work with don’t know anything about who I really am or what I can do, but they don’t need to as long as my stuff gets done on time and I don’t cause a ruckus. Frankly, I don’t know anything about their inner selves either, an arrangement that seems to work for all involved.
      Could I just walk into a bank and empty a few sacks of cash with none being the wiser? Sure I could. But I’m not a user. Sooner or later, somebody who takes and takes while producing nothing starts to get down on themselves. 
      Well, unless they’re a sociopath, but if anything, I’m too in touch with my feelings.
      On this particular day, I clocked out like usual and bid the team a good long weekend. It was Columbus Day – speaking of unrepentant takers – and so I had a whole three days to myself. Plenty of time to reap the rewards of my long labors and still have time to unwind when it was over.
      I headed home to drop the car off, then hailed my cab. My mask was already in place and ready for the task ahead. 339 Winkler Court, a pretty little beige house with a big green perfectly maintained lawn in a suburban neighborhood of beige houses with perfect lawns. It wasn’t the first time I’d been here, but the intensity of its homogeneity struck me every time I visited.
      Almost as striking as the woman waiting for me when I stepped out of the cab.
      “Jackson!” she cried as she ran toward me. Jackson was the name of her husband, you see, the name of the man whose face I was projecting to the world. More on that in a bit.
      I ran to meet her and scooped her up in my arms. “Emma!” We kissed. There’s nothing quite like the kiss of a woman who’s been waiting desperately to kiss you for six long months. It’s needy, and lusty, and fervent, and it doesn’t stop until the lungs burn for air, and even then it starts all over as soon as it can.
      This was not such a kiss. I think Emma tried to make it one, for appearance’s sake. I didn’t mind – not like I loved her either, after all. So when she broke the kiss after a paltry five seconds (with only a little tongue), I let her go. We smiled at one another fondly, and then walked hand in hand into the home she and her husband built together.
      It was conspicuously clean, and almost eerily quiet. I never quite got used to that about suburbia – no traffic or noisesome sirens in the background, no neighbors audible through thin ceilings and thinner walls. True privacy.
      Emma guided me to their sofa, one of those kinds you find in model homes that always feel like you’re the first person who’s ever sat on them. I’ll spare you the tedium of what followed – she asked about my trip, how did that whole snafu work out with Dodson, what was Tanzania like. I made up believable-sounding answers, cursed the airline for misplacing my luggage, expressed regret about not calling more often while I’d been away. Then I went through the same ritual, asked bland questions and received bland answers.
      Except for one question, which I saved for last. “So how are things with you and Marc?”
      For a woman who’d been sleeping with his best friend Marc since about three weeks after he left the country, she sure wasn’t ready for the question. Emma went pale as a sheet, eyes bulged, her hand suddenly gripping the throw pillow in her lap like she meant to cut off its air supply. I kept a blank expression – as I had long since learned that most people grappling with a guilty conscience misinterpret it as a look both knowing and condemning.
      “What? Me and…? What? Why would you want to know about that? Not that there’s anything to know, haha, just strange you asked. I mean not strange strange, just interesting. I mean…”
      While Emma stammers through her non-answer, let me fill in the details, such as they matter. I discovered her affair quite by accident (a woman wearing a wedding ring kissing on a guy without one at a diner where I eat lunch). Curiosity piqued – mostly by Emma’s dynamite physique, to be honest – I nosed around until I found out her husband was some sleazy corporate exec settling a bottling plant in the third world to sell the locals their own water for twenty times what they used to pay for it. Basically your classic corporate scumbag. Meanwhile, his wife was filling the hours of his long absence in the company of his buddy Marc.
      All very sordid, and suffice to say, nothing I learned about them amended upon my inclination to enjoy myself at their expense. 
      “OK then, weirdo, I was just wondering,” I said obliviously as her sputtering petered out. “Hey, so what say we go out on the town tonight. Live it up a little, hit the clubs like we used to, eh?”
      Emma agreed, and we went to the bedroom to freshen up. Right away, I decided to apply pressure point number one. I took off the casual attire I came in, and beneath it… her husband had been hitting his fitness regimen while he’d been away. Hard. Jackson had been a good-looking guy to begin with, well built, but now he was flat-out chiseled. Emma’s eyes glassed over as she took in his sixpack, his defined shoulders, glutes carved out of flesh-toned marble.
      I could practically hear her thoughts. Why on earth did I ever cheat on this.
      “Hey, I why don’t you wear… oh hey, there it is,” I said, laying out what she perceived as a little red cocktail dress. “You always looked dynamite in that.”
      While I put on a suit (or at least, that’s what she saw me doing; I was filling in a sudoku while standing there in my comfiest jeans and a t-shirt), she hesitantly took my advice. I could see having her husband pick out her attire wasn’t their norm, and she wasn’t keen on wearing the clingy little thing, but with the exploration of his improved physique to look forward to, she humored me and slipped into it.
      Well, she slipped into something, anyway. What I’d actually laid out was a semi-transparent red negligee sheer enough and short enough to reveal that the panties Emma thought she’d put on didn’t actually exist for anyone but her.
      I let out a low whistle at her appearance – which was sincere, albeit not quite for what she thought it was. I’d been waiting months for this homecoming to see her naked, and it was well worth it. Perky little tits that rode high on her chest all by themselves, an ass right between athletic-sized and full-on booty, legs that went on for a mile. Lucky Jackson. Lucky Marc.
      And tonight, lucky me.
      We arrived at the club before long, “a new place I’d heard some guy at the airport raving about” – which was in actuality the same living room we’d sat in earlier. I pushed the furniture back so we’d have a dance floor while she drove the piano bench to the address I’d given her.
      The music was popping with a lot of her favorite dance tunes (as they should be, since I was piping her own playlist through the speakers), and on a normal night, I’d have called it a win just to be dancing with such a sexy woman. She had grace, moves, and a body so fine she didn’t even need the first two. She still had them though. A few times I just excused myself to the bar or the restroom and just sat back on the couch and watched her wiggle and writhe for me, adrift on the beat in a club full of people who existed only in her mind.
      Finally I’d had enough, and I moved on with my plan. “So, you gotta tell me about this new girl Marc’s been hooking up with,” I half-shouted over the music. Sometimes, I still felt silly raising my voice over illusory noise.
      The effect on her was anything but silly. “Wh-what? What do you mean? I… We… Um, I don’t… What’d he tell you?”
      “We talked a while back and he wouldn’t shut up about her – sounded like she was Helen of Troy meets Beyonce or something. Went on and on about her legs, her ass, her tits… gotta say, I had to change the subject before I got jealous.”
      “Oh… He… I… I didn’t know anything about her, nothing at all. We barely talked while you were gone,” she said, her voice so soft I’d never have been able to hear her in a room as loud as the one she thought she was in. Still, I could see she was flattered by the implied praise.
      So I dropped the other shoe, pressure point number two.
      “Yeah, he said he’d never been with a Latina before, couldn’t believe he’d been missing out all this time. Can’t wait to meet her – I called him in the cab and he said he’d try to bring her by tonight. Actually I thought they’d be here by now.”
      Emma, in case it was unclear, was not Latina. There on her face was much the same expression I imagined Jackson’s face would have when he found out about his best friend and his wife. Betrayal. Jealousy. Rage. What could they possibly have that I don’t have.
      Jackson – me Jackson, that is – said he was running to the bar, reading nothing in her response. And wouldn’t you know it, but it was right around then that she saw Marc and his other leading lady. 
      I called her Zarita. I’d spent some time sculpting her, shaping every nuance just so. She was tall – maybe an inch or two shorter than Emma. Busty, but really ought to be wearing a bra. She had an ass, but as Emma scoped it out from across the dance floor, I could see her deciding it was a little too big. Zarita was definitely pretty, but in a fake kind of way, lacking Emma’s natural elegance.
      No sir, she was no Emma, Emma decided. Marc’s other woman wasn’t good enough for him. He’d hadn’t just cheated on her – he’d done it with a second-rate bitch. 
      I’m a manipulator, not a puppet-master, so it was fast becoming time to stop pushing and start letting things happen. I’d considered the likely outcomes, but one could never know for sure.
      When I got back from the bar, Emma threw herself at me. I dropped the drinks, and Emma pressed her lips to mine and kissed me like a woman possessed. One slender thigh wrapped itself around my waist, and she put my hand on her bare ass before I could arrive at the idea myself.
      We made out on the floor like that for a good while as Emma worked through her jealousy of Zarita, her guilt over Marc, her lust for her sexy husband Jackson. She rubbed and ground herself on me so aggressively it would’ve gotten us thrown out of some clubs, as she blatantly tried to get me off twerking those splendid ass cheeks against my cock. 
      Unbeknownst to her I’d ditched my clothes before Marc and his date arrived. With her bare slit and ass concealed by imaginary panties and my cock covered by imaginary pants, we were only technically not fucking.
      At some point, I stopped caring about the scene enough that I just pulled down one side of her negligee below her breast and started licking. My wife-for-the-evening, who was angry, horny, and thoroughly sloshed (my drinks had been illusory; hers had been double strength), didn’t care. She gripped my head and held it to her breast as I sucked a nipple into her mouth, all the while wriggling her ass into my hands. 
      If she looked, I made sure Marc had noticed, and he looked as jealous and angry as she felt. If she didn’t… well, it was too late. Not long after I scooped her up and we held her aloft by the strength of my grip on her butt and her thighs around my waist. It was going well, too, until a bouncer arrived and told us it was time to go. All around us, couples were applauding us, men wolf whistling at her, glasses raised to the sexy and uninhibited yong couple.
      Myself, I never seemed to notice Marc and Zarita, who eyed her with even mixtures of lust and jealousy; she didn’t point them out to me. Emma just smirked at them as she strutted her way out. Bet your bitch doesn’t do that for you, her hips said.
      I fingered Emma the whole drive home to keep her hot. (Not something I’d ever normally recommend, but the piano bench had excellent safety features.) I fed her ego trip, insisting that whoever she was, Marc’s little filly couldn’t possibly have anything on her. 
      Emma surprised me by squatting down in front of me right as we walked in the door, finally entering the same space in her head that we’d occupied in real life all evening. She worked at my nonexistent pants feverishly, murmuring something under her breath that sounded like “and you know that bitch can’t suck cock like me”.
      I was only too happy to be her proving ground. Emma sucked my cock with a vengeance. For her, every lashing of her tongue was a slap across Marc’s face; every moan she drew from me, his howl of envy. I let her hear his voice murmuring in that quiet, reverberating way people interpret as their own overactive imaginations. 
      Damn, that sexy bitch never sucked my cock like that.
      I’d have given anything for a blowjob like her hubby’s getting.
      That girl is a dick-sucking machine – can’t believe I fucked that up.
      His despair became her lust. She slurped down my first load without even letting up save for an exultory laugh of triumph, like it was the appetizer for her main course. I didn’t have a chance to flag as she kept slurping and licking and sucking and tongueing my balls. I wondered if Jackson had ever actually gotten a blowjob like this. 
      I doubted it.
      When my dick’s second wind was in full effect, I finally bade her to stop. With a wicked gleam in her eyes, she lifted her “dress” off and stood before me proudly naked, posing for my viewing delight. At this point, even if I didn’t have the moral comfort that this married woman was a cheating bitch, I don’t think I could’ve refused her.
      We stumbled our way down the hall, groping and kissing madly, until we reached the bedroom. “I can’t wait one more fucking second,” I groaned, actually all sincerity for a moment.
      Emma couldn’t either, and bent herself over the bed she shared with her husband – and her husband’s friend – with her ass waving at me like an eager puppy wagging its tail for a treat. “Fuck me, Jackson. I’ve needed this for so long, you don’t even know. Fuck me.”
      Needless to say, I gave Emma her treat. Her husband’s cock was even bigger than she remembered, his hands on her hips more powerful, his half-playful smacks on her pale white ass more brazen. She wailed time and again as she came, still awash in knowing Marc couldn’t make his little skank feel like this. 
      She was sexier. More desireable. She had a rich, gorgeous husband, and they fulfilled one another’s every sexual desire whenever they felt like it. She was a prime piece of tail, and she didn’t need that asshole.
      Speaking of…
      So when I first found out Jackson’s little Emma was making a cuckold of him and decided I’d get involved, my first thought was that before it was over, I definitely had to fuck this girl in the ass. That derriere was just too glorious to resist, as was the thought of sticking it in the tailpipe of this lying bitch.
      Moment of truth.
      I slowed, then stopped my thrusts, though I kept her twitching with little rhythmic circles in my hips. “Emma? I gotta take your ass. I missed you so fucking much, I gotta have it.”
      I felt her stiffen a little as I pushed her just a hair too far. “Jackson, baby, we’ve been over this a hundred times. C’mon, just keep going,” she said, giving me a little squeeze with her pussy.
      Damn straight, she heard Marc’s voice echo in the recesses of her mind. You won’t let me tap that, you sure won’t let your hubby. Besides, my new girl gives me all the ass I want. 
      “Please babe,” I said over it, “I’ve been dreaming of your perfect ass, in our bed, together, for months. Just this once, please.”
      I’m certain it wasn’t the gratuitous use of the magic word on my part that swayed her. Rather, it was knowing that her anal cherry was something she could give me and deny Marc, something she could privately lord over Zarita. That girl was hot, sure, but she didn’t have Emma’s ass. Not by a long shot. Even if Marc fucked that bitch’s ass every day of the week, it would never compare to hers. That was what decided it for her, not anything I’d said.
      No, my words served only one purpose – to give her another chance to say yes.
      “Do it, Jackson. Fuck my ass. Just like you always wanted.”
      Her pussy had given me all the lube I needed to slide inch by inch into Emma’s tight little asshole. She groaned at how full it was; with most girls, I’d have let the illusion of my mighty porn-star-sized cock fade at this point, but Emma… her ass needed some serious dick.
      Soon, she relaxed and accepted me inside her, and I was able to start ass-fucking her in earnest. She moaned at the unfamiliar but not unpleasant sensation. “I’ve never felt so fucking full in my life,” she groaned as I pulled almost all the way out, then slid in as quickly as I dared.
      I treated her to plaintive wails from Marc in her mind, whining and pleading to be given what she was giving me right now. She smiled arrogantly at nothing as I fucked her virgin ass. It was as perfect as I knew it would be. Her discomfort became bliss as her ass stretched to accommodate me. Her delusion of superiority over the whole thing. Watching the bitch get her ass reamed by a total stranger in her marrital bed.
      Then, just as I was ready to orgasm, I bent low and whispered in her ear. “Emma? I know all about you and Marc, you cheating fucking slut.”
      Her ass suddenly clenched down on me like a fist, squeezing the cum right out of me. I shot so hard I bet she could taste it in the back of her throat. Thanks to the honed, expert ass-fucking senses of yours truly, I’d time it to trigger an involuntary climax of her own.
      Between the orgasm and the sudden intense anxiety of my revelation, she fainted right then and there. And that’s where I left her, my cum not yet visible trickling out of her ass but still detectable on her breath. Lying right there on the same bed she’d fucked her husband and his best friend on countless times.
      The next day, Jackson – the real one, the yuppie prick who, by the way, I’d also learned had been nailing each of his last four secretaries – would come home from the airport, and I’m sure have a hell of an interesting conversation with a wife who would be all too eager to explain everything about her affair. 
      Me? I’d be at home, getting a start on my long weekend.
      Some months later, I checked in on 339 Winkler Court, concealing myself from sight and sound and letting myself in the back door. Jackson was downstairs with his friends, including Marc, playing poker and laughing over beers and cigars. Marc bluffed on a pair of fives, Jackson called him on it. He knew, and Marc knew it, but everyone pretended they didn’t as the next hand was dealt.
      Upstairs, the lady of the house and some of the other players’ wives were drinking cocktails and gossipping; Emma asked one woman “so, are you and Marc getting along all right?” just a little too pointedly. Eyebrows were arched, significant glances exchanged, a fresh round of drinks poured as a banal answer was delivered. Another topic was broached.
      After a few good long looks at Emma’s incredible backside, I left. You see, it’s not really my place to get involved. Like I said before, some people are just creatures of bad habits. If they want to live their dirty lives filled with dirty secrets, far be it from me to deny them that. Of all people, I knew there was no harm in living with a few illusions.