Ember Eyes. Frigid Flame.

Author's Note: This is a new original horror/supernatural erotic(ish) story being submitted for the Halloween 2025 contest. This is a different sort of work for me so I hope you enjoy it. This was a fun project and I hope to do more like it in the future.

.....................................................

Ember Eyes. Frigid Flame.

Casey had smoked maybe a dozen times in his life. In fact he still had the same pack of cigarettes he'd bought when he was eighteen, nearly twenty years ago. He often wondered if the little death sticks went bad? The one he was slowly dragging on was certainly stale, not that he would really know one way or another. At this rate, the pack might last him until his dying day... though after what he'd just witnessed, that wasn't a certainty anymore.

He brought the cigarette to his lips and inhaled deeply, letting the smoke fill his lungs. It constricted his breathing and the heady feeling of not getting enough oxygen made him feel lighter. Free. Free from the pain that was pulsing through him. Pounding in his brain. His heart. But even the smoke and the nicotine couldn't stop the few tears that dripped down his cheeks.

Down the hall from the living room, where he sat in the dark, the only light coming from the glowing tip of his cigarette and the little dots of orange reflection on his glasses, came the sounds of passion. Panting. Heavy breaths from heavy firm drilling movements. Moans as bodies collided. As places were touched and filled and hugged and caressed. Grunts of desire as two bodies rose in climax together.

"Fuck oh god Josh...holy fuck you're so big."

"Fuck Rye. You're so fucking tight all the time."

"You're just... big... fucking fat...oh my god."

"Fuck fuck fuck."

"OH...oh fuck... yes... yes... fuck me..."

"Yeah! Mmm fuck Riley take my cock. Take every inch. I wanna feel you swallow my cock into that beautiful pussy."

The brief images Casey had seen when he came home were burned into his brain. It was a cliche situation. He'd come home early. Flowers in hand. Ready to take his wife, Riley, out to a birthday dinner. Her birthday. He wanted to celebrate the woman he loved. The woman he'd known since he was in grade school and who had been his wife for nearly fifteen years. His girlfriend for nearly twenty. Friend for nearly his entire life.

A thick cock of his best friend sliding slowly into Riley's pussy. His wife lay under him, legs up and open. Josh's cock, thick and heavy, pushed deep into her. Smooth lips opened and swallowed him eagerly. Stretching around him, straining. Not like when she was with Casey. Her husband wasn't small, but Josh was easily an inch thicker and longer

These were the two people he knew best in the entire world. The ones he trusted. Would have thrown himself into a fire for. Taken a bullet for them.

Casey took a deep drag on his cigarette. The orange glow at the tip illuminating, shining off his glasses in the darkness of the living room. He held the smoke in, willing it to eat up the oxygen. Could he maybe get a super aggressive form of cancer that would just... kill him now? Right now? That would be nice.

Letting out the smoke, his eyes watering, Casey continued to listen to his two best friends fucking in his bedroom. He heard their climax. Knew Josh was shooting his cum inside his wife. There hadn't been any evidence of a condom on when he witnessed his member pounding into Riley's pussy. In a way it was erotic. His heart was smashed and emotions had fled, but his body was still a body and it reacted. Casey's erection was solid and painful. He'd never been more disgusted at his own body and its normal functions before. Suddenly all those prudish puritan Christian's and their aversions to sexual behavior made sense, at least a little.

The sounds of fucking finally ceased and the house became quiet again. Casey kept his eyes on the bedroom door, cigarette at his lips, watching and waiting.

Eventually, the door opened and Josh walked out. Nude. His cock glistening in the dim light from the hall bathroom, swinging away as if this were his fucking home and he was welcome to walk around it naked all he wanted.

Without even closing the bathroom door, Josh relieved himself and washed up quickly. It was when he exited, heading back to the bedroom that he stopped, noticing the little pinpricks of orange light down the hall. Josh stopped and stared confused for a minute, thinking maybe a fire fly or two had found their way into the house. But as his eyes adjusted to the shadows, he made out the tip of a lit cigarette and its reflection on familiar glasses.

"Oh..." The word escaped his mouth, jostled loose as he realised Casey was sitting there in the recliner, smoking and staring at him unblinking.

Taking another slow, deep drag on the cigarette, Casey breathed out, letting the smoke swirl and shift around his shadow cast face. "How long?" He muttered, his voice just loud enough to carry down the hall to Josh's now sharpened ears.

The longer Josh hesitated, the worse Casey knew it was. He figured a year for every second of silence.

"A... since... We were in high school." The reply ripped whatever hope Casey might have still been clinging to. Hope that maybe this was just something recent. Maybe a year. Hope that he and Riley could work it out. Get counseling and move past this. But... since before she was even his girlfriend? They'd only started seeing each other in college. Flirted when they were in high school and went on a few 'casual dates' as friends. Finding out that her and Josh had been active for so long... and that was if he was actually being honest and not trying to sugar coat things... it meant their entire marriage was a sham. Fake. A lie.

The possibilities of why swam in his head like piranha trying to devour raw bloody meat. And that meat was him... his life... his hope... his love... it was his very existence and it was quickly being nibbled and torn apart until all that was left was raw bone. He wanted to cry. Instead he sucked on his cigarette, the glow burning brighter, the reflection on his glasses like burning flames. In the shadows he looked devilish, something lingering in the shadows like a predator. But he felt far from violent or threatening. He felt... wounded... bleeding out. That fire that was showing, reflecting, it was just fake... there was no fire inside him. It was just deathly cold.

Casey smiled for a moment, remembering when he'd read Dante's Inferno back in college. How at the deepest levels of hell, it was actually cold. Frozen. There was no warmth. Hell was a frozen wasteland and he was laying naked upon the frozen lake of tears that had been shed by all those other men and women who had had their lives ripped apart by infidelity.

"Josh?" Riley spoke up and came walking out of the bedroom. Her bare body, slightly damp with sweat and between her legs, the smoothness of her mound puffy and pink from the pounding Josh had just given her, dripped with his cum down her creamy thigh, was a sight to behold. Beautiful and disgusting. It was like a flayed open body. There was beauty to the visceral sight, how the body was so intricately formed and put together, but grotesque seeing it exposed so unnaturally.

Casey's friend was still staring at him, and when Riley followed his gaze, the pink hue of her cheeks suddenly went deathly pale. "Oh...oh god!" Her eyes grew wider, glistening with tears.

Really? Tears? She was upset? Sad? It was probably because she'd been discovered. Not because of any hurt she had caused her husband at her actions. Actions stretching back decades.

"C...Casey..." She took a step forward. Josh started to reach for her, to stop her, but Casey's halting gesture, the cigarette growing smaller, the ashy tip threatening to crumble even as it kept burning bright in the shadows.

"Don't... just..." Casey's words were strained. Smoke drifted out from his lungs, out his mouth and nose as he breathed, feeling like a dragon ready to breathe fire. Words hung on his tongue, vile and violent. But he held back the flames. "W...why..." He hated that his word came out broken, almost as if he were ready to cry. But he wouldn't do that. He wouldn't cry in front of the two people who had hollowed him out.

Riley looked down at the floor, cheeks red and eyes watery. Josh wasn't much better, standing and shuffling from foot to foot.

Casey's voice came out raw and rough. "Get dressed. Gather your thoughts. Figure out how you wanna explain."

The two retreated quickly back into the bedroom and Casey was left again alone and in the dark. Ash from his dwindling cigarette fell to his thigh, scattering with little sparks of lingering orange onto his slacks. It was nearly gone. He held it, staring at the filter between his fingers and the last little bit that was still glowing brightly. The impulse... the desire... to shove that burning point into his eyes was eerie and frightening.

A few minutes passed before Josh and Riley came walking out of the bedroom, dressed simply in jeans and t-shirts. They stopped in the entry to the living room. For a moment Riley glanced around and then started to reach for the light switch.

"Please don't." Casey muttered, rubbing his temple.

Riley looked back at him, face a mask of guilt and sadness. "Okay." Her voice was meek.

"So..." He took a deep breath of clean air, then put the cigarette back in his mouth and dragged slowly, knowing it was nearly done and burned to the quick. "Explain."

Josh clenched a fist, not in anger but in thought as he looked anywhere but at his friend. "It... it's not what it looks like."

Casey snorted. "Looks like you were fucking my wife. Unless all those things I learned in sex and and from porn are complete lies."

"Casey, honey... he's right. This... I'm sure you're thinking this is a betrayal. An affair. But, it's... it's not that.."

He raised an eyebrow in the dark. "Oh? Then what is it? Some sort of accident? Was he trying to scratch an itch? Like when you can't reach that annoying spot on your back and need someone else to use their nails?"

She was shaking her head. "This... this isn't how you should... isn't how we wanted you to find out. Not like this. It's... I know it hurts. And how it looks but... please, let me explain."

The cigarette was gone. Nothing but the filter. He looked at it as if it had somehow betrayed him. That it should have lasted longer. Instead it had run its course. Apparently just like his marriage. There was still a faint glow and Casey knew from grade school all about how the glowing embers of a discarded cigarette could light a house on fire. That desire to burn his eyes out was there, but all it was was a desire. Everything else was a paradox of pain and numbness.

He couldn't say why he did it exactly, maybe it was because he wanted to feel something. A different pain. Something real and normal. Something that made sense. Casey turned his right hand palm up and pushed the end of the dead butt into the center. It burned. I sizzle his skin. The pain wasn't as bad as he thought it would be. Maybe because of the heat, burning away the nerve endings.

"Casey! Oh my god!" Riley rushed forward.

"Fuck!" Josh shouted and ran to the kitchen, immediately wetting a towel and coming back handing it to Riley as she cradled Casey's burned hand.

Tears were dripping down her cheeks now. "Casey... baby wh...why did you do that?" She was dabbing at his palm. The lingering pain was there, throbbing along with his pulse but it was dim now. Fading quickly. It was an angry red circle in the center of his palm. Almost like a stigmata. Part of Casey wanted to laugh. The other wanted to cry. But all he could do was sit, feeling his wife's soft touch and caring caress as she held the towel against him.

Josh was standing back nervously. Clearly he wondered what else Casey might be capable of after that little display.

"Why?" Casey croaked. It wasn't from pain, at least not pain from his burnt palm.

Riley bit her lip, eyes still on his wounded hand. "I want you to know... I love you. I love you so much, Casey. You're the man I want to grow old with. To raise a family with. The one I want to argue about bills and who will take out the trash and do the dishes. You are the one I want to have a life with..."

"I didn't hear 'make love' in there." He muttered.

She cringed. "Of course I want to make love. Every night. Every day. Until we can't do it anymore and we would risk breaking a hip." Her smile was strained, attempting levity but Casey's face was incapable of smiling or really showing any emotion besides indifference.

Clearing her throat, she glanced back at Josh who was standing rigid and watching. "Josh and I... we... We've been um... together since high school. But, it's not what you're thinking. I never wanted to date Josh. A relationship with him... it wouldn't work. We aren't compatible. At least, besides sexually. Sexually we... work. Really well. And so, we were sort of just... exploration partners."

Casey watched Riley suspiciously. It was clear she was choosing some of her words carefully. She didn't say sexual partners. She said exploration. But exploring what? Sex obviously, but... what else could there be?

Brushing back some loose strands of her dark hair, Riley finally met her husband's gaze. "Josh and I, we just worked when it came to sex and exploring kink and stuff. We could be free with each other. No pressure. No expectations. I love him, but like you do, as a friend. A good friend. But he's not the man I love. You are."

Casey heard what she said but his brain was already interpreting her words. Josh was good in bed and did things... what things he could only guess at the moment, but it was clear she was much more free with him than she was with her husband. It wasn't like Casey and Riley's sex life was dull. They had regular fun. Tried new things. Oh they weren't super kinky or wild, but they'd had anal. Done a little light BDSM. Roleplay. But clearly that wasn't enough. Not nearly from what it sounded like. She was free with Josh. That meant she was chained with Casey. Held back and held down.

"Why... why even go out with me if Josh..."

Riley put a hand on Casey's shoulder, still holding the wet towel to his hand. "No. Don't do that. Don't compare. I went out with you because I've known you practically my whole life and I knew what kind of man you were. Sex wasn't what I was interested in. It was you. Your laugh and smile and mind. You made me feel seen and treated me with respect. I'd been crushing on you since gradeschool. And when you finally asked me on a real date... I was so happy."

"Not happy enough to stop with Josh." He replied flatly.

His wife looked stung. "I... that was separate. It was just... it was like going over to another friend's house for dinner. Nothing serious. Nothing that really mattered. The meal was good but it wasn't the house I wanted to stay at, to sleep over..."

"Did you sleep over with him?"

She hesitated and then nodded. "Okay it...it's not the best metaphor. We did spend time over night with each other sometimes. But all it was, was sex."

"So... what... were you just laughing at me? Going out with me and then returning to your big dicked boy toy and making fun of how in love with you I was? That I was some sort of whipped puppy?" Casey was trying not to shake. His lungs still tingled with the lingering effects of the smoke and strangely enough wanted more.

"Never!" Riley stood straighter and looked at Casey as seriously as she'd ever been. "I never once... neither of us, ever made fun of you or said a bad word about you! In fact... it was kinda like gossiping to my girlfriends. We talked about you and how great you were. How happy I was and how good you made me feel."

A sudden horrifying thought came to Casey at that little confession.

"Oh...god, did... did you go to him after the first time you and I..." He was trembling now.

Riley's cheeks went crimson. "I... well yes... not like right after. It was the next night."

"You... did you talk..."

"She told me how amazing it was, Case. She said it was the best sex she'd ever had." Josh interjected, taking a step forward. "With us it was just physical. We don't love each other. But with you... especially that first time, she said her mind was blown."

Casey wasn't sure how in the world that was supposed to make him feel better. Knowing that her constant sexual partner for half a decade had lay with her the night after their first time and heard her gushing about his performance. How could he even believe either of them? They could be in damage control mode. Trying to gloss over this whole affair and get him to swallow this bitter shit pill.

Riley was nodding, a genuine smile on her face. "He's right. Sex with you, oh my gosh Casey... It was perfect. Always. Every time."

"So... why..." His question trialed off.

"Like we've said. It's just physical. Exploration. The things we've done together and with others... It was just like trying out different exercises. Figuring out what was nice and fun or not for us."

"Others?" Casey clenched his jaw tight enough to hurt.

Riley sucked in a breath realizing what she'd said. Her eyes darted to Josh who cringed and shrugged. "No sense in holding it back."

With a sigh, Riley turned back to her husband. "Yes... others. But again, not some sort of romantic affair. All of it was physical. Trying new things. They were always... they weren't anyone we knew or know. We'd never do that. It was always safe. We always tested."

All the pain inside that had still been lingering was gone. Casey was empty. Truly empty. The burn on his palm was nothing... There was no heat or ache. He pulled his hand away from Riley's grip gently and clenched his fist, dropping the towel to the floor.

"Did you ever... after... with me... did..." He couldn't get the question out. He had already been made a cuckold. But had Riley and Josh fucked and then sent her home full, only to have him make love to his wife while Josh's seed was still inside her? That would be one of the ultimate cuckolding moments.

"No! Never. I'd never do that to you. I always cleaned myself." Riley stood quietly, worried, watching her husband in the shadows.

"And... and what... this has been going on for... for the entire time? What about when you told me you wanted to wait to have sex on our honeymoon, to take a break for two weeks beforehand..."

"I did. We did. I told Josh the same thing. We didn't touch each other." Riley's voice sounded desperate.

"And after?" Casey could remember the weeks after their honeymoon. They'd been so amorous. Constantly having sex every chance they got. In the morning. After he got home from work. Before they fell asleep.

"Just during the day. When you were at work." Riley admitted looking away.

So she'd only held off until after their honeymoon. Probably didn't even wait a day.

"I still don't understand. Why me? Why marry me and not him." Casey gestured at his ex-best friend.

"She already told you, Case. We didn't work together. After that first time we were together we talked about dating and it just wasn't for us. We weren't in sync. Riley never had those sort of feelings for me. I was almost like a brother."

Casey cringed.

"You know what he means." Riley scolded.

"Besides. I'm not really a family guy. Stable like you. Solid. I like being free and able to do my own thing. Riley wanted a family. A home. Kids. That whole perfect Leave it to Beaver lifestyle."

Kids. The realization made Casey's stomach cramp. Riley and him had started talking about trying to have kids now that they were in a good place financially and with their careers. "Were you planning to stop when we started trying for kids?" He asked, now terribly afraid of the answer.