This is an imaginary conversation with my wife, after we we had given up doing anything. Maybe I still can; I'd like to think so! Some of it is true; and some of it is not. Wink, wink!
One evening, we had started a second bottle of wine while watching a TV film about a couple's admitting their dalliances, but then landing in bed together. They were much younger than we were, so that was not going to happen. My wife took another sip of wine and grinned at me and said:
"I know about a couple of yours. We survived them years ago, and before we got engaged, well, ... you probably also weren't entirely faithful. Oh, I know you weren't."
She grinned again and took another sip and added:
"Well, you probably did too, after we were engaged, both of us on different continents. Did you?"
I sure had; it had been too easy back then. As a local guy had told me: "Just stay sober at parties till ten o'clock and the girls will like you." But she had too, my "betrothed"? I liked that: tit for tat; goose and gander. But did she really want to hear? I took a better sip of wine and nodded. She grinned again and said:
"I thought so, couldn't imagine your not doing anything for a year in that climate."
"Cold winter nights can also be an incentive, not just hot, sunny beaches."
"Oh, someone there?"
"No, not really; I met her the night before at an Oktoberfest party there."
"Oh, a German? But then on the beach?"
"Austrian, and just fondling her breast on the beach, before we got engaged."
"Hmm! Then that was all right; you know about ... [no names], about the same time."
"Um-hmm, sure do; you told me, but only much later."
"Not just him," and she grinned again.
"All the better; it wasn't just her."
"Oooh! Tell! It was just that Hungarian count and an old school friend. You know him too. No, you have just heard his name."
"With him?! Too? I thought you said he was sort of reticent, ... well, back in school."
"Hmmm! He still was. You did it better, the count, too."
"I didn't ask."
"But you did - better than the count too, and better than .... Else I might have married him."
"My good luck!"
We both grinned and drank again, and I refilled our glasses, liking our revelations, especially that she had also not been celibate during the separation of our engagement; made me feel less wicked about my dalliances, that had been more numerous. We drank again. She smirked and asked:
"How many?"
"Where, when?"
"All of them. I have told you about my first time and about ... [another name].
"'First time: that guy who wanted to show you his pajamas, and any others?"
"A couple, you tell first."
"Hmm? My first time? Didn't I ever tell you?"
"I don't think so."
"Sounds more romantic than it was. Someone she knew had told her that I was also going to be on the ship to Europe. Back then, ten days by sea didn't cost more than a flight, if one had the time and went third class – not on the "Queen" or "United States" of course."
"A real shipboard romance!"
"Not really, but she wanted to, liked that I hadn't been too forward the first couple of days. 'Forward,' me? Back then? I didn't know how to be. But then we were in the cabin I shared, on my upper bunk, and my cabin mate knocked. Embarrassing! But he went away. Did wonders for my reputation in our group, undeservedly."
"Hm-hmm! I can imagine. And ...?"
She must have been disappointed; gave me a hand job first - no rubbers - must have had more experience. We didn't do it again."
"Still sounds kind of romantic, shipboard and all that. And then?"
"A girl I met in Europe, in Florence. She said my legs were as good as Michelangelo's David's."
"Hm-hmm! Just your legs?"
"She didn't complain, still more 'forward' than I was. We wrote and saw each other two - no - three times, even met her parents, but then she married the guy she was pinned to."
"But she had still wanted to with you?"
"I guess so. Maybe really, since you ask. Her flatmates accepted me, maybe knew more about her feelings than I did. Hadn't thought about that before."
"Men!"
"More 'boys'; she was a year or two older."
"Hope she was - is - happy with him. And then?"
"A girl in college, ... and then one in New York. She was really the girlfriend of the brother of a girl I knew in Philly, but needed a place to spend the night in the City."
"Hmm?! Just like that?"
"She didn't say no."
"And the other girl, sister?"
"Probably disappointed her; I wasn't so aggressive back then."
"Like you weren't after our first date."
"Hm-hmm! You wanted me to be? Inviting me to come to your room, your bed, in the wee hours of the morning?"
"Hmmm? Maybe. You did come - not like that! But I think that I liked that you didn't do anything - with hindsight, like the girl on the ship."
"Probably would have a year or two later."
"Like you later did?"