(The naughty bits can be found on page 4 - if that's too much first, well, you've been warned.)
Jaime had been asleep for a couple of hours when he woke up because his wife prodded his shoulder. He half turned her way and she stroked his chest, so he snuggled up to her and used his left hand so push her nightgown up over her chest - undressing before making love had been discarded with a long time ago as she found it took much time to get dressed again. He bent over to kiss her and then slid down under the duvet to attend to her breasts while his hands went to work on her nether parts. She liked having her buttocks stroked, and he had become rather adept at working on her pussy. She lay back and passively enjoyed his ministrations; it had been a long time since she'd allowed him to make love to her last. He knew it would take some time to get her excited enough, and he earnestly worked on getting her in the mood, glad that after all those months she felt like having him touch her again.
He kissed her stomach and went for her navel; after the third time he'd tried she'd ruled out oral stimulation of her pussy because, she said, it made her come. He had never understood what on earth could be wrong about that, but talking about it would result in a long harangue followed by months of frost. Her voice would go up one or two pitches and a load of decibels, and he hated it. Any attempt at reasonable talk would flounder in loud unreason; nothing doing there.
He returned his mouth to her breasts. Her body reacted favourably, and her nipples noticeably stiffened - and then she came with a shudder around his fingers. She immediately closed her legs.
Oh God, he thought, not again.
His wife worked herself loose from his embrace. "We'd better go to sleep now, eh?" she said as she turned her face to allow him to give her a peck on the cheek, readjusted her nightgown and panties, rolled over and was snoring lightly within minutes.
He lay staring into the darkness for a long time, wiping the tears from his eyes and trying to keep his breathing regular. Sessions like this seemed to have become the norm; and they seemed to grow further and further apart. He couldn't remember when they had had intercourse, nor when she had cuddled him. It was all very much a one-sided deal.
Then he tiptoed downstairs down the stairs and went into the living room. There was a DVD he'd bough and hid in a book his wife was not likely to read that he had not seen; it contained woman-friendly pornography according to the cardboard sleeve. He'd tried watching the other type a couple of times, but it didn't do anything to him; the girls' faces seemed unpleasant and entirely uninterested in what they were doing, the men were ugly and unfriendly, he couldn't for the life of him see what it was that anyone could see in anal sex or some kind of gymnastic exercise and the way the sessions ended, with the women kneeling before the men with their tongues stuck out as if they were to receive the host had disturbed him no end. Perhaps this would be better.
He plugged in his earphones and started the DVD. After a series of disclaimers it showed a couple making love. The man seemed really bent on pleasing the girl, and they kissed each other with obvious enthusiasm. They looked at each other and smiled, and slowly, beautifully worked towards a mutual orgasm... He found watching them unbearable, and switched the DVD off with tears in his eyes, restored it to its sleeve and hid it again. He sat down on the couch, cradled his head in his hands and cried.
When they first met Mara had been rather impressed. Jaime was funny, he wrote poems, wore his hair long and used all kind of words she seldom did; he played the guitar and sang and knew a lot about the kind of pop music they didn't play on the radio. He'd done A-levels and he had studied at Loughborough University, and his family was different, too. They lived in a house that seemed to stuck in the twenties, with loads of books and paintings and an atmosphere that was completely unknown to her. She wanted him.
He had been as impressed by her as she was by him. She was beautiful - she had regular features and catlike green eyes, a sumptuous figure and an infectious level of energy in those things that she really liked. She could smile in a way that seemed directly aimed at his heart and loins alike... Head over heels would have been an understatement. She was his second girlfriend; the first one had been a true case of puppy love. His parents had never told him anything much about the ins and outs of love, and anything physical had been unmentionable. They had simply stressed the fact that as a male you had to behave, and instilled a kind of courtly love ideal in him that in retrospect had been old-fashioned, unworldly and unworkable.
Mara had wrapped him around her little finger. She enthused about his likes and dislikes and as he had no idea what a normal relationship could be like he didn't see anything unusual in the way she kept him at a distance, physically, nor that a frequency of roughly once every three months could, perhaps, be seen has somewhat odd.
When she felt it was the right time she increased their frequency a little and got pregnant; after their first child had been born she got another one. Then she decided it was enough. There was no earthly reason to have sex more often than once in an anaemic blue moon; yet sometimes even she actually felt the need, after all.
She began to find fault with her husband on numerous accounts. All those books had long ago begun to work on her nerves; so had his musical activities, both passive and active. She began to complain, and whenever he tried to defend himself she would play the wronged innocence. How could he? SHE always did everything for everyone, SHE would always buy the food he really liked, find nice shirts or pullovers for him, SHE would see to his every need... SHE had had all the pain and trouble bearing their children... But perhaps he wanted to quit? Well then, she would not be in his way, she'd leave home and rent an apartment somewhere and then HE could be happy with his stupid music and books, and he was never sociable and he would never do anything for someone else anyway...
She presented a brick wall to him in which he could effect no breach; he'd been taught to treat others reasonably, and he did not know what to do about it. He simply tried to ensure he didn't do anything to release her fury - to no avail. Speaking well couldn't win her, not could saying nothing do it.
When Jaime had sat on the couch for so long that he felt thoroughly cold he crept back to bed; but he couldn't get to sleep. His predicament kept mulling in his head and by morning he had decided that he would go and talk about it once more.
Mara more or less ignored him that morning. It wouldn't do to give him ideas; better keep him in his place. She needed her energy for the children. They, at least, were malleable enough, and she loved moulding them to her liking.
At work that day Jaime didn't perform too well. There wasn't anything he could do about it; his resolve to go and talk weighed on his mind like lead, and he kept trying to find the right way to put things so as not to aggravate Mara overmuch. He needn't have bothered.
That evening after dinner they put the children to bed as usual; then Jaime tried to be heard. He was, until half-way his second, rather hesitant sentence. Mara exploded. She hit him and called him any name she could think of, and accused him of treating her like a whore, not caring for her one jot, being a selfish sexist pig... It made his ears ring and seemed to go on forever. He felt the skin of his face go taut. There were footsteps on the stairs and their elder daughter came into the living room with tears on her face. Having an audience only increased Mara's fury. Myrtle, who at twelve was quite old enough to understand what she said, as she was obviously meant to do, looked at him in wide-eyed horror. Then something broke in Jaime. He turned around and ran from the room. Mara came after him, shouting at the top of her voice in a high-pitched cannonade of abuse. Jaime made for the spare room and locked the door. He put the ears of his I-pod in his ears and blocked out the continuous noise from outside.
The next morning after the children had gone to school Mara went to work, confident that she'd put that man in his place. Jaime rang his work and told his immediate boss he'd have to take the day off. He called the local housing agency and was fortunate enough to be provided with a not too unreasonable apartment. Then he made an effort and moved his belongings. He went to the bank, opened a new account and put half of their savings into it; he did the same for their current account, leaving the rest for Mara. He went to one of the town's charities for some furniture. It took him all day to get the place inhabitable; he went to bed very tired. For once he slept like a log.
For a couple of days he heard nothing from Mara. Then there was a letter - from a lawyer, to his relief. It was put in strictly reasonable English, even thought the demands made in it were not; but he thought he could live with that. He hired a lawyer himself and instructed her to deal with the situation and left the two firms to fight it out among themselves.
To his surprise he did not only hear nothing from Mara, he heard nothing from anyone else either. All those people he used to know seemed to have vanished from the earth altogether. Then he called one of his closer contacts; he made an excuse and rang off. He called another one, and was told he ought to be ashamed of himself before she slammed down the receiver. He didn't know what was happening; but he certainly felt he might as well be on a desert island.
