When her phone buzzed loudly on the counter at 2 am, Elena knew that it was a text from her drunk husband, Mark, informing her that he was on his way back from the bachelor party he had been at since noon. His oldest friend from childhood would soon be getting married, so Elena knew the evening had the potential to get a bit out of hand.
Elena was still up cleaning the house after her all-day Christmas ornament project she did with their two daughters. The girls had gone next door to her in-laws' place, so she had the house to herself. She was just taking her last sip of wine before getting into the shower. She picked up his message saying he was on his way back and thanks for "letting" him stay out so late.
"Go to the spare bedroom xxxx," read his second message, "xxx I just saw one stripper spit on another stripper's ass." Mark had no idea the kids were out of the house and they would have their king-size bed all to themselves that night - a rare occurrence.
Elena laughed out loud at the message. Mark, normally quite polite and gentlemanly, was sounding intoxicated. The two of them thought equally lowly of strip clubs, but her intuition told her that he and his friends would end up at one that night.
Her mind drifted back to a very frank conversation they had when he first told her about the party.
She had said to him, "If shit gets all crazy, you end up super wasted, and some stripper is trying to sit on your dick, make sure you put a condom on first." This had surprised Mark.
"I'm not gonna fuck a stripper." He said, almost offended.
"I know," Elena responded, "but if you succumbed to a moment of weakness, pressure or whatever else goes on at Bachelor parties, and you slipped up, I would want you to be careful and to be honest with me."
Mark looked at her quizzically, paranoia slowly forming in his eyes and energy.
"What I'm hearing is that you would want the same kind of understanding extended to you if the situation was reversed." The tone of Mark's voice bordered on accusation. Elena looked him squarely in the eye. She didn't trust some of his friends. Just a couple years ago one of them had sex with a stripper at a bachelor party.
"That's not what is motivating what I just said." Elena held his gaze. "YOU are going to this thing. Crazy stuff happens at bachelor parties! They're notorious for ending at strip clubs. I'm just trying to be proactive, because our health is my biggest concern. I'd rather you tell me than keep it from me. Truly."
They left it there, both intuitively knowing that a continued discussion at that point might be less than fruitful.
Mark had always been faithful. Elena suddenly felt she had dropped a bit of a bomb by suggesting he might breach that for a cheap encounter with a stripper. However, she also knew that they were far from on the same page sexually.
Two years ago, Elena stopped breast-feeding their last child and her sex drive steadily increased each month thereafter, as her body's hormones found their new normal. Now, at 41, she was more sexual than she had ever been. She had always thought the term "cougar" was silly and resented the stereotype attached to it. After experiencing the hormonal reality in her own body, she understood exactly what people were trying to say with that term.
Mark's sex drive, on the other hand, was beginning to slow down a little. When they first met, he couldn't get enough of Elena. Sex happened anywhere they pleased and as often as their desires dictated. He initiated often and made love to her ardently. However, the last few years of their relationship had been rough, which did nothing for their sex life or his sex drive.
Despite these things, Mark was still a healthy man. He had a fabulous physique that he guarded with quiet vanity, earned through years of dedication to his chosen sport. He turned heads wherever he went. Elena was used to this and had never felt threatened by it. She kind of liked it that other women were turned on by her husband. Little did they know, he also had a great, uncut cock that worked VERY well. It would likely delight any stripper or other woman who found her way into his pants. Elena was admittedly addicted to it and to the sex they had, even though the deep vaginal orgasms she knew she was capable of still eluded her.
Maybe Mark's comment about her wanting the same understanding had some truth to it. Maybe her words were motivated by a desire for freedom and forgiveness that was bubbling up from her own subconscious. She reflected on the fact that recently she'd become very interested in threesome porn and her main fantasies revolved around a third person. Was that because her prior fantasy of melding souls with the man she loved through simultaneous, earth-shattering orgasms seemed less and less plausible as the years rolled by?
Mark just didn't have the same interest in growing sexually as Elena did, nor did he share her burning desire for deep intimacy. He had grown very comfortable with their perfectly functional sex life, complacent even. Yet Elena knew she had bigger, more intense orgasms in her, that they had barely scratched the surface of her capacity and potential. Had that caused her to turn her focus from the pleasure she could experience with him to the pleasure a third person could bring to an encounter? For most of her life, she had thought of herself as a very faithful kind of person, happy being exclusive with a single partner. Was that changing?
Elena snapped back to the present moment and set her wine glass down in the sink. It was now 2 am and he had been at the strip club as she suspected. She texted him again.
