I married Paul when I was twenty. We were both virgins, and very proud of it. Looking back over the last decade, I believe we were both stupid. Neither of us knew anything about sex beyond inserting tab A into slot B. The only thing either of us knew was that we should be naked when we did it. I had never been undressed in front of a man before. He had never stripped in front of a woman. We were both scared silly on our first try. We kept our backs to each other while we undressed and got under the covers. "Now what do we do?" Paul asked me.
"I think we are supposed to kiss," I said.
"We did that at the altar."
"We did it a lot before the ceremony too. I think it's okay." To this day, I don't know why, but he laid his hand gently on my cheek. "You have never done that before. It feels good." His lips briefly touched mine. That was our first tender moment. He kissed me again, and a third time. Next, he kissed my neck twice on both sides.
Eventually he got his erection. I got onto my back with my legs spread apart. We were both nervous about what we would do next. I feared the pain of being deflowered. He hated the thought of hurting me. Finally, I told him to just shove it into me. I yelped in agony as he broke my hymen. He ejaculated in me soon afterwards, probably because he was so excited about having sex for the first time.
Over the next few months, we became more comfortable being naked around each other. Except for the first-time pain, our sex continued unchanged. We caressed each other. Always we began with three kisses on the lips followed by four kisses on my neck. It's all we knew. Neither of us had any desire to view any porn to try to learn something else. It didn't occur to us to do so. We had sex three times a week. About once a month I had an orgasm. Life was pretty good.
After college, I found a part-time job as a paralegal. Paul had a well-paying job as an engineer. We didn't lack for money. He had Irish ancestry, so we went to Dublin on our tenth anniversary.
When I returned to work, I had lunch with a couple other women in the break room. "Did you guys join the club?" Shelly asked me.
I gave her a quizzical look. "What club?" I replied.
Both rolled their eyes at me. "You know," Mary said.
"I'm lost. Is there a club for people visiting Ireland?"
Both laughed. Mary leaned toward me and lowered her voice. "The mile high club," she whispered.
"What's that?"
Again, both laughed. "Mary," Shelly said, "I think we have a virgin bride on our hands."
"Yes, I was a virgin bride," I said, "and I'm proud that I saved myself for my husband."
Mary kept her voice soft. "Sarah, this is just between the three of us," she whispered. "No one else will never know about this conversation. Be honest. How often do you and Paul have sex?"
I was stunned by the impertinent question. "I don't see where that is any of your business. I don't pry into your private life."
"Mike and I get it on every night," Shelly said. "Occasionally we meet on our lunch breaks for a quickie. We are always hot for each other."
I took a deep breath. "Okay, we do it three times a week."
"How often do you orgasm?" Mary asked.
"About once a month. Sometimes twice."
"Girl, you are so deprived. You sound like a nun."
"I don't understand any of this. Paul and I have followed the same routine ever since we got married."
"Don't you ever do anything risqué?" Shelly asked.
"Like what?"
"Joining the mile high club, for example. Mike and I joined on our trip to Las Vegas last year. It took some planning because we would be doing it in our seats. We even practiced. We got a red-eye flight because we knew the cabin lights would be off once we were airborne. I didn't wear panties or a bra. Paul had the window seat; I had the center one. Some man had the aisle seat, so I was between them. To this day, I don't know his name. Once the lights were off, I turned my back to Mike and raised the back of my skirt. He didn't move. He had been working hard all day and was exhausted. He fell asleep. I figured we'd do it on our way home, so I sat upright to try to sleep too. I felt a hand on my left leg moving slowly up from my knee to under my skirt. Why pass up the opportunity? I turned my back to the man, and he and I joined the club."
"You had sex with a stranger right next to your sleeping husband? That's disgusting!"
"It was the most exciting fuck I've ever had. I'm getting wet just thinking about it."
"Steve and I have only used the bathroom in the rear of the plane," Mary said. "It's pretty tight..." She giggled. "...but so am I."
"That episode taught both of us that while we are a couple, we are also individuals," Shelly said. "We have opened up our marriage. I know Mike bangs his secretary. He's probably doing it right now."
"Steve gets some strange occasionally," Mary said. "I've had one of the lawyers here. We are thinking about joining a swingers' club. Sarah, it's obvious you consider us terrible women, but I can see in your eyes that you are intrigued by the idea of having other men. Spread your wings. If nothing else, have an affair."
"Even if I wanted to do something that sordid, I wouldn't know how to do it," I said.
"There are websites for people who want sex dates," Shelly said. "Nobody cares if you are single or married. It's all about fucking. Try it. You'll like it."
Despite my ingrained attitudes toward sex, I couldn't stop wondering if Paul and I could do something different in bed. That night I pictured Shelly with the strange man while Paul and I had sex. The thoughts alone made me more aroused than I ever had been before. My orgasm was the strongest that I could remember. Paul noticed my increased enthusiasm. "You've never been so excited," he said. "What brought that on?"
"I don't know," I lied. "Everything just clicked. I hope it happens more often."
"Me too," he said.
With that encouragement, I went shopping the next day to buy a very short skirt, one that barely covered my ass, and a G-string. I wore them and high heeled shoes and was braless when Paul got home from work. He took one look at my exposed legs. "You look like a streetwalker," he said. I was naked when we went to bed, something I had never done before. He turned his back to me and went to sleep. At that moment, I realized that Mary was right; I should have an affair.
We had separate computers, so I didn't have to worry about him seeing what I was doing when I entered 'affairs' into my search engine. The response was overwhelming. The sites that came up ran the gamut from dating sites to how-to sites to the psychology of cheating. I began with the psychology sites. I certainly fit the boredom category. I hadn't realized until then how humdrum my sex life was. They clearly separated love and lust. The how-to ones were next. They covered secrecy, separate bank accounts, where and when to meet a lover.
After three hours I picked a dating site at random and signed onto it. The opening screen left no doubt they were in the cheating business. The graphics showed couples fucking (I don't believe I'm using that word.). The people were looking into each other's eyes, and they were smiling. They were happy. The more I looked at the pictures, the more I wanted to be part of that world. If it meant continuing to put up with Paul's unalterable routine, it would be worthwhile to be happy.
The site said I should post a profile with a picture. It intimated that my photo should at least be topless, but full nudity would attract more men. I wasn't prepared to go that far, so I put up a basic portrait. The part about what I was looking for was the most challenging. I was still too shy to say I wanted sex. I had no idea what my lover should be like. Frustrated, I entered "My husband is boring."
Next, I looked at the profiles of men in my area. To my horror, one of them belonged to my church. His children were in the Sunday School class I taught. How could a God-fearing man like him be cheating on his wife? I rethought that idea. I was a God-fearing woman about to cheat on her husband. For a minute I considered switching to another dating site, then decided to let the cat completely out of the bag and sent him an email suggesting we meet for lunch. He replied within minutes suggesting the fast-food place across the street from our church. Why not? If anyone we knew saw us together, they would think we were discussing church matters. We agreed to meet there for lunch the next day
I had hidden a thousand dollars cash in a small box on a closet shelf as mad money in case I ever wanted to leave Paul. I used it to open an account at a strange bank and got a debit card for it.
