The man depicted in this story is in an ethically non-monogamous marriage. The woman depicted in this story is divorced. All sex involves over-18 characters.
TAGS: milf, mother, stranger, christmas, oral sex, hairy pussy, open marriage, happily married, car sex, proposition
Six days without porn went by easier than Leary expected. Maybe it was only because it was the first time. Might future fasts turn out to be just as easy but not as surprising? He dismissed the thought.
In the here and now, Leary was cheerful. Besides the dopamine-detox he was undertaking, his sense of possibilities had just been blown wide open as well. He wasn't in any rush to charge off and start seeking fuckbuddies, but it was an option.
Months of communication, trust and sincere commitment to their 30-year marriage had very recently brought Leary and his wife Kel to a new understanding about what "fidelity" was supposed to mean in a sexless relationship with an asexual spouse. The couple hadn't been this happy and secure with each other, and confident in their future together, in a long time.
Driving to the grocery store on a December weekday afternoon, Leary felt easy, open and positive, as if basking in the afterglow of a nice therapeutic massage. He hadn't had any such thing, but his neurotransmitters had really shifted.
Kel wasn't aromantic, and the couple didn't want to stop loving each other. There was just no sex. The expectation, the anticipation, of yet another showdown over sex was now off the table, and it was freeing them both from maintaining the reservations they had employed around each other for years now. Fond embraces, evenings in bed cuddling together, and low-stakes, high-warmth intimacy like this was becoming as frequent as in the earliest days of their relationship. It was delicious to both of them.
Leary didn't think about why he was smiling, breathing easily and deeply, and feeling so un-stressed and so buoyant while he drove. But he did notice. He was liking it. It could have been the dopamine detox. It could have been the oxytocin hits which Kel's new emotional and physical availability was providing. Maybe it was simply the enhanced sense of future which comes when a depressing situation resolves itself positively.
He was in no rush to go out and score as fast as possible. Instead, he felt like the pressure was off, in a way. Knowing that the option, the permission was there eased the feeling of desperation he had endured during the long years of sexual starvation, and during the months of talking and vulnerability as he and Kel were forced to either work things out or not survive as a couple.
Getting out and locking the car, Leary started stepping across the parking lot lanes toward the store. An "excuse-me, sorry-to-bother-you" triggered a reflexive wariness and he kept his eyes forward. He used his peripheral vision to try to sense whether it was coming at him from an ordinary beggar-woman, or maybe one who would become persistent and pushy. The tone was as a matter of fact very lucid and guileless, and he allowed himself to look.
Shanna began her pitch just as soon as she saw she had his attention. It could be rescinded so quickly. She displayed a tidy, low-sided cardboard box containing half a dozen Christmas-themed gift-type bags. "My kids and I put these together. Can you help us buy a Christmas tree?"
Leary's "No, I'm sorry" was just a touch slower than his ordinary auto-response to begging, but he said it and saw Shanna immediately give up on him, scanning the lot for another person to pitch to. Leary kept moving and did his shopping.
He sure was horny, though. His good mood wafted through the store and he noticed reactions from women in there. He had never refrained from unobtrusively checking women out in various places and circumstances, but had his brain previously filtered out any reactions? Or was he being more forward, less subtle about it now, triggering women to notice and respond?
Maybe it had less to do with whether he was observing how pretty certain faces were, how shapely certain outfits made certain women look. Maybe it was more that his good cheer was simply written on his face, and it was contagious. The unconscious little micro-expressions people made seemed more engaging, different, less shielded, more upbeat as they crossed paths with Leary in the store.
As they entered and exited each other's personal space, as happens in a busy market, he felt like he was alive to them. Was there a hormone, a neurotransmitter, which had been turned up when his sadness had lifted, his major problem resolved? When his brain had absorbed the idea that pursuit was now on the table?
Wheeling his cart out of the store, a twenty-six year old, long-haired blonde attendant was bringing a stack train of eight or ten carts back from the lot. They were on a collision course, and Leary easily made room, swinging his cart wide on one side. The young woman read his intention perfectly and went wide around the other side instantly, and they smiled at each other, sharing the moment of lucidity. Leary spontaneously opened his mouth and briefly joked to the attendant as they passed each other, saying "Do-se-do!" and stepping with his feet in a slightly exaggerated square-dancing type of shuffle as they curved toward each other, now with room to pass.
He was pleased to see the attendant take the joke cheerfully and smile engagingly at him as they passed. It felt like a flirtation to Leary. He thought that she was unlikely to perceive it that way, mostly due to the age difference, but to him it made him think a little about his abilities in that department, for future encounters. This whole situation was so new, still.
It crossed his mind that the woman who needed the tree hadn't looked unappealing to him. She was younger than Leary, maybe forty or forty-five. Her face was pretty in an Anatolian way, healthy dark hair in waves over her neck. He remembered the bosom he had seen under her hooded sweatshirt, and had an idea.
Shanna was unselfconscious about trying to drum up Christmas tree money in a shopping center parking lot. She had done it the previous year, too. The time she had spent on the project with her fourteen-year-old daughter and nine-year-old son had been really nice. They had chosen the goodies, picked out cute bags, and stuffed them with the treats and knick-knacks.
They were rewarded with hot cookies baked from a pre-made refrigerated dough roll. The busy single mother didn't have so much free time as to make them from scratch, but it was still a treat. The tree would be even more so.
Temperatures were chilly but not freezing. The sky was heavily overcast. Shanna hoped she could get enough help from sympathetic and generous grocery shoppers to not have to spend a lot of time doing this. There was no precipitation today but cold rain was forecast for the next days.
Leary put his purchases in his car, closed it and locked it. He looked around the parking lot. He didn't see Shanna but started walking around.
He saw Shanna before long. She was talking to a Boomer-aged woman, looking into the tops of her gift bags and Leary guessed she was listing the goodies inside. The other woman had given her enough time, and hope, to cue up this part of her pitch, but Leary saw the woman shake her head apologetically and edge away. Shanna resignedly let her go and started scanning for her next potential patron.
