Rachael knew she was embarrassing her son and daughter that Thanksgiving, but she didn't really care. They'd have been more than embarrassed if they'd known she did more than dressing to attract men, but she'd never tell them about that. She felt good now, better than she had in the twenty years from the time her daughter was born until her son was in college.
It had started as the realization she was free to do the things she'd always wanted now that she wasn't playing taxi driver for her kids and their friends. It seemed as if every day of the week, there was something going on after school for at least one of them and she always had to drive them someplace.
Once Jack and Diane had their driver's licenses, it was a little easier, but since she and her husband, Rick, had agreed not to buy cars for their kids, she was left with two choices. She could let the kids take her car and stay home, or drive them and have the freedom to go shopping or whatever else she needed to do. Once Jack went off to college, Rachael was free to do anything she wanted.
She and Rick had started life together about like any other couple, or so it said in the women's magazines she read at night before bed. They'd been deeply in love and had sex every night for the first two years. On Saturdays and Sundays, they woke up at six like every day during the week, but didn't get out of bed until eight and sometimes nine. Rachael loved how Rick touched her on those mornings. She was still warm and relaxed from sleep and his hands stroking her skin made warm and relaxed turn into ready and more than willing. Only when she'd gasped as the spasms racked her body was she ready to let him go.
After Diane was born, Rachael spent most of her time changing diapers, nursing Diane, and getting her ready to go when they went someplace. When she gave birth to Jack two years later, Diane was still in diapers and seemed to get into anything and everything she shouldn't have. Rachael's days seemed to all run together in a stream of nursing Jack, changing his diapers, feeding Diane, changing her diapers, and in general trying to keep from losing her mind. She and Rick still had sex, but most of the time, Rachael was too tired to really enjoy it.
As the years went on, things got a little better in some ways but worse in others. Diane and Jack could take care of themselves more, so Rachael had more time to herself. That lasted until Diane and Jack started school. After that, it was drive to the school to take cookies to one of their classes or meet with one of their teachers or race there to take the lunch they'd forgotten. The older Diane and Jack got, the more trips to the school Rachael made every week. She often joked with them that she could drive to the school and back in her sleep.
The day Jack left for college, Rachael sat down on the couch and realized she had the entire week to do what she wanted. That realization also came with some tears. For almost twenty years, Diane and Jack had been her reason for being. Now, what was she supposed to do -- sit around and grow old while waiting to be a grandmother? That's what her mother had done, but Rachael couldn't see herself doing that.
Rachael thought about finding a job, but they didn't really need the money and she didn't relish the idea of working five days a week only to give most of her salary to the government. Rachael decided to stay home and figure out a way to bring some of the zing back into her love life.
Rachael talked to her mother about that, but her mother wasn't any help. She just said Rick's lack of interest was normal for their age.
"Men to through the change too." she'd said when Rachael told her Rick hadn't touched her in a week. "It's perfectly normal for a man's sex drive to decrease. Your father and I only do it about once a month now, sometimes not that often."
Rachael didn't think it was really normal. None of the articles in her magazines said it was. In fact, the magazines said it was normal to want to have sex well into their seventies for some people. She didn't know about that, but forty-seven was too young to stop.
Rachael also knew what the reason for Rick's lack of interest really was. Every morning after her shower, she stood in front of the full-length mirror on the bathroom door and dried herself. The Monday after Jack left for college, she dried off and then sighed when she saw herself in the mirror.
When she was twenty, her breasts were firm and perky, her waist was narrow, her tummy was flat, and her hips were tight. Now, her breasts were a lot bigger but they hung down lower and her nipples pointed more down than up. Rachael didn't think her waist looked too bad. It was bigger than back then, but still didn't look fat. Her tummy and hips were another matter. Her tummy had become rounded instead of flat and her hips were wide with what Rachael thought was a lot of fat on her thighs.
Yes, that was why Rick usually just rolled over on his stomach and went to sleep every night. She was just another fat housewife. If she'd been thin and sexy, he'd have wanted her. Rachael sighed again and then started to put on the clothes she usually wore around the house.
When she put on the plain white bra, she frowned and shook her head. It didn't do much to lift her breasts up and out. Instead, it just held them up enough they didn't jiggle. It didn't even give her much cleavage. Rachael took it off, hung it back over the towel bar, and went to their bedroom. When she came back into the bathroom, she had the black lace bra and the black lace thong panties she'd bought to wear to Rick's office party the year before.
The bra lifted her breasts up enough she had cleavage. Rachael pushed her hand into each cup and pulled her breasts up a little more. When she looked in the mirror again, she smiled. She had deep cleavage and the soft curve of her breasts was showing now. It wasn't firm and perky, but it was a lot better.
When she put on the panties, she frowned again. The coarse, dark brown hair on her mound stuck out from the edges of the panties. She removed the panties, got the scissors from the vanity drawer and trimmed away the excess hair, then pinched the rest between her fingers and trimmed off what showed. When she finished with her mound, she did the same to the hair that covered her lips.
Rachael smiled when she looked at herself again. She could almost see her lips through the hair now, and nothing would stick out around the panties. She pulled them back on and grinned. With no hair sticking out, she looked a little slimmer. Her tummy was still too round, but the thong now defined where her thighs joined her body.
She turned around then and used a hand mirror to see the reflection of her backside in the mirror. Rachael frowned again. Her butt had dimples and her thighs stuck out even more when she saw them from the back.
Different panties wouldn't fix that. Her butt and thighs had gotten that way from doing a lot of sitting. Only one thing would fix that.
Rachael put on her jeans and top, and then went into the living room and turned on the television. Every other day, she'd have searched for a movie to keep her company while she vacuumed and dusted. That day, she found one of the programs she always skipped over, an exercise program.
The exercises were hard to do, but according to the slender girl demonstrating them, would thin her hips and tummy. Rachael figured if the exercises made her look half as slender and sexy as the blonde girl, it would be worth the effort. Half an hour later, Rachael got up off the floor and began dusting the furniture while watching another exercise show. When that girl said an exercise would tighten her hips or tummy, Rachael stopped and did it.
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The next morning, her thighs ached, but Rachael knew that was because she'd done some good. Every day after that, she'd do at least half an hour of exercises and then measure her hips. To her surprise, in a month, she's lost an inch off her hips, and her tummy was starting to look at least a little flatter.
She felt good about herself, at least a little, and started wearing little lace teddies to bed instead of flannel pajamas. Rick noticed, but didn't seem to care all that much. She tried sleeping nude as well, and Rick definitely noticed. The first night she'd walked into the bedroom wearing nothing. Rick had grinned.
"You must want something."
Rachael smiled.
