I woke to the delicate touch of my wife's fingers gliding down my arm.
Her phone was on the stand. The gentle glow of the night-light sleep app warmed the room, and the white noise from its speaker brushed aside the silence. I wasn't sure how long I'd slept, but it can't have been long as I hadn't yet started dreaming.
"Help me?" she whimpered. My heart jumped; what could be wrong? My pulse started to race as the adrenaline kicked in.
Helen's deft fingers reached my hand, laced through my own, and she pulled them across to her side of the bed, straight between her legs. That's when I discovered that the buzzing sound wasn't the sleep app at all. She must have seen my eyes flash wide. "Please help me. I'm so fucking horny!"
"What the hell..." I mumbled. I'd known Helen for years, and we'd been married for just over six months. We were madly, deeply in love. She was a virgin when we hooked up, refused sex before marriage, and her sexual appetite - such as it was - could best be described as vanilla.
Which made her next words all the more extraordinary. She stared me straight in the eyes, her hunger almost overbearing. "Get in my mouth!" she demanded.
Even then, I suspected some kind of trap. The very idea of her performing oral sex on me, especially other than with considerable reluctance at Christmas or on my birthday, was absurd. "Helen, are you okay?"
"Do you want a conversation, or do you want me to suck you off? Get your fucking dick into my slutty mouth before I cum!"
Well. Nobody likes to disappoint a lady.
///
Helen spun into my world through mutual friend Jennifer. They'd gone through secondary school together and were totally inseparable, until they were forced apart by going to different universities.
I met Jen at our halls of residence - we had rooms on the same landing. She was a wild party girl and no mistake; sharing a paper-thin wall with her meant I was intimately familiar with her dating life. I guess I consider myself lucky that we became friends first before I eventually succumbed to her voracious sexual appetite one drunken weekend. I don't think we left the bed for 2 days other than to grab some water and collect the pizza. With Jen, nothing was off limits. But that girl burned me out; I just could not keep up, and the jealousy of watching her go off with other guys - and girls - between our marathon sessions became unendurable.
She didn't see it as cheating, of course. "It's just sex," she said. "It doesn't change what you and I have." Realising I'd been falling in love with her, I had to break it off, while we were still friends. I didn't think she loved me, not the way I did her, and I knew I'd never be enough for her, and eventually it would have destroyed me.
It was at Jen's engagement party that I met Helen. At first glance, she was everything Jen was not - blonde rather than brunette, curvy rather than boyish, short rather than lanky. She was without question the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and I knew I was in deep trouble from the moment Helen smiled back at me with those twinkling little blue eyes.
We dated for a few months; that's all it took for me to know she was the one. We were so perfectly matched, in almost every respect. Except one. Helen was Jen's opposite in another regard too - where lust ruled Jen's life, Helen was almost indifferent. I fooled myself that it didn't matter to me.
But six months into our marriage, our irregular and uninspiring sex life was really getting to me. I didn't regret ending things with Jen, not exactly - but surely there had to be some kind of middle ground between the slut and the saint?
I ended up confessing to Jen. I needed somebody to talk to, and I didn't know anyone else with whom I could have such a frank conversation with no judgement.
"Well," she said. "If it was anyone but Helen, I'd happily sort those blue balls for you. You know I'm always ready to help a friend out."
Having an affair wasn't really what I had in mind. I love Helen and would never do anything to hurt her. I just wanted some advice, any ideas on how I might help Helen loosen up a bit - talking just led to arguments about me making demands on her. I guess I'm just not that good with words.
"Leave it with me," Jen said, winking. "I have an idea."