It all started so innocently for them, They answered an ad Charlie found online, an ad that would end up changing their lives forever.
"Look at this," Charlie to his wife Sara. "Is this even possible?"
Sara slid over to look at the laptop screen. There was a stark while background with a blue bottle in the middle of the page.
WONDER DRUG EXCITES PATIENTS!
TRY A BOTTLE FOR FREE
RESULTS IMMEDIATELY
Charlie and Sara were a happy couple, both in their early 40s, fit and healthy and still adventurous. The problem was, their sex lives had become predictable, Friday nights after a glass of wine, maybe one too many, followed by kissing, heavy petting and then one or the other passing out on the couch.
It was running joke to wake up the next morning, still on the couch,
"Who passed out first?" they would playfully ask, trying to make a harmless game of it but knowing deep down, they had a problem. Not a drinking problem per se, but a sex problem. And it wasn't unusual for one or the other to have no memory, even on the rare nights they actually had real sex before passing out.
The "pill" in the advertisement was intriguing for each of them, They'd both discussed their situation with their doctors and came away with the diagnosis that fatigue, diet, wine or just dwindling urgency or interest was slowing their sex lives. All natural, they were told.
They'd been to a marriage counselor who assured them nothing was emotionally wrong.
"Maybe you just need to practice more," she advised. "Schedule a regular date night with a nice meal out, wine and dancing, rekindling the old feelings and letting nature take its course."
They tried it. Same results, waking up on the couch and joking about who fell asleep first.
Sara suggested they see a sex specialist who prescribed Cialis for Charlie and Vyleesi for Sara. It didn't work as intended, somehow not kicking in for her at all and not for Charlie until the next morning when neither was in the mood for sex.
So they just moved on with their lives and pretended not to be all that concerned.
Deep down, Sara had indeed moved on. She went though the motions of wanting to rekindle the old feelings but doubting it ever would. Charlie, however, wanted to keep trying.
He'd come home with toys, vibrators and dildos, plugs and cock rings, KY lotion and penis extenders. Sara would laugh, blanche and consider each a joke and rarely touched them.
When she'd leave for work in the mornings, Charlie would pull them from the "fun drawer," put on some porn and waste hours upon hours trying to reach an orgasm.
Sara, laughed at the ad on the laptop screen. The wonder pill designed to take care of all mental and physical barriers to great sex had to have been a snake-oil product, a get-rich easy scheme for the snake-oil company and a waste of time and money for anyone stupid enough to be duped by the offer..
"No way," she said. "Don't even think about it."
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A few days passed, and Charlie hadn't stopped thinking about it. He was curious, frustrated and dead serious. Without telling his wife, he ordered the trial bottle and waited for it to arrived.
He'd worked from home since the pandemic. His freelance opportunities were nothing compared to what they'd been before the lockdown. Once upon a time, he had so many magazines, websites, industry marketers and newspapers needing copy, he was swamped. Now, he was lucky to having more than a project a month.
So as long as the bottle showed up on his porch on a weekday while Sara was working, she'd be none the wiser.
Sara was an educator, a former high school principal now an educational consultant and an elected school board member. She was busy, often working late then bringing her work home.
Charlie always had a glass of white wine chilling in the refrigerator when she came home. And more times than not, he had the kitchen cleaned, the clothes washed, dried and folded and dinner in the oven.
He was a good husband, and Sara was a good provider. Not once had either of them, nor their doctors or specialists ever considered their changed arrangement of home and work to be a problem.
Charlie wasn't so sure some nights when she came home tired and frustrated. At least until the night she came home with wine already on her breath.
Ironically, it was the same day the bottle arrived. It come from a UPS delivery, and by noon, Charlie had already taken not one but two pills, which the directions cautioned against.
By 4 p.m, he noticed a tingle in his pants. By 6, he had a hard-on like nothing he could ever remember. By 8, when Sara finally came home, obviously tipsy and smelling like Chardonnay, her husband's cock was raging, thumping and screaming to get out.
After warming up dinner, which he'd cooked two hours earlier, he served her in the den, Chicken Cordon Bleu, wild rice, Brussel's glazed in balsamic vinegar and a glass of white wine.
Sara had a funny look on her face already, feeling sheepish that he'd gone through all that work without even mentioning it, much less her coming an hour later than she'd ever, and fully aware that he had to have noticed her slightly unsteady gaze and silly smirk.
And then she saw it.
"Charlie!"
