Every couple dreams their marriage will be perfect, particularly if they are young and haven't yet experienced the disappointments of adult life. Stephanie and I certainly felt that way on the Tuesday after Labor Day of 1968 as we took our vows near Columbus, Ohio. The next day we piled our stash of belongings into the red Volkswagen bug and began our first transcontinental trip, arriving in our new home in the northern Bay Area just five days later, our legs cramped from the thousands of miles we'd driven, yet hungry for each other's bodies.
Had she trapped me into marriage too early? Perhaps. We'd been sweethearts in high school, then for three years through aborted efforts at higher education. In my senior year of high school she'd given her virginity to me, for the next couple of years the largest problem we had were the logistics of finding a place to screw.
In January of 1968, the night before I'd enlisted in the Navy, the draft board hot on my heels, she'd promised fidelity to me. In June, when I'd been transferred to the San Francisco area and found it to be my personal promised land, I wrote her letters about the paradise. She wanted to join me, and to underscore that desire she began dating an air force man, her letters were full of him. In my youth I let myself believe that if I lost her my life would be worthless, and the idea that he'd made love to her, whether true or not, infuriated me. I telephoned her, an expensive proposition to a seaman first class, proposed and a few weeks later took accumulated leave, flew back to Columbus and we wed.
I was attached to Mare Island for a year and a half for computer training, only thirty miles north of The City. We found a series of furnished apartments, on the nights I wasn't required to be on base we made love more often than not, explored California as we did the crevices of our bodies. Life was, indeed, as perfect as it ever would be, we had each other.
The orders for my remaining four years of enlistment came through, I would be assigned to the aircraft carrier Ranger, then sailing in the Western Pacific to fly jet aircraft that bombed the Viet Cong. I'd heard the details by then: As long as the war raged, the ship would spend eight months of the year deployed across the ocean, only three or four months of rest and refurbishment.
The discussion of where Stephanie would spend the deployment was settled, she'd return home to stay with her mother. In January of 1970 I flew halfway across the globe to meet the ship in the Gulf of Tonkin. For the next six months our letters, which took at least a week to cross the ocean, sometimes a fortnight to reach each other, were full of love and disillusionment with our separation. Needless to say, a married woman who has tasted the joy of independent living and the mecca of California wasn't content to live in a backwater town with her relatives. After the ship docked in Alameda, across the bay from San Francisco, I took leave, Stephanie and I were reunited.
But just for a few months. Even those were interrupted as I had to spend every fourth night aboard ship with the duty, and five times we left port for sea trials lasting from a couple of days to weeks. In September Stephanie stood on the dock with other wives as the drab hulk was pushed from the mooring, turned west and headed through the Golden Gate.
Another nine months passed, lonely months for both of us. My life was dictated by the rhythms of sea duty, thirty days on the line, six in a Philippine port, punctuated by visits to Hong Kong and Tokyo before returning, blissfully, home. Stephanie's life was not so rigid; she spent the months going to movies and clubs with her girl friends, working as a clerk, she flew home for the holidays. Her letters were sometimes filled with frustration; a woman of her age, one who has tasted the wonders of sex, has certain needs, ones that can't be assuaged easily. In February she wrote to me of her glee when she and a friend visited a seedy shop in San Francisco and she purchased her first dildo.
I asked her if she was approached by men in a restaurant or bar with her friends. She was a beauty, even in my fifty year old photographs I can see that. She was tall, in heels she reached nearly to six feet, her legs were long and pleasing, her breasts were conical and copious. The fashions of that time tended to bralessness and miniskirts, I couldn't blame men if they were desirous of her body. Stephanie answered that every once in awhile someone might try to buy her a drink, before she accepted she told them she was happily married and their opportunity was limited to conversation. My belief is that during the cruise of 1970/71 my wife was numbered among the most faithful of women.
I recall the first night after our return to the States in June. As we steamed through the bay on a clear yet misty June morning we spied the dock, filled with families. Luckily my section didn't have the duty, I was in the first wave of sailors to hit the gangplank. I quickly found her, she wore a red dress she'd sewn herself, we imitated all those photographs you've seen of a sailor in dress blues hungrily kissing his woman, we headed for our apartment. I remember stripping her, how we stroked each other, I can almost still taste her tightly drawn nipples. She moaned as I came the first time, too soon, but I was raging again in just moments, for hours we screwed. Some of the rest of that day was spent at the pool, drinking beer and luxuriating in conversation and tales, in the evening we found a pizza parlor, but most of it was spent naked in each others arms.
We caught a break, the ship was slated for a complete overhaul. Even better, it would be performed at Hunter's Point in the city of San Francisco, we wouldn't need to relocate or be separated for the nine months of renovation. We found another, better, apartment in the hills of Oakland, settled in for an extended period of togetherness, rare for a serviceman's wife.
Through the winter of 1972 we enjoyed each other. Life wasn't perfect, of course; we had every minor plague that young couples suffer - less money than we'd like, our car broke down and had to be fixed, we argued about silly things. But we were in love, we managed mirth and passion.
I believe a turning point came when we made friends with another Navy couple. We hung with them on weekends and some evenings. She, as I remember, had an olive complexion, was short and her boobs didn't quite fill her bikini top. He was shorter than Stephanie, but had muscular arms and a crude sense of humor that appealed to my wife. One night over more than enough beer and wine, I became aware that somehow I was sitting next to the other wife, and she was kissing me. I cooperated, even to the point that I opened her blouse and sucked a nipple. Through the fog of tipsiness I noticed Stephanie was likewise engaged with him, in fact she had his penis out and was stroking it with her hand. There's nothing more to the story. I was faithful to my wife, she was loyal to me, the four of us dressed and had another beer.
But that opened a topic Stephanie and I had never broached. We talked about the encounter afterwards, understood that neither of us was upset at the indiscretion, discussed how it had been nice to kiss somebody else. I wanted to ask her if she would have liked it to go further, but felt shy about raising the enticement. Nor did Stephanie, if she was like-minded, verbalize her desires. In the daze of youth and the belief that faithfulness in marriage is a virtue, we simply ignored the mountain in our bedroom.
In the early 1970's - really the last gasp of the period known as the Sixties - sex was a common topic. Movies showed female nudity, even to full frontal, advertisements were full of double entendres, the San Francisco Bay was a laboratory for alternative lifestyles. Why we never went back to our friend's house and participated in an orgy is a question that baffles me. Perhaps he shipped out; or it may be that they realized Stephanie and I would have to be pushed to commit adultery and they didn't wish to force us. Or, maybe, they were as embarrassed at the rashness as we were. In any event we never got involved with them again. And yet I dreamed about screwing the other wife and I have no doubt, particularly in light of events yet to transpire, that Stephanie lusted after the other man.
The shipyard period closed, the Ranger was scheduled for sea trials. In a matter of a few months, I'd be floating across the Pacific again, Stephanie would be on her own until the ship returned.
One weekend evening we walked to a cheap Chinese restaurant in the Fruitvale district. As we returned home in the gloaming I remember Stephanie begin a conversation. "Have you ever thought about making love to someone else?"
"I don't know." I had, of course, but I wasn't willing to voice my fantasy. Then, falteringly, "Have you?"
"I wonder what it'd be like, sometimes. You know, would it be different?"
"You mean better?"
"No. That's not what I mean. I just think it would be different. I think I'd like to try that sometime. You'd like to, wouldn't you?"
I remember I didn't answer her. My thoughts on the subject weren't formed, I was confused. After we returned home Stephanie put on a negligee, we made love in the living room, our window open to the dim light and my mind wasn't on her, it wasn't on the fantasy of another woman, it was obsessed with the apparition of someone else undressing my love, sucking at her beautiful breasts, then climbing above her, spreading her thighs and inserting himself into her. I discovered competing emotions. The first was repulsion that another man might possess the body which belonged to me alone, the other a grizzly curiosity about how she'd relish it. I pictured his sperm being pumped deeply into her as I screwed her powerfully. I doubt we discussed the new thoughts afterwards; such ideas are muted after an orgasm. But we made dynamic love again the next morning before I drove her to work.
A few days later, the Ranger had it's first sea trial after the yard period. A simple two day cruise west of the Farallones, just a jaunt to shake the ship down. I performed my duties as always, yet the thought of Stephanie and another man refused to leave me. In my bunk I silently masturbated thinking of my wife and her phantom lover. I even wondered if that very night she'd taken the incentive, going to a bar, picking a handsome devil up and having her way with him.
Of course she was still my woman when I returned, she told me she'd stayed at home and worked on a jigsaw puzzle; the half completed picture of an Italian town confirmed her story. That weekend, as we began our foreplay, emboldened by a bottle of wine, I queried her.
"Did you mean it when you said you wanted to have another guy?"
"I just wonder what it would be like. Just one time, that's all."
"What if you liked it?"
"I wouldn't do it again, not if you didn't want me to."
"And you want me to say it's okay?"
"I'm sorry, I can't help it. I don't want to cheat on you, I'd never do that. Never!"
I didn't give her permission that night, I'm sure. But I considered it. I wondered, if it was just one simple screw, what harm would it do? After all, everyone was doing it, weren't they? And I had desires of my own. If she did it, it would only be fair if I was allowed to lie with a woman as well, wouldn't it?
The following week the Ranger put to sea again, three nights this time, constant drills of the ship's company, General Quarters, Damage Control, Abandon Ship. We were readying ourselves for war. I was preoccupied with my tasks, of course, but I still had plenty of time to consider Stephanie's request. My mind was muddled, I wasn't sure it was a good idea, but the experiment - for that's what I thought it would be - fascinated me. What would it be like for her, going to a man's bedroom, letting him undress her? Would the taste of him be different? She was rarely quick to orgasm with me, would the other man set her off? I masturbated to the dreams.
