Marriage is a stack of contracts, not just the one imposed by the government and exchange of vows in the chapel. In successful marriages, most are tacit understandings. Loyalty and devotion. Parental responsibilities and practices. Mutual ego support. Shared house hold labor. Compromises and unselfishness. Budgetary agreements need to be hammered out. A stack of contracts. My giving my wife the man of her choice once, and only once, a year was a new contract. A contract similar to the one we shaped for our first threesome indulgence all those years ago. I was fully aware the contract was over weighted in her favor, but that was not something like two children following mother's orders to equally divide the remaining piece of chocolate cake. That intense scrutiny of division that guaranteed the older child using the knife did not get a single crumb more than the younger sibling. We were not children. We were doing an equal sharing that defied ready recognition of conventional measures.
For three weeks I was hypersensitive to her moods, waiting for her to spring the news on me. She was not forthcoming. She smiled a lot, revamped her wardrobe, was a treasure house of sweet sex for me. She was her every day lovable self. Sunny, charming, gracious, kind and giving. Two months passed, and I often felt an urge to probe, locate hidden urges and arousals stirring from an attractive man that had touched her sensibilities. But I didn't probe. It would have been... hell, it would have been rude to do so. Our contract had that kind of force. And the added value of a new version of erotic atmosphere. She could have joyous, private sex with any man she wanted, once only, once a year. That given fact had a substance of enormous kinetic potential. It gave her beauty and physical desirability three dimensional focus in my eyes. I grappled with an impossibility, that I loved her even more than I ever had before. Because there was an underlying truth of something more. That my gift also contained the concurrent truth of my being her heaven on earth, and that would wrap the two of us forever more.
Spring segued into summer.
"Any man I want?" She said one day, out of the blue.
"One time, once a year. We agreed."
"He has turned up. I want him."
My God. Seven simple words, and I felt like I had been plastered with electrodes and external current turned on. "Erotic" is a very special word. It is far removed from pornographic. Eroticism dwells in our brain circuitry, in the cellular structure of our organs and who knows where else in our bodies. "He has turned up...I want him" sent erotic currents streaking everywhere inside me, and I felt chills and fever and mysterious nerve thrills all at the same time.
"Who is he? Where does he come from? How did you meet him? Where? When?"
"Easy tiger, easy!" She laughed. "You are more excited than I am."
"Well, almost half a year all routine and now suddenly..."
His name was Larry Felts and he was a house builder and did remodeling jobs and - knock me down and kick my gut - he completed some work on our house three weeks or so earlier. The soffit was showing rot in too many places, and I struck a deal with him to replace it and paint it. I saw him only twice, for him to evaluate and price the job, and another time during the work. I was very busy and left the project to Jill to keep tabs on and write him a check. Now she was of a mind to give him a hell of a tip.
"Whoa babe, that is too, too close to home." I said with flat finality.
"Don't be silly," she said. "He has never been inside our home and he never will be. Sometimes I think you believe I have turned into an air head."
"I will never think that... What about him turned you on?"
"Need you really ask? You met him."
Indeed I did. Larry was early forties. Played golf often and was in great shape, as much natural as trained. He had a rough hewn look. Excessive masculinity might describe him. But nothing predatory that I picked up on. Handsome, well, hell yes, he was. Sexy? That was something Jill had exclusive rights to determine. In fact, per our contract, she had exclusive rights to him if she wanted. She made clear she did want.
"So, uh, what have you two established?"
"Some preliminary chemistry was established. Yes, I can definitely say that. His crew did the work, while we sat on the screened porch and drank lemonade. Not every hour of the job. But enough conversation, eye contact, body language to work at will. I've called him a couple of times, making clear he is not to call me, ever."
That was meager information, and all the more erotic because of the paucity.
"Did you touch? Kiss?"
"Of course not! On our porch? His crew nearby?"
"Well, chemistry is a word open on both ends. I'm naturally curious."
"You know how it works, Jack. All those women you had. Years ago, true, but you know. You could be looking at each other and repeating the pledge of allegiance to the flag, and all sorts of undercurrents and subliminal sex signals are flying back and forth. We both had roving eyes. He kept sizing me up. I gave a few glances to his crotch. He has a curvy ass that I bet has a lot of muscle power. He was very agreeable to a glass of lemonade. Never in a hurry to leave and check on his crew. He is married. But so am I," she grinned.
"Chemistry, as I recall, needs a little more mixing than that."
"That last day, they did the painting and he had much leisure time to chat. Again, about nothing much in particular. A light skim over his business career, his life in general, little oddities about his spouse that are amusing if slightly annoying. At first he didn't realize I wasn't wearing panties under my sun dress. Then he knew. Did he ever. It was fun to watch. He couldn't stop looking at the way the dress settled in the V of my legs, the crack of my ass. And not a single suggestive word passed between us."
"I can see it." I said. "Lifting your dress and flashing your twat would have been unspeakably vulgar and tacky. Not wearing panties sent a message one hundred times more powerful. The difference between erotic and pornographic."
"Exactly," she said.
"In effect, you were saying to him this proper upper class housewife could be fucked, if you play your cards right."
"Good way to put it."
"Maybe he thinks you are a neglected housewife in need of repair."
"Maybe he does. Does that matter? He didn't get a boner, but his cock did stir. I saw that, and made sure he saw that I saw. Never talking anything but above board chit chat.
"Establishing chemistry." I laughed. "Now I'm getting a boner."
