She was raised in a conservative home in a rural part of Virginia, and the lessons of restraint, modesty and social propriety were still very much a solid part of her psyche after more than 20 years of marriage, and in spite of my desires for her to let her hair down once in a while.
Leslie and I had a good sex life before this night, don't get me wrong. And in her 40's, she still turns heads with her devastatingly friendly and innocent smile, her size 6 figure and wonderful feminine charm. It's just that sex for her was always something reserved for behind closed doors, to be enjoyed totally out of sight and mind of anyone else. Rarely would she show or appreciate any affection in public beyond holding hands or a quick, adoring peck, on the lips if I was lucky. The idea of letting on to anyone else that she enjoyed sex - which she did, immensely - was simply gross to her.
On our little jaunts each year for a few days away from children and home, a time or two I had managed to coax her into discreetly flashing me her perfect 36B's in some dark corner of a restaurant or to take her top off on a secluded stretch of beach - but only when she was sure that there was an impossibility of anyone seeing her. Once, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, I even managed to get her to go nude on one of those vast stripes of wilderness beach, with not a soul in sight north or south as far as the eye could see, or behind us in the layer of dunes between us and the empty parking area 1/4 away.
But within me there has always been this inexplicable desire to show her off. I would try to satisfy myself in noting the shape of her breasts when she wore the few articles of clothing that would allow more graphic appreciation, and the snug jeans she was prone to wear as she went about her daily chores. And of course, though I had my favorite swimwear, regardless of what she wore when she went swimming, it was impossible for her to hide her beauty in the tight fabric; those days were too few and far between, but nevertheless quite memorable and pleasing to me.
It never quite did satisfy, even though it was at least a chance to quietly lust after her, and hope that other men were, too. Gradually, through the years, I noticed that she would pack her sexier things - relative to what she would normally wear, but pretty tame for many women - for our summer getaways without my having to remind her. Slowly, she had come to at least expect to make this sort of effort to catch my eye, if not also enjoy it; in recent years, she had said several times, quietly and with some embarrassment, that she even felt sexy doing it.
In the meantime, our lovemaking had become more enjoyable as she learned to relax and anticipate its pleasures. I could tell that she looked forward to it, and as that became apparent, I became less frantic in the sometimes weeks that would pass between our passionate encounters after our teens had finally gone to bed; I learned that giving her the freedom from pressure aroused true sexual feeling in her for me. There were times when we both marveled at the intensity of her orgasms.
So we both had smiles on our faces last summer when we made reservations for August at an inn on the Eastern Shore. The inn was one of those old Victorian homes that a retired couple fixed up, a beautiful place with a broad porch and lots of tucked away rooms overlooking a marina. Our practice on our retreats together had become to spend at least the first third of our time - this time it was for four nights - flirting with one another, albeit according to the same strict rules as always when in public. We would try to wait until the last night to consummate the romance we had built up.