Jolene and I met some fifteen years ago. It was a meet-cute, to be honest, where I was walking my golden retriever puppy in the park, not really watching where I was going as my head was sadly buried in my mobile phone. The walk was along what I thought was a seldom-used trail in the county park that was close to the little townhome I'd bought only a few months prior. Which is to say I was not really paying any attention to anything. And I was rounding a bend with the puppy wildly yanking on the leash in its usual state of frenetic excitement when a woman rounded the bend. She was jogging on the trail, and the puppy took to this new person with extreme excitement.
Mostly because I wasn't paying attention and because the puppy suddenly yanked harder on the leash that he'd done at any point, and because it was a rough trail with lots of roots and rocks, the yank from excited puppy pulled me forward unexpectedly, which led to me tripping over an exposed root, which then led to me falling flat onto my face on the trail. All of this happened with such speed that the runner was unable to avoid me, and she fell directly on top of me. That in turn brought her face to face with the young puppy, who took to her instantly with several friendly and full-tongue licks to her face.
I don't know how many times I apologized but Jolene tells me now that it was at least a dozen. I think that, over the years, the number rose slightly. It was probably three or four. But whatever, it's a fun story to tell when we meet someone new and the inevitable questions get asked about how we met.
Being a frequent visitor to the park, I knew of the new restaurant-bar that opened on park property, the one high on the hill providing glorious sightlines to the lake-filled valley below. I knew they were pet friendly, and asked the jogger if she would be willing to get a cup of coffee with me after her run to finalize my apology to her. She gave me a surreptitious up-and-down, and deciding I was good-looking, physically fit and had a cute dog, agreed.
Neither of us could have guessed that the post-fracas coffee-date would have turned into a day-long discussion over some beers, which turned to dinner, which led to more drinks, which finally led to me asking her if she wanted to come to my place for a nightcap, which after she agreed to that and we had another drink, led to us making furious and athletic love on my couch by ten that night. We have been together ever since.
Back then she worked sales. She was always on the road, traveling to places exotic and mundane, and knew the inner workings of hotels and airlines as well as any weary traveler. I had started my own accounting and tax practice two years earlier. I was not rich but was doing pretty well - back then, at twenty-seven, I had my own house and was my own boss. It was boring work (in Jolene's opinion) but set me on a path of financial independence I might have otherwise never known.
Her sales job grew more and more difficult. Though the money she earned was absolutely terrific, she was never at home to spend it. She hated the thought of going away for a vacation because she was always "away." After five straight years of earning over three hundred thousand dollars but sleeping at home with me for less than one hundred nights a year overall, she found a new position. It was still sales, after a fashion, as she got a job at a large, private university in their alumni donations area. The pay cut was enormous, but the benefits - primarily of not having to travel - appealed to her, and by then my earnings from my business were nearing three hundred thousand. We had bought the suburban home with the plans to have children. We were on our way.
Fate or karma intervened; we were unable to have children. We finally received the double-whammy - both of us were practically sterile. The blow nearly ruined our marriage; in the dark days following that news we were perhaps one or two fights away from suing for divorce. But somehow we kept struggling through and the pain subsided and we slowly made our peace with our fate. There were many long discussions over the benefits of adopting, but in the end we decided that if fate was going to keep us naturally childless that perhaps fate had a point.
We got rid of the suburban home - what was the point of having a big house and yard if there were never going to be kids there to enjoy it - and went in for a posh loft condo in an area of the city undergoing furious revitalization. What was one of those areas ten years prior you only visited armed and sporting body armor was now the hottest spot in the city. We got in a little before the real boom took off, so while the loft was pricey it paled in comparison to what buyers faced in the year or two following.
Ours was the top floor of what used to be a five-story brick warehouse-and-factory location. The views of the city and river were simply stunning. The place was all modern flooring and furniture with an expansive kitchen suitable for gourmet cooking. We hosted fabulous parties and generally loved the place and how the luxurious wooden floors created an interesting juxtaposition with the old brick walls.
I moved my offices to a spot just down the road, and usually got to work by walking or riding my bike. Jolene's university was a fifteen-minute bike ride away, and she typically rode every day even in winter. The only thing that stopped our rides were snow or ice. We were members of an "elite" gym (elite only in pricing to be honest) and maintained our physical fitness and overall appearances very well.
We'd always enjoyed a very healthy sex life. We made love often, probably five or six times a week, and truth be told seeing Jolene naked in the morning like after she stepped from the shower and sat to dry her hair and put on makeup was typically enough to wake my desires. There were many mornings that we had enthusiastic sex with her butt perched right on the little stool in the vanity area!
She was trim, not flat as a board but with some womanly curves. Her C-cup breasts were just perfect - they were big enough to draw the eye but not so big as to look sloppy. Even as she entered her fortieth decade those boobs were pert and upright. She had big nipples and they turned out to be exceedingly sensitive. On a few occasions I'd brought her to full orgasm just by teasing her flesh. She had decided in her thirties to get laser hair removal on several key areas of her body but especially the pubic area, and I ended up following to the best of my ability. From time to time we got all horny and used our mobile phones to record sex; it was kind of kinky to see my hairless organs pressing against her hairless organs. It certainly made oral sex easier!
She was entirely satisfied with my organ's dimensions. I wasn't the biggest or longest or thickest but I was long enough and definitely thick enough to stuff her tight little hole full up with meat to get her off. She loved that I loved oral, and rarely did a tryst go by without my lips and tongue on her nether lips, licking and sucking her to delightfully satisfying orgasms.
Given that we were both very fit and healthy as we entered our fourth decade, and given that we were very financially secure I think was the right combination that eventually led us down the path that we took.
Like our meet-cute, the first steps we took down our current path happened mostly by accident. She was browsing Facebook, and saw an ad for an adults-only special Valentine's Day event. It was aimed at sex. Not toys per se, but I guess a celebration of all things sexual. We both knew that it was going to be one of those events where you brought your credit cards because in all likelihood you were going to be parting with a fairish bit of coin. But since we had nothing better to do on the date that it was promoted, we signed up to go.
We were looking forward to the event and were among many other couples who were as intrigued as we. There were couples from all walks of life there - the upwardly mobile like us, the mom-and-dad couples who looked at the more exotic things, chuckled wanly but unable to do much given that they had a bunch of kids at home, and many same-sex couples. There were subtle indications that an active swingers scene existed in our city, something that we were kind of hip to but had little interest in pursuing.
