'Will tonight be what I fear, a plaintive Pas-de-deux choreographed to the requiem for a dying marriage, danced without desire for an audience of strangers?'
I wish my life could be that dramatic, that flowery, even that corny, but my journal reflects the me I want to be, crushed under the weight of the me that I am.
I know my husband Joel and I love each other, but what brought us together ultimately kept us apart. We had severely repressive religious upbringings, we're socially inept engineering nerds, and what passes for our sexuality is nothing more than a fumbling shuffle of shame and embarrassment in the dark, both literally and figuratively. I doubt anybody believes that people like us still exist, but we do. That's all we do.
If Joel knew how much I'd been masturbating in the last few months, he'd be shocked. If my mother knew, she would have beaten me across the back with a belt, like she did when I was thirteen. If she knew I was doing it with a three inch thick dildo in my anus, she would have used a tire iron. I wanted an orgasm, but I didn't even know what it was.
I watched progressively more shocking pornography, looking for some kind of spark, something that would unlock some kind of unknown door for me. I would welcome even the rankest of perversions if it transported me from the purgatory of my life. I worked my way up to thicker dildos and vibrators. Always close, but never fulfilled through vaginal insertions, I found modest success by ignoring my own mortification to subject myself to anal penetration, and it seemed to help me reach at least the higher slopes, but ever short of the summit. Eventually I employed a butt plug, which I took to carrying inside me all day at work, hoping that the growing pleasure would allow me to more easily reach my crescendo when I was free to make the attempt.
It makes me tingle inside to remember the day, six weeks ago, when I finally found success. I cried as I did those forbidden things. I cried and I prayed to God to understand me, even if I did not understand myself.
As I fingered my pussy and fucked my anus, I watched the godless harlot in the mirror, although I still could not look her in the face. I felt no pain from my latest, fattest dildo, signalling that I needed thicker, that I needed my new friend, the pain to return to me, to help me.
As always, I felt the stirrings of the magma boiling below, still trapped just beneath the surface, unable to affect the eruption I craved.
Tears began to pool, but I fought them, considering that maybe what I needed was some drastic shock to my system. Pinching my nipples hard didn't do it. If I'd had a cattle prod, would have used it. Short of sticking a finger in a light socket, one possibility presented itself. I rose, holding my fake phallus in my asshole as I wobbled into the bathroom.
I climbed into the tub, turned the faucet on cold, keeping the drain open, and laid on my back. Renewed, feverish efforts on my pussy began to bring me back up, my body heaving as I mashed the dildo in and out of me. I was getting there again, I was at that point, my breath struggling in short, steady gasps, my fingers raking furiously across my clit. I was rising, rising, hoping. As the icy water crept past my feet and reached my buttocks, I was right there, so very close, closer than ever before, but stalling.
Using my toes, I pulled the knob on top of the faucet, switching the water flow to the shower head. I shrieked as the frigid water sprayed down on me, piercing me like a thousand needles, but both propelling me upward and taking my mind away from my desire. Fingering myself had run its course and I needed more, or I would lose it once again. I pressed the heel of my hand across my clit and ground it in so hard it that it hurt. I embraced the pain and broke through. I quaked as my first orgasm overtook me, my body jerking uncontrollably as I came.
Against the cold shock of the water, the warm flow of ecstasy spread outward from my vagina until it enveloped me. I heard myself howling in quick staccato bursts as I felt myself sliding over onto my side. I kept mauling my clit as this glorious release reached its zenith, forcing my tears to flow freely, electrifying my flesh, transporting me for a fleeting moment to Heaven.
Just as quickly, it passed, and I fell into a fetal position, freezing under the relentless icy deluge, shivering in its merciless onslaught.
I shut off the water and slumped back against the cold porcelain and slowly pulling my monstrous toy out. Letting my fingers trace the outline of my dilated hole, I could feel that it was wider than ever, almost three inches across, and as was more the case recently, it wasn't closing. I'd been worried about it ever since I had graduated to my two inch thick toys. It usually took over five minutes for it to revert to normal. Now, at three inches, it took even longer.
I was ashamed to have this obscene gaping hole, for it is truly the mark of the whore, but after these past few months, it was the last of these perversions I had adopted that still felt humiliating to me. I wanted to figure out how to introduce anal sex into our awkward sessions, but I would be mortified if Joel ever saw this.
I had hoped things would change since we entered into what they call 'The Lifestyle' a few months ago, but amid a flurry of odd, always uncomfortable play dates, my life remained the same. In any case, I remained the same. Now, we have passionless sex with other couples who serve neither as solution nor distraction.
I can't remember how we decided to do it, or perhaps I don't want to. How did two people, living in each other's shadows yet afraid of their own, ever manage to come to this? It was the blind leading the blind, lemmings to the precipice, and yet we did it. Therapy had failed: we talked no more to the doctor than we did to each other, but we both knew that we needed to do something. My old professor used say, 'If all that is reasonable fails, consider the unreasonable'. We did.
Our first date was a simple, same room swap. I could not bear to watch my husband or look at my own temporary lover as he heaved and grunted over me. It was perfunctory and joyless, a naked charade played out with people who seemed no happier than Joel and me. Still, we tried again.
Out of seven couples over three months, only one invited us back. Matt and Carol embraced the wanton, and their love for each other was clear and unwavering. There was a moment on our second play date, when Matt was fucking me missionary while Joel went through the motions of doggy fucking Carol, that I felt her slender fingers on my chin and turned to meet her gaze. She was smiling, searching my eyes as if looking through my fears and finding me. She inched forward, lowering her lips to my face, and I didn't turn away as they touched mine.
We kissed with a hint of passion, but bereft of true Sapphic undertones. She wanted to be my friend, but she became my mentor as well.
Phone calls with her often left me stammering, unable to communicate. Through the silence of texting, I slowly released myself into her loving care. Eventually I found the confidence to talk to her, and this wonderful woman became the panacea for my guilt and fear. She and Matt had invited us to this party, and I couldn't wait to see her again.
I knew they were taking a chance on us, allowing us into this select group, and I steeled myself for the challenge. No matter what, Joel and I would not embarrass them.
