There was something on her mind, that was clear. When a wife is preoccupied, a husband needs to get his shit together and find what is wrong if he knows what is good for him. When she says there something she'd like to talk about, trouble may be brewing. That night after we got into bed, she turned to me and grimaced.
"There is a new person at work," she said, hesitating, "and he sort'a came on to me, like really." I asked what he had said that was sort of coming on to her and she blanched, then faltered. "He... ah, said, 'You look like... a... good fuck, Missy,' she said with a stammer, looking sheepish at telling me exactly what he had said to her, something she should be pissed at him for but she wasn't. I asked what she had told him when he came right out and said that to her. She was quiet.
"Well," I said, "how did you react to him saying that right to your face?" Again, she was quiet. "Well, what did you say to him? Tell him to go fuck himself?" I said sternly.
She looked at me and shook her head. "I didn't say anything," she said almost shyly. "The problem," she said quietly, "is I liked him saying it. I wasn't angry at him for saying it, being totally honest with me. It's how he talks. He's.... ah, from Africa. I know he didn't mean it to be insulting," she said. "He meant it as a compliment," she said, as if explaining a new language to a teenager. "I wasn't mad, because he didn't mean it like that. It was his way of saying I was pretty."
I couldn't believe she felt he was giving her a compliment when he said she looked like a "good fuck." She reassured me again that she wasn't offended. "He is a really nice person," she said, trying to reassure me again that she wasn't bothered by him saying that to her.
"Do you remember last year when you said people make way too much about fidelity in marriage?" she asked. "You said you thought monogamy was really overrated, not really logical in Nature? That maybe it wasn't that functional for humans either. Do you remember saying that?"
"When we were talking with Carl and Marsha? Sure I remember it. So? You saying you want to have sex with somebody, him?" I asked her, trying to think ahead. I had said all that, and I had meant it, but when push comes to shove, when you have to backup your words with action, with actual reasoning, it is not all that easy sometimes to substantiate and backup your positions said in casual discussion.
"He asked me if my husband was liberal minded. I said you were. So he asked me if I was, and if I would have any interest in fucking a black man." She hesitated for a long time. "Actually," she said timidly, "I would, I really would. I thought you said you wouldn't stand in the way if I ever wanted to 'be with somebody.' Would you?"
I was being hit in the face with my own words. I had felt for years that marriage should be more than just an excuse to have sex. She was right, I had argued that the myth of mating for life in the animal kingdom was bunk, that we are the only animals that even try. I had actually argued for open marriages, saying if a man really loves his wife he would love her enough to 'let her go' and would allow her the freedom to get pleasure with whoever she wants.
She had listened to me babble for years about sex being more than a show of ownership, more than simply like possessing someone and restricting their pleasure by the confines of matrimony. My wife was challenging me to live up to my convictions and allow her the freedom I said I should be able to.
She was also testing me on racial grounds, although I had convinced myself there was no prejudice in my heart. I had believed strongly all my life in racial equality, even fought for it, but not only was she challenging my beliefs on a sexual basis, but on racial factors as well. She wanted not only sex with another man, but she wanted it with a black man at that, and in addition possibly a well-hung dude as well.
I was stunned that my conservative little wife was asking for my permission, which in reality she didn't have to do, consistent with our joint philosophy of our marital pact, to go outside of our marriage for sex with someone else.
