Susan is a wonderful Wife, a gentle caring mother of our two children and my dearly loved lifetime companion. Married for nine years our life has been one of happiness and joy for all of that time but like all marriages, after just seven years, our passion was waning. We loved each other deeply but we both knew that we were settling for an unremarkable and bland future.
We live in a nice big house in a town called Tunbridge Wells in Kent (for those of you who don't know where Kent is, it is the bottom right corner of England just below London) from where I commute daily up to London to work in a bank in the City. I have a high salaried job so Susan does not have to work and by her own admission she loves looking after our six year old boy Tom and his little sister Jenni who is three. Our lives, by necessity, were routine - as was our lovemaking; although our bond remained strong.
Physically, Susan had blossomed from the skinny teenager I had dated in school and then married after we had got together again after university, into a beauty who turned heads and stopped traffic wherever she went. Whether she was aware of her powers of distraction I do not know, but what I did know was that I had the perfect Wife. I, on the other hand, was looking more and more like a typical bank employee every day; my hair was thinning and receding, I needed thick glasses to read and my white puny body rarely received any exercise. This was the inevitable consequence of leaving for work at six-thirty in the morning and not getting home until eight pm.
It was clear that things needed to change in our marriage and it was something Susan said one night that started everything off. It was a Friday night and we were both tired, I had arrived home late after a difficult week in the bank and little Jenni had been unwell which had kept Susan on the go all day. All we wanted was a pillow for our head and a good night's sleep, I thought - but not my lovely Wife it seemed.
"When did we last make love David?" she asked as we lay our heads down together.
As I removed my glasses for the night I pondered and then remembered. "It was after Ken and Joan's party. We were both a bit worse for wear."
"That was two months ago," she replied, "and since then neither of us has since had the inclination. It's not just you, it's me too."
"Well, I am not the most dynamic Lover am I," I admitted, "or the most endowed."
"I know and it is not all your fault, but we need excitement David," she said, as she took a hold of my hand and placed it between her legs onto her soft damp crotch, "I need... I need... Oh I don't know what I need."
I had realised a long time ago what Susan needed and had badly needed for a long time. "You need a replacement," I said quietly.
"A what?"
"A replacement, for me, down there!"
Susan lifted her head from her pillow and turned to me. "What are you saying Dave?" she asked. Her own voice now very quiet.
"It's bloody obvious. I'm not doing anything for you that you need in that way."
"Wait a minute! Are you actually saying that I should take a Lover?" she asked incredulously.
I hadn't thought my big idea through and the rawness of her question and the word 'Lover' threw me for a second. "Yes!... No!... I don't know," I stuttered.
She looked into my eyes, searching for any serious commitment to what I had suggested, and saw none. "I'm a busy housewife with two small children and a husband," she snapped, "so don't be so bloody silly."
So that was it. My stupid, barely thought-through idea had been summarily dismissed as 'bloody silly' by Susan. I didn't know whether to feel insulted or relieved; either way I was ready to sleep but as I closed my eyes my lovely Wife said, "We'll talk again in the morning." Suddenly I was wide awake.
Saturday morning breakfasts at our house are always leisurely affairs and Susan and me usually take the opportunity to chat for a while after the kids have gone back upstairs full of milk, Weetabix and mischief. I poured another cup of coffee for us both and waited for her to talk, that's if she remembered what we had said.
"Was that a serious suggestion of yours last night," she said offhandedly as she sipped her hot coffee.
I wasn't convinced by her apparent disinterest; I could see the pretty red colour of her cheeks that gave away the fact that she had obviously thought about my idea - a lot.
"I guess so Sue," I replied, "but I haven't thought about how it would happen or how it would work afterwards. It just seemed a good idea when I said it; but we certainly need something, don't you think?"
Susan stared into her coffee and thought for a second or so. "We have two beautiful children Dave and everything we would ever want. Why would I want to jeopardize that? And what about you?"
"What about me?"
She reached out her warm hand and placed it over the back of my own in reassurance. "How would you feel knowing that I have strong emotional feelings for another man? And how would you handle the fact that I spend long nights in his bed with his manhood inside me and our naked bodies giving and taking pleasure from each other? And when I come home to you smelling of sex with his sperm still inside me. You know how I get sticky knickers with just your little squirts let alone a real man's deposit."
"I truly don't know," I replied honestly, ignoring the slight on my reproductive qualities, "but I guess I would handle it in my own way."
"And what would we say to the kids when I go on dates with this man. How do we explain to them that Mum now has a Boyfriend and won't be at home as much as she used to," she continued.
"That would be down to me to lie convincingly," I replied, "and they are still young so it could become normal after a while."
Susan eyebrows furrowed as she thought further and then asked, "And where would I find this magic stud David? Your friends? I think not! And I don't know anyone at the school gates that would even remotely qualify under such a heading."
"So you are saying it's all too complicated, and the answer is no," I said, noting that she was still pondering on what we had discussed in our conversation.
"I am not saying no, but I am saying that it is tricky," she replied, "I have an idea however."
At those words I felt the floor fall away. In all truth I had expected her to put the whole thing in the 'too difficult' drawer in her mind and just say no. I dreaded asking my next question, but asked it anyway. "And that is?" I said in a trembling voice, fearing her answer.
Susan smiled one of her most disarming smiles as she gave me the outline of her plan. "We make finding your replacement a game between us. We live normally as we have always done but if one of us identifies a potential Lover for me then we check him out and try to make a connection."
"Easier said than done," I remarked, "and what kind of man would he have to be?"