This story is different from my other cuckold tales.
Both readers of erotic literature, Becky and her husband David had been enjoying my Acts of Infidelity series for some time before she decided to get in touch. In an open marriage herself, she wanted me and my other readers to understand that there is a different aspect to partner-sharing that my 'Cuckold' stories so far had missed.
Although she knows first-hand the pain and pleasure than can be derived from allowing a partner to take another lover, Becky wanted readers to understand that there is a more balanced, less one-sided way of living and loving that I had not so far presented.
She wrote to me to explain the way her marriage works and offered to work with me to create something new. I replied and we became online friends. This story is the result.
It made a very pleasant change to work with the female half of an open relationship. I hope you agree that the result is both unusual and enjoyable.
***
"So what should I call him?" I asked my husband one dull Tuesday evening in February.
"Huh?" David replied, not raising his eyes from the pile of papers that were fanned out over the kitchen table in front of him.
"Chris," I explained. "Is he my lover, my friend with benefits, my fuck-buddy? None of these seems quite right. We connect on so many different levels."
I was standing at the ironing board, pressing his work shirts having just finished my own awkward-to-iron dresses and the toddlers' nursery clothes. Apart from the topic of conversation, it was a normal, sexually-stereotypical scene as found in millions of households every night.
"Call him what you like," my lover of eight years, partner of five and husband of three grumpily suggested. "It's what you do with him that counts, not what you call him."
"What do you call Sarah?" I asked.
"Sarah!" came the sulky reply.
I couldn't blame David for his attitude. Even in an open marriage like ours, it couldn't be easy for a husband to have to listen to his wife singing the praises of the new man in her life and in her bed.
Unfortunately, I had been doing this regularly for over six months.
In a perverse way I was enjoying my husband's discomfort. After all, hadn't I put up with hearing him extol the many virtues of the girl who had been his Other Significant Other for most of the two years that had passed since we had agreed to open our minds, our marriage and our bodies to additional partners?
I had a lot to thank Sarah for. It was her deepening relationship with my husband that had brought things between David and me to a head and precipitated us into the open marriage we had been enjoying since the extraordinary night I first became aware of her.
Sarah and David's relationship had been a presence in our marriage even before the ink had dried on the secret document now hidden at the foot of my wardrobe.
Yes, our new marriage contract is actually a written document. It might even be legally binding too; certainly the website from which it had been downloaded made that claim, but I couldn't imagine it ever being tested in a court of law.
I hung David's newly-pressed shirt on a hanger and placed it with the others on the back of the kitchen door then took another from the linen basket.
I enjoyed ironing. What with two small children and my hectic job in a London Hospital it was a calming, relaxing activity which I viewed as a relief rather than a chore. Let my husband spend his evening marking essays and theses if that was what he needed. I was having a night off from stress.
Of course, being with Chris was another way I could relax but that had been last night - if you could call the antics we had got up to 'relaxation'. The low-cut, sleeveless top I was wearing to iron had been deliberately chosen to display the marks of my most recent date for my husband to see.
To my amusement, David was pretending not to notice the fingertip bruises on my upper arms and the small but distinctly tell-tale hickey that my lover had left on my lower neck.
By the time he and I were in bed together tomorrow night, the more hidden marks and sore places on my body would have faded but right then, the chafing of my shirt against my sore, braless nipples and the rubbing of the gusset of my panties against my still-pink vulva were pleasant reminders of my developing relationship with my own 'Other Significant Other'.
I shivered with pleasure when I remembered that there was so much for Chris and me still to explore; so much still to try out together... but sadly my next date would have to wait until the following week.
Tonight I had to babysit; tonight was David's night. In a short while, my husband would be on his way to spend the evening with his young girlfriend. They were going for dinner in a trendy backstreet restaurant in Soho; one he and I had visited many times and loved. He would probably stay the night in her flat too, so I would have to get the kids to nursery in the morning on my own and wouldn't see him until he came home from work tomorrow evening.
But I mustn't complain; last night had been for me. Last night it had been David's turn to look after our daughters while Chris and I enjoyed some private time together.
Most of the dates we had with our Other Significant Others were during the week; we had agreed that the weekends would be family time and with only one or two agreed exceptions, we have stuck to this.
I seldom stayed out overnight. Although I knew David was more than capable of coping on his own, as their mother I was still uncomfortable leaving our daughters overnight too often. I usually arrived home sometime between midnight and one o'clock to be there when they woke up in the morning.
With time, I was sure this would change and I would feel happier spending whole nights with Chris but, as I said, the relationship was quite new and I was still finding my way around the world of polyamory.
So, what makes an outwardly-normal, attractive, successful couple abandon the monogamous life enjoyed or endured by the vast majority of their friends and peers? What do David and I get out of bringing others into the most intimate aspects of their lives?
The answers are complex and I suspect, different for every couple. In our case a fear of boredom, a need for adventure and I suppose, a desire to have our cakes and eat them too were involved but even that is too simplistic.
My life with David has been one of balance from the start. We met at University, we were both top students on our courses, we were both moderately attractive, both overly confident academically and yes, we both had problems with commitment and promiscuity.
In my case, I was almost as interested in girls as I was in boys but was just coming to terms with it. To be honest, I still am though it is has been some time since I have put that interest into practice.
Let's be honest from the start, both David and I love sex and are good in bed. I don't mean to sound conceited, it's just that we have both had enough partners to know this as a fact. David is caring, sensitive, attentive and has plenty of stamina where sex is concerned. Less so when it comes to housework.
I'm open-minded, adventurous in bed, easily aroused but considerably harder to satisfy. If I'm even more honest, until my marriage I was a much easier lay than a girl's reputation could normally withstand too.
As a result, David and I had been drawn together. At University, we had slept together several times on a purely casual basis before we realised we had started to connect on an intellectual and emotional level as well as the physical one which was working so well.
I suppose our long-term relationship had started before either of us realised it.
David is not the best lover I have had by any means, but he's still very good and works hard to make sure my needs are looked after, whatever they happen to be at the time. Yes, he does have a big cock but by no means the biggest I have had, and I know better than to equate mere size with performance.
I often tell him that the affection we share makes up for the many flaws in his technique and in return, he assures me my own considerable shortcomings in the sack can be overcome with patience.
I love him to bits!
We are well-matched in many ways. In normal circumstances, neither of us is very romantic or sentimental as this story shows only too clearly but he is my best friend and I am still very glad I married him - which I did three years ago after finding I had accidentally become pregnant.