A few times in your life, you come to a crossroads where you don't know which direction to take. Life can get very difficult and confusing.
This happened to me about a year ago. I had just turned 39 and several things had happened to me all at once. First of all my 18 year old daughter, my only child, had just moved down to London to join the Civil Service. Jobs were almost impossible to get in our little backwater town, so I couldn't blame her. Also, my husband's sister lived down there, so, I had no worries that she would be all alone. But, at the same time, I missed her terribly. The other thing that happened was that I found out that my husband was having an affair with his young secretary.
As you can imagine, my life at that point hit a real low.
The first I knew about the affair was when I was shopping in the town and spotted them sitting together in a café. From the body language it was obvious that they were more than just work colleagues. After that, I began to monitor his movements more closely and realised that he was going out more and often staying late at the office. I followed him one night in my car and saw him picking her up a few miles down the road.
Then, he took her to a Travelodge out of town, and, once I saw them go in, I turned my car around and went home. It was then that I was absolutely certain he was cheating on me. Looking back, I guess our sex life had tapered off considerably over the years and after the night I caught them, it became non-existent. I never confronted him about it, but, after that, neither of us seemed to want to touch each other in a sexual sort of way and that was fine by me.
A few months down the line his sordid little affair must have come to an end. My guess was that she finished with him or found someone else, because he seemed miserable for weeks. And then, believe it or not, he made a full confession and begged me to forgive him. I was pissed off to say the least and seriously thought about leaving him. But, we have such a fine house, (which I love) and my settled life wouldn't allow me to move away from friends, relations and my rather affluent lifestyle. You see Geoffrey has such a good job and earns quite a decent salary. I know you think I'm a coward and most women reading this would have left him in a flash, I know. But to cut a long story short, I just bit the bullet and stayed with him. And things got back to something like normal.
But, something was nagging away at me and it took me a while to figure out what it was. You see Geoffrey had had his little extra marital affair and I hadn't. I felt somehow I ought to redress the balance. I felt that I needed to punish him and somehow get my own back. The trouble was I didn't want to have an affair. To begin with there was no one on the horizon that I remotely fancied; none of our male friends or anyone at the office where I worked seemed to fit the bill Also, I just couldn't see me keeping up the whole illicit charade that an affair would have entailed. Still, as I say, it nagged away at me until late one night, while Geoffrey was upstairs on his computer. Watching TV, I saw one of those erotic French films where a woman walks into a cinema and the man sitting next to her tried to slide his hand up her skirt. For some reason, that brief sexy scene sent a little shiver of delight through my lower regions. And, when she eventually stood up and slapped the man's face, I was rather disappointed. I had wanted her to let him feel all the way up her legs and have sex with her.
That night I lay awake and thought about why I had got so excited about that particular scene in the film. I imagined that I was the woman in the cinema and that it was happening to me. Only I didn't protest like she had. Then it came to me in a blinding flash. Why didn't I visit the cinema and entice someone to do that to me?
Well the more I thought about it the more I wanted to do it. I know it sounds sordid and disgusting, but, for some reason it tuned me on. And, when I got the chance to go out on my own for the evening, I headed for the cinema.
As it happened, it proved to be a real disappointment. For a start no one sat next to me, even though I was showing an alluring expanse of thigh. And I've got good legs believe me, I know that because when I was younger I always won the "lovely legs" contests at the holiday camps I used to go to.
In fact, I like to think I'm a smart attractive lady altogether, which is why I felt dispirited that first time I tried out my little scheme.
It took another 2 weeks for me to have another go. This time I wore a rather sexy mini skirt with a pair of stay up stockings and a nice array of make-up and perfume.
Again, I was ignored in the sense that no one came anywhere near me. Oh yes, I got some admiring glances and even a wolf whistle as I walked home, but nothing more. At least the movie was a decent one and I was able to talk about it to Geoffrey when I got home.
To pave the way for my visits to the movies, I had even gone to the trouble of inventing a fictitious friend to go with. All to no avail it seemed. At the time, I thought my delicious little sex fantasy was fated to stay just that, a fantasy.
It was a fortuitous comment I overheard a week or two later that rekindled my interest. Two young lads were talking at a nearby café table in the indoor shopping mall and I was eavesdropping at the same time that I was listening to Jennifer, a colleague of mine, who I usually accompanied during our lunch break.
I picked up the words "adult cinema club" and immediately tuned in to what they were saying.
It seemed that a new club had just opened up in another town about 6 miles away and were advertising for new members. Apparently, the first movie was to be something called "Debbie does Dallas" which the young teenagers were particularly keen to see.
Meanwhile, I completely lost the train of Jennifer's' conversation which was rather naughty of me. All I could do was nod, with a pleasant look on my face and hope to goodness that she didn't ask me any questions.
I soon found out about the cinema club, because there was an advert all about it in the evening paper. It was £10 to join and £4.50 for each performance. Rather steep, I thought at the time, but, to be fair, it relied for custom on a fairly small section of the public and it wasn't a very large theatre. A couple of days later, I was speeding along the road in my little car, with the idea of joining up.
As luck would have it, I was served by the manager, a rather sleazy looking bloke with a moustache and a bit of an arrogant manner. An ex-army officer if ever I saw one.
"Is the membership just for you then madam?" He enquired in rather a snooty tone.
I was just about to say yes when a thought struck me. Most of the clientele would be men. You could sort of bet on that fact. And, it would look a bit odd for a woman to admit she would be joining on her own.
"No as a matter of fact it's for my husband," I lied "a sort of birthday treat."
"Umm, I see," he droned. "Well that will be £10, Madam," he said preparing the membership details.
As I handed him a £20 note, I got in the important bit.
"I tell you what," I added, "make out a membership card for me as well. You never know he may want to take me with him occasionally."
He looked at me with the hint of a smirk on his face. "Very well" he said handing me my card.
Then he explained the film rating system. Apparently, some films were very hard-core and inadvisable for a woman. He advised me only to go when what he called soft-core films were being shown which was most of the time. In the end, I was grateful for his impromptu advice. It was to save me much embarrassment.
A week later, after much deliberation, I decided to jump in the deep end. It happened when I bought a nice new raincoat in the sale. I tried it on at home after I had showered and thought. "Why not just wear this at the cinema club." After all no one would be able to see that I was completely naked underneath. It was an absolutely outrageous thought but I must confess the idea excited me. In fact I put my little plan into effect the very next evening.
As I stepped out of the car, I felt my knees go weak. It felt so strange to know I hadn't a stitch on underneath, even though I was buttoned up to the neck with the collar up and the coat covering everything, except a couple or three inches of flesh above the knee. Suddenly, I stopped. What would my daughter think of me? Not to mention, my mother and my friends, if they knew what I was up to?
On the other hand, I was rather excited. I hadn't done anything remotely as disgraceful as this in my entire life and I wanted to do it. As a matter of fact I hadn't slept much the previous night just thinking about it and what it might lead to.
Anyway, red faced and shameful, I forced myself to walk from the car park to the cinema entrance. This entailed walking inside the mall and up a couple of flights of steps.
I've got to tell you, I felt hot and sexy underneath.
I got up to the ticket booth and got out my membership card. The manager himself was there with his customary arrogant smirk of a smile. I'm sure he would have remembered me, after all how many female club members would there be?
"On your own, tonight, madam?" he enquired.
"Urm...yes" I gulped not wanting to say more...I just bit my lip and averted my eyes from his.
"This way, then" he snootily told me, as he led the way and showed me into the darkened cinema. Using a torch, he guided me to the back row. Then he let his torch linger, while I found a seat. After my eyes adjusted to the dim light I could see that there were very few people in the audience.
The nearest guy to me was three rows ahead. What a disappointment, didn't anyone want to see "I wish I were in Dixie"