Blinded by Love

A big thank you to blackrandi1958 for the invitation to her "

When A Man Loves a Woman

" writing event and for her editing talent.

Glenn Sommers probably should have been ridiculously happy. After all, he and his wife of 23 years had just spent 90 minutes making love twice. He had brought her to orgasm a half-dozen times with his fingers, mouth and dick.

He was spooning her from behind with his arm curled around her and his hand on her left breast. They were both covered with a sheen of sweat and sticky in spots with their fluids and lube. They were panting like they had both run sprints against Usain Bolt.

For the last three months, their sex life had gone into the stratosphere—for a couple over 40. They were having sex every day, sometimes twice a day since their younger daughter left for college. They hadn't been this active in about 10 years.

So why wasn't Glenn turning handsprings? Why the knot in his stomach, he asked himself.

While every fiber of his body was screaming "hallelujah" for what just happened, every fiber of his brain was screaming that he was about to run off a cliff Wile E. Coyote style.

Some would call Glenn a pessimist, but he would have called himself a realist. After being married to Traci for almost a quarter-century, he just knew things; it was a feeling way more than anything that she had said or done. He was lying right behind her, but the husband and wife were about as far apart as two people could be.

The sex was great... amazing even, in spots, Glenn thought, but that was it. It was just sex. He knew the two hadn't made love even once during their recent streak.

The little things had gone away, at least from her side, he thought: the little endearing touches, the nuzzles, the "I love yous." In the past, when the pair would part for work in the morning, they would always kiss and say those three magic words. Now, it was just Glenn speaking them.

Glenn tried easing into the conversation he felt the pair needed to have, but Traci consistently deflected. He knew it was time to stop being a nice guy.

After 23 years, Traci knew her husband every bit as well as he knew her. She could sense his unease as the pair lay in bed. She had dragged this ploy out as long as she dared. Now for the play, she thought, as she rolled to face him.

Traci could see the mental discomfort in her husband's big brown eyes. She loved those expressive, loving eyes. Glenn could never hide anything from Traci because of those eyes. She loved those eyes; she truly loved her husband. She knew, however, that what she was about to tell him was going to cause anguish and pain. She regretted that, but she felt more than justified: after all, this was HER time, she thought.

"Glenn, you know I love you beyond belief and always will, right?" she started.

Glenn nodded tentatively but remained silent. His stomach knotted tighter.

"And I've always given you and the girls 100 percent, right?"

She got another tentative nod along with a grimace from Glenn.

"And now I feel it's MY time," she continued, her voice getting stronger, her deep blue eyes brighter as she talked. "I feel I've needed something more since the girls have been gone. I want to take a lover."

Silence. Glenn's big brown eyes seemed ready to burst out of their sockets, but he said nothing, much to Traci's shock. She stared at her husband, braced for the explosion she knew was coming. More silence.

"Glenn?" Traci finally questioned.

Glenn's teeth had clenched. His eyes remained locked on Traci's.

"A... a lover? Why?" he finally whispered. "I thought we were good. Better than good.

"What have I done wrong?"

"We are better than good, baby," Traci said quietly but firmly. "You haven't done anything wrong. I just... want... more. I think I deserve more."

"Deserve more?" Glenn cried out as he quickly sat up. "You DESERVE more? What the fuck!"

Traci stiffened a bit, but not much as she expected the outburst to happen. She knew she couldn't give up the offensive if her plan was to work.

"Glenn, you know I had only slept with one man before you. Before I get too old for men to want me anymore, I want to have one more man, just for sex... not love. I just want to experience one more," Traci explained in a deadpan tone.

Glenn practically jumped out of the bed and started pacing.

"No, Traci. Not happening. We made vows to each other, remember?" he yelled.

"We've been married for 23 years, Glenn. I think we've done well sticking to those vows. But those are

our

vows. At this point, I think we can amend them if we choose," she responded.

"I choose not," Glenn said.

Traci looked at her husband like a parent would look at a wayward child. The look didn't escape Glenn.

"I asked. You denied me. Now I'm telling you. It's going to happen, Glenn," Traci declared. "It's my body. I am not your property."

"You are not my property, but you are my wife. If you choose to do this, you will no longer be my wife."

Traci shook her head sadly.

"I know you love me. You won't split our family up over this. Let me have this for a little while and then you and I can ride off into the sunset together for the rest of our lives," Traci said. "And I will do everything in my power for the rest of our lives to show you just how much I love you for letting me have this."

Traci was far from oblivious to the fact that her husband was furious with her at the moment. She firmly believed, however, that his overwhelming love for her would eventually temper his anger. Like all marriages, theirs was not one of total equality; both knew Traci was the more dominant personality. She knew that if she stuck to her guns, Glenn would eventually see the error of his thinking and give her what she wanted.

Glenn got dressed and stomped out of the house. He drove to a near-by park. He called his older daughter, Julia. Glenn knew Julia was a daddy's girl and she would agree with his thinking. Maybe she could talk some sense into her mother, he thought.

Julia was a senior at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. She was a chemistry major and just about the smartest person Glenn knew. She wouldn't want her parents to divorce and would most likely be able to make Traci see the error of her ways.

Sitting in his car, Glenn gave his daughter the whole story. She was quiet for 10 seconds, 20 seconds, before finally responding.

"Don't you still love her, Dad?" Julia asked quietly. "If you do, then maybe you need to let her have this if it's only going to be for a little while. I mean, I know you're hurt, but the alternative is spending the rest of your life alone. Think about it hard, Dad. Don't go off half-cocked... sorry, bad choice of words. Just don't do something rash, okay? Really think things out."

It was Glenn's turn to be silent. He would have put money on the fact that his older daughter would have agreed with his assessment of the situation. After a few seconds of silence on his end, he meekly agreed with his daughter.

"She's always been a bit self-absorbed, Dad. You know that," Julia said. "I can't tell you how many times when we were growing up that she talked about being a cheerleader, being the homecoming queen, dating the star quarterback.

"Women really worry about things like getting old, no longer being attractive to men. Crazy as it is, a lot of women measure their self-worth by being able to turn guys' heads."

As was his habit, Glenn listened carefully to what his daughter said. It didn't lessen his hurt and anger, but she had made sense.

"I still think she's a beautiful woman, and I never miss an opportunity to tell her that," Glenn commented somewhat defensively.

"I'm sure a lot of husbands tell their wives the very same thing, but again, you're her husband. Aren't husbands supposed to think their wives are beautiful? She wants to be validated by other men. She wants to be noticed when she walks into a room. Most women do, Dad, not just her."

"But why does she need to fu... break our wedding vows, Jules? Most women don't go that far, do they?" Glenn asked.

"You have heard that more than half of today's marriages end in divorce, haven't you?" Julia replied. "I'm betting that infidelity is a big part of that, even if it's not listed in the filings.

"Can't you just hang on for a bit? Give her the benefit of the doubt, so to speak? I'm sure she'll come back around. The question is, will you be there for her?"

Glenn rarely argued with his wife, or anyone for that matter. He was known by his family and friends as a genuine nice guy. By nature, he was a peacemaker. His daughter's comments rang true to his nature.

"All right, baby. I'll try. You're right. I still love the silly, stupid bitch. But please, let's just keep this between us. Katie doesn't need to know about this, at least right now. Please? And don't tell Mom we talked about this."

"No problem, Dad. I wouldn't hang you out to dry. You know that. Keep me updated, please."

"Sure, baby."

He went home, but spent the night tossing and turning on his family room sofa instead of in his bed with Traci. That night marked the first time in their married life Glenn and Traci did not sleep in the same bed, except when Traci was in the hospital giving birth.

The next two days were frosty in the Sommers home. Communication from Glenn to Traci was at a minimum. Traci tried initiating small talk several times, but gave up when Glenn refused to engage.

"Is this how you're going to play this from now on?" Traci asked as she and her husband were finishing dinner on the third day. "You think I will just change my mind because you're giving me the silent treatment, like a five-year-old? We need to talk, Glenn, please. This is happening, whether you are onboard or not."

"What did I do wrong that you feel you need to cheat on me?" Glenn blurted out.

"You haven't done anything wrong. I've told you that, hon," she answered. "And I'm not cheating on you. Since I've told you what I'm going to do, it's not cheating..."

"But since I don't want you to do it, it is cheating!" Glenn interrupted.

"Is it really?" Traci said with a smirk that Glenn took as a challenge. "Did I take anything away from you in the last few days? Was I not here for you?"

Glenn's eyes widened and his mouth opened as he realized what his wife was intimating.

"Nothing has to change, unless you want it to, hon."

She smiled sweetly at Glenn, picked up her used dinner dishes and took them into the kitchen. Glenn continued to sit at the kitchen table, not moving, for several long minutes.

The fact that he could be that clueless and that Traci could be that deceptive struck deep within Glenn's psyche. The fact that Traci had already found a lover and had sex with him was hurtful in several ways. Glenn wondered if she hadn't already fucked her lover before she asked. After 23 years, he no longer trusted his wife.

Glenn remembered how nervous Traci was the first time the two had sex. She apologized to him repeatedly that night because she had only one other partner before him and wasn't very experienced. Glenn chuckled to himself over her apology... he was ecstatic with the fact of her inexperience. That meant she was still "fairly pure," and she and Glenn would be able to discover new things together. Their joint discoveries were always a source of great pleasure.

Traci hadn't fucked her lover before asking—or rather telling—Glenn about taking a lover, but she had already picked him out and started the ball rolling. Traci was in back-room administration at Northern State Bank and had become enamored of a fairly new co-worker, a 30-year-old named Jackson Strauss.

Strauss was a single man, standing about 6-4 and being a solid 200 pounds, with light brown hair and blue eyes. By comparison, Glenn was 5-9, 165. While he was still an impressive man for his age, Glenn was not in the ballpark with Jack as a physical specimen. Traci picked up on that immediately. Within two weeks after Jack coming on board, the pair enjoyed their first lunch together. She quickly admitted to herself that "the new guy" got her pulse rate up.

Still a pretty woman at 42 with a tight, athletic body, Traci had never before shown any interest in another man the way she seemed to respond to Jack. She truly loved her husband, so her attraction to Jack didn't come without some guilt at first. A lunch with her older sister, Rita, did much to relieve that guilt. Never a fan of her brother-in-law, Rita reacted favorably when Traci haltingly told her about her interaction with Jack while the two were eating.

"You should see where this leads, Traci. What your idiot husband doesn't know won't hurt him," Rita said.

"Why do you hate him so much, Ree? He's never done anything to you," Traci said. "He's not Leo."

The last statement was a reference to Rita's ex-husband, whom she divorced after 20 years of marriage when he cheated on her.

"You're better than him. You always have been. You can do better," Rita affirmed.

For his part, Jackson Strauss wasn't looking for a relationship with a married woman, but he certainly wasn't going to turn down the attentions of a pretty woman, ring or not. He could feel the heat between Traci and himself, and he definitely wanted to see where things would lead.

Traci was 12 years older than him, but she was still a pretty woman with curves and shoulder-length curly, dark-brown hair. She seemed to be as smart as she was pretty. Jackson only spent a small amount of time wondering about the state of Traci's marriage. He quickly decided that it was not his problem if Traci's husband couldn't keep her satisfied sexually.

As the relationship between Traci and Jack grew, she warned him that she would not cheat on her husband. She told the younger man that despite what she was heading toward with him, she truly loved her husband, and would tell him of the pending affair before she would sleep with Jack.

The younger man looked shocked when Traci made this announcement during one of their lunches.

"Are you crazy? What if he goes nuts? Am I going to have to worry about him coming after me, like I would do if it were me? Aren't you afraid he's going to throw you out and divorce you?"

"Glenn loves me more than you can understand, Jack. He won't be happy. In fact, he's going to be hurt beyond belief, but he's a rational man and he won't do anything stupid. When he sees that this won't affect anything more than his male ego and that I don't love him any less, he'll be okay. We'll be okay," Traci stated.

Jack was absolutely thrilled when Traci told him to schedule a long lunch for the next day.

"He's sulking, but he'll get over it," she told the man who would become her paramour in a day's time.

Traci and Jack left the bank separately and met up at a small local motel halfway across town. For the next 75 minutes, the pair engaged in the first carnal acts Traci had committed with a man other than Glenn in more than 23 years.

Traci was already wet when she stepped inside the room. She hadn't been this hot for her husband in years, she noted to herself with a quick hint of guilt. Jack pulled her into a deep, passionate kiss as soon as she was inside, his tongue snaking inside Traci's mouth as she moaned.

Traci thought Jack looked like a little kid at Christmas as he slowly undressed her. She made sure to wear her sexiest frilly black lingerie, and Jack responded as she hoped he would. She reached her left hand down to the hard bulge in his dress pants and gave a squeeze.

Jack was more than impressed with Traci's breasts as they came into view. Her nipples were hard as pebbles. He thumbed both, then alternately sucked each. She grabbed his head with both hands.

Jack pushed Traci back onto the bed and ran the fingers of his left hand up and down the wetness of Traci's gash. When he flicked her excited clit with his middle finger, she shrieked out her first orgasm. One minute later, his body was between Traci's spread legs and his manhood was firmly planted in her pussy.

With a little help from Traci's mouth, Jack reminded her of the difference between a 45-year-old and a 30-year-old when he was hard again 10 minutes after coming inside her for the first time. He took her doggy the second time, with Traci coming loudly two more times.

The pair cleaned up and returned to the bank separately. Nobody gave either a second glance. Later that night Glenn didn't seem to have a clue, either, Traci noted with more than a hint of satisfaction.

After Traci's announcement the day after she apparently had sex with Jack for the first time, Glenn was having second thoughts whether he could hang on long enough for the affair to run its course, despite what he promised his daughter. He questioned again whether his love for his wife was strong enough for him to see this through.

After several weeks, Glenn had to admit that Traci was about as discreet as he could have hoped for, and he started to become more accepting of his plight. The two didn't become intimate again for another couple of weeks, however, and even then, Glenn was hesitant to fully commit to his wife. When they finally did couple, Traci made sure the act was low-key and loving, the way Glenn usually made love. She knew that going over the top would just serve to further remind Glenn of their "arrangement."

Traci's work schedule of working about an hour later on Wednesday and Thursday nights never varied after she started seeing her lover, and she continued to be true to her word about being discreet. No matter how much he paid attention, Glenn couldn't spot any difference in his wife: she acted the same, she smelled the same, her pussy felt the same. If she was cheating every day or just once a week, Glenn couldn't tell the difference, he admitted to himself.

"You've been every bit as discreet as you said you would, but still, Trace, I can't accept this," Glenn said. "I can't face myself in the mirror in the morning."

"Sometimes, baby, it's not about you and the man in the mirror. Like I told you, this is about me, and what I need and want. Check your ego at the door and accept our new normal," she said with a tight smile.

The woman had no idea how much self-control it took for her husband not to reach out and slap the daylights out of her.

Traci kept her liaisons to just once or twice per week for the first several months, mixing up the days because she knew Glenn was keeping his eye on her. Still, she thoroughly enjoyed her time with her lover, and despite what she told Glenn, she slowly started to develop feelings for the young man. During their time together, she started referring to him as her second husband, calling him by the nickname of "Mari Deux," French for "Husband Two."

"Does Glenn know about your nickname for me?" Jack asked one day when the two were cuddling in bed.

"Are you kidding me?" Traci said. "I could never go that far with Glenn. You're supposed to be nothing more than sex."

When she felt comfortable enough with Glenn's "acceptance" of her having a lover, Traci pushed the envelope a bit further. Friday night was date night for Traci and Glenn, but on Saturday she started leaving the house mid-morning and returning around 6 p.m., ostensibly to hit the gym, do grocery shopping and then some other shopping, she said. Although Glenn stayed silent, he wasn't stupid and knew Traci was spending more time with Jack, especially since she rarely came home with anything other than groceries. Glenn wondered if Traci's increasing boldness meant that her relationship with Jack was moving to a new level.

The answer to Glenn's unasked question came about a month later when Traci informed him that she and Jack were going to do date night on Saturday nights, and she was going to stay over at his apartment until Sundays at noon. Glenn was surprised but not shocked.