GLORYHOLE is similar in temperament to other stories of mine such as 'With a Band and a Flash', and 'The Death of a Modern Man', in that it is lighthearted. So, if you liked those, you should like this one. Bluey from TDoaMM even makes an appearance in this one. Whether it belongs in Loving Wives or not, well, that's debatable. I'm happy to refund what you paid for it if you object...
I sincerely hope this distracts you from the state of the world at the moment for half an hour or so. My editor, CTC, and I are frantically writing and editing for your delectation.
If some of you want to use your confinements to dabble in writing, believe me, if I can do it, anyone can, then CTC and I are here to help and encourage. Simply contact us via SemperAmare or CreativityTakesCourage as the feedback portal on my profile, she no work.
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OKAY, I'LL ADMIT, maybe it wasn't the most sensitive thing I could have said to my wife, "Um, if you're never going to feel like it, um, do you mind if I go elsewhere? I promise to be discreet."
Maybe a little background may convince you I wasn't being an absolute cunt to my wife of twenty-nine years, mother of our two grown and fledged children, and a better than average looking forty-nine-year-old.
You see, we'd had until our youngest fled the nest six months earlier, what I thought was an average sex life. Then the excuses accelerated.
I've got a headache. My period is lasting two weeks these days.
They coincided with Karen going out more with her best friend, Julie. Card nights at Julie's. Tupperware parties at Julie's. Charity fundraisers with Julie. All had one thing in common. They were usually on nights we traditionally fooled around.
I'll be brutally honest, I still worked a manual job at fifty, and was tired most weeknights; being particularly buggered on Friday. Yeah, I know it's not sexy to admit, but it's true. So, long story short, Saturday and Sunday nights had been make-the-beast-with-two-backs nights. Guess what nights my increasingly estranged wife was absenting herself from the family home. Come on, guess.
Who is Julie, I hear you say? She was Karen's best friend and had been since they'd met through work about five years ago. About a year into the friendship, Julie's husband, who I'd met a few times and quite liked, disappeared off the scene, ostensibly because Julie caught him fooling around.
Thus, Julie became an uncomfortable acquaintance. You know the type. The wife's friend who is better looking than the wife, flirts with you, and doesn't mind shoving her surgically enhanced tits in your face; bought with her first few alimony cheques. Someone who looks more and more attractive and occupies more and more of your dreams as the drought in the marital bed extends.
Finally, last month I'd forced a showdown.
"What the hell is going on, Karen? And how can we stop it? Stop it we must or our marriage is in jeopardy."
Despite me beginning the conversation as politely and tactfully as I knew how, hysteria prevailed for a while.
"So, after thirty years, it's 'on your back or on your bike', is that it? Put out or fuck off, is that to be my lot in life?"
I survived the shouts, insults, and threats until, finally, my calm repeats of, 'I just want to know what's going on' and, 'I just want to ensure our long-term future', sank in and Karen began crying. She'd been to the doctor, who confirmed that she'd followed in her mother's footsteps and the deadly 'M' word had struck early. Yes, Men-O-Pause. It certainly paused our sex life.
I was a shoulder to cry on as she explained the ramifications of this. Apparently, it meant a loss of libido amongst other things and was seen by some women as the start of a rapid decline into old age.
Some of this sounded familiar to me; some didn't make sense. I knew lots of guys in their forties, fifties, and sixties and while most complained they weren't getting enough, none had spoken of being cut off suddenly because of it. So, I did what all sane, working men do when faced with one of life's mysteries. I went down the pub to ask my mates about it. The three that were there at the time were no help, but, luckily, Sue, the bar girl was bored enough to be listening in, and bold enough to offer unsolicited advice.
I say bar girl, but she could easily have been ten years older than me. I got a concise, oft interrupted tale of what menopause meant to women. Apparently, not only did a woman's sex drive dwindle and she became terrified about her fading looks, but something more subtly evil was happening inside a woman's head. Menopause marked the end of a woman's fertility. At the end of the process, a woman wouldn't be able to have babies.
'You fucking beauty,' I thought to myself. No more worrying about the pill; no more condomsβI never could stand the smell of burning rubberβno more periods.
Why weren't women looking forward to it?
Sue set me straight, explaining the last one was a biggie. Every animal is on this planet for one reason. To have babies. As a species, we've learned to walk upright, have multi-thousand-word lexicons, and be so sophisticated that we can elect absolute morons to rule over us, but, at heart, we're still animals. Nowhere in nature is there a job description, 'grandmother', or 'grandfather'. Humans, like all creatures, need a reason to live. Apparently, Karen's was being removed from her.