Note: The Desire and Desirability stories describe revival and enrichment in the sexual lives of myself (Derrick) and my beautiful and desirable young wife, Amy. I recount here how I helped Amy rediscover how sexually desirable she is, not only to me but, of special interest to me, to other attractive men. With my encouragement we began to reveal to each other our deepest sexual yearnings and to explore ways to satisfy them. I participated actively in these explorations but came mainly to play the roles of enabler, observer and supporter as Amy opened herself to new opportunities for sexual excitement and fulfillment.
CHAPTER ONE: PLANTING THE SEEDS
April
My name is Derrick Ray. I'm 32. My wife of seven years, Amy Atkins, is 28. We live in Bronxville, an upscale village 15 miles north of New York City. I am a member of a small but successful law firm serving mainly wealthy individuals and prominent organizations in our area. Amy is a highly regarded real estate agent with a firm that specializes in high end houses in and around Bronxville. Our work makes us familiar with much of what goes on socially and financially in our community.
Amy and I enjoy our work and we are comfortable with our situations. Though we both worked in Manhattan for a couple of years, me after Columbia law school and Amy after college at NYU, neither of us felt driven to stay there to maximize our economic potential. We both wanted to avoid all-consuming high stress jobs so that we could better enjoy our day to day lives together. We like being able to live in an attractive house in a bucolic setting and to mix with other friendly and successful people. We go into the city often by train to visit museums and art galleries and to enjoy other cultural events, especially modern dance. We like traveling at least once each year to Europe, usually to Italy or France, and we have been to Japan twice since we married. At this point we have no plans for children.
Like most people we know in similar circumstances our sex lives began with high passion and a sense of adventure. I recall often our especially great sexual episodes over the years , some of them while we travelled abroad. Traveling to special places where we experienced new cultures and food and art and architecture seemed to make us appreciate our good fortune and inspire us to offer each other sex that was inventive and generous. Though I'm sure that Amy recognized that our sexual excitement level had decreased over the past several years, until recently neither of us spoke of this as a matter of concern. Perhaps, I speculated, we had became too contented with ourselves and our lives. Maybe we assumed prematurely that what we had would remain just what we needed, including in our sexual relationship.
It has gradually occurred to me that we needed to reassess our assumptions and I had begun to ponder how we might do so. While I recognized that part of my incentive in this is to try to find ways to gratify my own growing sexual fantasies I also sincerely wanted us to explore how to satisfy what I perceive as Amy's own growing sexual frustration. When I first mentioned this she was not prepared even to acknowledge a problem. Fortunately, over some months, I was able to stimulate her willingness to examine her feelings. Out of our reexamination, we readjusted our sex lives and emerged with both higher self-knowledge and much greater satisfaction. I am writing down my recollections and reflections here on what have learned about ourselves, how we did that, and what might come next.
May
The immediate catalyst for change began with a question from Amy rather than myself. It started over a glass of brandy after dinner at home one evening. Amy surprised me by asking if I was becoming tired of her after seven years of marriage. "I think you are bored with me, Derrick. You don't seem to be able to generate much passion for me anymore. And I am missing knowing that you need me. And I am missing us having good sex!"
I paused to think carefully about how to answer her. While surprising coming out of the blue, Amy's comments were not entirely unexpected because, of course, she was correct. But for reasons of my own I did not want to begin by saying so. Instead, I responded, "Amy, maybe that is what you think, maybe not. But I wonder if what you are feeling really isn't just the opposite. I suspect that most of what is going on between us, even if you aren't fully conscious of it, is that you are the one who doesn't feel passionate about sex anymore and that mainly is because you aren't attracted to me as a partner anymore, at least not the way you used to be."
Amy did not respond directly regarding her own desire for me. She said, instead. "Well, I know some people would say that it is just natural for sexual desire to fade after seven years of marriage, that this almost is inevitable." I let this thought hang in the air.
She went on, "Derrick, I just don't feel attractive anymore. No wonder you don't want me often and hardly ever very strongly. I wish I could do something to feel beautiful and sexy and desirable like I used to."
Again I paused as though I was pondering what she had said. In fact, I had been waiting for her to raise this issue and for an opportunity to respond. I fully agreed that our sexual relationship needed to change and I was interested in changing it, perhaps substantially, in a way that would better satisfy both of us. I had not told her, and did not plan to reveal now, what had been going on with me as our sexual desires within our marriage had been decreasing.
Like many married men that I had read about, I had begun to be aroused less and less by making love to my wife and more and more by the dream of her taking another man — or men. I often now pictured myself watching her giving herself passionately to someone new — and I found myself hoping that if she did so it would better satisfy both our needs — hers to have passionate sex and mine to watch. I did not want to tell her this because I believed my dream would be realized only if and when she could admit to herself that she wanted to try sex with someone else — and that her admission would come about only after subtle nudging from me. She needed to believe that doing so would rekindle her passion and enjoyment and, equally important, that she would also be pleasing me in the process. I tried to initiate that process by first responding to her doubts about her desirability. I had been thinking for weeks about how to go about this.
"Amy, you are certainly still very beautiful— and very alluring, vey sexy, very desirable. There can be no doubt about that and surely you know it. But maybe you don't recognize the depth of passion you generate. Or maybe you just don't want to face the implications. I suspect that you still feel strong sexual desire yourself— but just not so much for me anymore. Maybe you feel trapped with no ready opportunity to redirect your desire. So you manufacture these excuses that you don't feel desirable and that the problem is my lack of desire for you. In any case Amy, whatever the issue is, I want to help you face it and deal with it, for us to deal with it.
"And Amy I easily can correct any impression you mistakenly have about a lack of desirability. I can tell you right now what two attractive men have said to me about you just within the past couple of weeks. And I could offer you other examples if I go back further. You know Trent Cramer, the young banker I play golf with some Saturday mornings early. He told me that you say hello to him sometimes when you see him in the fitness center at the club. He said you are there at about the same time he is several days a week. Amy, Trent is certainly one of your admirers. He raved about you to me again while we were on the golf course just last Saturday. It made a strong impression on me, thoughI was not surprised by what he said. "
'Derrick, you have the most gorgeous, sexy wife I have seen in this town in years. How do you deserve a woman like that to go to bed with every night? Even in sweaty exercise clothes she just projects sensuality. I'm not married but I would be if I could find anyone like her to marry me. You must walk around the house with a hard on all day after we finish our round of golf. If I had a wife like that I would want to stay home every night and I sure would not leave her in bed to go golfing early on a Saturday morning. But then I guess you have Saturday nights to look forward to. Amy's face is lovely to look at with her raven black hair and bright green eyes and skin that looks so soft and pale — and from what I can see of it she has a perfect body. Really so luscious. And believe me Derrick, I have looked at it a lot since I began going to that fitness center. Seeing your wife is one of the reasons I like to go. And on top of that she seems very sweet and smart. You are spoiled, Derrick.'
"That's about what he said Amy. So, if you don't think you are desirable anymore, just ask Trent Cramer the next time you see him at the club. Or better yet, just turn quickly around someday while you are exercising; I'lll bet you will catch him staring at you with hungry eyes. And then explain to me, but first of all to yourself, how that fits with your comments that you are no longer sexy and lusted after. You certainly are ravishing to Trent, and he is a smart and good looking guy."
"And more evidence, Amy. Do you remember Jared Cook from the last country club holiday party? I do because I was starting to become jealous when he asked you to dance for about the fourth time. Don't tell me you didn't understand his interest. I'm sure he wasn't talking with you about the Yankees or the Mets. You had on that red party dress cut in a way and with support that displayed your breasts so daringly. And everyone could see that Jared was enjoying the view. I watched as he kept tightening his arm around you trying to feel you pressed against him. I'll bet you do remember his touch. He was obviously feeling amorous. The two of you looked hot together, a really stunning couple. Why do you think Jared, another very handsome man who could have danced with any woman in the room, kept coming back to you? And every man in the room would have liked to have been in his place.
"When I passed Jared in a restaurant a few weeks ago he asked me, 'Derrick, how is your gorgeous wife. I often think of her and of how much I liked dancing with her at that party at the club and that red dress she had on that showed her off so invitingly. I hope I don't offend you by saying that, but I still can't get that picture of her out of my head. You can tell her that I told you this and that I think about her often. Maybe she will dance with me again next time.'
