I had recently divorced my wife. It was a strange divorce for both of us. None of us had really done anything to facilitate the divorce. I'm still not entirely sure why, and I don't think my ex-wife knows either. We had just grown apart and while we weren't unhappy, we weren't happy either.
One of the few things we had in common was that we were very practical in our everyday life. We both agreed that being married isn't really great if there isn't much purpose in it. Neither of us wanted kids, we were content to just do nothing every day. I think both of us wanted to date other people, but we were both opposed to cheating. And swinging wasn't really our think. We had tried it once and neither of us enjoyed it. Knowing you were fucking someone else while being married, allowed or not, just didn't sit right with us.
The only thing that really worked in our marriage was sex. After having been together for four years we still had great sex a couple of times in the weekdays, and then during the weekend we went insane with lust. With nothing really to do, and not wanting to go out we usually spent a couple of hours having sex, cuddling and just being together on a physical level. The emotions just weren't there anymore.
We had a pretty big circle of friends but we didn't spend much as time with them as we used to do. Sometimes during week days we had some of them over for dinner, or we went over to them. On weekends we preferred to stay home, but having a big circle of friends means loads of weddings, anniversaries and christenings. Not really our thing, but hey. What can you do?
So we filed for divorce, had some more sex to celebrate and invited our friends over for dinner to talk. Needless to say, they reacted much more emotionally than we did. We tried to explain that it wasn't because we were unhappy nor because one of us had cheated. We just didn't feel like being married anymore, and both of us figured if neither of us really saw the point, we might as well go see if there was any "good fish in the sea" as we called it.
So the divorce came through after a few weeks but we had trouble finding separate places to live. My now ex-wife didn't want to live in an apartment so she was looking for a house, and I couldn't find an apartment, close enough for my daily commute to work. Both of us knew we didn't really want to live together anymore, and we could always meet up for sex if we got bored.
Late Thursday night my good friend George called asking if I could come over for dinner Friday night. Amy and I didn't have anything planned other than maybe a little sex before going to sleep.
"Should I invite Amy as well?" I asked.
"No, we just want to talk with you Mike" he said.
"Okay, when should I be there?" I asked.
"Can you be here around six?" He asked.
"Sure I'll be there. But why so early, is this something serious?"
"A little bit yeah, don't worry we just need some help with something. So we'll see you tomorrow?"
"Works for me, should I bring anything? Maybe a bottle of wine or some snacks?"
"You don't have to, but if you don't mind sure. Hm...Alcohol might actually not be a bad idea for this." He said with a tentative voice.
It did sound a little serious, but knowing George and Jen it probably wasn't anything to worry about. They more often than not overacted. When Amy and I told them about the divorce they were the most persistent in trying to find out why.
So around 5 o'clock I got into my car, drove to my favorite wine connoisseur and picked up a bottle of white wine and a bottle of red wine. George had sounded nervous on the phone, so better to have too much than too little.
I arrived a little early so it took them a few minutes to answer the door. George and Jen aren't rich, but they are wealthy enough that they don't have to worry about money. The only thing I've ever seen them splurge on was their big house, otherwise they barely spent anything on stuff they didn't need. It does mean that it usually takes a while for them to hear the doorbell if they aren't expecting it as they haven't gotten around to make it ring throughout the house yet.
After a few minutes Jen answered the door looking a bit nervous and said "Welcome Mike. I don't know how much George told you, but dinner will be ready in a few minutes."
"Thank you, is there anything I can help with?"
"Oh no, you are our guest so you can just go into the living room and relax on the couch."
Jen walked in and hurried to the kitchen; I followed her to put the wine on the table, and then walked into the living room where George sat on the couch.
"Hey ol' buddy, how's it going? It's been a while" I asked with a smile.
"Things are good, how's the apartment hunting going?" he seemed tense which put me a bit on edge.
"Not that great, it's harder than I expected. The apartments I like are far away from work, and those that are closer are terrible, both space wise, but also design and the neighbor hoods. I do envy you are little, living in this big house, yet being close to the city." Even though I was a bit on edge and not entirely happy with the apartment hunting being brought up, I smiled none the less to ease the tension a little bit.
George was about to say something when Amy called from the kitchen that dinner would be ready in a minute.
"What are we having for dinner?" I asked.
"Something fancy I expect. Jen has denied me entry into the kitchen all day long. Probably a good idea since I'm a terrible cook" he said laughing a little.
We walked into the dining room and helped Jennifer carry the food into the dining room where she had placed the bottles of wine I had brought with me.
All the way through dinner Jen and George didn't talk much, just staring nervously at each other every few minutes. We had some small talk going about our jobs, what our friends were up to. We talked a little about Amy and her hunt for somewhere to live then went onto the subject of baseball something me and George followed sparingly. We watched it once in a while when we were bored, but didn't really go into it much. The fun for us was arguing for the sake of arguing with the little information we had. We took turns rooting for teams that had rivalries going.
George and Jen being so tense were starting to put me at edge. I figured that this thing they wanted to talk about was serious. When we had finished our dinner we walked to the living room with the sparse amount of wine that was left. George went down to the basement to grab another one while Jen kept giving me small glances then looking away.
When George came back from the basement he looked at Jen and asked "are you ready dear?"
"Yes dear. Let's get this over with for now. I...I don't want to drag this out."
I looked curiously at both of them wondering what was about to happen.
"Mike, we have a proposal, but we also need favor." He swallowed hard, then went on "we know you've had trouble finding an apartment so if you want to we would like for you to live here for a while."
He looked nervously at me so I hesitated a little then said "err... Thanks I guess I but why are you so tense?
"Mike, I think you know me and Jen have been trying to have a baby for a while now. We found out a few weeks ago that I'm sterile" he said avoiding eye contact.
"Wow that was unexpected. So you need me to donate some sperm for artificial insemination?" I asked.
George started again, this time his voice shaking slightly. Something was clearly wrong. "Actually, we aren't big fans of artificial insemination, we both want it done the old fashion way. You and I both look alike and we know from Amy that you have a big sex drive." He finished.
Suddenly starting to realize what they were proposing. "Okay, just to make sure we are on the same page here. Are you trying to say you want me to have sex with Jen so she can get pregnant?" I asked suddenly being very nervous. This was not going to be an easy decision.
Jen spoke up in a quiet voice "well yes, what we would like is for you to get a doctor's appointment to see if your sperm is virile for the insemination. Also if you lived here we would have more time for...err... The 'deed to be done' as the phrase is." She looked very embarrassed when she finished and I couldn't blame her.
"I don't know what to say. If...If this is something you really want then of course I'll help you, but isn't this sort of cheating? I've always believed that cheating is one of the worst things you can do in a marriage. It can tear apart a marriage and I don't want that to happen to you. I love you both and I could never forgive myself if my actions would hurt you. Are you sure you wouldn't prefer artificial insemination?"
George spoke again avoiding eye contact "We don't want the baby to be conceived unnaturally. We are both against that. We don't consider it cheating for you to have sex with Jen if it's out in the open for me to know what is going on. I don't necessarily want to watch it, but if I have questions I want honest answers. We know that this is not an easy decision so you can take as much time as you want. We have spent the last three weeks discussing this and we both really want this. We want a child desperately. If you agree we would also like you to keep this a secret if possible. It's not really our vanity at stake there, but we don't want the child to grow up and find out I'm not his real dad. At least not until he or she is old enough to understand it."
"I need some time to think about this. I don't want to step on any toes but I do find Jen very attractive. I just don't know. I'm honored that you would ask me, but this is big. Like life altering big" I said.
