David

If You Truly Love Me is a character rather than event driven story. It was inspired by an actual couple I once knew. I worked for a time with the wife. In their story, though, it was the husband wanting to explore.

Each protagonist, of which there is three, tells a portion of the story. There is minimal overlapping of stories and the full tale won't come together, with the fates of all parties known, until the final protagonist has told their part. Each part, or chapter, will be uploaded separately a day apart.

As is usual for me I have done my own editing. I hope any mistakes I missed don't detract from the story.

Thanks, as always, to my beloved Vandemonium1 for his encouragement and support, not to mention, his excellent proofreading skills! You can read the stories we collaborate on under our joint pseudonym; SemperAmare.

Thanks and happy reading,

CTC

IF YOU TRULY LOVE ME

CHAPTER ONE: DAVID

WITH MY WIFE KNEELING before me, I didn't care that the curtains were open, revealing the pitch-black night sky. I didn't care that any passer-by could see me, could see us. Let them. Let them see me in rapture. It had been so long.

I massaged her scalp more firmly, warning her of my approaching orgasm. Soon, I knew, I'd be tugging her hair rather than caressing it. I'd be gentle, but I knew from past experiences it turned her on to know that for a few precious moments I'd lose control and clutch rather than fondle.

I gripped her head, my cock—the thickest I'd felt it in an age—surged into her warm mouth and I groaned loudly, climaxing.

I collapsed back on the couch, feeling flushed and bemused. "Jesus Christ."

I stared at her as if seeing her for the first time before reaching for her, cupping her face, and kissing her passionately. Holly responded until we were both gasping for air.

I chuckled, resting my forehead against hers. "Holy hell, Holly. What was that, sweetheart? I don't know what brought that on, but you can surprise me like that any time. I thought my balls were going to explode. I didn't hurt you, did I? I kind of forgot myself for a minute there."

She laughed, sounding a little drunk on her success. "No, all's good. Kind of proud of myself, actually. Nice to see I can still rock your world after all these years."

"Oh, you rocked it all right, sweetheart. Nuclear." I kissed her again. I always made a point of kissing her after oral sex. If she was good enough to swallow my load then I was good enough to kiss her for it. Same as she kissed me after I went down on her.

I pulled Holly down, rolling her until she was on her back on the lounge. I kissed my way down her body, looking up at her from between her splayed thighs.

"Now let's see if I can return the favour."

*****

WITH A FINAL kiss to the nape of Holly's neck, I lifted myself from her body. Cool morning air wafted over the damp skin of my chest and I shivered through the wave of goosebumps that followed it. Nothing, not the early start or a wave of shivers could spoil my mood—I had my wife back.

I lightly slapped Holly on the butt. "Come on, lazy bones. Time for that naughty ass of yours to get up."

With a flourish, as if unveiling a surprise, I threw open the curtains. Holly groaned; she wasn't a morning person.

"Naughty? I think they should be putting me up for sainthood for seeing to my husband's need for greedy morning sex," she groaned into the pillow.

I laughed at our shared joke and playfully slapped her rump again. "Join me in the shower and I might get even greedier."

Quite early in our married life we'd developed a routine of sorts. Other than some slow spells when ill health, the birth and early years of our daughter, Caitlyn, or the regular travel demands of our respective careers interfered, we'd make love every second evening three times over the course of the night. Well, up until about six months ago, that applied.

The first encounter was usually quite early in the evening once we were certain Caitlyn was asleep; the second a few hours later when we were both snoozy and cuddly, and one final time the following morning. The next night our bed would be for sleeping only. When, one morning, Holly had teased me about our three-a-night routine I told her the first coming together was for play and the second for loving.

"And the third?" She'd asked.

"Oh, that's just me being a greedy bastard."

Since then the terms had stuck and we were either 'playing', 'loving', or being 'greedy'. It was a private joke and routine I loved. Ironically, each name was apt—we tended to be the most adventurous and kinky during 'play' sex, while our 'loving' sex was slow and sensual and tender, and in the mornings, I

was

greedy. I'd push myself so deep into Holly's body it felt like I was trying to climb into her via her vagina.

Holly clambered from the bed, quickly stripping it, placing the sheets by the door before slipping into the shower with me. We didn't make love again, but I had fun getting my wife of twenty-four years cleaned up and ready for work.

Once dressed, I made my way to the kitchen where Holly had already started making breakfast. We worked together like a well-oiled machine—me; squeezing our juices and making the coffees, Holly; preparing our muesli topped with fresh fruit since we were on yet another health kick. Well, Holly was, and that meant I was as well. No bacon and eggs for me for the foreseeable future.

Holly regularly cursed Mother Nature's unfairness, saying that since hitting her forties she had to work far harder in order to maintain her weight and fitness than I did. It was true; she exercised as much as I did, perhaps more, but whereas I seemed to effortlessly maintain a flat stomach and toned arms and legs, she complained she had to work like a Trojan to stop her hips from expanding and gravity from wreaking havoc on her butt and breasts. She would joke that Mother Nature was a heartless bitch, trying to throw her on the scrap heap now that she was approaching the end of her childbearing years. Holly would laugh, saying she wasn't having it, that she intended to go down kicking and screaming.

As we ate, we talked. Holly's day was going to be fairly run-of-the-mill, if dealing with authors and artists could ever be considered ordinary, while I was excited because I had a big presentation to do that afternoon with my partner Ben, who also happened to be Holly's older brother.

"I just hope Carlson goes for our designs for his new hotel. It will be a huge coup for us if we can win this project from some of the big boys in Sydney. We might even need to hire someone to help oversee it if we're successful."

"You will be. I have a good feeling about this. You and Ben will be great," Holly reassured me, raising her face for a kiss as I retrieved our plates and headed to the kitchen.

She followed me to the garage even though she, weather permitting, usually rode her bicycle the short distance to work as yet another way to try and keep fit. With a final kiss and admonishment to remember to pick up some milk on my way home, she waved me off.

*****

"SO, BRO, BY the look of your goofy grin I'm thinking you got some sweet sweet lovin' last night." Ben cocked his head to the side, grinning as he studied me. "Or maybe even this morning."

"Maybe my, ah,

grin,

which is never goofy, by the way, is in anticipation of us nailing the presentation with Carlson," I countered.

"Nah. It's definitely an, I-got-laid-and-laid-good grin."

"You're shameless, man. That's your sister you're talking about."

I threw the Post-it notes I had in my hand at him. He ducked, avoiding my missile with ease. Worse—he caught it. His grin never wavered; if anything, it grew. The routine was old—he'd say something wildly inappropriate; I'd throw something non-sharp, non-breakable at him and he'd duck. We'd been doing it since college.

I looked at my partner-slash-brother-in-law and realized, not for the first time, how different he and Holly looked. I knew the story behind their different appearance, of course. As fate would have it, two sisters had married two brothers and between them they'd popped out a baby a year. Holly and Ben's parents had been the first to procreate, bringing Ben into the world, followed ten months later by their Aunt Freja and Uncle Bill welcoming Ronnie. Nine months later it was Holly's turn to put in an appearance and Warren followed a year after that.

In that funny and unique way that genes have of combining, Ben and Warren, though cousins, could have passed as siblings with their matching brown hair, olive skin, and grey-green eyes, while Ronnie and Holly both took after their mothers with their Danish ancestry and sported blonde hair and blue eyes. The four were close, but within their tight-knit little group Ronnie and Holly had always gravitated toward each other, as had Ben and Warren.

The sisters, their mothers, were close, but the brothers had had their moments when old sibling rivalries got the better of them. Of course, as Ben had confided in me, they hadn't recognized their fathers' actions as such at the time. They'd just known their fathers could have some humdinger arguments where faces got red and voices were raised and for a few weeks at a time the families wouldn't socialize together. The mothers, though, would apparently continue to speak on the phone and wait for their husbands to get over their latest snit.

Ben and Holly's parents divorced during their teen years when their mother discovered their father was having an affair. The divorce had a profound effect on both Ben and Holly, leaving one with insecurities and the other with commitment issues.

Still staring at Ben, I gave myself a mental shake.

"You're just trying to find a way to tell me about your latest conquest. Let me guess... she's incredibly young and hot, and, of course, a slave to your, ah, skills."

Ben laughed, not in the least embarrassed. At forty-four, he remained single and could still pull in, with ease, women in their twenties.

"It's called cunnilingus, my dear old friend. And, as I recall, I passed on a few of my mad tips to you to keep the home fires burning bright and strong between you and my lovely sister. I'm just glad to see them working so well."

"Ben!" Heat burst into my cheeks as if a switch had been flicked. Under no circumstances would I confide in him about my sex life with his sister and my wife, Holly.

He laughed again. "Okay. Okay. I'll give you some respite. Talk to me about the Carlson presentation. Any last minute changes?"

For the next couple of hours, we worked on fine tuning our pitch for the boutique hotel planned by the Carlson group.

*****

"CAN YOU DO what you did the other night, sweetheart?"

"With pleasure." Holly grinned at me. "So, it was that good, huh?"

"Better," I replied, returning her smile.

Holly grabbed me by my belt buckle, drawing me closer to her as she sat on the edge of our bed. Without shifting her gaze from mine, she stripped me of my trousers while I shed my shirt and toed off my shoes.

My cock was already at half-mast. Holly slowly and deliberately licked her lips, knowing I was watching, before swirling her tongue with excruciating slowness around the head of my dick. Just as I was about to beg, she ended her circling with a flourish by dipping her tongue into the slit.

"Let's get this show on the road," she teased, stroking me.

"My socks..." I murmured.

"Forget your socks. They can wait."

For the next hour she rocked my world, edging me until I was begging her to let me come.

Afterward, I dived down on her, licking and nibbling her pussy like it was the last dessert left on the planet.

For the next few weeks, the pair of us were insatiable, even sexting each other during the day, getting each other hot and bothered with sexual innuendos about what we were going to do to each other that evening. Sometimes we couldn't wait until the evening and rendezvoused at the house at lunch time, stripping off our clothing as soon as we were through the front door.

I loved it. It felt like I had my loving and sexy wife back, the one who'd been missing for about six months. I was so relieved I didn't think to question why she was so hot to trot when she'd been so absent and uninterested in intimacy of any sort for months on end. Months where nothing I did or said penetrated. Months where she'd fobbed me off with feeble excuses. I didn't want to tempt fate and have us revert to the lonely and confusing sexual drought.

*****

"YOU STILL AWAKE, sweetheart?" Holly whispered to me, while gently stroking my chest.

"Mm," I mumbled only half awake. I was sated and sleepy after our lovemaking and resting in my favourite place in the world—on my back with Holly nestled in my arms, her head on my chest.

"David, there's something I need to tell you."

With her words my heartbeat escalated, and I wondered if she could tell.

"Yes, I'm still awake. What's wrong?" I answered cautiously, holding my breath. After months of her withdrawal followed by our recent sexual renaissance, I was petrified she was going to tell me she'd been to the doctor's and had found out she had some incurable disease.

She was silent for a moment. All I heard was her deep inhalation.

"I'm bisexual."

My first reaction was relief. She wasn't dying.

But then her words sank in.

What followed could only be described as a tidal wave. The wave radiated out from my gut but soon engulfed my vocal cords. I couldn't speak. I could barely think. Had it been possible to see inside my head I think it would have resembled a glass jar containing hundreds of moths, all panicking and fluttering, bashing themselves against the glass. I couldn't process the information. I couldn't still my thoughts long enough to focus on just the one.

What exactly was she telling me? Had she stopped loving me? We'd been having so much sex lately so, surely, she was still sexually attracted to me? Was it that she left our bed sexually unsatisfied and that was why she wanted so much of it? Like when you keep nibbling when you haven't had enough to eat. And, if so, did that mean I'd never satisfied her sexually? Had she been fantasizing about other women all these years when we were having sex? Had she met someone? Was she leaving me? Was she saying bisexual, but meaning lesbian? Was she seeing someone? Was she having an affair? Were we breaking up? Was she asking me for a divorce?

"David, say something. Please say something." She sounded shaky. Scared.

"I-I-" I started but stopped. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know which question to ask.

"David—"

And then the words blurted from me, like projectile vomit. "How long have you known? Why have you never told me? Have you met someone? Are you leaving me? Do you love me? Did you ever really love me? Don't I satisfy you sexually? Do you want a divorce?"

I was firing off questions, giving her no time to answer, but she'd caught me unawares. Holly was talking at the same time. "No. No. Yes. Yes. Yes, I mean, no. God, no." and I didn't know which questions she was answering.

As quickly as my avalanche of questions erupted from me, they stopped. I shifted, disengaging myself from Holly. Suddenly, I didn't feel like my favourite place in the world belonged to me, to us, anymore. I scooted back to my side of the bed, turning on my side to face Holly.

"Come back. Please don't pull away," she pleaded softly, but I stayed where I was. Holly shuffled forward, pressing her face into my chest. "Please talk to me, David. I'm sorry. So so sorry."

"Are you leaving me? Are we breaking up?" My voice was croaky and that angered me. This was not a time to show vulnerability.

The sound of her cheek moving briskly over the pillow was almost as loud as her answer. "No! I love you. I'm not leaving you. I'm worried you're going to leave me."

"How long have you known? Did you know when you met me?"

"Yes," she whispered shakily. "Yes, I knew when I met you. I was a teenager the first time I felt attracted to another girl."

"Why did you never tell me?"

The knowledge that she'd known her sexual orientation since the very beginning of our relationship shook me to my core. It hurt as much as did the knowledge she was bisexual. On top of feeling scared, threatened, and suddenly, inadequate, I felt betrayed and deceived. It wasn't that I had any issues with bisexuals, lesbians, or, for that matter, gays; hell, her cousin was gay, and Holly was part owner in a LGBT publishing house as well as an avid supporter of gay rights. Had I ever had any prejudices my regular contact with the LGBT world had long since rid me of them. It was the implications of what that knowledge would mean to our relationship in the long term. It was the fact that I'd been living with an untruth, or, at best, a partial truth, for my entire adult life. That she'd withheld a vitally important piece of information about herself for over a quarter of a century. My wife, who, as little as a moment ago, I would have sworn was as honest as the day was long had lied to me by omission our entire relationship.

"When I was a teen I had a girl-crush or two, but I was mostly into boys. I read somewhere that even bisexuals tend to lean more one way or the other, that its rarely a 50/50 split kind of thing and if that's true then I was definitely more attracted to men, but, having said that, there was undeniably one or two girls I fantasized about."

She paused, as if organizing her thoughts and so I waited anxiously, but silently, for her to continue.

"And then I met you when Ben brought you home with him that summer and I saw you and it was as if I'd been living in a dim room my whole life and suddenly someone switched on the light, like my world was a sepia print and then you came along and infused it with beautiful vibrant colour. After that, all those urges and attractions just disappeared. Poof. Like a puff of smoke. Gone. It was the same with other boys. I just didn't see them anymore. All I saw, all I could think about, was you."

I sagged; my relief so great that for a moment it robbed my body of strength. We were silent again while we each gathered our thoughts. I knew the question that needed to be asked, but I didn't want to ask it because I already knew the answer.

But it had to be asked.

And it had to be answered.

"So why tell me this now?"

"Because those urges are back."

*****

FOR THE NEXT ten days we had bite-sized conversations about Holly's bisexuality because that was all I could handle. We started with the past and worked our way to the present. One bit of information at a time for me to chew on and digest. It was like trying to build up a tolerance by inoculating myself. Each conversation gave me a mini version of the virus; painful, but not deadly.

Our sex life was non-existent and for that I knew I had to take full responsibility. Holly would reach for me and I would shut her down. I even considered moving into either Caitlyn's or the guest room when I walked into our bathroom on day six to find her masturbating in the shower. In the past, I'd have taken voyeuristic pleasure in the sight. I might even have stripped off and joined her. Now it hurt because the first question that sprang to my mind was what fantasy was she getting off on? Images of me or some hot young broad?

I guess I was an oddity. I'd never fantasised about watching two women together or doing a threesome with Holly and another woman. To my mind, if the women were into each other then me and my penis were superfluous. And the thought of Holly with anyone else, be it male or female, was totally abhorrent to me.

If measured on the Enhanced F Scale, my life, my marriage had been rocked by a EF5 tornado. Emotionally, the 'building' I'd believed our marriage to be was reduced to little more than a pile of rubble. And doubt, ever insidious doubt, had me not knowing what to salvage in order to rebuild.