Lucy Penny

Author's note:

I apologise to those who have been waiting. This has taken a long time and life gets in the way. The usual warnings apply: this includes non-monogamy. It is fiction (if, in this case, only just). It is slower than my previous stories and tries to capture a unique "first time" in the hotwife lifestyle. If you enjoy it, let me know (and maybe buy me a coffee). This one is for Joe C and his smoking hot wife.

*

One way of looking at it was to say that the whole affair started because of my wife's somewhat obsessive enjoyment of entering travel competitions. It got to the stage where she had spreadsheets set up to track entry dates, draw dates; she would track competitions where you got flights, ones where you couldn't go during the school holidays. Our postbox was overflowing with newsletters and I was forced to cancel our landline as the marketing calls were waking the children up from afternoon naps. It was a harmless enough hobby, I thought. One that grew during the winter months when the grey skies over our part of rainy England poured down and the wind howled in from the Atlantic. I quite liked the idea that Penny was imagining herself in warmer climes, wearing considerably less than usual.

We lived a good life--comfortable, predictable, but with a quiet sort of routine that sometimes made me wonder if we'd slipped into a groove we couldn't escape. Our days were a whirlwind of school runs, ferrying the kids to clubs, making sure homework got done, and keeping pace with our steady, if uninspiring, careers. The house we lived in was nice--small but cozy, and we were lucky that our children attended good schools and had decent friends. It was a checklist life, the kind of middle-class success you're supposed to aim for. Penny was happy with it all--content, if not exactly bubbling with excitement.

Our home sat on one of those newly built estates that sprawled out endlessly across the English countryside, the kind of place where every house looked a little too much like the one next door. But at least we had a small wood behind our house, a patch of green that provided a rare breath of nature. Our local pub was a hundred years older than America, a comforting reminder of something that had stood the test of time, unlike the suburbia around it.

Walking up the stairs in our home, it was hard to miss the story of our life--a gallery of snapshots that painted a picture of a family who had everything... except maybe a little more adventure. The first photo was of Penny and me on our wedding day. It had rained, of course, and our picture was dark and dramatic, taken in front of a stone church beneath a drizzly sky. The other was of our honeymoon in the Maldives, light and breezy, with the gentle waves lapping behind us.

Next came the family dressed to the nines for the neighbourhood Gala, a bit of a farce really, but Penny had insisted we all dress as the Flintstones to win, yet again, the dressing up competition. My youngest had pulled off an impressive Bam-Bam. We had our share of more "normal" family shots too--Penny volunteering at the local playgroup, a picture of her smiling as fireworks went off overhead, a few snaps of the kids racing to school on their bikes in their crisp uniforms. There was also a photo of Penny with her sisters at her graduation, beaming in the glow of a well-done job.

And then, the last picture--a moment I cherished more than the others. It was of Penny and the kids at the summit of Cat Bells at sunset, doing some overly-zen yoga pose, their shadows stretching out like a perfect little family tableau. I'd taken that one. It was the one that captured our life best--the light from the setting sun just soft enough to hide the cracks, the stillness of the moment that, for all its perfection, felt just a little too tidy.

Penny was beautiful, of course--everyone knew that. She was the kind of woman who was well-liked by everyone, the picture of grace and warmth, but also a bit... prudish, if I'm being honest. It wasn't that she wasn't loving--she was, fiercely so--but her love felt wrapped in layers of caution, held back by the boundaries she'd set for herself and, in turn, for all of us. There was a quiet security in her ways, a steady calm that felt comforting but, sometimes, a little suffocating. We had what we needed--what we were supposed to have--but when I really stopped to think about it, it didn't always feel like

enough

.

I clearly had a good life and most days were full of laughter, pride and a sense of accomplishment watching the children grow. My career was stable and my wife was loyal. But I was getting bored and restless, looming middle age making me grumpy and gloomy. I felt a bit trapped, a bit like I never really got anything that I wanted and that the experiences I craved were denied to me. It was hard not to feel resentment. Sometimes I looked at Penny, playing with the kids or coming back from wild swimming, and I had a sense that she got everything she wanted out of life and our relationship, and all the compromising of happiness was one sided.

On the afternoon it happened, we were granted one of those rare hours alone together--the kind of quiet that felt like a gift, as if time itself had slowed just for us. The boys were at a friend's house, and our eldest was at ballet. I entered the living room with two steaming mugs of tea, but paused at the threshold, transfixed by the scene before me.

Penny sat on the sofa, absorbed in her phone, her blonde hair catching the soft February light that filtered through the windows, casting a warm glow around her. The light danced in her hair, turning the strands into threads of gold, while her eyes--those forget-me-not blue eyes--seemed to shimmer, a perfect mirror of the calm sky outside.

She was a vision. Her long hair, which I adored, fell in a silken cascade to the middle of her back, effortlessly straight and glowing with a quiet luster. Her figure--graceful, poised--had the kind of elegance you see in ballerinas, her back gently arched, the dimples of Venus accentuating her form. Her skin was flawless, smooth as porcelain, and her fingers, delicate and dexterous, moved with a quiet grace that made even the smallest of gestures seem choreographed.

Penny's beauty always had an ethereal quality to it, as if she had stepped out of a different time, a Valkyrie misplaced in an English village home. Her casual clothes--jeans and a simple jumper--only seemed to heighten her effortless glamour, making her look like a film star from the fifties, timeless and effortlessly chic.

But it was her face that really held me. Her full lips--never plumped, never enhanced, just naturally perfect--weren't curved in their usual soft smile. Instead, she was biting her lower lip, the rest of her face scrunched up in concentration as she stared at her phone. It was a rare sight--a moment of intensity on her otherwise serene face. Her focus was so complete, so absolute, that for a second, I wondered if she even realized I was there.

I stood there for a long moment, holding the tea, watching her, feeling an overwhelming sense of love and admiration. This was the woman I had built my life with--the one whose beauty, inside and out, still caught me off guard, even after all these years. But it wasn't just the way she looked--it was everything about her, her quiet strength, her grace, her vulnerability. She was my heart, my constant.

And as I stood there, in the stillness of the room, the calm before the storm, I had no idea that everything was about to change.

"What's the matter?" I asked, as I put down her mug and sat down beside her.

She paused a moment before looking at me. "I think we've won?" She passed me her phone. "What do you think?"

I looked at the screen and, sure enough, there was an email declaring us the winners of the "Bavarian Bundle", a "trip of a lifetime". I passed the phone back to her. "It's bollocks. Clearly a scam."

"I'm not so sure. I'll ring them." She looked at me with her chin in the air, sure that I was going to mock her for her naivety.

I remember sighing and deciding to keep my mouth shut, which was wise. As it turned out, she had won, and won big. Four days in Munich with an Oktoberfest package and an Alps adventure included. Even as I ate my words I hung onto my skepticism. This trip, I felt, would never happen. Penny didn't drink beer and she was one of those women who was very reluctant to indulge in something so frivolous and kid-free. What she had really always been looking for were family breaks, cruises, Disneyland tickets.

Even as I processed this the possibilities fired through my mind of nights away in a hotel room with my beautiful wife. The Alps adventure clearly interested her. She was a keen climber and we were often dragged up some craggy hill or other during the summer months, eating a soggy picnic on a wind-swept summit. Some kids got to play on the Xbox, ours got to slog it up steep paths. Like Maria from the Sound of Music, Penny loved the mountain air and snow capped peaks. You were most likely to find her dressed for a hike: good walking boots, a navy blue Berghaus coat, waterproof trousers, a buff, a beanie, a steaming cup of coffee and a wide smile. A two day guided hike and a stop in an alpine lodge was tempting for her.

The problem was the beer. Penny was a lady--or at least, she saw herself as one. Her world was built on a sense of propriety, one she had absorbed from a cocktail of her mother's influence, the stuffy novels she devoured at university, and an odd nostalgia for the fifties. Her standards for cleanliness in the house bordered on the absurd, and her wardrobe--though always neat--would have been considered dowdy on anyone less stunning. She had a way of dressing that was more about restraint than allure, as though each outfit had been carefully chosen to suppress any hint of unseemly charm. And her relationship with alcohol? Well, it was a touch puritanical--especially when it came to beer. *Ladies* didn't drink beer.

And so, when the opportunity arose--the prize Penny won, an invitation to a beer festival for four adults--my mind immediately gravitated to the solution: Laura. Penny's bridesmaid. Her long-time best friend.

Laura was everything Penny wasn't. Where Penny was all soft angles and polished grace, Laura was a striking contrast--sharp-edged, vibrant, unapologetically herself. She was the type to wear black, not because it was fashionable, but because it suited her mood. Her dark hair framed her face in a wild, untamed way, her eyes dark and knowing, always searching for the next adventure. I couldn't help but remember the day they'd glided down the aisle toward me, Penny glowing in her modest beauty, and Laura trailing behind with that effortless, alternative air.

Laura's world was filled with tattoos, piercings, and a collection of Glastonbury souvenirs--each one a tiny rebellion, a piece of her that Penny would never fully understand. She was a walking contradiction to Penny's more conservative, prim approach to life. And yet, that was exactly why I knew Laura would be perfect for this. She was someone who could embrace the messy joy of a beer festival, the kind of woman who knew how to let go and enjoy herself without apology.

It wasn't just their differences that made them fascinating to me--it was the way they somehow balanced each other. Penny's restrained elegance and Laura's free-spirited defiance, both beautiful in their own ways, but each with an edge of something untapped. I could feel the tension in the contrast, a small charge in the air whenever the two were in the same room. Penny's brow would furrow ever so slightly whenever Laura's laughter rang too loud, or when she caught her sipping wine a little too freely. But it was more than that.

Penny had never quite crossed into Laura's world, but I could tell she envied it from a distance. The thought of taking Laura--wild, untamed Laura--along to the festival sent a thrill of excitement through me. Penny wouldn't like it, but that was part of the appeal. It was the kind of adventure she'd never have, and yet it was just the kind I craved.

"Why don't we ask Laura and Dave?"

Penny paused, raising an eyebrow of approval at my unexpected ability to solve problems. "She won't want to climb a mountain."

"We can meet them after. They will love it, especially if it's free. We haven't seen them in ages..."

And so, by degrees, with the usual difficulties and logistical problems, the plan was resolved. Laura and Dave were delighted to come with us. Childcare solutions of varying expense were found and holiday days were booked. We were going to Germany.

*

I had imagined that the build up to the trip would have been full of fun anticipation and playful flirtation but, as often was the case these days, I was sadly mistaken. The stress of life went into overdrive as we juggled our priorities and tried to make space for this indulgence. We were short with each other, bickering over little things and there was an unspoken feeling that we almost wished we hadn't won the prize after all. Our sex life, which had over the years gone from very healthy to managing to a point of contention between us, was all but frozen in the weeks before we flew. There was nothing unusual about it. We had three children and demanding jobs. Many days were just a battle to get through our routines and have enough energy to wash the dishes after dinner. My drive had always been higher and my taste for adventure more pronounced. Or maybe I just watched too much porn and it rotted my brain. Penny loved sex...once we started. She was absolute heaven in the sheets, the tight silken feel of her was a feeling that lodged in your brain for days, knocking out all other thoughts. She was lively and multi-orgasmic, vocal and limber. But very, very, tired and worn down. In the previous years I'd thrown the toys out of the pram about our frequency but had learned to live with a simmering edge of frustrated desire. It got to me and I wasn't always great with it. My moods would fluctuate wildly - I would be glowering, miserable and, in all honesty, depressed one week, then suddenly sunny once we had re-connected. It wasn't good and I knew it.

She was a frustrating enigma. Penny was one of those people that everyone loved. She was a pillar of the community, serving as a governor at our kids school, sitting on the parish council, running the village day care centre and volunteering for every event that took place. Children especially adored her, following her around and clustering about her wherever she went. She was a fantastic mother. I really shouldn't have anything to complain about. I was punching way above my weight.

My name is John, and, to put it bluntly, I'm fairly average. Average height, average weight, average shoe size--if there's a baseline for mediocrity, I've probably got a stamp of approval from it. The worst part? Every time I try to buy something to wear, it's always sold out in my size, as if the entire population shares the exact same dimensions as me. It's a cruel joke, really.

I've managed to keep myself in decent shape, mostly because I've used the gym as my personal coping mechanism--whether or not that's a healthy strategy is still up for debate, but at least it's working. In my younger days, I was *above* average, particularly when it came to looks. I didn't exactly struggle for attention from women--if anything, I could take it or leave it. But time, as it does, has had its way with me. The regression to the mean, as I like to call it, has been inevitable. Of course, it hasn't been quite as brutal for Penny.

I work in middle management at a university, and I do well enough. It's a steady job, nothing to write home about, but it pays the bills and keeps things ticking along. Really, I should be content--grateful, even. I've got a nice home, healthy kids, and a gorgeous wife. Penny, my prize, has always been the jewel in the crown. She was *actually* Prom Queen at her school--yes, the whole tacky American cliché, and yes, I tease her about it constantly. That said, I can't help but admire how, even after all these years, she's still the sort of woman that everyone notices, effortlessly radiant, like she just stepped out of some glossy magazine cover.

But here I am--*average* John--standing next to her. And though I know I've won the lottery in life, there's a quiet, persistent longing in me, the kind you get when you know you're the *sidekick* in your own story. And let's face it, the sidekick rarely gets the happy ending.

And I was not content. You see, the problem was that I'd seen another side to Penny in the first years we had been together, one that was wilder and more adventurous than the one that was regal and bordering on saintly now and I missed it, craved it.

When we were still at university, we took our first holiday together--a week in Majorca, in a villa with a pool. I'd worked like a madman, pulling every shift I could to save up for it. It was supposed to be the ultimate escape, and it lived up to every expectation. The days bled into each other with sun-drenched afternoons spent sipping sangria by the pool, and nights that stretched on forever--sex under the stars on our balcony, the warm night air curling around us.

The villa itself was tucked away, part of a small cluster of holiday rentals, but our room felt like it existed in its own little world. The balcony jutted out over a quiet street, offering us a private slice of paradise. Penny, at nineteen, was mischievous and wild in a way that made everything feel electric. She was the kind of beautiful that turned heads, an effortless ten by any standard, with a body that seemed made for that sun-kissed heat. Her eyes, always glinting with some unspoken promise, made everything feel like a dare--an invitation to cross a line, to test the limits.

She wasn't just gorgeous; she had that wildness, that *edge* that made her irresistible, pulling me into a world that was as unpredictable as it was intoxicating. I couldn't get enough.

One night, after a boozy dinner and a few more cocktails on the balcony, she smiled and pulled the strings of her summer dress and I watched it ripple down her breasts, her flat firm belly and down to her hips. She slithered to her knees and pulled down my shorts, releasing my raging hard on. The vision of her lips curling around my member is one of my fondest memories. She rarely gives blowjobs so I burned the vision of her on her knees into my memory. It was heart-pulsing enough as it was but as she got a good pace going, I noticed a flickering light on one of the balconies opposite, just up the hill. Someone was watching us. I debated saying nothing.

"Penny."

"Hmmnph."

"Someone is watching us from across the street."

I'd expected her to jump up, cover her swinging tits and bolt for the room. But she surprised me, diving down on my cock again with renewed vigour, and I watched, entranced, as her hand snaked down between her legs and she fingered herself, moaning. I did not last long and I grunted, knowing she hated to swallow. "I'm going to cum!"

She pulled me out in the nick of time and I erupted over her tits, rope after rope after rope - the hosing down only a twenty one year old could manage. She knelt, gasping as she moaned in her own climax. She winked up at me and laughed, standing without any self consciousness and turning to look behind her, her breasts glazed with my cum in the moonlight. "I don't see anyone," she said, matter of factly as she stepped back into the air conditioned room.

Then there was the beach visit a summer later. In the south of France this time, the weather was scorching and the scene held a movie-set glamour. Our exams over and a lease secured on our first flat together, we were in a buoyant, celebratory mood. We had just finished a boozy lunch in a cafe and had strolled down the wide and well kept promenade to find a spot on the beach. Penny had shocked me when we got to the golden sand by dropping her bikini top and walking around with her tits out. She was wearing a wide brimmed hat and movie-star sunglasses. "I'll never see these people again," she said, smirking a little. "Besides, I feel a prude otherwise." She was right - almost every other woman on the beach was topless. She squirted cream into her hands and rubbed them into her pert breasts which stood out sharply white against the tanned line of her neck, back and abs. The beach was heaving and the air was still. We walked for what seemed like miles and, it being France, Penny got some very frank stares and lingering looks from the men. Later I would come to realise that it might have been this moment that crystalised my kink. I didn't feel jealous or protective - something I used to experience a lot as a young and dumb teenager with my first girlfriends. On the contrary, I was finding myself more and more aroused. Every appreciative glance from a man or a woman ratched up my excitement further until I had to dive into the sea to stem my raging hard on. There was something about the way my blonde shieldmaiden of a girlfriend drew attention that electrified me. I drank up the stares and my breath caught short. I ended up dragging her back to the holiday apartment and taking her twice, to her amusement and slight irritation, as it threw out her sightseeing plans.