This is a continuation of the story Never Again! from last June. It doesn't have to be read first, but it would probably be helpful.
*****
It was early November, and the weather was cold and raw. The first few flurries of the season had been flying, though nothing was sticking on the ground yet. And Jean was feeling about as frigid as the weather.
Her sex life had been boring for her entire life. She'd had a few lovers in college, but they never really did anything for her. Then she'd married Jim, who did everything he could for her in bed, but that really wasn't all that great either. Jim was really good at eating her pussy, but that was the only way she'd ever gotten off. When he was done with that, he'd move up and they'd copulate, but that was when Jim got his rocks off; Jean never did, not that way.
Until that one far out Friday night and Saturday morning, in New York. In Manhattan for a producers' conference, she'd been picked up by a guy named Jason, another conference attendee. Jason was probably a player, but whether he was or not, he'd sure played her, and she wound up having her first ever orgasms, orgasms plural, from intercourse, Friday and Saturday in her hotel room, and even on the nude beach at Sandy Hook early Saturday afternoon. Jason was handsome, fit, and, at somewhere around 35, younger than Jean.
Jean had told the story to her friend Margo the next week, unable to keep it bottled up inside her. She had felt a bit guilty, though not all that much, after she first got home, and swore to herself that cheating on her husband would never happen again. Now, as the months wore on, she was feeling guiltier about having cheated, but also more frustrated that sex with Jim was the same old, same old. It had been one thing when her sex life wasn't anywhere near as exciting as the heroines in romance novels had, before she had sampled the forbidden fruit and found out that she really was capable of having mind-blowing sex herself.
November 16
th
, 2017, her 45
th
birthday. Jim was at work, and the kids were at school. Usually Margo came over for coffee, on the days Jean didn't have to be in to the station for the early shows, in her kitchen rather than out on the deck, now that the weather had turned cold. It'd be a few more minutes before Margo got there, and Jean was standing in front of her full-length mirror, naked, appraising her mom bod. Yup, there was too much of it, at size 12, and closer to the size 14 side than toward size 10. Her boobs sagged, and she had stretch marks, faded but still there, on her belly after two kids. She hadn't even shaved her legs or her pits in a week. That wasn't really a surprise: there had been a couple of winters where she hadn't shaved at all from November through the end of March, when it started getting warmer, but Jim had never complained. "I guess I can see why Jim is disappointed," she said to herself, all the while remembering that if Jason had any complaints, he kept them to himself.
Of course, Jason's 35-year-old hard body had Jim's 46-year-old dad bod beat by a mile; the physical nature of Jim's job hadn't kept him from getting a bit thicker around the waist, though he was really strong.
Well, it was time to put something on, because Margo would be there any second.
So, Jean pulled on a pair of flannel pajamas and a fuzzy robe and house shoes, then headed down to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. Jim always got his morning coffee at the local bagel shop, so she never got up early to make it for him. Between them, Margo and Jean would drink about six cups, so she set the coffee maker for that amount, and got it going. Two mugs with cinnamon sticks in them, were set on the kitchen bar, waiting for the coffee to finish brewing.
And then, in popped Margo, right on time. "I've got us some goodies," she announced, as she came through the door. Margo and Jean never knocked, they just entered each other's houses freely. "Popovers, fresh from the over. Break out the butter, while they're nice and hot."
The popovers were good, and so was the coffee, as they sat here and talked about nothing. Margo knew about Jean's adventure with Jason, but had, fortunately, not spread the gossip. She trusted Margo, but if any of the other neighborhood wives had found out, there's no way it would have remained a secret for long. As far as Jean knew, Jim had never cheated on her, and she was sure that he'd be devastated if he ever found out about her tryst with Jason. Oh, he probably wouldn't leave her, but it would surely change everything, and not in a good way.
What Jean needed was a change, but a good one. After their morning coffee, and Margo's departure, Jean started looking on the internet, trying to find ways to spice up their sex life. She was 45, and her periods were getting irregular; that meant that menopause wasn't all that far off. If she didn't do something, now, what did she have to look forward to, other than a slowly dwindling sex life with a man she loved, but didn't really excite her that much anymore.
Cosmopolitan, Glamour, even Women's Day websites didn't seem to offer much; all of their articles in spicing up your sex life seemed to start from the assumption that you once had a great sex life, and you just needed to get back to how you did things when you were younger. Of course, Cosmo suggested that if your husband couldn't take care of you, it was time to find another man.
Then, Jean stumbled upon an unusual article. It doesn't matter what kind of problems you have, it said, to solve them you had to start from the position that they were all your fault. Fix everything that you have the power to fix yourself before you ever start blaming other people.
Was that it, was that they key? Did she need to assume that because Jim couldn't ever get her to cum through intercourse didn't mean that he was a poor lover, but that she was? It didn't seem real, because she hadn't changed anything, when Jason had rocked her world. But maybe that was how she needed to organize her thoughts if she wanted to change things.
Of course, by then it was time to get going to work.
Jean was a news producer for a small-market television station, and rotated between morning shifts, doing the early morning and then noon news shows, and the 5:30/6:00 evening news, followed by the 11:00 PM show. In a small market station, that often meant having to do double-duty as the director as well. Advance show prep for the evening shift meant getting in a 2:00 PM, and working until between 11:30 and midnight. Small market also meant that producers and directors didn't work Monday through Friday, but had to do some weekend work as well. Today was Friday, and she already had both Saturday and Sunday evenings shifts scheduled. She'd get off Monday and Tuesday, but she'd still have to work the weekend days that Jim had off. Jean had a really good job for that area, but sometimes it just plain sucked.
It also meant that Jim and she didn't have that much time together. Her husband owned, and personally ran, a small construction company. That meant that he left the house at 6:00 every weekday morning, and frequently on Saturdays as well. When she had the later shift at the station, she didn't get home until midnight or half-past, and Jim was already asleep; when she had the early shift, she had to leave at 3:30 in the morning. She usually had two days off a week, and really, those were the only days she saw her husband in more than passing. Economically, they had a good life, with an upscale house - though not a mansion by any means - in an upscale, safe neighborhood - their children well-provided-for, and 401(k) plans which were doing very well. They had everything they needed for a great, American-dream life together other than time to be together.
Was that what made her cheat on Jim, that they weren't together enough? Well, it certainly didn't help matters, but blaming it on that was kind of like blaming it on Jim, and it was her career, not his, that had the terrible hours that kept them apart. No, like the article said, the only way to fix your problems is to assume that you are entirely responsible for them, and not to blame other people.
And that meant accepting full responsibility for their poor sex life as well.
Jean started evaluating the problems in her head as she drove to work. She could get dispassionate when looking at things, from a career that consisted of doing news shows on fatal car wrecks, crime, drug addiction and every other sort of newsworthy scandal that became public. The news shows usually ended with some sort of happy-ending fluff story, but those seemed almost rote to her.
So, what was the real difference between Jason and Jim? Jason was good-looking, with really soulful eyes, eyes she had told Margo made women melt, but Jim was attractive as well, though in a different way. Jason had that tousled, bedhead hair, while Jim kept his cut in a military-fade, a style which kept him cooler on hot, sunny jobsites, but suited him well. They were right at the same height, with Jim maybe just a shade taller, and, equipmentwise, Jason's oh-so-wonderful cock wasn't noticeably bigger than Jim's. She had noticed that Jason's stuck straight out when he was hard, something Jim's didn't do, but her husband didn't seem to have any problems getting hard.
And really, despite Jason getting her off so strongly, he wasn't any marathon man who lasted for hours; Jim could last as long as Jason did.
She was pulling into the employee lot behind the station as she thought about that part, and mentally filed that away for further study.
Today's news was all about sex. The Harvey Weinstein story was still big news, and the allegations against a special election candidate for a Senate seat from Alabama that he had been trying to seduce teenaged girls when he was in his thirties had been public for about a week. Sexual harassment claims against actor Kevin Spacey had been made, and Spacey came out as gay. Old stories about Bill Clinton were being publicized again by Republicans, as well, while Democrats kept reminding people of Donald Trump's "grab 'em by the pussy" comment. Wherever Jean looked, the news was reminding her about sex, and her own dissatisfaction with it.
That made her worry about Jim. All of the harassment allegations had one thing in common: they were all made against men! Of course, men were expected to be the aggressors in sex, no matter what the feminists said should be the case. She never had any reason to suspect her husband of groping other women, much less actually cheating on her, but if he wanted to, he certainly could have, thanks to her shitty schedule.
Fortunately, there were no disasters today, and she managed to get out at 11:40, just a few minutes after the 11:00 PM news signed off. On the drive home, her mind picked up right where it left off before, pondering her sexual problems with Jim. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that the biggest issue was that she simply didn't expect to get off with Jim, where everything that Jason had done made her feel, all the way down to her toes, that he'd be fantastic in bed.
That was a revelation! Jim's behavior had to change a bit, to become more seductive toward her, but she could influence that by doing things differently herself. She could do this, she could control this!
What she needed now was a plan, and was forming in her head. Their lovemaking, as infrequent as it was, was always the same, nothing ever changed. What was it she had admitted to Jean, that they never undressed each other, that they had never, even once, tried doggy or any other interesting positions. It was almost always missionary, though sometimes with her on top, and Jim always ate her to orgasm before climbing up and in.
