Nora and I have recently celebrated our fifth anniversary. More than a year ago we began to speak frankly about how our sexual energy and satisfaction had diminished and about potential ways to revive it. The chapters in "Nora's Journey: Embracing an Erotic Life"" describe our experiences in doing so. More of the emphasis is on Nora than on myself, though I have been a partner in most of this since our marriage.
The first six chapters describe what Nora refers to as "significant episodes and relationships" in the evolution of her sexual life up to our meeting six years ago when she was 24 and I was 29. To recall them she drew heavily on diaries she has kept since she was eighteen and on other notes describing some particularly "meaningful" (her word) sexual experiences before we met.
Chapters seven to thirteen describe our erotic life together as a married couple, including Nora's sexual experiences, all but one in the past year, with other men with my approval and sometime with my participation.
Nora began to reveal her "before we met" experiences to me only recently though I had long asked her to tell me about her erotic life before we met. She told me she had been reserved until now for several reasons.
"James, I have been reluctant to describe my prior sexual experiences because our relationship has been so close and so untroubled; I could not see what would be gained by revealing earlier passions with other partners. Plus, some of my earlier experiences I find embarrassing, even frightening. I have felt this is an area of my life I own and really isn't any of your business, James. I have not asked you to reveal your earlier sexual life to me."
Then, one evening only a few days later, as we sat over drinks after dinner, Nora surprised me by saying she was prepared to respond to my request. "James, I have decided I will share with you what I recall about at least a few of my sexual experiences before we met. After thinking hard about this I believe I need to do this now and it will be helpful to both of us if I do. I hope both of us will find this arousing, the telling and the listening. I hope you will record what I tell you."
She told me later the main catalyst for her finally sharing "selected significant" events from her sexual history was our mutual need to better understand our sexual attitudes and hopes and needs as we were consider our future together, sexual and otherwise. She decided her past might indicate to me more about what the future might bring.
The particular timing, I am sure, had much to do with deciding whether she wanted to begin a sexual relationship with Adrian Benton (see chapter eight and beyond) and, if so, would I approve her decision and what this would mean to our marriage. I believe she wanted me to understand she had engaged in highly erotic, sometimes extreme, sexual activities before we met and for me not to be surprised if she wanted something like that again.
Following the chapters based on her "before we met" revelations, I have included my perspective on the first time, so far as I am aware, Nora had sex with another man since she became my wife. This coupling (chapter seven) came about largely through my own instigation and my miscalculation of the latent desires of Nora and my best friend, Andrew.
Most of the recent chapters describe our sexual lives as a successful young Chicago husband and wife and our relationship, especially Nora's, with an older man, Adrian Benton, with whom she is having an affair--with my support. Some of these episodes involve Adrian directly with Nora, often with me present; others he suggests to us and sometimes arranges them for us.
