I spotted her the moment I walked in. She told me online what she would be wearing, and what she looked like.
Soft beige blouse, tan slacks, shoulder length dark hair, no one else even came close.
I saw her eyes meet mine in the mirror behind the bar, a soft smile crossed her lips.
Certainly pretty, no doubt about that. She looked to be the 35 years of age she had claimed to be.
Why was I even here? I really didn't know, just curious I suppose. My plan was for it to be another chapter in the book I was trying to write, the one digging into human relationships, sexuality, the reasons for the things people do.
"Are you Tia?" I asked as I approached. Her nickname, short for Tianna. A pretty name, I thought.
"Sam? Yes, nice to meet you." She held out her hand, it was soft, slightly moist like she had used some kind of lotion on them.
"So how is the book coming?" I asked her. Tia was also working on a book, a children's thing about a baby Lamb and how it has been raised by people, then made it's way in the world.
We had met on a budding writer's website, a strange way to meet I suppose. She had posted a couple of chapters and they were good. My rancher's background was what had teased my interest in her.
We had ended up in private chat, we all know how those can go.
Yes, some of that got pretty personal. It even got to the point where I had suggested using web cams but she didn't have one, then when we discovered we were less than 500 hundred miles apart, Tia had suggested we meet.
By then I knew she was married, and I knew some of her situation.
Married at age 22, now a full time caretaker for her husband, badly wounded in some silly conflict. Confined to a wheelchair, and unable to be a husband, a partner, at least in any normal sense, their lives interested me.
The possibility of sex crossed my mind. I had already done some experimentation, rationalizing that in my own mind as needing to experience it to be able to write about it.
So, I went out and searched for the experiences.
+++
There was the older woman, one could call her a cougar I guess. She invited me to her hotel room, while her husband sat in the lounge.
I went.
What was he thinking, feeling while we engaged in sex? She was his wife, his mate, and I was fucking her and he knew it.
I knew what half of that was like, I still somehow needed to figure out the emotions of the other half.
Not having a mate of my own, I knew it was going to be difficult. I felt that if someone was with a wife of mine, I would probably shit a brick.
Yet the other way around didn't bother me one bit.
I was rationalizing that as research.
There was also the pretty overly eager young lady that I enjoyed, all while her partner sat and watched.
That one was briefly problematic for me, knowing I was supposed to perform created a situation where it was not all that easy. But she knew what she was doing, and finally we did get the deed done.
The young lady acted very pleased, I did see why when I saw her husband was masturbating and the term, "less than endowed" would fit nicely.
I am about normal in that department, next to him I was huge!
Less than satisfying for me, but I did manage to get the experience down on paper.
It hit me that her husband compensated for his own feelings of being inadequate by having her do things at his bidding.
But then the lady was very eager, which conflicted with that.
There was more, lots more. Some were wonderful, some less so, all of them were interesting.
It all fascinated me, the things human beings do and think. We see people walking down the street, normal. Dressed, acting like everyone else, going on with their daily lives.
In private, and sometimes not so private, different things entirely happen.
The matronly lady and her husband? Who would even dream that the night before they lay naked with others, engaging in things willingly that were they made public might shock?
Lying there allowing a stranger's penis to invade the most intimate part of her body, yet in public no one would ever dream such a thing could happen?
I had seen a lot of that, been a part of some of it.
To me, that is fascinating.
+++
"I am stuck on the "X" portion." She told me.
I knew what she meant, there is no animal with a name that begins with that letter that I could find.
I even took the time to look.
Tia was also an artist, her drawings of each animal that had a name beginning with the letters of the alphabet were beautiful, she had sent some of them to me. The letters of the animal's name formed the body, that really was different.
The experiences of a baby Lamb, as it went through life and met each and every one. She made the animals seem nearly human in a way, brief bursts of text in children's terms, the illustrations a thing of beauty.
Her work was fascinating, yet completely at odds with the thing I was writing. My own work seemed pitiful to me.
The two of us were completely different, yet somehow we became drawn to each other.
"You may need to come up with something else, use that to close the piece." I had suggested.
"Perhaps have the Lamb suffer a fall, then see the Vet for an...X-ray?" I offered.
Tia had written back that it sounded like a great idea, so I was pleased with myself.
Writer's hangups, it is fairly easy for a person to write themselves into a corner with no way out that makes sense, lord knows I have been guilty of that.
"How are you doing on yours?" Tia asked me. I could tell she was relaxing, the initial blush had left her face.
We both knew why we were here.
"It's going OK, I still do not completely understand the male mindset."
We had discussed that, how her life was completely devoid of sex. In words, sent online to someone, it is fairly easy to be blunt.
Once the "send" button is touched, it is out there, all done.
"Tom loves me, that is a big part of it. He wants me to be happy, content."
I knew all about that, of course, Tia had told me her husband was no longer capable of having sex. He had been the one to make the suggestion, that Tia find a partner, a nice person to fulfill her needs.
The scenario interested me, it was different.
I thought I had the beginnings of understanding what is known as cuckoldry, that is a desire.
Illicit in the terms of society's standards but extremely common.
So different from simple voyeurism, or being an exhibitionist. Everyone has something, some trigger that sets them off.
Sex is the one thing that all people have in common, in one form or another.
It was what I was hoping to capture in my book, the feelings and sensations that hide behind the facade all of us wear.
In Tia and her husband's case, it was not a personal desire, it was a love of one partner for another, a man who wished his mate to know life to the fullest.
His own inability bled over into the person he love's life, meaning she had to suffer his pain.
A way out was perhaps, me?
Tia and I talked, quietly. She sipped her drink, it was the only one she had. I was careful myself, stopping at less than half of my second one.
Alcohol and sex do not mix well, that was something I knew well from my college days.
There was a postage stamp dance floor, music playing. I asked her to dance, she slipped into my arms easily.
Sometimes people just fit on the dance floor, it was like that with Tia. We moved easily as one, when the second tune ended she looked up at me with a bright smile.
"I am ready." She said simply.
I took her hand, led her to my vehicle.
I already knew she had taken a cab, so no car to figure out how to get home.
"It's two miles to 3rd street, turn right and it's the 4th house on the right." She told me when I gave her a questioning glance.
We hadn't discussed where, my hotel room or somewhere else?
"Does your husband want to watch?" I asked. Things were completely clear between us what we were going to do.
