The room was filled with an eerie light that Sunday morning as I sat on a stool in the kitchen, my laptop open on the table in front of me, the house surrounded by a snowy white blanket.
It was mid-January, two weeks into the New Year and unusually for England, we were having a proper winter. Well used to grey skies and constant drizzle throughout the winter months, we English aren't used to cold, snowy weather so the recent falls had caught the nation by surprise. As it was the weekend and we had nowhere special to go, it made a pretty and pleasant change.
My husband Pete was still asleep upstairs and would probably remain so for at least another hour. The ironing was done, the kitchen was clean and tidy so I had no reason not to spend time on my writing and doing a little online investigation into the important subject that had been dominating both my and my husband's thoughts for the last month; our new-found lifestyle.
And what lifestyle might appeal to a normal, outwardly boring, middle-class, middle-aged professional couple with two grownup children? Healthy eating? Exercise? Vegetarianism?
Don't you believe it; sometimes I couldn't believe it myself but it was true.
Only two months ago I had become a Hotwife and my husband a Cuckold. I was being regularly fucked by another man and Pete was letting it happen.
For a long time, wife sharing had been the main feature in our bedroom fantasies. Many times Pete had insisted that, as he seemed unable to provide me with the orgasms we both wanted, it would be okay if I took a lover who could. Indeed he had been trying to persuade me to sleep with another man for well over a year before, two months ago and unknown to him, it had finally happened.
In early November, after over twenty years of marriage I had become an unfaithful wife for the first time when my affair with Tony, a long-time family friend began.
Despite Pete's continual urging, when my first act of infidelity actually occurred it had been entirely unplanned. As a result it had been crude, feral, short-lived - and an absolutely incredible experience.
I had bumped into Tony, one of our closest family friends on a train returning from London. I had been writing one of my erotic stories on my laptop at the time so was already more than a little aroused, especially as one of the main characters had been based on him. Tony had offered me a lift home, had given me his usual over-friendly kiss and 'farewell fondle' but this time, for some reason I hadn't moved his hands away from my bottom. This time I had just let nature take its course.
That course involved us both falling precipitously into a pit of lust. He had stripped me, groped me, fingered me and fucked me passionately in our lounge, on the floor, still half dressed. I can still vividly remember the unbelievable, unexpected and overwhelming sensations that had rippled through my body when for the first time since our marriage another man's unfamiliar, erect cock had actually entered my body.
I could remember even more clearly how incredible it had felt a short while later to have that man ejaculate inside me, to feel the throbbing of his ugly, stubby but oh-so-thick cock in my over-sized vagina as it pumped his seed into my stunned but highly accepting body.
From there we had embarked on a passionate affair until, a month later and unable to stand the guilt any longer, I had confessed all to my husband in bed. Pete had been trying once again to persuade me to take a lover but although my infidelity was in theory his dream come true, the reality had hit him hard.
After the worst three nights of my life - alone and awake in our marital bed while Pete slept first in the guest room then spent the next two nights somewhere I was yet to discover - my extraordinary husband had told me that, subject to three strict conditions, he could live with the situation.
I could keep both my lover and my husband.
And so I had become a Hotwife, Pete had become a willing cuckold and our lives had taken a dramatic change. So far it had been for the better; our new lifestyle was barely two months old but it was almost unbelievable how we had fitted so easily and seamlessly into it.
But I couldn't be complacent; it was very much still a novelty for all three of us. How things would develop over time remained to be seen but thanks to my researches, the readers of my online erotic stories and most of all, my real-life cuckold online friends, I was already aware of many of the risks involved.
Unfortunately that didn't mean I wasn't over-confident about how well everything was proceeding; I had my loving handsome husband, my gorgeous, thick-cocked lover and my home and family all at the same time.
How could things possibly be any better?
Little did I realise I was going to make some very ill-advised decisions over the coming weeks but as I sat at my laptop that January morning, life looked bright.
I looked at the new smart phone alongside my laptop. Tony had given it to me as a late Christmas present so that he and I could communicate in private. There was no point upsetting Pete for no good cause, I reasoned, and the covert nature of our highly sexualised chats could remain between the two of us.
It was the first bad decision.
Tony and I had been messaging each other several times a day, the subject almost always being sex. His latest had come well after midnight when my husband had been asleep. I had replied secretly from underneath the duvet. Tony wanted to see me desperately; the message-sex we were indulging in wasn't doing the job for him and he was feeling frustrated.
To be honest, so was I. My dates with Tony had been put on temporary hold for a week or so for a somewhat embarrassing reason. I hope readers will forgive me going into a subject some might find distasteful but the truth was that I was having a heavy version of one of my increasingly erratic and unpredictable 'times of the month'.
Periods are fundamental to a woman's existence but are almost never referred to in erotic literature. In the same way that John Wayne's revolver never runs out of bullets in the movies, so women in erotica are never unavailable for sex if the opportunity arises! The only time periods are ever mentioned is when their absence indicates an unexpected and usually unwelcome pregnancy.
In my case, at the age of fifty-one I was both surprised and pleased at the evidence of my continued fertility. My mother's menopause had come late and it appeared mine was going to come even later. Most of my friends were already complaining about hot flushes, talking about HRT, had angry bad tempers and an almost complete lack of interest in sex.
The contrast with me and my condition could not have been more marked.
After my husband's vasectomy many years earlier, we had abandoned all forms of birth control, apart from the occasional novelty condom. The ribbed and studded ones could bring a real thrill to our lovemaking. Tony had also been 'snipped' so my middle-aged body was free of artificial hormones and sex with both men could be worry-free and unimpeded by latex.
Skin on skin; flesh on flesh! As it should be!
The idea that, in theory at least, a man's seed could still make a baby in my belly had led to many exciting fantasies with my husband prior to my affair and to my sessions with Tony now. Add to that my lifelong insistence that all sex must end up with me being properly inseminated and you had a heady mixture of lust and the danger of illicit conception to add to the pure physical pleasure of uninhibited, uncomplicated sex.
Disappointed by my unavailability, Tony had insisted he didn't care, telling me that he and his estranged wife Julie had routinely fucked throughout all her periods. That told me rather more than I wanted to know about the sex drive one of my closest friends; a woman my age who was currently involved in a scandalous affair with a Personal Trainer twenty years her junior.
Prior to her affair, it would have been hard to imagine that china-doll-pretty mother being interested in anything as sordid as sex. Her well-publicised affair had abruptly changed all that and this news about her inability to take a week off fucking each month added powerful new images I found hard to digest.
But whatever Tony was used to, mid-period sex was definitely not for me so for the first time since our affair had begun he had to cope without fucking me for a whole week.
I would be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed too, but at least it gave me more time to write. The sexual madness that had taken place over Christmas and New Year had been bewildering and I needed a break to get a grip on reality again. It had also given my imagination a renewed sharpness, providing the inspiration for several new and exciting stories so, despite the disappointment I was looking forward to it.
I hunched over the screen of my laptop, opened my secret author's email address and smiled; there were half a dozen messages, several of which were from my real-life cuckold friends. Only three of my oldest pen-pals knew the situation my husband and I were really in. All had been real life cuckolds for many years and I valued their advice highly; it had stood me in good stead so far.
I opened the first message; it was from Simon, a widower in his seventies from Australia whose late wife had cuckolded him happily for most of their marriage. As I started reading, I realised how much I still had to learn from the voice of experience, especially when it came to understanding how my husband must be feeling.
Had I listened to that advice more assiduously, I might have avoided a lot of trouble in the coming months.
In the fortnight since New Year, I had spent three full evenings with Tony, all in his apartment and all with my husband's agreement. Tony's kids had gone back to their respective jobs, girlfriends or Universities either just before or just after New Year's Eve so he and I had been able to find a bit of privacy after the hectic activities of the Christmas period.
