Portrait of a Modern Marriage

Part 3

Explanations & Realisations

Tentatively I knocked on the door to our master suite and waited for my estranged wife to answer.

"Come in Bob!" her voice soft, muffled by the closed door.

I opened the door and walked slowly into what had been, up until my infidelity, our haven of peace and tranquillity, our place for relaxing away from the pressures of our lives. Recently it had just been Claire's sanctuary, somewhere for her to go and not have to face me or the grief I had caused her.

It was much warmer than I remembered, much warmer than when I had been responsible for setting the heating temperature.

"Claire?.... May I come in?" I asked her quietly, conceding that I now needed her permission to enter what had once been 'our' space.

"Of course Bob, I asked you to come to me didn't I?" My wife replied, her voice not at all harsh as I had expected, but soft, and even tired sounding. "Why don't you sit on the sofa and I'll get us a drink and join you." she carried on as she rose from the king-size bed, closing the magazine she had been reading and placing it on her bedside table.

"Scotch?" she asked.

"Yes please my love," I replied, immediately noticing a flash of anger cross her face at my endearment.

Thankfully she didn't mention her annoyance and brought my drink over, together with the gin and tonic she had already been drinking.

"We have to talk!"

There it was. Her agreement for us to try and sort out what had happened to us in the weeks since I had first betrayed our love. The relief I felt was overwhelming. I loved my wife with all my being and wanted nothing more than for us to get back to where we had been before my infidelity.

"Yes!... Yes we do need to talk! I love you so much, I just want to put all this crap behind us and get back to our loving family." I replied, my voice firm with the determination I felt to get everything back on track.

"That may take us quite a while, we have both done some things we shouldn't have and we may never be able to forgive each other."

I was secretly surprised at her words. -

'We'

– That was the first time since the whole sordid betrayal and retribution had started that she had even hinted that she had done something wrong herself.

Cautiously I answered her, "We certainly have my darling, do you really think we have a chance?"

This time there was no expression of annoyance, instead perhaps the trace of a tear forming in the corner of her eye. "Oh my god Bob!... I certainly hope so, I don't want us to lose what we have. We have both done some terrible things to each other and I hope with all of my heart we can both forgive."

She came over to me then, hugging herself into my chest, crying softly for the first time in my presence since the whole sordid episode began. "Let's just get in bed and cuddle, I've missed that more than anything."

Shyly (we were both nervous and more than a little tense) I undressed. Claire had on a white t-shirt and a pair of sleep shorts which she kept on, so I just undressed to my boxers and t-shirt, not wishing to go further than she was comfortable with. She smiled slightly as I slipped into bed beside her, then turned her back to me so I could 'spoon' with her. Putting my arms around her, I softly pulled her upper body back towards mine, being careful not to make any contact between us below the waist, nervous as to what her reaction would be to such intimacy. Thankfully she wriggled back into my embrace, her bottom feeling wonderful against my groin.

I could feel her gently sobbing, her body shaking slightly in my arms, "Oh Bob!....What on earth have we done?....Why did it get so far?"

"I'm so sorry Claire my darling, can you forgive me?" I asked quietly, gently kissing the side of her neck as I whispered in her ear, "I hope with all my heart I haven't lost you."

She turned towards me then, kissing me chastely on the lips before sliding down slightly and snuggling her tear-stained face into my chest and pulling me tightly to her.

"We must be totally honest with each other, tell each other everything." She demanded, her voice slightly muffled by my chest.

"Of course my darling, I will tell you everything you want to know," I assured her, "but are you really sure you want

all

the details?.... Can you really accept everything I did?"

Pulling her head away from me, she looked me directly in the eye, "I have to know Bob, I really have to know everything!....Why you felt the need for someone else? What did I do to make you betray our love?"

She pounded my chest with her clenched fists, shaking her side from side to side, "Was our sex-life really so bad?" she sobbed again, pulling me close and crying on my shoulder.

"Oh my god Claire!... It was absolutely nothing to do with you....With us...I was just so fucking weak!... You have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about or responsible for. I was to blame; me and that bitch from across the road!...."

She pulled away from me, her eyes flashing angrily at the mere mention of the

'other'

woman, "Tell me everything.... I want to know what you did, when you did it, and especially why you did it.... Can you understand?... I

NEED

to know fucking everything!"

She turned her back to me again then, "Please Bob, just tell me."

And so I did.

I told her almost everything. How I'd been seduced with that blow-job unwittingly at my birthday party; how 'the bitch' had come to our house knowing full well that Claire was out, naked apart from her coat; how I became infatuated with her and how many times we had met; and finally, most of what we had done together.

Through all this Claire had listened, sobbing gently in my arms, occasionally commenting on the morals and attitude of 'that fucking cow', several times her body tensing against mine. Eventually I finished, I didn't really want to go into all the gruesome details, not wanting to upset my wife any more than was necessary and hoped that what I'd told her would be enough.

Claire slowly calmed down, her sobbing tears drying up. She pulled my arm from around her and turned to face me, keeping a significant distance between us.

"Is that really all?" she asked, "Have you told me everything?"

I hesitated with my reply and she obviously sensed my reticence. "I told you Bob, If we are to get back, I must know everything... You haven't given me any reasons for what you did. Why it was so easy for her to seduce you. What it was about her that made you want to risk our whole life together."

"Oh Claire...Are you really sure?" I asked, trying to pull her close to me again.

Pushing me away, her eyes flashed with anger as she demanded firmly, "Everything Bob, fucking everything!"

And so I carried on, my eyes closed, my shame preventing me from looking into her angry gaze.

I told her how it was the sheer animal lust that drove me to do the things I did. How when she and I had sex, even though it was never less than wonderful, it was always 'making love' even when we just had a 'quickie'. How I found the absolutely debased nastiness of some of the things me and Belle did together appealing and how the bitch had unearthed desires I never even knew I had, even though I had never liked her and quite possibly actually hated her.

"What were those things Bob?... Why did you never ask me to try them? I don't think I have ever refused you anything apart from my arse, and only that because you are too big."

"I never even thought of them when I was with you Claire, they were things a man just doesn't do with his wife."

"Tell me." she demanded softly, her voice filled with angry curiosity.

So I told her. I told about the water-sports; how Bella had had me piss on her while she held her cunt open to receive my hot stream; how she had given me a blow-job in the open air when there was a great chance we could have been seen; how she had loved me taking her anally; and finally, how she had wanted me to hurt her, spanking her as hard as I could; how I had to twist her nipples as hard and cruelly as I was able while she came and how she had refused to use any form of 'safe' word to indicate when she couldn't take any more. I confessed how that inflicting the pain and humiliation that my lover had so obviously adored had unearthed feelings of domination in me that I was ashamed of and really wanted to suppress. Eventually, tears running down my face, I confessed to my wife just how much these activities had turned me on and how I had never cum so hard in my whole damn life.

Opening my eyes, I looked at my wife as she stared at me with utter bewilderment on her face,

"You really pissed on her cunt?... and did you enjoy that too?" she asked, astonishment plain in her voice

"Errr... Not really, although it did turn me on at the time. I found it very difficult to piss and aim with a hard-on." I replied, feeling my face redden with embarrassment.

Unable to prevent herself, Claire snickered "That is an image that will stay with me for a while,"

She then quizzed me on every detail, frequently getting annoyed and pummelling my chest in anger. Finally she got to the part where I said I had never been as turned on in my life, and after I had made a complete hash of trying to explain my feelings to her, she exploded in anger and demanded that I go back to the spare room again. Reluctantly I had complied, leaving my distraught wife sobbing her heart out, even though I was desperate just to cuddle her and make everything right.

Several hours later, after I had laid in bed unable to sleep, knowing that the woman I truly loved was just a few yards away in hysterics over the pain I had caused her, the door opened quietly and Claire crept into the room and slipped into the bed beside me.

I turned to face her, pulling her into my chest as I said softly, "I'm so sorry my darling, if I could just go back in time and make all this pain go away..."

She turned her back to me, allowing us to 'spoon' as she pulled my arm tightly around her and clasped my hand in both of hers, "Oh Bob, you stupid, stupid man, all you had to do was ask." she whispered.

* * * * * *

Mentally exhausted, I had fallen asleep after all that talking and confession. I awoke early the following morning with Claire wrapped around me for the first time in weeks – it felt wonderful. I rang into work as soon as the office opened and told Amy, my loyal secretary, that I would be taking the next couple of weeks off and to ask everyone else to cover for me.

Claire and I both took the kids to school that day for the first time in an absolute age, usually it would just have been one or the other of us. We did a little bit of shopping together, before returning home around 11am. There was still a great deal of awkwardness between us, making it difficult for us to talk as a normal married couple, despite the fact we were both determined to resolve our problems.

We had been skirting around the obvious elephant in the room for a couple of hours when, while we were having a sandwich for lunch, I finally plucked up the courage and calmly asked her outright, "Why the picture and the note Claire?.... That really did hurt you know!"

Surprised by my sudden change of subject, (we had been chatting about the kids) she burst into tears,

"I'm sorry Bob, I know that was just too cruel. I regretted it as soon as I'd sent it."

Casting my mind back to that awful letter, I remembered that it said it was from my wife's secret lover, and the thought immediately flashed into my mind as to why she would say that she regretted that

'she'

had sent it and not him.

"How do you mean 'you' sent it?" I asked, "I thought it was from him."

"I'm sorry Bob!... No it was me who sent it, he had no idea that I was going to do it."

"But why?... I know I hurt you but you had your revenge just by shagging him, why did you feel you had to humiliate me like that?" I asked, a little angrily.

"Because you hurt me so fucking much that's why!!! I wasn't thinking straight and I just wanted you to feel as bad as I did." she said testily, her voice rising a few decibels.

Retreating back into the calm manner with which I had first broached the subject, I realised there was more to this than met the eye and if I was going to find out the truth I would have to coax her rather than try and bully it out of her.

"I understand! I'm certain that I would have felt the same anger if circumstances had been the other way round and I had found out from a friend that you had been cheating on me. I feel so sorry and angry with myself for driving you to such lengths that you felt that way about me." I replied, speaking softly in order to try and keep the conversation under control.

We didn't speak again for a few minutes, each lost in our own thoughts as we finished our lunch. After putting the plates into the sink, we both went through into our lounge and automatically sat facing each other on the two sofas there. Silent with my deliberations, I remembered the last time we had been in there together. I started to think back to what happened a few nights previously when Claire had returned from her clandestine meeting with her lover after cuckolding me. I remembered vividly the events that transpired that night; how she had taunted me with her naked, sexually used body; and how she had taken me in that very room, taken me not only in her soiled pussy but also in her previously off-limits arsehole. Anger again rose in my chest as I went and sat next to her on the other sofa.

"Who is he Claire?....You said we had to tell each other everything and be totally honest with each other. I want to know who he is... I

NEED

to know who he is."

She buried her head in her hands, moving it from side to side in a gesture of defiance.

"Please Bob, just let it go. I don't want to upset you any more than I already have." she begged, her voice pleading and desperate.

"No!!!... I want you to tell me. If I don't know who he is I don't think I will ever be able to fully move on. I need to know if he a so-called friend, or some bloke you just happened to pick up. Just fucking tell me who the bastard is Claire!!!"

My voice betrayed the anger that had resurfaced in me as I snapped at my sobbing wife. Slowly she removed her hands from her face and straightened to look me in the eye.

"OK I'll tell you... But please promise me you won't do anything stupid. I don't want you to get into trouble with the police by going after someone that I just used as a cock donor and felt nothing for at all." my wife replied, plainly worried as to the consequences of her confession.

"I'm not a violent man Claire, I just need to know so I won't have him lording it over me if we meet again in the future." I said firmly, hoping beyond hope that he wasn't someone I had thought of as a friend.

Lowering her eyes and wringing her hands together, she finally said, almost whispering, "It was George."

"George?....George who?" I questioned, totally baffled, "I don't know any George.... Only....Oh My God Claire, not the fucking

babysitter

. He's just a kid for fucks sake!!!"

"He's damn well old enough!" she spat "I was out of practice at picking men up to fuck me remember!!!"

"But, I mean, how?....how on earth did you get him to fuck you? He's a complete nerd, all he ever does is play computer games."

"He's always had a 'thing' for me. I've caught him many times trying to look up my skirt or down my blouse. Somehow he always seemed to know when I was sunbathing in the back garden so I'm sure he spies on me from his bedroom window." she replied sheepishly, "I think maybe he has gone through my underwear drawer a couple of times when he has been babysitting too."

"Bloody Hell Sweetheart!!! We've been letting a

pervert

look after our kids."

"No we haven't" she laughed nervously, "He's a normal teenage boy. Didn't you try the same sort of things when you were his age? I'm sure you did."

I shrugged as I was forced to laugh myself at that, remembering all the times I had tried to spy on Mrs Jenkins next door when I was growing up.

"OK, maybe he's not such a pervert," I conceded reluctantly, "But I want to know all the details of what you did with him, just like you insisted on with me and Bella."

"OK...I'll tell you, but not now. Tonight when we are in bed and it's dark. It's too embarrassing and I don't want you looking at my face while I'm telling you." my very red-faced wife informed me.

Suddenly a worrying thought flashed through my brain, "Oh Shit!!! What about the picture? The little bastard will be showing it to all his mates and bragging about how he fucked a beautiful married woman and sent her home afterwards to her husband."

"Ah!... No he won't do that!... Firstly, he doesn't have the picture, I got him to take it on my phone, not his; and secondly, I told him if he ever wanted to fuck me again, he had better keep his mouth shut."

"WHAT???"

I screamed at her, "You're going to fuck him

again

???..."

"Of course not, but he doesn't have to know that does he?" she laughed, winking at me as she left the room.

* * * * * *

I sat alone with my thoughts. Claire had gone to pick the kids up from school, leaving me to go over in my confused mind exactly what we had talked about both earlier that day and the previous night. Had I done the right thing telling her what had happened? I hoped so, I hoped we could move on from there.

One thing was really confusing me though. Why, when I was feeling so angry and sad, so ashamed and sorry, why did I keep getting a hard-on that was so rigid it was actually painful? I thought back to how turned on I had been when my wife had left me to go on her date. How hard I got when I saw the state Claire was in when she had returned from her adulterous night. How turned on I had been also when I was looking at the pornographic photo of the woman I loved with all my heart, who had another man's cum dribbling out of her abused cunt. What was turning me on so much? Was I turning into some sort of perverted cuckold? Did I really enjoy my wife fucking another man? I was shocked and ashamed to have to admit to myself that, yes I did.... I was extremely jealous of the man, George as I now knew, I was terribly angry that she would do that to me, but yes, I found it extremely arousing!!!

I found all that extremely disturbing. I had never up to that point even considered the thought of my loving wife being with another man. The mere thought of it would have sickened the man I had been just a few short weeks before. So why the fuck was I entertaining such disgusting fantasies of my wife? I knew I didn't want to watch her while she was fucking someone else, I was also certain that I could never eat a so-called 'cream pie' out of her, but actually knowing that she was sharing her body, her pussy, her mouth, even her arse, with another man...Wow!!! that was so fucking horny.

* * * * * *

Claire had returned a short while later. We had had supper as a normal family would, laughing and joking about what the two little terrors had been up to at school before they played a few video games together until it was their bedtime. Claire and I had then watched a little TV together; her snuggled up to me on the sofa, just like before all our troubles had started. Eventually it was time for us to go to bed. Thankfully, no mention was made of me going to the spare bedroom, so we both performed our night-time ablutions and nervously got into our marital bed together.

Before I even had a chance to reach out for her, Claire had leant over and out of her bedside cabinet drawer had retrieved her sleep mask that she occasionally wore on the light nights of summer. Turning back to me, she carefully placed the mask over my forehead. Saying as she did so,