Running to Stand Still

The voice in her head just would not let up.

"Run..run...run...run...run..run..run...run....," That's all Sherry Mitchum had heard for the past 18 years.

Going all the way back to when she was a budding young track star in Huntsville, Texas, about an hour North of Houston, all the teenager seemed to hear, whether she was doing her homework, going to church, trying to eat or fall asleep was "RUN". The dedication to that one thing , whether it be as an athlete or now as a coach, was her main focus seemingly every waking moment for almost two decades.

Before she had married her college sweetheart and changed her name to Sherry Mitchum, she had been quite the local celebrity growing up in Huntsville by the name of Sherry Cranston.

Having lettered in cross-country and track for four years in high school, Sherry had been blessed with the good fortune to have her face plastered across the local sportspages and hometown TV station during the most socially conscious time of her adolescent development. If there ever was such a thing, Sherry was the quintessential "Big Girl on Campus".

After accepting a track scholarship to Rice University, one of Texas's finest private institutions, Sherry went on to a moderately successful four year stint on her college track team, finishing second in the 1500 meters two years in a row in the Southwest Conference Regionals during the late 80's.

Sometime early on during her Senior year however, the luster of everything she had worked for started to fade. While she still dedicated every ounce of energy she had to the team and her teammates in the process of leading Rice to a decent final season, there were many nights when she would lay awake in her dorm room and wonder where her youth had went.

One night, in the confusion of her jumbled thoughts, Sherry applied some crude math in her head, adding up every single mile she had estimated she'd ran. Taking into account all the practice she had done, the time spent on cross country tracks as well as on ovals since grade school, Sherry guessed she had ran enough miles to make it to Los Angeles, then to New York and then back home to Houston again. The cruel part of that realization, the one that struck Sherry to the core, was that with all that running, she was basically right where she started, without a clue of who she was or even who she wanted to be.

Sherry didn't exactly know when it had happened, but her childhood dream to run in the Olympics was now a distant personal joke. She had long harbored great fantasies of representing her country in the '92 Barcelona Olympic Games but when Sherry had arrived at college as a Freshman and realized every other girl on her team was as good, if not better than she was, Sherry knew deep inside that the actuality of being able to stand on a pedestal with a gold medal around her neck and the "Star Spangled Banner" playing would likely never happen.

* * * * *

Deeply immersed in her 'Senior Slump", Sherry's 22nd year of life was basically a foggy haze. Thankfully, she was a good enough student, even at a tough school like Rice, to get by academically. Once Sherry knew she was on cruise control, having enough credits to graduate, she alternated between trying to chart out a post graduation plan and losing herself in numerous alcohol binges.

The one thing Sherry did have going for her through the ups and downs of that time, was her relationship with the greatest guy in the world. During her Sophomore year, Sherry Cranston had met a really cute and down to Earth business major named Mark Mitchum, and their slow courtship had eventually led to him proposing to her and then marriage a year or so after graduation.

The one moment that seemed to snap Sherry out of her terrible Senior funk, more than anything else, was after a really really hard night of drinking and then puking her guts out right on the lawn in front of some of Mark's frat buddies, Mark had taken her inside, at what had to be a very embarrassing moment for him, and spent the entire next day nursing Sherry back to health. Knowing that if she had found a guy that would stick by her in that kind of a difficult spot, she had probably found her soulmate for life.

A few weeks after graduation, as she was going through the unenviable task of getting her resume together to go job hunting, another stroke of good fortune came Sherry's way. The only thing that scared Sherry more than staying near home and spending more time in the same rut she was in was the fear of what lay outside in the unsheltered world of the unknown. The Hell you know is better than the Hell you don't......

When she got a call one late June afternoon from her track coach, Gloria Monroe, Sherry jumped at the chance to stay with the Hell she knew. One of the Rice assistant coaches had accepted a more lucrative position at Texas A&M, leaving the Rice staff in a lurch.

When Coach Monroe offered her former athlete the position on the spot, Sherry quickly accepted.

Coaching had never been anything Sherry had seriously considered doing as a career, but it was a job and it was something Sherry knew intimately, if no longer passionately.

Mark had been getting positive feelers from several companies around Houston, so staying there wasn't the worst thing in the world, Sherry reasoned. Even though the coaching position only started out at $15,000 a year, Sherry knew that Mark's potential income would be sufficient to give the couple a good foundation so they could start building their life together.

Six years later as she looked back, Sherry, more times than not, felt she had made the right decision.

* * * * *

Laying in bed beside his loving and caring wife of almost six years, Mark smiled flirtatiously over to Sherry as she quietly graded papers from the Fitness and Nutrition class she taught when she wasn't coaching to supplement her income.

It had become a passionless, yet strangely romantic scene between the two for the past year or so. Both sitting up in bed, under the soft lamplight in their pajamas, just like Carol and Mike Brady, doing work for the next day, paying bills or reading the day's newspaper before flipping off the light, pecking each other on the cheek and then finally going to sleep.

Sometimes, if the mutual feeling struck, they would have sex but most of the time the exhausting rigors of the day outweighed their need to get their rocks off. Mark and Sherry usually rolled over and quickly nodded off.

As Mark sat up that night, casually reading the day's Wall Street Journal, he kept stealing glances over at Sherry, who had a pile of essays covering her upper torso, still thinking she was the sexiest thing he had seen all day. Despite the fact Sherry had her reading glasses down over the bridge of her nose like an aged school marm and was clad in a potato sack like nightgown, Mark still thought she looked radiant under the soft glow of the lamp above.

With two piles of papers spread across Sherry's stomach, one graded and one not, Mark caught himself staring openly at Sherry's breasts as their pert firmness snugly rested inside her cotton nightie.

Mark still found his wife intensely attractive, and hadn't ever once thought of cheating on her despite the fact that like with any long term relationship, their sex life had had grown stale and routine. He had often imagined Sherry getting fucked by other men, imagined her playing with all kinds of toys, and even several occasions, his wife having sex with other women. These images were just fantasy fodder and nothing more for him however. Each time Mark had been tempted to even approach anything of the kind to Sherry, he suddenly felt so dirty inside he instantly chickened out.

Feeling his dick harden under the quilt, to the point that the newspaper resting on his lap rose slightly, Mark couldn't deny that he needed a little tender love and care before he went to sleep.

Gazing over at Sherry's soft facial features, Mark tenderly reached over and started to rub his hand through Sherry's slightly mussed, shoulder length chestnut brown hair.

>From the first time he had ever laid eyes on Sherry back in college, Mark had always been strongly drawn to her. Sherry had always been in fine shape from being a competitive athlete and since she maintained that regime as a coach now, Sherry still had the same teenage figure that she did the first night he remembered dancing cheek to cheek with her when they were both 19.

Mark felt a little shallow for still being so physically attracted to his wife, knowing that years down the road after her beauty and figure had given out, he'd have to grow to love her for her other qualities, some of which he still hadn't quite grown to love. At these selfish, sexually charged times late at night however, it was Sherry's 5 foot 6 toned body that garnered his entire attention.

"No Mark...I've got a ton of stuff to do here," was Sherry's tired reaction when she felt Mark's impulses soaking through her skin. "I expect the kids to meet deadlines turning in these papers..the least they can expect is for me to grade them and get them back to them when I promise."

"I know," Mark replied. "I just couldn't resist trying."

"Ahh..that's so sweet," Sherry's silent gaze seemed to say as she looked over at her horny husband. When she dutifully returned her focus back down to the redmarked paper in front of her, Mark realized he'd have to wait for another night to get lucky.

Or so he thought.

After turning off the lamp on his side of the bed and dropping his half read newspapers to the floor, Mark tucked his head under the covers to go to sleep while his wife continued grading essays.

Sometime later, as he was on the precipice of sleep, Mark heard the distinctive click of the lamp on Sherry's side of the bed get turned off. Once Sherry had settled in and snuggled up beside her husband, Mark couldn't help but stretch his head over and give his wife a final kiss before they both drifted off.

In the process of doing that, Mark lowered his sleepy grip around Sherry's thigh, just below where her cotton nightie left off. Leaving his hand there for several moments, Mark couldn't help but feel the faint heat from his wife's privates billowing down and surrounding his wrist.

Twisting his head slightly under the covers, intending to kiss Sherry first on the shoulder, he did a drowsy double take when his lips flushly met hers. Taken by surprise momentarily by Sherry's certain intent, Mark immediately began returning Sherry's oral embrace.

* * * * *

Sexual relations between Mark and Sherry had taken on three distinct types of erotic avenues over their years of marriage.

On the very rare occasions when both knew they would have all night to explore each other, they would do what Mark affectionately referred to as gourmet sex, treating the night as a sexual seven course meal. Unfortunately, only during vacations and the occasional weekend did that ever happen.

The most frequent type of sex between the two was the old fashioned home cooked meal variety. Usually, after both Mark and Sherry had settled down after work and started milling about the house, there would be an unspoken connection between them about doing 'it' that night when they went to bed. Once there, each spouse would perform some cursory foreplay and then they would share a decent fuck, usually lasting a half hour or so. Then after some afterglow conversation, they would fall asleep in each others arms.

What Sherry and Mark were about to engage in was the third type and could only be compared to 'fast food sex'. Somewhere under the cover of darkness, the couple would join like two animals in heat, just for the simple goal getting their rocks off with barely a glimmer of intimacy involved.

* * * * *

Feeling Sherry furtively return his goodnight kiss, Mark wasted no time taking advantage of the opening, rushing his hand up Sherry's bare thigh until he had traced the familiar route to the top of her exquisitely toned upper legs, right towards the flaming heat source beckoning him.

Once his fingers danced through the outer folds of Sherry's pussy, Mark felt his wife's mouth gasp against his cheek, in a primal signal that she was ready for a quick carnal romp.

There in the calm darkness of their bedroom, Sherry and Mark's hands studied the familiar terrain of each other's bodies until Mark's hand forced Sherry's nightie all the way up around her waist, giving him free access to mount her from the side.

Once his cock was close enough so that the heat from Sherry's calling pussy seemed to draw it in, Mark took a handful of Sherry's right breast in his free hand and forced his arched cock deep inside his wife, just like he had done a thousand of times before.

Feeling their collective weight cause the center of their aged mattress to depress in the middle when they locked up, Mark thrust his hips in awkward circular motions until he felt the full sheath of Sherry's pussy choking his phallus completely.

Digging her long red talon-like fingernails into her husband's shoulder blade, imploring him to fuck her harder, Sherry offered up her neck for Mark to bite as they both build towards orgasm.

Whenever Mark and Sherry did their bits of gourmet or home cooked sex, they usually did a majority of it with the lights on. During those romantic interludes, all Mark ever needed to insure complete satisfaction and release was to gaze into his wife's beautiful eyes and scan down her rock solid lithe body and cum from the simple joy of his good fortune to be married to her.

During these late night, 'fast food' romps however , Mark always seemed to find himself exploring some of his darker fantasies.

For Mark it was almost like when he was a teenager growing up, masturbating under the covers after he had gone to bed, visually recapturing the images of all the women he had seen and wanted to fuck during the day. The only difference now was he had a gloriously smooth and tight pussy to cum inside of rather than messing up the sheets that he had to sleep on as a child.

With his dick embedded inside of Sherry's molten snatch, a million random things rolled through Mark Mitchum's mind. He pictured fucking his wife on a windswept beach, he dazedly harkened back to the crazy thing he and Sherry did on their honeymoon with the chandelier in their suite. He mentally pictured fucking the beautiful and exotic blonde secretary that had just started work at his job, then he pictured Sherry fucking her. He even visually captured the random images of two guys he had seen gangbanging a chick on a porno flick once fucking Sherry ruthlessly and even though he would have never admitted it, he also pictured those same guys banging him while Sherry watched.

Mark could feel and hear Sherry gasps of pleasure vibrate against his bucking body underneath the covers, their lust rippling through the darkness like an impending arrival of a meteorite colliding with Earth.

In a flash, both their orgasms hit and then as quickly as it had begun, it was over.

Two minutes later, Mark was walking nakedly through the house, making his way towards the kitchen to get Sherry and himself a glass of ice water while she took the time to sneak into the bathroom to cleanse herself.

Once they were both tucked back into bed and had cooled themselves off with some water, they kissed each other gently and rolled over to finally go to sleep, this time for real.

* * * * *

Sherry immediately nodded off, leaving Mark laying there silently, wide awake beside her. As his eyes wandered about the jet black bedroom, Mark laid there basking in the definite glow of a great and fulfilling fuck.

Looking over at his wife's face, barely visible under the green glow of the digital clock on her nightstand, all the random lurid images that flooded through Mark's brain as he fucked Sherry moments earlier started trickling back into his stream of consciousness.

He once again admired how beautiful his wife truly was, smiling broadly himself seeing Sherry's quenched contentment as she slept peacefully.

Mark couldn't help but also think about the pretty blonde part-time secretary at work. "Geneva", Mark whispered to himself, repeating the tall exotic blonde's name to himself as if it possessed some magical quality.

"A name like that," Mark continued his stream of thought,"... and she comes from the Houston suburbs....go figure....you'd at least think she was from Switzerland or somewhere."

Mark continued staring at Sherry sleeping there beside of him but couldn't help imagining what Geneva would look like laying there between the two. Mark's dick immediately began levitating once again as that mental picture came into focus in his mind.

Reaching his left hand purposefully under the covers, Mark quietly started to play with himself, trying his best not to ruffle the covers and disturb Sherry from her sleep.

Once his cock was sufficiently hard enough again that it filled his slowly pumping fist with steely heat, more rabid thoughts started flowing, like a fast rushing river, through Mark's head.

Pumping his manhood now in quick, short jerks, Mark pictured Geneva going down on his wife's prone body, fiendishly lapping up the cum he had just deposited inside of Sherry.

In the darkness, Mark could clearly visualize himself reaching over and sticking his erect cock into Geneva's golden pussy while he used each of his index fingers to violate both women’s assholes while the blonde secretary hungrily ate his loving wife out.

As the burgeoning mental image burst with even riper clarity, Mark's eyes tilted upwards slightly in the darkness and he pictured the same granite like figure approaching the bedside, right above Sherry's face, that he had visualized the moment his orgasm had tripped, causing him to cum for real inside of his wife's pussy minutes earlier.

* * * * *

It had been three weeks earlier when Mark was sitting in the stands on a warm late September Saturday, watching his wife's track team compete in a home meet.

As boring as the track meets were, Mark really wasn't a big fan of the sport or any sport that didn't have cheerleaders or betting lines, he faithfully endured the boredom to support his wife.

With the budget cutbacks inside the University's athletic department since it dropped from the now defunct Southwest Conference, the male and female track teams were consolidated under the auspices of the same coaching staff.

Sitting there watching the various different events unfold, trying his best to follow the action from listening to the public address announcer pointing out what was going on, something caught Mark's attention, completely taking him by surprise.

Watching relay after relay play itself out, Mark heard the PA announcer mention a quite unusual and exotic name when introducing the participants. "Pablo Sandivere from Rice University". The named bounced around Mark's head that afternoon in the stands until it clicked who it was. "That was the exchange student Sherry keeps mentioning..from Argentina I think," he curiously whispered to himself as he watched the race unfold.

Being a raw and untested Freshman, Pablo finished 6th in the 8 man race and looked dejected as he slowly made his way back to the Rice bench.

As Pablo gasped for air, he placed his hands disappointedly on his waist as if he had just been put through the ringer. His already slow pace became even slower when he saw that his three coaches, including Sherry , were still giving marching orders to the four members of the 4x400 relay team that was set to compete next.

Mark started to get a strange tingling in his belly as he watched the 18 year old Argentinian boy stop about 30 feet from where Sherry was standing . Sherry, being the closest in age to the kids as well as being the most friendly of all the coaches always seemed to draw the shortest straw in having to deal with an athlete after they have faced failure in an event, which was precisely the position Pablo was in.