[Author's Note: This second installment is a bit shorter than the first, but in the same tradition. The beginning is more an advancement of the situation - or "plot" - than a buildup toward the erotic conclusion. Readers looking for instant immersion in erotica will not find the initial sections very satisfying.
For those readers who are able to follow the storyline as much for what is happening in the marriage as for the erotic scene at the end, this chapter contains a few clues as to the nature of that inner woman the narrator seeks in his wife, as well as a few subtle hints as to how much is actually hidden in there.
The next chapter will reveal a few secrets that aim to surprise - and mind you this is not "Saw"; don't expect your heart to stop - in preparation for the finale. The final chapter of the "core" story will be chapter four, in which the couple make an interesting deal with each other. That deal has been the point of the storyline all along, and will open up a vast hallway of possibilities for further chapters, all of which would be the more pulse-pounding variety of erotica most people seem to prefer.
Those readers who find themselves interested in the very straightforward and ordinary marriage of the couple in this story will be the most pleased, the most surprised, and the most enlightened when those more extraordinary chapters come along.]
1.
It was over the course of the next few days, gradually and by degrees, that the rush of my wife's unusually amorous mood became overshadowed again by the bitter feeling that I had done something wrong in my approach.
I had too much time to think; I was working at a regional shipyard, sandblasting paint from the hulls of three enormous ships, and the work was very steady and physical but not mentally engaging at all. I spent ten to eleven hours a day slowly carving rectangle patterns out of the layers of paint, my mind almost continually wandering back to the high hopes I had maintained of having that deep, honest, vulnerable conversation with my wife, and the reality which I had run up against instead.
It must have seemed like nothing but a lot of bedroom talk that I wanted. If I was a little grateful that I had apparently succeeded at such talk, it was nothing compared to my disappointment with being misinterpreted – in my heart I felt that what I wanted to share with Amanda could bring us closer together and make us more appreciative of each other than any man and wife who had ever lived. If I had merely wanted bedroom talk, then I would have been thoroughly pleased with myself after Saturday night and Sunday morning, but the concept of honesty – my real target – had never even shown its face.
I pondered a number of issues in regards to all of this. Ten hours in what is essentially a full suit of armor, strong-arming a hose full of sand and massive air pressure, begin to make you feel somewhat insulated from the outside world over time. Even your air comes from a small hose hooked to the back of your hood – the world around you is a distant, silent memory. It didn't bother me to be examining my sex life on the job – I had all the time and privacy in the world for thinking my thoughts.
Among the many things that occupied my brain from Monday through Wednesday, I wondered what in the world had gotten Amanda so fired up – I could not accept at face value that she was just plain horny. I replayed the beginning of Saturday night and pieced together what I knew of it now. I hadn't noticed any sign that she had been exceptionally eager to make love prior to putting Seth to bed – in fact, I had sensed the very opposite. She seemed almost to be avoiding me for several hours, not wanting to be overly affectionate, and I have always taken this as a sign – rare though it is – that she was not enough in the mood; that she might even ask if we could forego any intimacy for the night. I would have expected her to cancel, in fact, if not for her specific mention more than once on Saturday that we would be having sex later.
I understood now that she had been changing her underwear in the bathroom, which I was satisfied could account for most of her time in there – there was still absolutely the possibility that her own fingers had been involved in her burning readiness, but it was no longer the only possibility I could conceive.
Even after she had come out of the bathroom, though, I seemed to recall her taking rather more time downstairs than she should have needed. I couldn't recall hearing a single sound that explained it – no refrigerator opening, no dishes and cups clattering, no rattle of cat food in the cat's dish, no beeping from the phone to suggest she had been checking the messages. It had been utterly silent during those long minutes – what could she have been doing?
Somehow my mind could not compute any possibility other than that she must have been standing in the kitchen masturbating herself to readiness. My pride was stung as it occurred to me that this would have to mean she was having concerns about her own arousal, and had needed a head start on the evening because she didn't think I would be up to the task. Putting that together with the fact that she had been more or less deflecting my advances all Saturday afternoon as if she weren't interested, I was discouraged at how neatly the pieces fit together.
Images of my affectionate wife ardently engaged in a self-obsessed fit of masturbation have been the stuff of my fantasies so many times I could never recount them all. But the thought that she might ever do it not merely as a convenient vehicle to a pleasing orgasm by herself, but actually as a replacement for some deficiency in our coupled relations was a slap across the face. For some reason, the more I felt it sting, the more convinced I became that it was true.
Irritated by that, I was suddenly flooded with suspicion about everything else. Where had all the dirty talk come from? Why had she been discussing her sex life with a girl from work? What, after ten years of making love only to me, had inspired her to scratch her nails down my back or reach out to grip the headboard when she had never done either before?
After these long, troubled days of thinking about what could be going on in her mind, I would go home and try to gauge her moods, her thoughts, her behavior, and her attitude. I made occasional remarks off the cuff about what a dirty woman she was turning into, and she would give me her cute, scrunched-up smiles that meant, "I hear you, but we can't talk about this." Her eyes seemed not to be speaking to me. It was as if her mind were blank on the matter – or guarded.
By Wednesday night, I couldn't bear it anymore. I had tortured myself throughout the first half of the week with such possible scenarios as were almost stupid, ranging from an affair with a more sexually exciting man to an affair with Jamie from work; from complaining endlessly to her girlfriends at work about her drab sex life to having fallen under the influence of some outrageous whore who was convincing her that she should start trying nasty things, things unthinkable to the Amanda I knew. I had even registered in my mind a number of possible responses in case the day came that she suddenly confessed she had always wanted to try anal. I was mortified that some unseen influence might be pulling my affectionate wife away from me, and replacing her with some rabid sex goddess. I could imagine no other possibility.
Lying in bed with her that night, I could no longer keep everything inside.
"Is everything okay?" I asked her.
"...yeah. Why?"
"I feel like something isn't."
"Like?"
"Like... I don't know. Are you happy?"
"Of course I am!" she insisted immediately. The words felt sincere and even passionate. "What... are you thinking?"
Her hand found mine under the covers and softly slipped inside it.
"Saturday," I said.
"What is it about that that's got you so traumatized? Did we not have fun that night?"
"More fun than usual," I conceded. "Which makes me feel kind of weird."
