Please do not expect a sequel to any of my stories. They are just moments in time; a few days, weeks, months or years in the lives of my protagonists.
As you read this narrative remember, it is just a story, just a figment of my imagination. None of the characters in this story are real. Could you imagine anything like the events in this story actually happening. If you think they have, let me know, though I doubt if I would ever believe you.
My thanks to Darker Binding for his time and suggestions as my editor.
* * * * *
Ten years ago, I inherited my parent's bungalow. Joyce and I had been married for fifteen years when they were both killed when a big truck crashed into their car. After some discussion about selling or renting, we decided to rent the furnished bungalow on short-term leases. All we had to do was replace some of the older furniture, add some new pieces and decorate throughout.
I'm a professor of chemistry and manager of a large pharmaceutical laboratory. This pays me a high salary. Joyce hadn't been working since our eldest was born. Her parents had died just before I knew her and she received a considerable inheritance from their estate. Rather than work, she became a full-time mum for our two children, Barbara and Robert.
Barbara, or Babs as she liked to be called, was now twenty-two and living with her new husband. Our son Robert, friends called him Bob, was twenty and in his first year at university studying chemical engineering.
For the past ten years, we had several tenants and earned a good income from the bungalow. It had been built in the sixties and was now part of a secluded enclave where each of the twelve properties was separated from the others by large gardens and the established trees, shrubs, and fences that surrounded them.
When I inherited the bungalow, we couldn't find an agent we liked, so we did all the work ourselves. I carried out most of the mundane maintenance, only using professionals when necessary. Joyce looked after the paperwork and any cleaning and repairs needed to the inside whenever there was a change of tenancy.
Now both children had fled the nest, as they say, we were beginning to wonder what to do with ourselves. Joyce is starting to feel the need for something to fill her time. We even discussed selling the bungalow and spending the money on treating ourselves to something special.
I had always considered myself one very lucky guy. My kids had turned into responsible young people, my career had moved along perfectly, and I had a very satisfying marriage to a woman who was still quite beautiful and a wonderful lover.
One of the reasons why my marriage was so satisfying was the way Joyce and I enjoyed each other's company. We were mates, as well as husband and wife. We had always been able to talk about anything. Both of us had enjoyed sex from the time we went to university. Almost from the day we met, Joyce had amazed me by just how much she enjoyed sex.
I remember when we were in a new video shop in town, looking for a film to hire when Joyce found they had a large selection of erotic films. Before I could stop her, she had rented three of them. We could only watch them late in the evening when the kids were sound asleep or on a sleepover. When D.V.Ds. came out we were able to watch them on my computer in the office, then in the bedroom on my laptop. That lead to us discovering porn and our sex life really got interesting.
This, I suppose, is when my story starts. It was Saturday and we were both at the bungalow. I was doing some garden work while Joyce was in the bungalow with our current tenant.
She had been a good tenant for nearly a year. A woman in her late thirties, divorced, screwed over by her absconding husband, attractive in many ways, not least her ready smile. Early on Joyce had told me to keep my dirty thoughts to myself. Well, her ready smile was accompanied by a very desirable body.
While I was mowing, weeding, trimming the bushes and making sure all the fences were intact, Joyce was indoors with Cheryl. When all my jobs were finished, I strolled into the kitchen to hear them both giggling. When I made myself known they both looked up with very conspiratorial expressions.
Joyce covered hers up immediately. 'Are you done and ready to go home?' she asked. Then she turned to Cheryl and they both started giggling again.
While we were driving home, the bungalow was about ten miles from our place, I asked Joyce what all the giggling was about.
'If you're a good boy I'll tell you later this evening.' That was all I got out of her.
That evening, desperate to know what had caused so much giggling, I used all my bedroom skills to show my wife just what a good boy I could be. I must have been a very good boy because after thee orgasms it took Joyce ten minutes to sort herself out.
Lying beside me, with her head on the pillow facing me she stared into my eyes. 'Darling, you wanted to know why we were giggling, didn't you?'
'Yes,' I replied, knowing that any time Joyce prefaced a statement with darling, spelt trouble.
'Well, you know that I have been thinking about finding something to do while you are at work. Well, I think I've found what I'd like to do, at least give it a try.
'Yes, I know, we've talked about it several times.'
'Well, this afternoon Cheryl was telling me what she does.'
'Oh, yes,' I was now fully alert.
'I know you are going to be very surprised when I tell you,' she grinned, then got a serious look. 'She's a working girl.'
'She's a whaaaat!! Oh my God.' Now I was sitting up in shock. A working girl. I knew what being a working girl meant.
'Cheryl's a prostitute,' I almost shouted. 'She's been working out of our bungalow.' Now I was staring at my wife in disbelief. Slowly I recalled what my wife had just told me.
'No, no, definitely not.' I glared down at my recumbent wife. 'You are definitely not going to be a prostitute. It's illegal anyway,' I added in protest.
Before I knew what was happening Joyce had her arms around me and was pulling me down into her ample bosom. 'Hey, hey, big man, don't you go off half-cocked. It's quite legal for a woman to supply sexual services for money, provided she's not doing it on the streets, in a public place, or in a brothel.
'What about brothels? Doesn't her living there make our bungalow a brothel?'
'No.'
"Where did you get all this information?'
'Cheryl showed me, on Wikipedia,'
'Wikipedia, eh. Well, it must be true then.'
With a lot of sweet-talking, Joyce eventually quietened me down. Having my wife making love to me also helped my decision to leave any further discussion on the matter till later.
Sunday, we discussed it. If Joyce putting her case and me listening could be called, discussing it.
'Can you tell me why you want to do it?' was my opening gambit.
Her argument seemed to be that she wanted to try doing what Cheryl did, just to satisfy her sexual curiosity. Whatever that was?'
I put my argument against it. 'You'll be having sex with other men. Isn't that cheating? What if you like it and want to continue?' I could see my arguments were being dismissed, even as I said them. Then I thought about threatening her. Refusing to sleep with her. Divorcing her. Oh, God no, I loved her too much to do that, and she hadn't done it yet, had she.
'That's what I'm trying to tell you, darling. It will just be sex and I won't be cheating because you will know when I'm doing it. So we will have agreed about it, won't we?'
I was still trying to comprehend this when Joyce continued. 'Doing what Cheryl does will be so different from making love with you. It will give me a chance to find out if I can enjoy sex without any emotional commitment.'
This was such a preposterous argument. I knew how much my wife enjoyed sex. Hell, I'd had the benefit of how good she was for over twenty years. No, it wasn't worth divorcing her and losing all that, just because she wanted to find out how it felt to be fucked like a prostitute.
Before I could say anything, she was off again. 'All you have to do is think I'm working in an office.' she told me
My reply just popped into my head. 'Like an accountant, and you're seeing clients all day.' Perhaps I shouldn't have suggested an accountant.
She made the connection quicker than I did. 'Stan, I'm not doing it for the money,' she told me. 'We don't need it. I certainly don't need it. I'll give it all to charity. Battered Wives or Retired Prostitutes,' she suggested.
'But you'll still be having sex with other men, extramarital sex, sex without me,' I protested again.
My protest was completely disregarded. 'Well then, think of me working in a unisex beauty salon, giving massages, waxing. Use your imagination, darling.'
I had a vision of her lap dancing in some seedy sex club. 'No, I'll stick with the account's office, very dull and boring,' I said. But she will still be having sex with other men, the voice in my head told me.
We were sitting together on the settee, and Joyce wrapped her arms around me. 'There is one thing I need to tell, darling.'
Without thinking, I asked her what that was.
She kissed me very nicely. 'It won't let it affect us, you know that, don't you, darling?'
'I've been thinking about that,' I told her. Wouldn't any man whose wife wanted to try out being a prostitute? 'How can we know if it will affect us or not,' I said. 'But you're only going to try it a couple of times?'
'Of course, darling, and I won't let it affect us, or our sex life.'
She really believes that, I thought to myself. What would happen if twice wasn't enough, would I still be able to think she was only working in an office? I could manage a laboratory full of highly qualified chemists, carrying out complicated research, but after all these years, managing my wife, I realised, was another matter entirely.
Over dinner, on Monday I asked Joyce if she had changed her mind. All-day I had been thinking about our discussion and considering how it would affect our relationship if she went ahead with it.
'There are things I need to discuss with Cheryl so, on Wednesday I'm meeting her at the bungalow.'
Her reply sort of answered my question. 'What do you need to discuss with Cheryl?'
