It's the little things I enjoy most. Like helping my wife dress for a date, checking the seams of her stockings or simply reassuring her that she looks good. But best of all is buying condoms for her to use. I've been fixed for about eight years, so we don't need any birth control, but she always plays safe. I always get a thrill out of selecting condoms for her, especially when I know it's for a new lover. She likes lubricated, but not spermicidal, so I always try to find not only the style she likes, but also to get various brands for her.
My wife, Kim, and I met in graduate school. We are now both teaching at a rather small, teaching-oriented college not too far from Cleveland. It's a pleasant little town, but everyone knows everyone else's business.
We had been married several years before I shared my darkest fantasies with her, my desire for her to enjoy other men. It took even longer for her to agree to do it, and longer still to actually enjoy it. Her first lover was a man she met on-line, Jim. She exchanged e-mail with him for over a year before they met, at an airport hotel. He lived on the west coast, and arranged for a stopover on a flight to London.
They spent two days virtually locked in the hotel room, humping like rabbits. She later confessed that they "made love" three times during their first hour together, and twelve more times that weekend. She called it making love because she thought she was in love.
Jim nearly cost us our marriage. Kim really thought she loved him; maybe she really did. She read a lot about polyamory and we talked at length about our relationship. She and her lover exchanged e-mails daily, cybered regularly and spoke on the phone at least once a week.
In the three years she saw him, they managed to get together perhaps five times. Twice at the Cleveland airport, once for a week in New York while he was at a business conference, and twice she spent two weeks of summer in San Francisco, where he lives. Those last were very exciting for her, because he's married. She really felt like a mistress, only getting stolen moments during his workday, although one summer her visit was timed to coincide with one of his wife's business trips. She eventually got so emotionally involved that she was talking about having a baby with him.
But Jim never opened up to her, never really told her about his life away from her. I guess I should be pleased about this, because it eventually led to her breaking it off. We went through a very difficult time after that. She decided that she couldn't deal with my fantasy, that she couldn't handle having a lover. But we stayed together, we talked, and eventually she recovered.
She started talking about how much fun she had had, and about how she couldn't possibly take another lover because the local guys are all jerks, rednecks, and downright unattractive. She started dressing more provocatively, working out more, and teasing me about finding a new guy. Eventually, she went back on-line and started cybering again. But she didn't want to meet anyone in real time; she said she wasn't ready. And I didn't push her.
This past fall, Kim applied for and was granted a sabbatical leave. She arranged to work with someone at Florida State University, in Tallahassee. Her first couple of weeks there was all business: she worked, worked out, shopped, ate, and slept. Her daily phone calls and e-mails revealed a bit of homesickness. But after the third week, a distinct element of horniness crept in to her messages. She bought herself a wardrobe more appropriate for a student on the prowl than a married faculty member, she began telling me about the various men she saw regularly, at the coffee house, or at work, and so on.
I had jokingly sent her a twelve-pack of condoms as part of her birthday package in late September. Imagine my surprise when, in mid-October, a rare Saturday e-mail said, "you'd better send more." Weekend e-mails were rare because her e-mails were sent from her campus office and as a visiting scholar she usually only worked weekdays. This caught me totally by surprise.
I called her cell to get details, but it was off. And it stayed off all Saturday afternoon and evening. I eventually masturbated myself to sleep, fantasizing about her and some new lover.
Sunday she called.
