This story can be seen as a sequel to my recently published story, The Smoker. However, it can be read on its own if you have not, or do not want to, read the previous story. The Smoker received a mixed reaction. I am grateful for the encouragement I received, both online and off line, for the story The Smoker. In this story, Mary kicks the habit, and some of her behavior that readers found offensive is no longer present. I hope you like the story, and give Mary and Marlene a second chance.
A warning: This story includes wife swapping, and a kind of orgy (or group sex) scene. If you are not prepared for that, it might be best to skip the story.
********************
Mary was upset. Here she was, saddled with a husband she adored, and who adored her, but somehow he felt the need to have an extra marital affair whenever he went out of town on business.
What was wrong with her? Why was she not enough for him? She knew she was pretty. She had proved to herself she was still sexy, and attractive, when she went to Chicago and had her own dalliances (so there, Mark!). It had been so easy! And, she had to admit, she had enjoyed it a lot. But it was an amazingly stupid thing to have done.
She felt horribly guilty at having had the affairs. But in a way, she was glad: Because of her husband Mark's serial philandering, she had been depressed. She had felt old, no longer sexually attractive, and over the hill. All this, even though she is only in her early to mid-thirties.
She had felt ugly. But seeing how easy it was to get men interested in her restored her confidence, as well as her self-esteem. She felt pretty and sexy again. She was ready to turn her renewed sexual confidence full barrel on her unsuspecting husband.
As Literature professors are wont to do, she tried to analyze the problem, thinking it was something she could solve, if only she could find a solution. Why wasn't she enough for her husband Mark? Why did he constantly need to lay new women?
She had tried everything she could think of. She changed her manner of dress; now she dressed as sexy as she dared in their small college town. At home, she dressed hyper sexy; often over the top risqué. She cooked his favorite meals; sometimes she would cook topless, and serve him topless. Mark loved that. One time she even cooked in the nude, wearing only an apron. She kept the house cleaner than ever before, and neater, too.
She began to give Mark blowjobs. A blowjob in the morning, a blowjob in the evening, a blowjob at suppertime. And she was sexually available at any time. If she had a headache, she lived with it. He could have all the sex he wanted. She even offered him anal sex. He took her anal cherry, and they did the deed a few times, but he did not seem that interested in it. Nether was she, so this was quite fortunate.
The second biggest thing she did, and this had not been easy, was to assume he needed variety, and not just new conquests. So, she had tried to provide variety close to home, where she could control things: she gave him her best friend Marlene, and he could have her, too, whenever he wanted.
In exchange, she gave her body to Marlene's husband Sam, whenever he wanted her. He wanted her a lot. She was having a lot of sex between Mark and Sam. So was Marlene. Both men seemed pleased, and neither woman minded that much. Both men were great men, and both were excellent lovers, too.
Now you might think that giving sexual access of your friend to your husband, and giving yourself to your friend's husband in exchange, is a pretty big deal. It was. Both women were uneasy about it, but their husbands seemed to love the idea. Nevertheless, it was not the biggest thing Mary did in her plan to improve her marriage and to end Mark's serial philandering.
The biggest thing Mary did, and by far the hardest thing, was to quit smoking. She quit cold turkey. No patches or aids of any kind for her. Just raw, intense, will power. For the first two weeks it was intolerable. She knew it would be, so she left and went to Chicago. She wanted nobody she cared for to see her during withdrawal.
Mark supported her decision, and treated her to a nice hotel room for the two-week duration. She was afraid the image of her suffering, and consequently short tempered, would be hard to forget. She did not want that image rattling around in the heads of her loved ones.
Now in Chicago, Mary was sitting in a bar, grumpy as all get go. She was nervous, going through withdrawal. It was horrible. She had a constant headache, and her moods alternated between anxiety, nervousness, and a kind of listless sloth.
When the waiter came over, she almost bit his head off. She quickly apologized. She ordered a glass of white wine. She checked to see where was the next day's Chicagoland meeting of Nicotine Anonymous. You could do a Nicotine Anonymous meeting on line, but Mary found it more effective in person.
The one concession to her dignity was that she made an effort to dress well. She always looked nice, even if she felt like crap. This led to some interesting times. Each night she would sit in a bar, reading a book and nursing a glass of white wine. Then she nursed a second glass, and then a third glass.
Men would see her there, her shapely legs revealed as her skirt rode up her thighs, her gorgeous breasts barely hidden in her low-cut blouse or dress, and they would hit on her. Every single night one or more men would hit on her. She told them up front two things: (1) she was married and not available, and (2) she was in nicotine withdrawal and subject to horrific mood swings.
Nevertheless, the men would persist. They knew she had a buzz on, and that she was pretty and sexy. She would not have been the first married woman who would have an anonymous fling in a hotel. The men would strike out, but Mary had fun watching them try.
Had Mark not been in the picture, some of the men might not have struck out. But she had decided to be loyal. She did not even know if Mark cared! But then, she thought, of course he did. All men care about their wives cheating.
But she did enjoy fantasizing about what could have happened if she had been single. She could have had a different man every single night. She tried to imagine how their fucking styles might differ: this one would just want head, the next one would want standard old missionary position sex, one man would want to take her in the window, in full view of another hotel across the way, and so on. The idea of a man taking her in the window got her surprisingly aroused, she realized.
None of this happened, of course, it was just the fantasies of a lonely, unhappy woman going through nicotine withdrawal.
Men themselves could cheat all they wanted to, and not have a single qualm about demanding sexual fidelity of their wives. Women could not. There was a lack of symmetry in the male-female equation. Mary knew that.
The first night her would be seducer was named Harry. After he struck out, Mary left the bar and went to her room. She decided to name her vibrator Harry for the night. After the vibrator did its magic, she followed up with Harry the dildo. Harry the dildo showed her a good time too, and she had a nice little orgasm.
This became her pattern for two long weeks. Machines and rubber penises helped, but they were no replacement for the real thing, and when she finally returned to her home town, and to Mark, she walked in, stripped off her clothes, and yelled, "Fuck me, Mark! Take me now!"
Mary drained Mark dry. It was not hard, because he had spent a lot of the previous night, and that very morning, too, enjoying the sexual favors of Mary's best friend Marlene. This was in part because Marlene's husband Sam too was out of town. But Mary did not know that just then.
All Mary wanted was Mark. All she needed was Mark's love. At that moment, she felt she had both.
Mary read widely about why men cheat. There were lots of theories: To recapture lost youth; to reassure themselves that they are attractive; basic misogyny and just wanting to lay and possibly to humiliate women; Oedipal complexes; biological imperatives about "spreading their seed;" she found all sorts of reasons/justifications. She finally decided upon the definitive answer, which was also the simplest: Men cheat because they can. Mary had to lay down the law. No cheating tolerated. But she was too terrified of losing Mark to do this.
Mark and Sam still had to travel for business, of course. And both Marlene and Mary gradually realized that Mark and Sam still both cheated. Old habits die hard. Nothing had worked. What do you do when your man is a compulsive cheater? The age-old solution is divorce.
But in spite of his apparent need for promiscuity, Mary knew Mark still loved her. Mary did not take her Catholic religion that seriously, but divorce? The very idea made her flesh crawl. Mary met Marlene at their favorite bar to discuss things.
"Thanks for coming, Marlene," Mary said.
"Of course. I just got out of the sack with your husband. Mark is an animal in bed," Marlene said.
"In bed? How conventional of him."
"Well, actually, I was just using that as a figure of speech. He fucked me outdoors," Marlene said.
"That sounds more like Mark. He only fucks his bimbos in bed; and that's in hotel beds when he's traveling. Did he do you in Tompkins Park?" Mary asked. "Did he take you from behind while you were sprawled over the boulder there?"
"He wanted to," Marlene replied. "But there were children around. So we drove into the country, and he stripped me naked and did me in a field. I was terrified we would be discovered."
"That sounds like Mark. Risk, and the humiliation of women, are two of his tropes." Mary said. Marlene was used to Mary using literature jargon; she could infer what Mary meant.
"This isn't working, you know," Marlene said.
"Yes, I know. That's today's topic for discussion," Mary replied, as the waitress appeared. She was young, pretty, and a little busty. Like many waitresses, she wore a little something, and it was low cut. That way, she got bigger tips from the Marks and the Sams of the world.
Most likely the waitress was a college student. She had to be over 21, since she was serving alcohol, but she could still be a senior. Possibly at some point she would be in one of Mary's classes; luckily, she was too young to be found naked in some park with Mark taking her from behind. "A glass of Chablis, please," Mary said.
"The same for me," Marlene said.
The waitress left. Marlene said, "We need a new idea. Besides divorce, I mean."
"I agree. I think I might have one," Mary said.
Mary and Marlene had a long talk. Four glasses of Chablis later they were sloshed, but they had a plan.
Mark was going on a business trip Thursday that same week. When Mary came home, she explained to Mark that she was going with him. She was going to be his bimbo. He was going to pick her up in a bar, instead of taking some tramp to his room.
"I'll be the tramp," Mary said.
"What about your classes? Don't you have to teach?" Mark asked.
"Joe agreed to cover them for me," Mary replied.
