This is the second and final chapter in Mike and Liz's story. It's a story about sex, but there isn't a lot of sex in it. If you didn't enjoy the first episode, you sure as shit won't like the second; so don't waste your time and mine reading it and then venting. I'll say it again; I. Don't. Care.
This is a work of fiction. There's a little violent sex in the context of the story. I actually toned it down from the first draft. Still, if that actually upsets you skip over or move on. I made up the characters and they are all over 18 years old.
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It was mid Saturday morning and the couple sat like two strangers in their own living room. Aryana and her daughter, Jas, had left to give them space. "So, Liz," said Mike, her husband. "We need to talk." Had it really only been seven days since she spoke those same four words to him, and began the destruction of their relationship?
According to her, their sex life had 'become routine' and they needed to 'reconnect at a sexual level' by seeing other people. What she really meant was that she wanted to sleep with a workmate but she knew her husband's friend from the cricket club, who worked at the same car dealership, would tell Mike if he suspected that she was screwing about.
Liz looked at Mike and prepared to speak. Mike held up his hand to stop her. "No, me first." He took a deep breath. "I thought we had a happy, solid marriage. I was obviously mistaken; in fact I'm not sure what we have left now. If you had a drunken fuck after an office party I might have been prepared to forgive you. But this obsession of yours with screwing Gerald has been weeks in the making and you even tried to dress it up as 'fixing' our relationship."
Liz boke in. "I know, Mike, but I had convinced myself that if we had more experiences with other couples it would bring us closer."
Mike snorted. "And how do you think that's working out then? How aroused should I be at the thought of you sitting there with your lover's semen still pooling in your knickers? Did you think of me at all last night? If you did, were you seriously imagining me sat wanking over the mental image of you with your legs spread for another man? Really? Because if Aryana and Jas hadn't stayed to keep me company I would have just got drunk on my own until I passed out."
She couldn't help herself and she regretted it the minute she opened her mouth. "You did alright out of it." She shut up abruptly as Mike glared at her.
"Do you expect fucking gratitude?" He shouted in astonishment. "Yes, I shared my bed with two women, but I would have preferred it to be my wife beside me. She, however, preferred to be on her back in another man's bed.
"Aryana initially came just to keep me company and Jas told you this morning how she took the opportunity to ask me to take her virginity." Mike shook his head. "And do you know what?" He exploded, still angry at her comment. "I still almost sent them away. It was just the thought of being here on my own while you were fucking that slimeball that made me decide to ask them to stay after all."
He calmed down a little. "The three of us were each dealing with our own issues, but those women deserve better than being a distraction for me while you are whoring about."
Liz tried again. "But Ayana said that you had a list of women..."
Mike broke in. "She has told everyone in the office about our agreement and apparently she has invited the single women to let her know if they're interested in," he tried to find a word. "In comforting me, while you are broadening your experience."
"What? The whole of your office knows?" Liz blurted out.
"That's what you took from that?" He exclaimed. "It's okay for you to sleep around, but I've got to keep it secret so as not to embarrass you?"
Liz was smart enough to let that drop.
Mike looked at his watch. "My match starts in an hour and I have no intention of being late because of this shit. I'll be back about six and you." He threw up his hands in frustration. "You can do whatever the fuck you like."
Liz sat quietly, thinking about Mike's outburst. She finally realised how badly she had misjudged things. If she had been honest about her restlessness, they could have talked. But trying to manipulate Mike had been just stupid. And Ged; Christ! The man was a bloody dinosaur. Apparently he was so used to seducing desperate, unhappy women that he had never had to bother about being even a competent lover. Liz could see why Sandra, Ged's wife, was prepared to sleep with other men; she probably got better sex than their unfaithful wives were getting with Ged. She certainly would have with Mike.
Liz knew that she needed to rebuild her relationship with her husband but, at the same time, she was honest enough to realise that what she had admitted to Mike was true. She wasn't over this urge to feel other men inside her and she couldn't see how she could satisfy this destructive need and still stay married to Mike. Fuck!
After an uncomfortable Saturday evening, on Sunday Liz told Mike that she was going to visit her mother for the day and that Mike was free to call her on her mum's landline at any time if he wanted to be sure that she was where she said she was. Mike spent most of the day at the cricket club, in the nets as well as the bar, and so they passed another day apart.
That evening as they sat, trying not to obviously avoid each other, Mike had to speak. "I think that our marriage is totally fucked. But." He took a breath before he continued, "I don't think that I'm in the right frame of mind to make a decision like that at the moment, so I'm going to give myself at least a week to calm down. In the meantime, I suggest that you consider whether you think there's anything worth salvaging here and, if there is, what the Hell you think that you can do or say to turn things around." He grabbed a book off the shelf and went to bed.
The atmosphere the following morning, as they each got ready for work, was as cool as it had been all weekend. Mike left home as soon as he was ready; he had no inclination to spend any longer than necessary in his wife's presence, and was at work noticeably earlier than usual. Those of his staff who were early starters noted his change of habit and wondered if this was an indication that his new 'open' marriage had begun in earnest. Aryana arrived about ten minutes after Mike but followed her usual routine of opening up her computer to see if anything urgent had appeared over the weekend. Once she had caught up she joined Mike in his office.
Mike looked up from his screen as she knocked and entered. "Good morning, Aryana. Did you have a good weekend?"
"Yes. Thank you for asking, Mike," she grinned. "My daughter and I met up with an old friend and he took us both to places we'd never been before."
Mike couldn't help but smile, knowing that this mundane conversation would mean nothing to their colleagues in the main office. "Shut the door will you, there are a couple of issues I need your advice on."
"Okay," he began. "Work first." Together they worked through the business's progress with the various projects on the books, shuffling staff from work ahead of schedule to those approaching their delivery dates, until they were satisfied that their staff had clear direction for the rest of the week.
