"Happy Birthday to you!" chanted the chorus of her husband and kids, as Leslie blew out the two number 4 shaped candles atop her cake.
She smiled at her family as she cut the cake, but inwardly she took a little sigh at the thought '44-years-old'. It wasn't that Leslie was scared of the aging process; if she was being immodest she was actually quite lucky. Yes, there were days when she looked in the mirror and envied her younger self, who had no wrinkles, a flatter stomach, firmer breasts and no stretch marks, even if hers were only faint, but when she looked at other women her age, Leslie was in much better shape than most.
Leslie had a caring husband, Malcolm, who had been with her since university; he was her 'rock', he 'completed her' and all the other clichés one would use to describe an other-half. She had an 18-year-old son, Lewis, who was her beloved first-born; he was clever, studious but maybe a little immature. And there was Katie, her sweet 15-year-old daughter; a typical silly, fun-loving teenage girl. She really had a comfortable happy life.
However, what bothered Leslie, just a little bit, was that her life was set now. She looked at her two teenage kids and thought about herself at that age; back then she had no idea where her life would take her, all she knew was that she was obsessed with Mark, the class clown; utterly besotted with him but unable to tell him how she felt. Now she was in a junior management position at a bank, with reasonable pay, and hours that meant she could be home early for her kids when they came over for school.
It wasn't that this was a problem; it was just that this had been her life for the past two decades and it would continue to be her life for another two decades. Secure, comfortable, routine; some people would kill for this life, so she knew she was incredibly fortunate but it didn't stop her occasionally wondering if there was alternate universe somewhere where Leslie had a crazier, wilder life. She laughed in her head; maybe that Leslie was thinking how envious they were of her life.
Each family member had a little piece of cake and then moved from the kitchen to the dining room adjacent, ready for dinner. Lewis was last to come through and before sitting down, he pulled off his school jumper. Along with his jumper came his untucked shirt, exposing some discoloured skin on the left of his ribcage. Lewis sorted his shirt straight away but Leslie had already seen the bruise.
"Lewis! What's that?" questioned Leslie.
"What's what?"
"That bruise on your side. How did you get it?"
"Mum, it's fine."
"It's not fine!" shouted Malcolm to his son, "Is it that boy again? Stuart?"
"Yeah," sighed Lewis, "but just leave it. I don't need my parents to fight my battles for me."
She didn't say it, but Leslie wished that were the case. She knew it would have to be up to her and her husband to sort her now adult son's problems. To be honest, he was his father's son, so in some ways she felt it was on her alone to fix it.
"Lewis," his dad said, with both annoyance and concern in his voice, leant closer to the left side of his son's face, "I can see a bruise forming under your eye."
It wasn't immediately visible, but after her husband pointed it out, she could see the faint signs of a welt. However, she knew now was not the time to discuss this.
"Malcolm, let's leave it and have a nice evening," she requested, using a soothing voice, "There's nothing we can do about it tonight."
Her husband sighed, and squeezed his son's shoulder in a fatherly way, but he didn't argue with Leslie.
*****
The rest of the evening was free of any further unwanted excitement. Her kids gave her the gifts they didn't have time to exchange in the morning rush for school and work and then they settled in the living room, where the parents watched TV and the kids sat on the sofa with their phones, until eventually heading to bed.
Leslie and her husband were snuggled close together under the covers. She was wearing just her negligee and he was in a pair of pyjama shorts. Malcolm's hand was running along her thigh as they started to kiss, and Leslie slowly became more aroused, kissing her husband more passionately. She gently stroked her hand down his side, aiming to reach under his shorts when he pulled back.
"Les," whispered her husband.
"Yeah, Baby," she whispered back in his ear.
"We need to do something about Lewis and that boy at his school."
Leslie sighed and rolled onto her back. Why couldn't he have left this discussion until after they were done? She and her husband had sex twice, sometimes three times, a week. From glossy magazines and gossiping with her friends she got the impression that was more often than most of them, so Leslie knew her physical relationship with her husband was pretty healthy. However, she had always entertained quite a high libido and that sometimes meant she was left not satiated.
It wasn't really the frequency that she had a problem with, though she wouldn't say no to more sex, it was just the routine of it all. Sex didn't often last more than 10 or 15 minutes and it was usually her on her back or some spooning before her husband finished, kissed her neck, and then went to sleep. She came sometimes, but it wasn't like the days when they first got married, before kids, before responsibilities and before they both got older.
She knew she could be more proactive; she could initiate things more often, she could maybe suggest changing positions around, but she liked when Malcolm took control, she wanted him to be strong and dominant. She didn't need things to be done her way but she did want to feel like someone manly was seducing her. She wanted to feel like a sexy, desirable woman, not just a middle-aged mother who had average sex with her husband when they had some spare time.
She knew she was being a bit of a diva though, and she knew her husband had a chip on his shoulder from being one of the, in his words, 'loser kids' at school, so he was sensitive when he felt the 'popular clique' was picking on his son. Leslie, to her husband's disdain, used to have crushes on the 'popular' guys, but that didn't mean she approved of anyone making her son miserable. She just wished she could have had her 10 minutes of sex before she had to have a discussion about it.
"I'll go to the school tomorrow after work and see if I can go talk to this kid," said Leslie, having thought of that idea earlier in the evening but not wanting it to mention it in front of Lewis.
"Are you sure talking to the boy himself is the best idea? Shouldn't we go to the teachers?"
"They're all adults now, so hopefully he'll listen to reason. Besides, that stupid guidance teacher has clearly done nothing after we complained last year."
"Maybe we should go directly to the head teacher. I don't know if Lewis would react well to you turning up and talking to this kid."
"Malcolm, we should either butt out or, if we're going to interfere, we do what we think is best, and I think that is confronting this kid directly," replied Leslie, her tone firm.
"OK, I'll leave it to you," said her husband and leant in to start kissing again.
Pecking him on the lips before pulling away, she replied, "I think the moment has passed..."
Mumbling a reluctant 'sorry', her husband rolled onto his side, facing her, and draped his arm over her body. Leslie rolled over too and let her husband shuffle himself closer until they were spooning. Annoyed and aroused, Leslie drifted to sleep.
*****
