Lost Time
After being married to Charlotte for twenty years, Dave believed he'd never have a remotely satisfying sex life. Over the years, other women made it clear they were interested, but he held them at bay, wanting to do the right thing by his marriage.
After a traumatic move during junior high, he was shy with girls through high school and into college. He was tall and handsome and girls were after him. But feeling depressed hadn't helped his confidence, and self-medicating with copious amounts of weed had hindered his ability to form coherent sentences when talking to girls.
He and Charlotte met late in college during a summer abroad in Spain. She seemed carefree and wild and was only the second woman he'd slept with. She gave him his first blow job. They fell in love during their romantic escapades in Andalucía. They married within a year, just a week after he graduated from college.
It turned out Charlotte was more complicated than the carefree, adventurous young woman she'd presented herself as. At her core she was needy, insecure, and self-absorbed.
Dave started grad school the year after they married. He came home for lunch with Charlotte every day and limited his studies to regular work hours on weekdays to make time for them. Their sex life diminished since when they'd met, but not so much that it concerned him.
But she promptly cheated on him with an older man named Desmond. He was more than willing to get what he wanted by ladling on the flattery and attention she craved. She began a "friendship" with the man, who lived nearby, and regularly spent time alone with him. Dave knew something was wrong but was either too naïve to see it or -- more likely -- couldn't bring himself to believe his bride would cheat during their first year. He suffered his first ever bout of terrifying anxiety attacks, feeling his marriage was doomed -- even if he couldn't bring himself to acknowledge why.
One night they had dinner out with Desmond -- who was pretending to be Dave's friend, too. After dinner, Dave and Charlotte had wild sex, more lustful than they'd ever had. He was thrilled that their spark had returned. Later, after he learned of the affair, he wondered if she'd been thinking of her lover, not Dave, as she fucked madly that night.
After a year, when she wanted them to start having children, Charlotte tearfully admitted the now-ended affair and begged Dave's forgiveness. Her torrent of tears worked their magic and he forgave her on the spot, without processing his own grief or feelings of betrayal. You can forgive, but it's harder to forget.
After she came clean, things got better during his last year of school. Their sex life improved. They felt close again. But very soon she lost interest in sex. She had many needs, but sex was no longer one of them. Dave expressed his interest, but she pushed him away, leaving him feeling rejected and undesirable as a man. Her go-to move was pretending to be asleep when he wanted to make love. Having been hurt so badly, his fear of further rejection eventually made him reluctant to even ask for sex. What was the point when he already knew the answer?
Then came the children, whose demands took an even greater toll on her vanishing libido. When the subject of their waning sex life came up, she either put all the blame on motherhood -- making Dave feel guilty for even asking -- or began weeping and saying she was a terrible wife -- to which he would instantly comfort her and tell her she wasn't. Her tears were a foolproof way to get his sympathy. Either way, her responses encouraged him to drop the subject and return to suffering in silence.
______
More than twenty years passed. They were good parents, but had no sexual connection, having quick, bland sex maybe six times a year.
He'd had his opportunities and developed a couple of crushes out of loneliness. He didn't pursue them despite being tempted mightily. He limited his self-help for erotic connection to occasional visits to a local strip club. The women there at least pretended to be interested in him as a man -- as long as he tipped them for the lap dances. He enjoyed the attention and eased his conscience by telling himself it wasn't cheating because there was no full blown sex or emotional connection.
But pseudo sex with strippers couldn't solve his loneliness and desire for a real sex life with a woman who actually wanted him. His anxiety attacks returned as his sexual relationship with Charlotte evaporated.
When the kids grew and eventually moved out, he hoped their relationship would improve with their new-found privacy and fewer distractions. But nothing between them changed. He just got lonelier with the kids gone.
______
One spring, Gayle came to visit. She'd been Charlotte's friend since college. She lived back East but visited every couple of years, staying for a week or so. Dave had always liked her, even though he suspected she knew about Charlotte's affair as it was happening and kept quiet about it. But he knew she was Charlotte's friend first, which put her in a hard position. He didn't hold her silence about the affair against her.
Gayle was smart, funny, quirky, athletic, and attractive, with shoulder-length light brown hair and a nice figure -- long toned legs, large breasts, and a nice ass. She and Dave had always gotten along well and liked to joke with each other. Dave felt comfortable during her visits and enjoyed them. He'd never felt sexual tension between them, though he did have sexual fantasies about her.
On this visit Gayle hinted that her relationship with her husband wasn't going well. They too had been married for decades. She saved the details for Charlotte, but Dave sensed she was unhappy.
On the second evening of Gayle's visit, their cat, Bella, woke Dave at three in the morning, claiming she was near death from starvation. She was a chronic and effective exaggerator. But she'd trained Dave well and he dutifully climbed out of bed naked, like he always did, and followed Bella into the kitchen to add a little something to her dish.
The guest bedroom where Gayle was sleeping was just off the kitchen. The head of the bed was only a few feet from the door to the kitchen. He didn't notice at first, but then realized her door was open. The lights were out and nothing was stirring in the guest room. He figured she wouldn't notice his naked chore. Even though she was sound asleep, he felt a thrill knowing he was standing naked so close to her. Cheap thrills were the currency of his lonely realm.
He remembered to wear his robe when he woke in the morning to make them coffee. The guest room door was closed. As he heated the water and ground the coffee, Gayle emerged looking sleepy, wearing a thin tee shirt and silky shorts.
"Good morning."
She rubbed her eyes and smiled.
"The coffee smells great."
"It'll be ready in a few minutes. Cream and sugar, right?"
"Yep. But first, this girl's gotta pee."
She scurried to the bathroom. Dave noticed her breasts bouncing as she moved.
Still attending to the coffee, he heard the bathroom door open. Gayle came to take the coffee he was holding out for her. She took a sip.
"Mmmm. You're as good a coffee maker as you are a cook."
"Thanks. It's pretty simple to make."
He smiled and noticed her nipples poking at her thin shirt.
Gayle took another sip and gave a sly smile.
"So, does the cat drag you into the kitchen to feed her every night?"
Dave swallowed hard -- she'd been awake last night after all. The nightlight just above the cat's dish must have given her a pretty good look at his body. Avoiding the awkward subject, he said nothing about how he'd been dressed -- or undressed.
"Yep, I'm fully trained. At least now she's down to dragging me out of bed only once a night."
Gayle smiled. He wondered if it was because of their little unspoken secret. He was excited that she'd seen him naked and mentioned seeing him. In things erotic, he had a low threshold but cherished those few tantalizing morsels that came his way.
She thanked him for the coffee and went back into her room. Dave brought a cup to Charlotte, who was just rousing from her sleep.
Returning to the kitchen, Dave caught a glimpse of Gayle through her open door, in the bedroom mirror. Her back to the mirror, she was topless and wearing only a small pink thong. She was fit and toned. As he admired her, she pulled on a loose top and then squirmed into yoga pants. Before she turned around, he moved away and took his coffee to his bedroom, feeling exhilarated.
After a light breakfast, the women turned the living room into a yoga studio, spreading their mats across the floor. They played an instructional video on Charlotte's laptop and began their workout side by side.
"Do you girls mind if I sit here with you?"
Dave wasn't much of a yoga practitioner himself, but he did like to watch.
"Sure."
"Ok by me!" Gayle seconded.
