“If only Jim would…” But he didn’t.
Katrina had met Jim at the Church Youth Club when she was sixteen. One day the club was out rambling and Katrina had started to run down a hill. Once started her momentum increased until she could not stop and she was in danger of taking a nasty tumble, but Jim was in her path and he caught and held her. After that, as she often said, “I only had eyes for Jim.”
Both Katrina and Jim came from strictly religious families and sex before marriage, and some suggested even after marriage, was a grave sin. Katrina and Jim only did it once at a Youth Club Easter Camp. Just that once when on a warm summer night they both sneaked out of their strictly segregated dormitories and copulated in the long grass. They hadn’t meant to. They were only going to kiss and cuddle, but one thing led to another.
They were both totally inexperienced sexually and it wasn’t even a very good coupling, but as a result Katrina was pregnant.
Her parents went into hysterics and when all was revealed to Jim’s parents they too showed all the signs of panic. The cry was, “What’ll they think at the Church?”
The minister was consulted and a hasty marriage arranged and, of course, there was a “premature birth.”
Once caught in the bonds of marriage Katrina who, despite the religious and her family’s repressive stance, was in fact a very passionate girl, looked to Jim to meet her pressing sexual needs. They now had the freedom so she wanted to engage in frequent and imaginative love making. It therefore puzzled her why Jim seemed so inept and uninspiring as a lover. He engaged in very little foreplay and his coupling with her was no more than a quick injection of sperm and then withdrawal as if he wanted to get it over quickly.
As her pregnancy advanced Jim used this as an excuse not to copulate with Katrina at all. She told her self that once the baby was born things would be different, and Jim would become the lover she dreamed of. It did not happen.
For some five years Jim continued to have sex with her, but always infrequently and in an uninspired way. He seemed to dislike her body, being reluctant to even insert his fingers into her vagina and making remarks like, “It’s all yucky.”
Katrina had read about oral sex and when once she had knelt over him with her vagina poised over his face and began to lower her self to receive oral sex. He had flung her away yelling, “I’m not licking that stinking thing.”
He was not reticent about getting Katrina to do things for him like sucking his penis until he came into her mouth, but after he had come he would turn away and go to sleep, leaving Katrina weeping, and deeply frustrated, to relieve herself of her sexual tension.
It was during the fifth year of their marriage that things took a turn for the worst. Jim seemed to go off sex completely. All Katrina’s efforts to arouse him achieved nothing – well not quite, he occasionally asked, or rather demanded, she masturbate him or give him fellatio. For herself there was nothing.
She suffered the nights of deep frustration and weeping for more than a year, then one night after yet another attempt to get him to give her something, she screamed at him, “I’ll never sleep with you again,” and she never did.
Katrina bought herself a nice big bed and moved into another bedroom and from then on satisfied herself with a vibrator. Even this gave her feelings of guilt because according to a little book she got at the church on sex, masturbation was evil, but then again, it seemed only to apply to the boys because it was not acknowledged that girls would do such a thing. So Katrina partially consoled herself with the view that the stricture did not really apply to her and when using her vibrator hung between pleasure and guilt.
Jim, who sex apart, was quite a considerate husband, would enter her bedroom with a cup of tea each morning. Very occasionally he would have an erection and asked Katrina to help him. By now feeling compassionate rather than angry, Katrina would oblige, masturbating him or giving him oral sex. “There’s always the hope that one day we’ll have a real sex life,” she thought; but she hoped in vain.
When one’s emotions and desires, the desire to give and receive love especially in its sexual aspect, become blocked, the frustrated one will often look elsewhere for satisfaction. It was thus that Katrina felt herself between two hell fires; the fire of her sexual craving and the hell fire of her religion that promised her eternal torment if she did seek and find gratification.
In short, she thought about taking a lover. It would not be difficult because there were men both inside and outside her church who she knew looked at her with eager longing. She had been the prettiest girl in the Youth Club and many of the boys had pursued her, and now as adult men they still lusted for her.
By the age of thirty six she had matured into a truly lovely woman; the sort men fantasise about when they are masturbating of even when ejaculating into a sexual partner they are really bored with. Yet even with opportunities aplenty Katrina did nothing. Still a strictly religious person and holding several positions in the local church, and taking her marriage vows in deadly earnest, she fought against entering what she thought of as “Illicit sexual relationships.” Instead she lived with the inferno of her heartbreaking sexual needs.
Jim became ever more emotionally remote from Katrina. He might do all the practical things, but when it came to loving emotional support he constantly backed away. Katrina was a woman filled with love, and that not only sexual. She needed an outlet – one that would not be considered “sinful,” a relationship in which she could give and receive love, and she found it.
With the birth of their son David, Katrina had experienced a new dimension in her life. She was still only seventeen when she gave birth and had needed a great deal of guidance in child rearing to begin with.
The child was, she thought, beautiful. This was not surprising given that both his mother and father were very attractive people. She had felt a deep peace envelop her as she held him to her breast and he sucked on her nipple; so it was an early blow to her relationship when Jim, on seeing her suckle David, had remarked, “That looks revolting.” He always made a point of absenting himself thereafter when she was feeding David.
Jim’s attitude had deeply hurt and disappointed Katrina for she had hoped that Jim would share the beauty of the occasion with her. I suspect that this was the clear beginning of the rift between them – a rift that grew ever wider when later Jim began to openly demonstrate that he disliked her body.
Loving David right from the start, as Katrina’s life with Jim became ever more frustrating, she increasingly focused her love on David. Instead of Jim and David being the twin foci of her love, David became the sole centre of that love.
As the years passed and David grew into a lovely child Jim became ever more remote. Katrina had made many suggestions about doctors and counselling, and all were rejected by Jim.
He was it must be admitted a considerate father and husband, being what used to be called, “A good provider.” I suspect that the phrase is often used by women who are sexually deprived in their marriages, but want to find some virtue in their spouse.
Jim, a very sporty sort of guy, wanted David to share his enthusiasm for “Footy” and cricket, and to some extent David did, but not with the zeal Jim thought appropriate for a boy. He would frequently complain that Katrina was, “Bringing him up to be a ‘softy’.”
This started to change when David entered his teenage years. At sixteen he stood six feet two inches, being three inches taller than his father. He played rugby for his school and was generally physically well developed.
David continued in the family adherence to religion, but things had changed over the years. Whilst it went unacknowledged within the church, most of the mothers had their daughters surreptitiously put on the contraceptive pill, and Katrina was well aware that David was enjoying himself with some of the church girls.
Along with his sporting activity David shared many of Katrina’s interests. She liked to go and see films and attend the theatre to see plays and musicals. She had early learned that Jim had no interest in these things, and even if she could persuade him to go with her, he set about ruining the evening by sulking and making unpleasant comments. So it was David who, from a quite early age, became her companion in these things.
As David grew into manhood Katrina took pride in being seen with such a handsome young man. On several occasions she had the pleasure of being mistaken for his wife. Although she told herself and David it was “ridiculous,” she secretly rejoiced at the idea that she looked young enough to be taken as David’s wife. This pleasure was added to when David commented, “I don’t see why it’s ridiculous mum, you look ten years younger than you are and I love being seen with you.”
Katrina had blushed and fended off the comment, but nevertheless she hugged it to her inner self.
It was around this time that a number of changes seemed to occur. Jim still brought her morning tea in bed, but he no longer asked her to masturbate him or give him oral sex. He also seemed a lot more cheerful and went about the house whistling and being as helpful as he could.
David also seemed to be going through a change. Unlike many boys when they enter puberty he had not fended off Katrina’s affectionate hugs and kisses, but after his comment about her he seemed to become even more receptive. Previously, and when he had entered puberty, he had been the acquiescent receiver of Katrina’s physical embraces, but now he began to initiate such contacts.
Katrina too began to change. Having long ago given up any hope she had that Jim would start to make love with her again, she felt relieved that he no longer approached her for his own gratification. In addition, she became increasingly aware of David’s physical attractions and his growing interest in close bodily contact with her.
She delighted in this contact with David and was aware that he was no longer her “little boy,” but a vibrant young man.
The changes were slow and subtle. If she went to see a film or went to the theatre with him, they started to hold hands in the darkness. She took to leaning her head on his shoulder and he would put his arm round her. On arriving home their goodnight kiss seemed to no longer be the filial kiss of mother and son. It lingered longer and their bodies clung together.
This closeness Katrina enjoyed and even sought it, but at the same time was disconcerted by her response to this more ardent contact with David. Often now she felt herself growing wet between her thighs and her nipples grew hard. She did not blame David for this arousal, but herself. She would tell herself she was a “Wicked woman” for having such feelings for her son.
She could share her worry over her feelings with no one except God, and she prayed frequently for God to help her and remove her “Licentious thoughts and feelings.” God did not seem to hear her plea, or if he did, failed to act on her fervent requests.
Katrina decided many times that she must make a change in her relationship with David, but it was like trying to give up smoking; as someone has said, “Smoking is easy to give up, I’ve given it up hundreds of times.”
