Maybe Later 02: Linda

Maybe Later

Continuing a tale of three fantasies: a rewarding life can be lived without a partner, a satisfying life can be lived without sex, and deserved rewards always await those who are patient.

Linda Bailey stared at the ceiling in the darkened bedroom. Now she looked down on the bobbing head of her husband, Brett.

Damn!

she thought,

I'll have to take a shower after he's done. He's slobbering all over my boobs. I hope

he's

getting his kicks out of this! I wonder how far he'll go before he gets discouraged and quits.

She knew she could easily reach and touch his gross penis, but she was afraid he'd take that as encouragement.

Brett began their love-making as he rolled over to kiss her goodnight. "What do you think, honey?" he whispered in her ear. Most often the question was met with protest -- it was too hot, it was too cold, we might wake the kids...

But tonight she replied with a sigh, "Argh," she growled, "OK, I suppose..." and flopped onto her back. With another sigh she arched her back and pulled her pajama top up above her breasts.

Every night! Every night he wants to 'make love!'

As usual, her pajama bottoms and her cotton panties were both pulled up to her waist. Brett long ago gave up on trying to get her to undress any further.

She thought back to the last time she had given in.

Last week, wasn't it? Seems as though. Maybe it was a couple of weeks ago.

With a little guilt, she realized it may have been longer than that. Much longer. And she knew the last time they had actual penis to vagina sex was well over a year ago, perhaps even two.

Brett knew the signs. His bride of twenty-something years was 'Doing her duty,' as she made clear to him one night in response to his pleas. He also knew that he may as well take what he could get for now.

But why do I bother,

he thought with a sigh as he leaned in and kissed her eyelids and her neck.

He trailed his kisses around the fold of skin that was once her neck. Maybe tonight she'll respond.

Maybe tonight she'll want to go all the way like she used to when we were first married,

he hoped, but he knew that her hands were clenched at her sides.

Gently Brett kissed and licked his way to her left breast. As he pressed his lips to her nipple, he was surprised to find it -- not hard like the tasty raspberry it once had been, but still nicely firm. When he found her right nipple it, too, was gently puckered.

Whoa, what's up with this,

he marveled, and his own hardness swelled and rose at the discovery.

This is the part I hate the most,

Linda mused. Her breasts and nipples betrayed a feeling she could not bring herself to accept anymore, that what Brett was doing actually did feel good. She re-clenched her fists and squirmed a little as she tried in vain to will those telltale nipples to unpucker, which she knew would encourage him to go further than she wanted to.

Brett continued nuzzling and kissing the underside of Linda's boobs on his way to her navel. It wasn't a very long way anymore, and her navel now lay under a fold of skin on her generous stomach. He considered pressing his tongue into her navel but thought better of it. But as he drew close to it, Linda flinched.

"Please don't, Brett. It tickles," she said

It was the expected reaction. Brett smiled, having gained a little revenge for his conflicted journey tonight from neck of navel. Inspired now, he slid down suddenly, placed a smooch just above the drawstring of her pajamas, and grasped the fabric to pull her pajamas and cotton panties further down.

"BRETT," Linda shrieked! "Enough!!! I'm NOT in the mood!!" She lurched from the bed, reached into a dresser drawer for a clean nightgown -- and slammed the drawer shut for emphasis - and stomped toward the bathroom.

Brett chuckled to himself as he heard the water run. He was still frustrated, but he had exacted an ounce of flesh for his distress. He stood to turn on the TV then flopped back down on the bed.

Pathetic,

he mused, the baseball game not yet registering in his attention. His hand found his naked penis.

Freakin' pathetic! Married twenty years and I'm back to Mary Palmer.

At the touch of his hand around his flaccid pecker, Brett felt a pleasant and familiar warmth, and it began to swell.

Brett considered a Hand, a slender Hand whose fingers were long and supple, whose fingertips were tipped in the reddest of reds. That Hand wrapped around his now growing and straining manhood, gently gliding its soft skin, firmly pulling back its foreskin to expose its engorged head. Those ruby-tipped fingers caressing its tip, teasing its frenulum, swirling in the pre-cum around swollen red tip, gliding, swirling...

Primed already from the enticing possibility of sex moments ago, it didn't take Brett long to put himself over the edge, and he came in four short thrusts into the Hand. And as he relaxed from the intensity, he realized the hand was his, not the Hand he dreamed of. He shuddered at how quickly the thought of slim supple hand of Linda's sister, Louann, came to mind. He thought for a moment of her ample breasts, of her inviting hips.

But he knew they were forbidden fruit, forbidden by his own upbringing that it was wrong, forbidden by the vows of fidelity he had taken on at his wedding to Linda. In the flickering light of the TV, he drifted off into thought.

Brett knew that to argue would only make things worse. "Honey, you're frustrating the shit out of me!" he shouted one evening, and stalked off to their bedroom and turned on a Red Sox on TV. Deep down, Brett clung to the hope that one day Linda would see the light, that one day she would come to enjoy sex. He thought she had once loved the intimacy they shared. He remembered the joy of their newlywedded-ness.

Someday she'll realize the pleasures of sex, the warmth of intimacy,

he wished.

He had hoped his vasectomy would take away her fear of pregnancy but that hadn't really changed anything.

Maybe her change of life will open up a new world for her. Someday she'll come around.

Brett knew he should be getting used to the rejection.

She makes me feel like I'm a rapist, like I'm forcing her to do something she doesn't want to do.

Brett seriously considered finding sex elsewhere. The opportunity has been there, and he came close on a couple of occasions, but he backed away and remained faithful, as he vowed to do so many years ago. He was a man of principal and honor, and he had pledged those twenty-odd years ago "to keep himself only unto her so long as you both shall live." Still, he couldn't help thinking, wondering if Linda would have been relieved that he wasn't pestering her for sex any more.

He had hoped his vasectomy ten years earlier, eliminating the possibility of pregnancy, would free her of her aversion to sex. It didn't.

Perhaps menopause will set her free,

he now hoped.

Despite it all, he knew it was Linda he loved, Linda he had sworn on his honor to be true to, and Linda he with whom he wanted more than anyone else to be intimate.

The frustration slowly subsided, and soon Brett drifted off to sleep.

>>>>> 0 <<<<<

Making love,

Linda muttered to herself as she strode to the bathroom.

'Making love!' That's crap. If Brett truly loves me, why does he pester me so often?

By the time Linda stepped into the shower, the shock of Brett's attack on her clothing had passed. As the cleansing warm water splashed over her generous body, her thoughts drifted back to their honeymoon and the early years of their marriage. She remembered how she felt as a newlywed while having sex with Brett.

It was wonderful, and that so contradicted what her Mom had so often repeated. She knew she was supposed to hate having sex, Mother had said so, but it felt good, and how could anything that felt that good be so bad? Besides, she was on the pill, and they were making a baby, sort of. Still, she was a reluctant lover, never initiating sex, and barely responding as Brett ravaged her body.

As she stepped out of the shower and reached for a towel, Linda avoided the mirror which might reflect the body she considered ugly.

She was very aware that her present disgust with anything even remotely to do with sex was driving her husband crazy. She was, herself, unable to explain why the very thought of Brett -- or anybody else -- touching her body was so disgusting, so frightening.

Linda listened at the door of the bathroom for his snoring, for she had learned that to go to bed with Brett after such a performance often renewed his insistent pressure. Donning her nightgown, she reached to turn off Brett's TV but paused, seeing his naked body in the flickering light.

Why is he so fixated on having sex,

she pondered.

She gazed on her husband sprawled on the bed. Those fingers certainly could be teasing, Linda remembered. Those lips felt nice on hers, and felt enticingly wonderful on her breasts and nipples. A couple of times Brett had ventured to kiss her sex, but the thought so disgusted her that she cried out in horror as he tentatively touched his tongue to her ugly cunt. But Linda still recalled the tingling excitement as she felt his tongue on her pussy lips so briefly, so long ago.

Brett had hinted once that she might give him oral sex, but just the thought of putting that gross thing in her mouth nearly gagged her.

Above all, she wrestled to understand why something as dirty as sex could possibly have felt so intoxicatingly right and beautiful.

I don't think Brett understands how much I love him,

she mused.

I wish there was a way I could see (and feel),

she smiled,

what drives Brett to keep pestering me for sex.

She understood sex was her duty to her husband. Her mother had told her so, and she heard the refrain echoing from her long dead Mom. Linda convinced herself, though, that the best way for Brett not to get frustrated, not to be disappointed, was to avoid sex -- or anything that might lead to it - altogether.

A couple of times when she was ready Brett lost his erection. Like last time... was it two -- or more -- years ago?.

Yeah, it's the meds he takes for his high blood pressure,

she tried to convince herself.

Deep down, however, there was the tiny wiggling worm of doubt, that the meds were not the real reason. Much as she wanted to believe him, she was sure it was because she wasn't attractive to him anymore.

How can he possibly want me the way I look?

Linda reasoned to herself. So she brooded. And snacked. She forced her attention from her husband's pleas and turned off his flickering TV.

Carefully, so as not to wake her husband, Linda slipped beneath the covers on their bed.

Linda tossed and turned. Deep into the middle of yet another sleepless night, she remembered something Louann laughingly mentioned the last time they talked on the phone. Louann told her about how she was sure menopause had arrived.

"Yeah, Linda," Louann chuckled, "It appears I'm going to die an old maid." And Linda was certain, from a hundred other conversations, that the "old maid" was very probably a

virgin

old maid.

In the still dark of the night, Linda formed the kernel of an idea, a way she might give both of the adults she loved most the biggest gift ever.

Brett and Louann are the two people I love most,

she smiled.

After the kids of course. Louann, as far as I know is still a virgin, though from what I can hear from her, she regrets never finding a mate.

And Brett? Poor Brett. Sheepishly she admitted,

I can't remember the last time we actually had sex.

Could I arrange it so they could have some time together -- alone?

Linda stared wide-eyed in the darkness as the gravity of her last thought hung, shimmering, in the gloom. An image formed of Brett and Louann, coupled in embrace. Linda fought to look away, yet there was a compelling attraction to it.

She began to feel sensations she'd come to abhor, but strangely they now felt interesting.

Bah! Get over it, Linda,

she admonished herself,

you're too old and fat and ugly for that silliness.

Many ticks of the clock later, Linda thought of Louann's and Brett's birthdays last week. In their advancing middle age the three had long ago given up giving gifts to one another. Although Linda didn't like the decision, it certainly made sense; a birthday was just another day now. But still...

"Hey Brett," said Linda over breakfast, "you've got that conference in San Jose in a couple of weeks. Louann's got her new house she's so proud of, but I bet there are lots of odd jobs -- man jobs -- she could use help with. Why don't you get together with Louann for a few days after your conference? She doesn't live too far from San Jose." Then, as he considered an answer, she added, "It'd be like a birthday present."

Brett certainly had the time off coming to him, and as a middle level manager he could arrange his schedule. "Yeah," he told Linda, "I guess it would be nice to visit Louann for a day or two." He was puzzled at his wife's suggestion to spend a few days alone with his sister-in-law after his business conference.

Birthday present? What's up with that?

he mused.

Especially during the past few years, he found himself day-dreaming about Louann, often with less than pure thoughts in his heart. Their relationship, she, the sister of his wife, inhibited anything more than friendship. But secretly Brett had considered her lips and marveled at her ample breasts, but most of all, Brett was fascinated by her long, slender, supple hands. He found her hands infinitely attractive.

Now in the sexless haze of their long-stagnant marriage, he and Linda's sister had grown close, but only once did they come close to crossing that unspoken line from friendship to dalliance. Each knew that to do so was taboo.

He remembered that time not too long ago, when Linda asked him to come along for a few days while she nursed Louann back to health after her breast-lump removal. Linda had dispatched him to bring her sister home from the hospital while she stayed at Louann's house to do some last minute cleaning. Brett clearly remembered his indiscrete intimacy with Louann and their commitment to one another to at least talk about it further. But for whatever the reason, the timing was never good, the circumstances were never right, and now, so long afterward, it was almost like it never happened.

I'm not sure I would be as trusting as Linda is,

Brett thought.

Oh well,

he concluded to himself in the days before the conference and before the visit with Louann,

whatever happens will happen.

But after a few delicious moments, he chuckled, "Sure, like

that

could ever happen!"