Friday 3rd November 2017
The car staring me in the face as I quickly came down from my Gemma-induced cloud-nine heaven was a red 1974 Pontiac Firebird, just like the one Jim Rockford drove in the TV show The Rockford Files. Only this car was red, not gold, and wasn’t owned by some fictional TV detective, but by a guy who’d in some ways been my nemesis back in the 1990s when Jill and I had first got together.
When I met Jill, I was finishing my doctorate in Aeronautical Engineering at Florida State, where she was just entering her third year of an English degree. All through her first two years, she’d dated Callan, the handsome sports jock and second-string quarterback on the FSU Seminoles football team. But just at the start of her third year, Callan broke her heart by dumping her for the girl he was later to marry, Charlotte.
The first time I saw that car was about a month after Jill and I started dating, which was around three months after Callan had dumped her. For two months she’d been bereft and hardly wanted to go out at all. Until a friend of hers dragged her out to a party one Friday night, which is where we met. Despite having sworn off men, she saw something she liked in me as we talked about everything under the sun. Later that next week I managed to get her number through a friend and I persuaded Jill to come out for a coffee.
The night I first saw that red Firebird was also the first time I met Callan. I was waiting outside Jill’s place for her to finish her shift at a local diner so we could go out to a movie we both wanted to see. By this time, although we weren’t sleeping together yet, Jill had opened up sufficiently to tell me all about Callan and Charlotte. Partly because she wanted to share, and partly by way of getting me to understand why she wanted to take things slow. As I waited on the front porch of the house she shared with friends, I saw the red muscle car pull up and the handsome FSU second-string quarterback jump out.
Seeing me sitting there on the porch, he asked me if Jill was in and when I told him no-one was in he showed me a letter he had for Jill. There was something sad and crestfallen about him, quite different from the confident, charismatic guy Jill had described to me. He explained that he felt bad about how things had ended and, as Jill wasn’t taking his calls, he’d written her a letter instead. Just then one of Jill’s housemates, a girl called Naomi, arrived and after a brief conversation, took the letter and said she’d make sure Jill got the letter.
Well, for the next twelve months, I often saw that red Firebird around campus. At first, just seeing it made me a little afraid. I knew how much Jill had loved Callan and I was always a little fearful that something might start up again between them. But my fear was ill-placed, and as the months passed, Jill and I grew closer and Callan and Charlotte’s relationship deepened until they announced their engagement.
~~~~
Twenty-plus years on, all of these memories came flooding back with a sharpness that belied the years. I’d not seen that car since Jill and I had left Tallahassee to head for jobs in Miami and set up home together. But that was 1995, and since then the car had been with Callan’s dad, and then after he passed ten years ago it had been the property of his brother Robert. Until nearly bumping into it, I’d forgotten all about Callan previously telling me that it was now his for the next ten years. I should have remembered, he’d been so excited, and talked about it so much.
I sat looking at that car for ages, letting the memories wash over me before finally shaking myself out of it and getting out, finally asking myself the obvious question – what the hell was Callan’s car doing parked outside my house at ten-thirty on a Friday night?
Given their history, as you might expect, the relationship between Jill and myself and Callan and Charlotte had been a complex one these twenty years. Totally by chance, they’d moved into the same part of Miami as us, around fifteen years ago. At first, all of Jill’s bad memories, anger, and hatred towards Charlotte and Callan came back. But we were so busy with our young family, and with work, that this soon damped down to a wary, but distant, relationship. We often saw them in the mall or at community events. What helped break down the barriers at first was when Callan started putting his sports knowledge to good effect, by helping to coach the local kids’ soccer club, at which our then eight-year-old son, John, had just started.
There was still a lot of baggage and history, but it’s hard to stay mad and angry at someone who’s selflessly giving up their time to help your kids, a feeling that only grew when our twin daughters, Abigail and Sarah joined their big brother in the club the following year, being coached both by Callan and also Charlotte – the woman who Jill had hated for so long.
I didn’t really have much to offer in the way of sports knowledge or coaching skills, but Jill was soon ‘guilted’ into helping out with the club, and our daughters’ team. As she put it, her self-respect wouldn’t allow her to sit there and do nothing while Callan and Charlotte, two people who she felt morally superior to, worked hard to help our kids. She still wanted the moral high ground and so, started helping out three months after our girls went for their first try-out.
For the next year, seeing and working with Callan and Charlotte in this way helped further melt and thaw the ice and pain from the past. The four of us weren’t exactly good buddies, but we had a grudging respect and rubbed along okay.
The event that moved the four of us into being genuine friends was when Callan’s dad died in 2007 and his bedridden mum had to come and live with Callan and Charlotte. Charlotte went part-time to make sure that Callan’s mum, Brenda had the care and company she needed, and as Brenda’s condition worsened as the years went by, Charlotte stopped working altogether.
With Callan away working much of the time, as a guy building his career in insurance sales, Charlotte did much of the heavy lifting looking after Brenda, until finally after four years of slowly deteriorating health, Callan’s mum finally passed away.
Over those four years, despite all that happened between them at college, Jill and Charlotte became good friends. Jill saw the loving and selfless way that Charlotte looked after Callan’s mum and it acted as the catalyst to finally make her see Charlotte in a new light. The history and the pain were still there, but every week my wife was confronted with a very different Charlotte from the one who had hurt her so badly.
Jill’s own parents were in a similar situation, and as they lived five hours away in Jacksonville, it was Jill’s sister Beth on whom most of the care burden fell. Jill actually started helping out with Brenda so that Charlotte could get a break, and this was the start of the period when Jill finally laid the ghosts to rest and she and Charlotte became close friends. There was many an evening that the new friends shared several bottles of wine, talking about all manner of things they had in common. They both worked downtown as high-powered PAs. They’d both dated Callan. They were both passionate about the local girls’ soccer team. The only thing they didn’t have in common was kids, with Charlotte confiding, during one drunken evening, how sad she was that she couldn’t give Callan the kids they so desperately wanted.
~~~~
When I’d headed out with Gemma, Jill and Charlotte had been set for a girls’ night in. They were still dolled up in their little black dresses from their earlier visit to Romeo’s, but when I left they looked settled in for the evening. So what the hell was Callan’s car now doing parked outside our house?
As I headed towards our front door, I heard voices coming from outside by the patio next to the pool. In addition to Jill’s voice, I immediately recognized the voices of both Charlotte and Callan, and the rush of fear and adrenaline I’d felt on seeing Callan’s car receded. Over the years, despite her history with Callan, Jill had never given me any cause to worry that their old flame might be re-kindled. But after all the crazy stuff that had happened the last couple of weeks, part of me almost expected to walk in on Callan and Jill.
My den looked out onto the patio furniture where I was pretty sure Jill and her two guests would be sitting, enjoying the balmy Florida climate, which even at nighttime was still in the mid-seventies, less than two months short of Christmas. As I snuck into my den I was glad I always left the window open for the flow of fresh air, so I’d be able to hear their conversation.
The way the patio lighting was arranged, shining away from the house towards the table, there was no way they could see me through the glare of the bright halogen lights, but I was able to see them perfectly well. I was surprised to see that despite only hearing three voices, there was another guest who’d joined Jill in my absence: Byron, our next door neighbor, who coached football at one of the local high schools.
I know I should have declared my presence, but there was a little voice in my head that told me it would be more fun, and also more informative, to stay unseen for a while, to listen in without them knowing I was there.
As I listened in, certain parts of the jigsaw started slotting into place. The reason Callan was there was that Charlotte needed a lift home. Apparently things weren’t great between her and her young beau, Juan, at the moment, and so her soon to be ex-husband, Callan, had answered the call to give her a lift home, as neither Jill nor Charlotte were fit to drive, and they had no idea what time I’d be home from Gemma’s place.
And the reason Byron was there, was because Byron and Callan had been hanging out. Callan was helping Byron with one of his teams and they’d been next door discussing various things to do with the team when Callan had gotten the call from Charlotte.
As I stood in my den listening in, and protected by the glare of the lights, the conversation was very different from what I expected. When I’d left to spend the evening with Gemma, buoyed up by the booze and the flirting at the club, the three women had been on a high. They’d been loud, flirtatious, and more than a little suggestive. But now, several hours later, Charlotte and Jill seemed to be in an altogether quieter, and more reflective, frame of mind.
I noticed that although there were a couple of empty bottles of wine on the table, both girls were alternating between drinking water and coffee. Byron was the only one drinking, pulling on a bottle of beer, as he only had to walk home.
The conversation between the three of them was a serious one, and it centered on the whole subject of Jill’s and my newfound experimentation with swinging and trying new partners.
Jill was looking across at Charlotte with a decidedly nervous and anxious look on her face. “I just don’t know, Char. When the three of us were here, it all seemed such a laugh and I felt excited about it. It felt hot. But when I saw him driving off with Gemma, and right now after he’s been gone for three hours with her, it feels totally different. I’m all torn up with jealousy and fear and nerves.”
Charlotte was sitting next to Jill and, with a look of deep care and love, she reached out and held Jill’s hand. “I get it, Jill. I know exactly how you feel. I felt pretty much the same way, the first time I let Callan go with another woman.”
Charlotte paused for a moment as if working out what to say next. Looking Jill directly in the eyes she comforted her good friend. “Jill, honey, if you and Dave continue down this path, I promise you it will get easier. It got easier for Callan and me.”
There was a short pause before Charlotte continued. “But I think the two of you need to talk. To talk and work out whether this lifestyle is really right for you or not.”
The two women just looked at each other, not saying a word, just looking intently into each other’s faces.
It was actually Byron who spoke first. “Jill, Charlotte’s right. For some couples, it’s a great addition to their marriages. It spices things up and makes them stronger. It’s something they enjoy together and which they share. For other couples, it’s something they try one or two times and then they work out it’s not for them.”
Silence descended on the group, I guess all of them agreeing with Byron’s words before he continued. “The problem really comes if a couple decides different things. If, having tasted the forbidden fruit, one of them wants to continue while the other doesn’t. Then, that becomes a problem.”
Again, silence. Then it was Callan who spoke. “Jill, don’t get the wrong idea, just because of what happened between Charlotte and me. Most other couples in the group seem really happy. Look at Gemma and Duncan. They swear by it, that it’s zinged up their marriage and kept things fresh and strong between them. Liam and Jessica. Alan and Sally, they’d all say exactly the same as Gemma and Duncan. Maybe Charlotte and I just weren’t meant to be.”
Throwing her hands in the air, Jill laughed out loud. “Don’t say that! The only thing that consoled me, when Callan ran off with you, was that at least I’d lost him to the woman he was going to marry. If you two were never meant to be, then you’ll take that crutch away from me.”
Everyone laughed at Jill’s deliberate attempt to lighten the mood.
The conversation carried on, with the general consensus among the four that Jill and I needed to do some serious talking and thinking, now that we were both ‘one-for-one’ on the ‘enjoying other people’ scoreboard. Tonight had evened things up after I’d let Jill enjoy a night with Daryl. But that now, with honors even, we needed to think, ‘What next?’
As the four of them continued to talk, they shared a real mixed bag of experiences and stories. About couples for whom things had gone great, and about couples for whom things hadn’t ended so well. When Charlotte and Callan talked about what had happened in their own marriage, I was taken by how calm and detached they sounded as they described and assessed what had happened–a far cry from the anger and raw pain that they’d both shared a year ago, when Charlotte had first told Callan she was leaving him for her young Hispanic lover, Juan. They both seemed much more accepting and almost resigned to what would happen.
Given that Jill, Callan, and Charlotte went back more than twenty years together, Byron was, in many ways, a little of an outsider in the group. But he spoke up plenty, sharing both good and bad experiences from his involvement in the swinger lifestyle back in LA. Whilst his last experience, the one that had made him relocate to Florida, had been a bad one, he recounted details of plenty of couples he knew for whom swinging had been a great and marriage-affirming experience.
For me, the most interesting part was when Jill started talking about her own experiences. She’d already told Charlotte how hard it had been for her to think of me and what Gemma and I were doing, but later Charlotte brought the subject back to how Jill felt about her time with Daryl, and whether or not she wanted a repeat performance.
Jill didn’t answer immediately, before looking at Charlotte and telling her that the sex had been amazing and that yes, if she was single she’d be only too happy to have a repeat session with Daryl. Then she added that it wasn’t that simple though, that after everything that the four of them had discussed tonight, she and I needed to talk about the risks and work out whether we thought these were risks worth taking.
This answer seemed to satisfy Charlotte and the others who’d been listening more quietly, not surprising, as what Jill said made eminent good sense. Hearing this repeated again – how great the sex with Daryl had been, but that she and I needed to talk about risks and what made sense – made me realize that after a night of hedonistic pleasure with Gemma, I was in for an entirely more serious weekend.
After a while, the conversation seemed to die down and I decided now was a good time to announce my arrival. Making my way out of my den and back through the front door I made my way around the side of the house, making out as if I’d just arrived, grateful for the recent purchase of my near silent Prius hybrid. I smiled to myself at the irony that I couldn’t think of two more dissimilar cars – my environmentally friendly Prius and Callan’s iconic 1974 gas guzzler.
I received four cheery welcomes, trying my best to act surprised at finding Callan and Byron there. After a few minutes of small talk, a now semi-sober Charlotte announced it was time she headed home, looking across at Callan to prompt him. I don’t know why, but before Callan could say or do anything, I responded.
“No point in breaking up the party. I’ll give you a lift home, Charlotte.”
I’d expected maybe some resistance from Callan, some half-gallant insistence that he’d be the one to take her home.
The two left back, Byron and Callan, teased they should be the one to take his soon to be ex-wife home. But Callan just smiled at me, with a ‘thanks bud’ expression, and so I was soon acting the gent as I opened the door for Charlotte and ushered her into the passenger seat. Late on a Friday night, it was only a fifteen-minute drive to Charlotte’s place.
Charlotte was uncharacteristically quiet during the drive. But when we reached her place, she made up for this by grasping my hand and asking me how things had been with Gemma. I told her things had been great, that we’d both had a good time, but seeing her lack of interest in my reply, I realized this was just a lead into what she really wanted to discuss. Squeezing my hand again she looked me in the face.
“You know I love you guys, right?” she said, a serious expression painted across her face. “Whatever you guys decide to do going forward, I’m here for you. And if, as you make your minds up, you need someone to talk to, well, it goes without saying, my door’s always open.”
I didn’t really know what to say, so I simply thanked Charlotte and hoped this awkward conversation would move on. But Charlotte wasn’t done yet, again looking deep into my eyes as she made her point. “Jill’s in a strange place at the moment, Dave. I know how much you love her, so just be patient and understanding with her. Okay?”
Even though I’d eavesdropped on their earlier conversation, Charlotte’s comment was more than a little cryptic. I suppose it’s the engineer in me; I love black and white, right and wrong. The clarity that comes with maths and numbers. So having Charlotte’s comment just hanging there in the air like that felt like an unfinished thread that needed to a good tug, to see what was at the other end of the thread.
“Thanks, Charlotte. I really appreciate your concern and support,” I smiled. “But could you just tell me a bit more, what’s on your mind. Why I need to be patient and understanding.”
Charlotte thought for a moment, the cogs and gears moving behind those concerned eyes. “Jill’s in a funny place right now, Dave, honey. She’s tasted the forbidden fruit and loved it. And a big part of her wants more. But a big part of her worries about how this might affect the two of you. And she tried to play fair tonight, putting on a brave face as she pushed you into Gemma’s arms. But she found it a lot harder than she thought she would. So, right now, she’s all mixed and confused. So you just need to help her through it. Help her work out what she wants. For the two of you to work out what you want.”
In some ways Charlotte wasn’t telling me anything new or different from what I’d heard, listening in to their earlier conversation. But somehow, being sat next to her, just the two of us together, as she held my hand, made it all the more real for me. And the look in her eyes–a woman who’d enjoyed swinging, before ultimately screwing up her marriage–made the whole moment more profound and poignant.
I leaned across and hugged Charlotte before giving her a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, hun. I really appreciate the way you’re looking out for Jill and me.”
Charlotte returned my smile and tenderly stroked my face. “Don’t mention it, Dave. You’ve both walked a little on the wild side now. Tasted the sweet taste of the fruit. And now you’ve got some decisions to make. And there are dangers whichever way you go. An unsatisfied appetite can cause problems. An appetite out of control can most certainly cause problems.”
With a final platonic kiss and squeezing hug, Charlotte was up and out of my car. As I watched her walk down the path there seemed something a little sad about her.
~~~~
With Charlotte safely inside her apartment, I headed back over to our house, feeling more than a little weighed down by the prospect of some of the conversations I knew Jill and I had to have over the next couple of days.
As I parked so that Callan’s Firebird could just about get past me, I heard the sounds of laughter coming from our back patio. I smiled, happy at the thought that at least we’d have a bit of laughter and fun before the serious stuff began. Hopefully, tomorrow, not tonight, as I was too tired for a heavy bedtime conversation.
Heading around the side of the house I stood in the shadows and listened in. Both Callan and Byron were still there, sitting opposite Jill, all three of them smiling and laughing.
“That’s a difficult one,” I heard my beautiful wife of twenty years announce, her face contorted in an exaggerated expression of overacting, reminding me of her love of her days in the local Amateur Dramatics troop.
“If I had to choose between the two of you, who would I choose?” she added in a hammed-up rhetorical question.
“That’s easy, Jill, honey. It would be me, by a country mile,” her ex-boyfriend said. Smiling across at Jill, he got into his stride. “After all, Jill baby, what woman in her right mind would want a boy when she can have a man?” alluding to the twelve years of seniority he had on our younger black neighbor, Byron.
“And, Jill, I’m sure you remember what great music we used to make together. I’m sure you remember how ‘talented’ I am down there. If I was less of a gentleman I’d remind you how you used to scream my name out and pop over for booty calls, whenever your schedule allowed.”
Hearing Callan talk this way about their time together, before he’d dumped Jill, and she and I dated, made my guts twist up with angst and jealousy. But bizarrely it also made my cock start to harden, as I tried to picture in my mind’s eye what the two of them would look like together. To imagine the sound of Jill screaming Callan’s name in the throes of passion, as he gave her a sound fucking. All the time, Callan’s reference to being ‘talented’ in the trouser department bubbled away at the back of my mind, something Jill and I had never discussed before, but which I knew I couldn’t un-hear and would have to ask Jill about.
Before I had more time to dwell on these thoughts, Byron cut across Callan, eagerly pointing out to Jill that he was by far the superior choice for her. “Jill, I know you and Callan have history. But who wants history when you can have the future? Who wants a clapped-out 1974 model, held together by string and sticking tape when you can have a bang-up-to-date model that goes all night, if you know what I mean. Surely, you deserve someone hunky and virile, rather than someone who might have been virile twenty years ago.”
Callan pretended to look outraged at his younger friend’s affront to his masculinity, but they were all enjoying the crack. And Byron wasn’t anywhere near done yet in the attempted demolition of his rival, and appeal to my wife’s tastes.
“And Jill, honey, Callan’s bigger than most guys, I grant you. What, six-one or six-two? But he’s a toddler compared to the prime side of black beefcake sitting in front of you – all six-foot-seven of rippling muscle. And, as Callan so crudely put it, he might be a ‘little talented’ in the trouser department, but if I was, unlike Callan, less of a gentleman, I might point out that I’ve seen the way you sometimes catch a sneaky peak at my speedos whenever you think no one’s looking. And let’s just say that I’m sure you like what you see. After all, not all men are created equal.”
By now Jill was almost crying with tears of laughter, as Byron moved in for the coup de grace, leaning across and grasping Jill’s hand in a mock proposal gesture. “Jill, honey, my last word on the matter is this. Have you ever wondered why all the top athletes are black? It’s because we’ve got the power and the rhythm. We know how to show a girl a good time. Jill, baby, I don’t know if you’ve ever been with a brotha before, but you know what they say. ‘Once you go black, you won’t go back.’”
The three of them carried on laughing for some time, with Callan feeling he had to have the last word. “Jill, I’d hate to crush the youngster’s hopes. Why choose? Maybe, if you ask Dave nicely, he’ll let you have two toys to play with at Christmas.”
As the laughter died down, it was clear how much everyone had been enjoying the joke. But I think all four of us (including me, still hiding in the shadows) knew that many a true word is said in jest. Behind all of the jokes, I knew that if Jill and I did decide to carry on with our newly started open marriage, both Callan and Byron would be at the head of the queue, waiting to sample my wife’s sweet charms. With this thought echoing around my brain, I decided now was a good time to announce my presence. The return of the missing husband was the death knell that had both Callan and Byron heading home a few minutes later.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Saturday 4th November 2017
As expected, Jill and I spent much of the weekend talking through recent events and what we wanted to now do as a couple.
At first, I let Jill do most of the talking, limiting my role to coaxing out her feelings and thoughts, helping her to explore and test all the different things swirling around in her brain and heart. Early on I confessed that I’d come home earlier than I’d let on and that I’d heard the conversations she’d had with our friends. Jill seemed okay with this, by now knowing that I got a secret kick from listening in, or watching, in secret.
It took quite some time to get there, but we finally got to a place where Jill knew what she thought and felt. And it was different from where she’d been earlier in the week, and before I’d headed off with Gemma. She still admitted that the whole thing with Daryl, and the whole swinging thing, was incredibly exciting and erotic. But, having experienced the jealousy and fears when I went with Gemma, Jill was now in a different place. The excitement was still there, but now she didn’t want to chance things, and as she put it, maybe one day put our marriage at risk.
Having helped Jill get to the bottom of her thoughts and emotions, I opened up about my own feelings and thoughts. It wasn’t that they were any less important than Jill’s – it was just that since I was young, I’d been taught that a husband’s job is to put his wife and family before his own needs. So it was just second nature for me to help Jill work things out before addressing my own needs. Jill knew this, and listened attentively, now that it was my turn to talk and her turn to listen and question.
I started with the number one, most important thing: that I never, ever, wanted to do anything that would harm our love or our family. I told Jill that she and our three wonderful kids were way too important to me to ever put them at risk. Simply put, I told her that she and the kids were my life, and I’d be crushed if we ever went the same way as Callan and Charlotte.
Jill had a tearful, dewy-eyed look in her face as she listened to my words, melting my heart as I knew she felt exactly the same way.
Having told Jill what was most important to me, I explained a few other things, which had become clear to me through the last two weeks’ set of experiences. I told her that of the different things we’d experienced, by far the most erotic, for me, had been watching her with another man. Jill had known for many years that I always liked watching other guys flirting and hitting on her, but that it had only been since that fateful pool party in July that the idea of her going with other guys had slowly grown and bloomed in my mind.
Knowing she found it difficult, I told her I’d enjoyed my time with Gemma, but I didn’t dwell on it too much. At least I tried not to, but it was almost like Jill was punishing herself as she asked several questions which forced me to talk about it in more detail. Jill later told me it was like some kind of aversion therapy to her: hearing about my time with Gemma, listening to me describing it, at the same time as she could clearly see the deep and unique love I had for her in every crease and inch of my face,
I’d not planned on telling her this, but under her gentle questioning, I told her about the excitement and fresh newness of being with a different person after all these years. The look on Jill’s face told me she understood, that she’d felt something identical during her two times with Daryl. I told Jill about the strange, primeval excitement of taking another man’s wife right in the middle of the family home, the nest they’d built and feathered together. Jill looked thoughtful as she listened to this idea, before giggling when I explained how Gemma’s husband enjoyed the idea of her men taking her in their marital bed.
Inevitably, Jill asked me whether I felt closer to Gemma after our evening together. I knew I’d answer honestly, but took my time to get my words exactly right so I’d be totally open with Jill, but not set any alarm bells ringing, or cause any unnecessary pain by choosing the wrong word.
“Yes, yes, I did feel closer to her as the evening passed. Especially when we were resting between the first and the second time. We did get closer, but not in any way that’s like you and me. It’s more like getting to know someone as a new friend. I guess the expression ‘friends with benefits’ is a perfect fit. It was nice getting to know Gemma a little better. What we’d just done in bed tearing away any pretenses or facades. Two people literally and metaphorically naked with each other. Happy to enjoy good, healthy, no-strings-attached sex. With the added side benefit that we got to know each other a little better as friends. Just like we know Charlotte and Callan, and countless other good friends.”
Jill had been listening silently, and attentively, to every single word. In the end, she squeezed my hand, kissed me on the lips, and simply said, “I love you, David Andrew Foster. Thank you for sharing that. Strangely enough, hearing that helps me deal with how I’ve been feeling. And, for the record, I’m glad you had a great time. And I’m glad that you and Gemma bonded a little because she’s a nice lady. But just so there’s no misunderstanding, I’m happy that you’ve got a new friend, but just make sure you never forget you’re one hundred percent mine, Mr. Foster. No ifs. No buts. Mine. Okay?”
Jill was smiling as she said these last words. But her message was clear and heartfelt. And for me, it felt wonderful to be so clearly claimed by Jill. If ever I’d had any doubts about losing her, seeing the way she looked at me and hearing the way she branded me with her words, swept away any of these doubts.
Not long after that, Jill and I were making passionate love. After enjoying Gemma’s body, it felt wonderful to be back together with Jill. Gemma had been great, but this was in a different league. Two people who loved each other more than life could describe. And after my taste of someone different, being back with Jill felt new and fresh in a way that was amazing.
As we lay, snuggled together, enjoying that special afterglow, when I told Jill this she giggled and said she felt the same way. That, in some weird way, knowing that I’d been bedding another woman just a few hours ago made me even more attractive to her. Made having me inside her body, and feeling my lips on hers, and our flesh touching… Somehow, it gave it all a special buzz.
Snuggled together, we carried on talking, with me adding the second part of what I wanted to share with Jill. I’d already told her how much I’d enjoyed watching her with Daryl and how exciting I found the idea of her with other men. But the second thing I wanted her to understand was just as important: that, even if I did enjoy this and find it incredibly hot, I never wanted to carry on with this lifestyle if she had any doubts. It came back to what I’d said at first. These new sex games were great and exciting, but they were nothing compared to the importance of safeguarding our love and our marriage.
Jill gave me another heart-melting smile when she heard these words, burrowing her head and body into mine in a way that made me wish for the moment to never come to an end.
All of that Saturday we made love and talked. By the end of the day, we’d reached a place where we’d decided to put a stop to the games we’d only just started to enjoy. We stopped short of any final decision to never do this kind of thing again. But Jill said she wanted to take some time to make sure we weren’t doing anything that would harm our love and marriage. I was fine with this decision and fully supported her, but Jill could see my slight look of disappointment and teased me that if maybe she’d give me a treat on my birthday in April, just as a one-off, she might ‘force’ herself to enjoy a second night in bed with Daryl, or another hunk of my choosing.
Hearing Jill’s teasing words, I thought April seemed a hell of a long way off.
(Thanks to Cbears52 for his kind help in editing and correcting.)
