I adjusted my portable shaving mirror balanced on the edge of the tub in the bathroom of the upscale London hotel I had booked for the night. I had put a new blade in the shaver and wanted to make sure I looked my best for the evening ahead. I switched to BBC Radio 2 on the phone. I needed easy listening to stop my mind from wandering too much. Shaving as I bathed in the tub full of warm water was a particularly rare indulgence for me, but I wanted to forget the outside world and take my time to enjoy anticipating what might happen later in the evening.
Tomorrow I was going to be travelling up from London to the north of the country to Fiona’s (or Fi) graduation. My daughter seemed to have been studying for many more years than the four she had been at university, and she had asked me and Maggie to attend the ceremony. It would mean that I would travel up to Liverpool the next day, which would be too close to Manchester to avoid triggering lots of memories of visits to see Michael, one of my wife’s previous lovers, and the weekend in Wales when I had seen them make love together.
I wasn’t looking forward to seeing Maggie. We were going to meet beforehand so that we could arrive together. I didn’t want to ruin Fi’s day, but there were things that had to be said to Maggie. After all, we had gone through, now I had to accept that there was no way forward for us both. I just hoped I could avoid saying the wrong thing until after the graduation and when we had left Fi. It wasn’t easy coming to terms with the end of my marriage.
Meanwhile, for the evening ahead of me, I had booked an upscale hotel in London for my special treat. I wanted to enjoy some luxury as I waited for my visitor to arrive at my room.
I tried to focus on running the new blade over my skin. The song on the radio changed, and Diana Ross slowly and beautifully started singing the words, “touch me in the morning”. It was a song that I could hardly listen to without my tears appearing even after all this time and after everything that had happened. It was Maggie and Michael’s song.
I felt a sting on my lip as I managed to cut myself with the sharp razor. As blood started to appear I sat back feeling the trickle running down my chin. I couldn’t bring myself to turn off the radio and so I reached for some tissue paper and held it to the cut. I knew it would take time to stop bleeding. Healing takes time.
Now I couldn’t stop myself thinking again of those times when Maggie did so many new things with her lovers, and that moment after the weekend in Wales when she told me she was pregnant. I remember feeling like I had been punched in the stomach. I felt paralysed. I didn’t know what to say or how to react.
I remembered how I couldn’t get my head around everything this would mean. It obviously could not be my baby. There was an outside chance it was Will’s but we could be almost certain it was Michael’s. I had been there when he had unloaded his seed into her bare pussy. The moment came back to haunt me. The moment he must have made my wife pregnant.
That was probably the lowest point up to that time for me up to this evening when things had become even worse. At the time, I couldn’t offer the support Maggie wanted because I couldn’t bring myself to say the right thing. I wanted her to decide not to go through with the pregnancy, but I wanted it to be her choice. She wanted to think about it. Part of her felt it was a gift. Part of her felt she should discuss it with the father. Part of her knew that going ahead would have a profound impact on the future of her family.
I remembered that she had told me that because the baby inside had defied the odds, she couldn’t just end the pregnancy. As soon as she referred to it as her baby, I knew she would find it impossible not to go through with it.
I was due to travel to the US on business. I had been negotiating with a company based in Oregon that wanted to introduce its new technology to Europe via the UK. They wanted to use my business contacts to front their operation. It was a big opportunity for me. The trip had taken a lot of preparation. In the end, Maggie and I were hardly talking and we both accepted that I might as well go on the trip while she considered what she would do.
As I left for the US, Maggie told me she had decided to go to Manchester the next weekend and spend some time talking to Michael. It felt like our relationship was broken beyond repair. I couldn’t see how we would have a future together if she went ahead with having the baby. The fact that she wanted to talk to Michael made me feel like an outsider.
As I lay back in the bath with blood trickling down my chin, I didn’t want to spend any longer thinking about those times. I had made arrangements for tonight and I wanted to think about the possibility of better times to come, but it was difficult. Especially when I found myself wondering what Maggie would be doing the night before the graduation. She was a long way away and with someone else.
When we were planning how we could meet up to go to our daughter’s graduation ceremony together, Maggie and I had talked about how things had been. She described some of the most difficult times for her as she considered our relationship.
Maggie told me about one particular moment which could make me cry inside when I thought of it.
Maggie had described the day when she had woken up at Michael’s flat and looked at the small child at the bottom of the bed. She was a beautiful child, with the smooth light brown skin and so many small features that reminded Maggie of Michael. She had cried as she looked at the little human being looking up at her and she thought of what might have been and how she had gotten to this point.
She lifted the child to her and hugged her close to her breast. Maggie looked at her little face and examined it in detail, seeing Michael’s eyes and his mouth. The family resemblances were clear. She was consumed by the thought: would their child have looked like this?
Just then, Michael’s sister, Tessa, had come into the room, and told her daughter, Mae, to leave Maggie alone if she wasn’t feeling well.
Tessa and Mae were there because Michael had called his sister and asked her to come over. Shortly after Maggie had arrived in Manchester, she had felt a sharp pain inside. Maggie had come to tell Michael she was pregnant with his child. When she got to Michael’s apartment after the long journey, she had experienced what seemed to be particularly bad period pains and she realised that she was losing the pregnancy. It was just four weeks since the weekend in Wales when the pregnancy would have started.
Having learned how unusual it was for a woman in her mid-forties to get pregnant naturally, I also learned that there was a high risk that the pregnancy would not go the full term and would end in miscarriage. Maggie had gone to Manchester to talk things through with Michael, but they never got to have the conversation. Early miscarriages are common, and often women don’t even realise they are pregnant. Maggie had sensed that she was.
Michael found it too much and asked Tessa to be with Maggie until she was well enough to return home. Tessa helped Maggie when I wasn’t there to help.
Tessa and Mae looked after her, but little Mae just reminded her of what might have been. Maggie didn’t want to stay longer. By the next day, she felt well enough to return home. She sent me a message to tell me what had happened and that she was returning home. Maggie had accepted that it wasn’t meant to be and in the end it was probably for the best. It was a moment to come to terms with her life and what she wanted.
I had the chance to stay in Oregon for a few more days to meet some more people and a facility in Hillsboro. However, just as I was considering staying on, I got the message from Maggie to say she was going home and the baby was gone. I decided not to extend my stay and to fly home.
When I returned from Oregon, I found it hard to be close to Maggie. I considered staying away by keeping busy with business issues, but I knew Maggie was struggling. She recovered physically from the incident in Manchester, but I had felt excluded by what had happened and how Maggie had rushed to see Michael. It had driven a wedge between us, and we needed to find time to heal together.
One afternoon I took some time off work and I met Maggie after school and we did the same walk we took after the weekend in London. It was where we had met a couple that were celebrating their fortieth wedding anniversary.
We walked and we talked, and we started the journey to try and put our relationship back together.
We discussed how for years I had assumed that Maggie simply had a low sex drive. I had been hesitant to try new things with her, when all along she had a number of hidden desires she didn’t fully understand herself. If we were to stay together, we needed to renegotiate our relationship. We couldn’t go back. We had to accept what had happened and where we were now.
When we tried to do this last time, neither of us realised the extent of the pent up sexual desire Maggie still had. In particular, we hadn’t talked about Maggie’s bi-sexual experience and the way her first serious relationship with her flatmate in university had ended. We needed to learn to trust each other completely once again. This meant that there could be no aspect of our relationship that we couldn’t talk about. Given our track record, this could be the most difficult thing.
Having tried once to navigate a way forward together, and failing, I suggested that if we wanted to try again, we needed to negotiate new clearer rules. It seemed clear to me that it would be too difficult to ask Maggie to give up seeing other partners completely and forever, since I thought that she would always regret that. I felt that in the future I might be able to cope with her seeing maybe one or two others just two or three times a year if we had clear lines which we wouldn’t cross.
Maggie was less certain. After the pregnancy, she wasn’t sure she wanted to continue to see anyone else. She wanted to concentrate on regaining the excitement she had experienced with me. Whilst this sounded great, and Maggie tried to get in the mood for sex more, we rarely managed to match the peak that she could manage when she had been with others.
I thought that over time she would miss the thrills she had experienced. I didn’t want her to promise to never see anyone else while she was still getting over her pregnancy ending.
It was around three months after Maggie returned from Manchester when Maggie’s school was running a Saturday afternoon fundraising event. There were games for children and Maggie’s class was making lemonade to sell. I said I would help and having helped set up the lemonade making I had little to do except watch Maggie organising her children and talking to parents.
I could see how much both the children and their parents liked and respected my wife. They always addressed her properly. Some of the mothers looked so young and I knew that they looked to Maggie for support and advice. Sometimes she was a relationship counsellor as well as a teacher.
As I watched the afternoon events, I wondered what the parents would think if they knew that my wife, the perfect wife, teacher and respected community leader had been spit-roasted by two younger guys. She had been fucked bareback by a black guy and got pregnant by him. She had spent nights with not just one other man but two.
As she behaved so properly in her role as an upstanding professional, I got excited to think of the other side of her. As I watched and felt myself get hard, one of her colleagues came to keep me company. Gemma had worked at the school with Maggie for a number of years. She thought it was good of me to come and spend the afternoon supporting Maggie.
I said that I enjoyed watching Maggie organise everyone. Gemma watched with me.
“Maggie seems to be good at everything she does, everyone loves her,” Gemma commented.
“I know I’m lucky, but she’s different when she’s at home,” I replied.
“I guess she’s not perfect, but she seems to be able to respond to any challenge. I know that she had doubts about taking on Michael, but she handled him so well we were all impressed,” said Gemma.
I didn’t know what to say. What did Gemma mean?
“She certainly was pretty committed to him,” I said. I wanted to see how Gemma responded.
“We were all pleased when he won that award. It was great for the school and the fact that Maggie accompanied him to London was above and beyond the call of duty. She let him take all the praise, and it was great to see her let her hair down. I understand she drank more than usual.”
“She certainly enjoyed the night,” I said, trying to sound as neutral as possible.
“You must have been so proud of her. It was good of you to be so ready to let her go with Michael. If I went on a night out like that, my hubby would be worried, and probably rightly so. Micheal was a charmer. But knowing Maggie as we all do, I know that you would have nothing to worry about. She’s too much of a loyal wife and mother,” said Gemma.
The conversation was relaxed and casual and I realised that Gemma wasn’t making any particular point.
“I said that she’s different outside of school. How can you be sure that Maggie might not be a dark horse? Behind closed doors all sorts can happen,” I said.
Gemma grabbed my arm and looked at me.
“You two are such a perfect couple. I wish my husband was like you, and he probably wishes I could be more like Maggie,” said Gemma earnestly. “We can all see that both of you are devoted to each other.”
At that moment a couple of children started arguing a short distance away and Gemma left me to go and calm the children down.
I looked again at Maggie. What Gemma had said was not surprising in a way, but it only made me think that what we had done was even more amazing. I realised that even if I told Gemma more, she probably wouldn’t believe me.
That night we were standing in the kitchen having a glass of wine. I described how I felt watching Maggie during the afternoon playing the role of teacher. I told her what Gemma had said. I admitted how excited it made me to think about the other side of Maggie, so well hidden behind the facade of respectability.
I said that I couldn’t get out of my head the times I had seen her naked in front of others, doing all those things with Simon, Michael, Will and Lisa.
Maggie looked flush as I described these things.
“You make me sound like such a slut,” she said, almost sounding out of breath.
“No, it makes you my hot wife,” I said, moving towards her.
I took her glass of wine and placed both our glasses on the counter. I put a hand on her waist and pulled her towards me. With my other hand, I brushed a couple of stray hairs from her face. I looked at Maggie, her face so familiar, but now more experienced. Maggie was breathing heavily but appeared to be waiting nervously for my next move.
I kissed her lips, first gently but then more urgently. Maggie’s mouth opened slightly and the kisses became more passionate, more urgent as our tongues danced.
I stopped kissing her, and took her hand and led her into the living room and across to the sofa, where I sat her down. I knelt in front of her. Maggie was still breathing deeply and looking at me with her lovely dark eyes. I was aware that this was the sofa where she had sat with Simon after the rugby club dinner. This was the place where she gave her first blow job to Simon, and where I watched her have extra-marital sex for the first time.
Maggie was wearing smart grey jeans and I reached and started undoing them and pulling down the zip, exposing her white panties. She watched me, her breathing increasing. I could feel her excitement. I pulled down her jeans and took them off with her socks. I put my hands on her thighs and opened her legs. There was a visible damp patch on the crotch of her panties. I looked up at her face which was red and flushed.
I stood up and moved between her legs. I pulled off her top and vest top in one move. I reached around and unfastened her bra and pulled that off her. I saw that her nipples were erect standing proud on her small breasts. She looked so beautiful.
Maggie reached up and undid my trousers and pulled them down, followed by my shorts. She touched my hard cock and moved forward to kiss it all over before giving the tip a final kiss. She then licked it and put her lips around it. Her hands went to my buttocks and she pulled me into her. I could feel her breath on me as she licked my cock.
She withdrew and gave the tip of my cock a further urgent licking leaving it shiny and wet. She looked up pleadingly at me.
“Your hotwife wants you inside her. I want you now.”
I bent down and pulled off her panties quickly. Her pussy seemed open and very wet. I knelt down again and positioned my cock at her entrance. I rubbed it around feeling the moisture. Maggie tried to reach and pull me towards her. She seemed more desperate than I could ever remember.
“I love you like this. You are a hotwife, and you’re my hotwife and I love you for it,” I said.
Maggie was panting with desire.
“Please. Your hotwife wants you inside her. FUCK ME! NOW!”
She was shouting at me with an urgency I had never seen from her. I was amazed at the language she used. She never asked me to ‘fuck her,’ yet alone shout out loud. I pushed into her and she gave the sort of guttural noise. It reminded me of the sound she made when I watched Will fuck her. Now she was making it for me.
Her pussy was wetter and warmer than ever. It was easy to slip inside her and it had none of the tightness I had experienced on so many occasions. I wondered for the moment how much of this was because of how excited she was or whether it was because her pussy was looser from other men larger than me. This final thought made me so excited that I knew I would cum soon.
Maggie spoke through ragged breaths.
“Does it excite you thinking of the men who have fucked your wife?”
Maggie had previously rarely spoken when we had sex. This was so different.
“I’m thinking of the other men you’ve had in your married pussy. You never used to talk like this during sex.”
“I’m different now,” Maggie replied. “You like?”
This made me thrust into her with even more force.
I looked at Maggie as I pushed inside her as far as I could. I knew I couldn’t last much longer.
I said, “are you safe?”
Maggie thought for a split second with my cock embedded in her.
“Possibly not, sorry.”
I could feel I was starting to cum, and so I quickly withdrew and, almost as soon as I did, the cum shot out of me and onto her body landing on her stomach and breasts. I continued pumping out cum for a few moments. I could sense Maggie’s disappointment that her pussy was empty.
“Sorry, I was too excited,” was all I could say.
Maggie touched my chest. “It’s fine, I loved getting you so excited.”
“You’re not disappointed?”
Maggie pulled me down and kissed me.
“I love you.”
We left our clothes on the floor and went up to bed and lay naked, our arms around each other. We talked some more. Maggie made a comment that surprised me.
“I’m going to see the doctor to try taking the pill again. Things have changed since I last tried it and there might be something I can take which won’t upset me like last time.”
“Is this so that you can restart your hotwife lifestyle?” I said.
Maggie sounded hurt.
“No, it’s so that you don’t have to wear protection or withdraw, you idiot!”
She realised I was teasing her and gave me a playful punch.
“I thought you would be pleased.”
“I’m flattered, but I just don’t want it to make you feel bad like it did before,” I replied.
A few days later Maggie was as good as her word and made an appointment with the doctor.
She returned disappointed. After checking her blood pressure and various other tests, her doctor said that she felt that the pill wouldn’t be right for Maggie at her age. I thanked her for trying but I understood that it wasn’t possible and I certainly didn’t want her risking her health.
So the alternative seemed to be for me to do something, and a few weeks later I made an appointment and I had ‘the snip’. It left me feeling like I’d been kicked in the balls for a couple of days, but soon I felt better and after a further check, I was given the all-clear to have sex without the risk of getting Maggie, or anyone else pregnant.
I thought it would be a nice surprise for Maggie. When we first had sex, I entered her bareback and she immediately reminded me that it was not a safe time for her. I said that it didn’t matter, I couldn’t make her pregnant anymore. Maggie stopped me and I withdrew.
Maggie sat up and asked me what I had done. I explained that I wanted it to be a surprise so that we could enjoy true skin to skin sex without worrying about pregnancy. Since she couldn’t safely take the pill, I thought that this would be better.
Maggie said that she was disappointed that I hadn’t asked her first.
“A decision like this should be made together, not just by one of us,” she said.
“But we had decided that you should try and go back on the pill so that we could enjoy sex without condoms, and this way we still can,” I answered.
“The pill isn’t permanent, this is,” she said.
“I didn’t think we wanted any more children,” I said, feeling deflated.
Maggie thought for a minute.
“You are right, it just seems so final,” she said. “I needed a bit of time to get used to it.”
“I’m sorry, I can see that I should have discussed it in advance. It was painful for a couple of days, I’m surprised that you didn’t notice any change,” I said, trying to diffuse the awkwardness.
“Well I’m sorry I didn’t notice your pain, and luckily I didn’t do anything to make it worse. I suppose you’re okay now?”
“All fine and in order,” I said. “Or rather not in order, firing blanks.”
Maggie settled back into bed next to me and drew me close.
“Then I guess we had better take advantage,” she said.
It took a short while for me to get back in the mood, but once I did, it felt good to be inside my wife and not to have to worry about withdrawing or any risks.
The freedom seemed to lead to more frequent sex over the next few weeks, and I was left wondering why I hadn’t done this years ago. We frequently would refer to Maggie’s sexual adventures as we made love. It seemed to excite us both and was the key to more frequent sex. I knew that it was only a matter of time before Maggie would have more adventures.
We were in bed late one evening after a particularly energetic session of sex. We lay naked facing each other. I raised the subject of the possibility of Maggie having more adventures. Maggie was still not sure she wanted to. She was afraid that it could put stress on our relationship.
I accepted that it might not happen for a while; even maybe not at all. However, I suggested that rather than dealing with the issue when the opportunity arose, maybe we should agree to some ground rules now. This way neither of us would feel under pressure if an opportunity did arise, we could raise it within the rules and hopefully avoid causing too much stress.
Maggie agreed this made sense and we went over what we had enjoyed and what had caused difficulty from our last adventures. We both agreed that open communications were the key and we needed to avoid any misunderstandings or wrong signals which could lead to problems between us.
After much time discussing and reflecting, we came up with a simple plan. If we wanted to have any further sexual adventures with others, we would limit it to a maximum of twice a year for no more than two nights each time. It could only happen if we both wanted to meet up with someone else. We would call these our ‘freedom weekends’. Along with the rules we had agreed in the past, which included making sure we warned each other if we were starting to fall in love with anyone else, we agreed more.
Neither of us could have unprotected sex without agreeing to it before the freedom weekend started. Oral sex could be unprotected but we had to be careful. After the ‘freedom weekend,’ we would tell each other in as much detail as either of us asked exactly what happened while we were apart. Before we did anything sexual with anybody we had to consider how the other one of us would feel about it. If we weren’t prepared to tell each other about something, we shouldn’t do it. Nothing could remain secret unless we both agreed that it should. If either of us found out about something later, it would be a breach of trust and the end of these weekends.
Going through all the details made me hard again and, unusually for us, we had sex again. It wasn’t so energetic, but it was passionate and caring. Afterwards, Maggie commented how talking about her being a hotwife seemed to give me a new sexual energy. I feared what that might mean, but had to admit that it was the most exciting thing to see my respectable wife in her teaching role and then think about her sexual adventures without her husband.
Before we finally went to sleep, we once again agreed that if either of us strayed from these rules, we understood this could mean the end of our marriage. We couldn’t go through the same traumatic events again and expect our relationship to survive. If neither of us wanted a ‘freedom weekend’, that would be fine too.
Over the coming weeks, Maggie had a few messages from Lisa asking if she wanted to go to Manchester and see her again. She always told me about the messages and would show them to me if I asked to see them. Maggie always said that she wasn’t ready to go away to Manchester. At least for now she didn’t want to trigger a ‘freedom weekend’.
It was me who first proposed a ‘freedom weekend,’ after I received a surprising email.
I heard from Elaine, my old girlfriend who I had seen for sex a couple of times with Maggie’s knowledge when she was with Michael. When we had last met, Elaine had been clear that she wouldn’t have sex with me again unless I was no longer in a relationship. I also knew that Maggie was uncomfortable when I saw Elaine because she was a previous girlfriend, even though that was a long time ago and after all Maggie did, she could hardly complain.
I was checking my phone when I saw Elaine’s email. It was surprising after what she had said when I had last seen her, but it was also exciting.
‘Hi Paul
At the end of the month, I have a big birthday (do you still remember my birthday?) and as a ‘special friend,’ I wondered if you would be able to join me on the evening before that special day. I’ve booked an apartment in London for the evening. You might not remember, but it’s in a block that you and I used to talk about near Buckingham Palace. There’s a serviced apartment in the basement, and when I saw it, I thought of you. We used to say that we’d live in the block together when we were rich, but I think we both knew it was a dream. However, it’s my home for a couple of days! It might bring back a few memories of those special times for us. Come as close to 8 pm as you can and stay as long as you wish. No presents, no cards, just be ready to have fun on Friday night into Saturday. It’s the basement apartment so down the stairs to its own front door. I really hope that you can make it, and so sorry for the short notice. You know I can be a little impetuous!
Love
Elaine x.’
I was amazed by the email. I read it a second time. I could remember her birthday, so I knew that it would be on a Sunday so she had invited me to spend the evening with her on the evening before. I wondered why she had changed her mind about seeing me. I thought about it but in the spirit of openness, I showed it to Maggie.
“You want to go, don’t you?” She asked.
I tried to read her face. I wondered if I had upset her.
“We have no plans for that weekend, and you could see if Lisa is free. She has been keen for you to go up and see her and you could have fun too.”
Maggie took a deep breath and said, “We have the rules and I guess a trip to Manchester again could be interesting. Maybe enough time has passed and I could be ready.”
Despite her apparent reluctance, I knew that Maggie was ready and wanted to go back to Manchester. Her recent messages to Lisa had implied that it was only a matter of waiting for the right weekend and she would go up. I suggested that she could go to Manchester and I would meet up with Elaine. Maggie admitted that she wasn’t delighted with the prospect of me meeting up with my old girlfriend again, but she did want to reconnect with Lisa.
She said that she hoped that she could trust me not to fall in love. I reassured her that she would always be my first and only love.
So a couple of weeks later, Maggie went to stay with Lisa. Lisa was going to take her out clubbing to a new place. She said she wanted to let her hair down and give Maggie a good time. I knew that Maggie also had plans to see Michael and possibly others. It had become clear that Michael and Maggie’s relationship had changed since the pregnancy incident, although I knew that Michael wanted to keep in touch.
As Maggie had said, we both had to trust each other.
I decided to book a hotel room in London for myself so that I could leave my stuff before going to Elaine’s temporary apartment. I thought turning up with bags might look too presumptuous of me and having a hotel room meant I could get myself ready in advance. So on the appointed day, I said goodbye to Maggie as she took a train to Manchester and I took one to London.
As requested in Elaine’s invite, I turned up at the apartment shortly after eight. When I pressed the buzzer, the door was opened by a tall guy about my age. I was surprised that it wasn’t Elaine. I could hear music and talking inside.
“Is Elaine here?” I asked, unsure that I had the right place.
“Sorry, I don’t know everyone that Elaine invited,” said the guy. “You are?”
“Er, I’m Paul,” I said, still trying to work out what I had got wrong.
“Oh, hi Paul, come in, I’m Ted. I’ll fetch Elaine,” he said as he opened the door wide.
He called out Elaine’s name and she appeared looking stunning in a long red dress with a plunging neckline which emphasised her impressive breasts. She threw open her arms and screamed my name.
“Paul, I’m so pleased you came,” she said, running to me and giving me a big hug.
“Are you on your own? Is Maggie okay?”
I was still trying to work out what was happening and how I had got things so wrong. I thought quickly.
“She couldn’t make it, but I wanted to come and say happy birthday.”
“I’m so pleased you did, there’s only a select few coming but I think you’ll know one or two others,” Elaine said. “You’ve met Ted, who’s helped me organise this. I think he has an ulterior motive, but we’ll see how the evening goes.”
Ted seemed to take it all in his stride.
“Elaine always tries to wind me up, but I ignore her most of the time,” he said.
“Good plan,” I said, without any hint of irony.
I went inside and found three other couples and another three people, two men and a woman, who seemed to have come alone. Over the next thirty minutes, another two couples appeared. It was a small group of people of similar age and Elaine circulated around talking, dancing and laughing with everyone, keeping the party going. There was plenty of nice finger food and a range of drinks.
I did know the single woman, who picked me out and reminded me of her name, Miriam. I remembered her as an old friend of Elaine’s from university days. I didn’t remember liking her at the time.
She explained she had been married with a couple of kids. The marriage had ended after the children left home, and she had been on her own for a couple of years. She had found it difficult to date, and had volunteered with various groups, joined a choir, learned ballroom dancing and started marathon running to make a fresh start.
The other single guys seemed to want to join our conversation, but Miriam was very earnest and keen to tell me in great detail about her life and in particular how awful her ex-husband was. She hardly asked me about what I had been doing for the last twenty-five years. She seemed to want to keep me for herself and exclude anyone else. I know I should have felt flattered that she was giving me so much attention, but as she continued talking at me, she just reminded me about why I didn’t like her then. I started to sympathise with her ex-husband.
As soon as I felt I could leave without causing offence, I made my excuses to Miriam and Elaine and said I needed to go and call my wife who hadn’t been able to come to London with me.
Elaine gave me another hug goodbye, I asked her if she and Ted were a serious ‘thing’. She said that it was early days, but they got on well. She said that since it was clear that I wasn’t available, he was a good second choice. She winked at me and gave me a kiss.
I felt flattered but also stupid.
As I walked away, I recovered Elaine’s email to me and read it again. I realised there was an attachment that I had never opened. It was a nicely laid out picture of a party invite saying that she wanted to celebrate her birthday with a few ‘special friends.’ It gave the details and said that I was welcome to bring a partner. I felt very foolish.
As I read the email, a message appeared from Maggie.
“I hope you’re having a good time. Lisa and I are about to hit the clubs. Don’t worry, you can trust me and of course I trust you. Your loving hotwife, Mxxx.’
The message was accompanied by a photo taken through a mirror. Lisa and Maggie were wearing matching very short light dresses with sparkly stockings and high heels. Lisa’s dress was black and Maggie’s was white. Both looked carefully made-up with accompanying necklaces and earrings. The caption said, ‘Lisa bought us matching dresses: I’m the white witch!’.
Maggie looked stunning, and I wished I was there with her. We hadn’t been to a club together since before the children were born. It had not occurred to me that she would want to go but then she met Michael. I shouldn’t have been surprised at how she looked, but it never ceased to amaze me to see what my wife could be like.
