Women my age will understand: menopause and its flood of hormones can really mess up a woman's view of herself and her world. Mine made me feel older, unattractive, and okay, ugly. 

My husband worked at changing my opinion. "You're more beautiful now than when I married you," he said and he persuaded me to pose nude for him one Saturday morning because "You may become more beautiful but you will never be younger."  The camera was incidental to the foreplay but far from incidental to this story.

He wanted me to feel sexy, to flirt online (no way would I do that in real life; reputation is critical in my world of academia) so he introduced me to Lush. And chose some photos for my profile.

I liked Lush. I could leave some inhibitions at the door and act flirty. I found some real jerks (do they really think sending a photo of an erection, maybe not even theirs, turns a woman on?), but also some really interesting men to type at. 

Chats often veered from erotic. One man -- I'll call him Carl -- learned of my academic research interests in adolescent psychology and mentioned a case he was involved with that touched on that. It's a small world and I knew about the case; an academic friend and one of my co-authors was his expert witness. 

I talked with my friend about the case and read the court transcript. That revealed Carl's identity. Since I am paranoid about protecting my own identity -- I do NOT want the tinabaker of Lush linked to my dot-edu account and academic web page -- I told him about it and suggested he had to be a lot more careful in things he mentioned. 

He said during the course of our chats he came to trust me and had as much to lose if he were identified as I did. And, Carl is a pretty intelligent man; it didn't take him long to figure out who I was either. Something I must have said led him to suspect -- correctly, it turns out -- that his expert and I had written some papers together. 

As an aside, I did talk with my friend who was one of the experts who testified at the case and she mentioned the lawyer she was working with. She said he was a totally professional and a charming southern gentleman. She offered a lament, too - it would have been unethical for them to have developed a personal relationship, and they did not. "Too bad," she added.

Our chatting went on and Carl began teasing me about the photos on my profile. "Where did you get them?" he asked, "They surely are not you; they are of a much younger woman. Are they of you fifteen years ago?" 

Can you find any woman who would not be flattered by comments like that? I assured him they were of me but he continued to joke about that; it was fodder for teasing. 

During one chat I mentioned a no-kill animal sanctuary I contributed to and he used that tidbit of information to offer a challenge. If I proved the photos were of me he said he'd donate $1,000 to the shelter. Two days later he suggested that if I checked with the shelter I'd find there had been a five-hundred-dollar donation made in the name of Tina Baker.

I did; there was. He said that was to prove he was serious about wanting me to prove the photos were of me. 

My husband knew about the chats and teasing and enjoyed teasing me about providing proof. That teasing was fun and became part of our own foreplay. And teasing can be a double-edged sword. Would he, I asked, help me prove it was me in the photos? 

Would he dare?

Would I?

I was discovering he and I had complementary kinks! The idea of being shown off was a turn on for me, and of showing me off was one for him. Hey, he chose the photos on my profile!

So, we arranged for a Saturday morning online show-and-tell date with Carl. 

Is there any woman reading this who would not have spent an hour with makeup and hair before such a ‘date'? 

When we connected that morning my husband turned on the webcam. I was pre-positioned on the bed, under a sheet, and my husband, cam in hand, came forward and slowly pulled the sheet away. I could feel its hem move, exposing my leg, then my hip as I posed more or less like the avatar on my profile. But the image we offered to Carl was not that cropped photo. It was me, uncovered in more than one sense.

My husband focused on my feet, then scanned upward. I am surprised the camera did not pick up my whole-body blush as the camera moved from feet to thighs to my groin, my breasts, then to my face, then to a pull-away. It was a full-length life shot of me, totally nude; there was nothing left to hide. 

My husband coached me. "Stretch out taller," he demanded. I did. 

He moved closer, almost over me. "Now, smile. Lower your leg. I want Carl to see all of you, to see all of my favorite erotic playground." Carl heard the instruction and saw me obey. I was feeling sexy, feeling naughty, luxurious, feeling turned on. 

"Your legs are too close together," was my husband's next comment. "You should do something about that."

They were close together, and then. . .

. . . and then they weren't.

Carl saw this woman, this wife, fully on display. There was nothing modest about it. 

"Carl," my husband asked, "is that proof enough?"

Carl made a noise that we took for a yes. My husband turned off the camera -- he was already undressed -- climbed onto the bed with me, kneeling beside me, looking at me. "I never thought I'd be able to show you off like this. I loved it." 

He more than loved it -- he was on the verge of losing control without even touching me. "I am sure Carl is masturbating right now and wishing he was doing to you what I am going to," he said. Then he said, "Do you know Carl could have recorded that? He could have a video of you like that and I am sure he would like a video of you doing what I want you to do now, too." 

The ‘do now' was what happened next. He was kneeling beside me, fingering me with one hand, and with his other hand on my cheek turned my head toward his erection. "Show me what Carl would like to see," he demanded, then amended his demand. "Show me what you would want Carl to see." 

I did.

And it ended up with fucking, pure sex, not making love.

And, maybe more importantly, the camera work revealed more than just me undressed; it shed light on what had been a dark corner of both of our minds. I was married, forbidden fruit. Carl might have been thinking about me, masturbating to a fantasy, and I am embarrassed to say that added to the turn on for me. Or for both us.

To show you the depth of my own perversion, I liked thinking I was provocative enough to have a man wrap his erection in a tissue and cum. 

Oh, wait.

Carl was not married. I am. He was, really, the forbidden fruit, as much the subject of our fantasy as I might have been of his.

This was playing with fire. Imagining pushing boundaries. We were playing with fire named Carl, because. . .

. . . well, you can read about the ‘because' in part two of this story.