‘Finished!’

I said to myself as I clicked on the ‘Publish Story’ icon and leaned back in my chair, feeling pleased as I watched the cursor spin for a few seconds before the confirmation message appeared on the laptop screen.

Moderator permitting, the latest chapter in my story would be on line within a few days. No doubt the first troll attack would follow within minutes of publication but I had become immune to their extreme nastiness by then.

Well, almost immune.

I looked up at the kitchen clock. My husband Pete wouldn’t be downstairs for at least half an hour. I poured myself another mug of tea then returned to my laptop, opened my secret author’s email account and began to read the half dozen messages that were waiting in my Inbox.

***

It was Sunday morning, four weeks after Pete had returned from his conference in Geneva when the two of us had come as close to splitting up as I ever wanted to get. It had been the end of a two-week period apart during which we were to make the most important decisions in our twenty-year-plus marriage.

During our brief separation, I was to decide whether I wanted to remain with my husband or leave him and live with Tony, the close family friend who had seduced me the previous November and with whom I had been carrying on a passionate affair ever since.

In my defence, my husband had been pressuring me to take a lover for over year. Wife sharing had featured strongly in our bedtime fantasies for a long time and he had said he was keen to turn it into a reality.

When that reality had arrived and I had confessed my adultery to Pete, far from divorcing me, to my surprise and relief he had agreed that the affair could continue as long as it didn’t pose a threat to our marriage and I promised to be honest and truthful about it the whole time.

To my shame, I had been neither of these, falling badly in love with Tony, arranging meetings and romantic overnight stays with my lover behind my husband’s back to the point where he and I had actually planned for me to leave my husband and move in together, possibly even getting married once our respective divorces had come through.

The deceit had been so serious that, once it had been discovered, my cuckolded husband hadn’t been sure he could live with me any longer. Pete had insisted on us having a trial separation to make the decisions we had to make freely and unencumbered by our marriage.

I was supposed to spend the time living as Tony’s wife, deciding with which man my future lay. As I was doing this, my husband Pete would be living in Consultants’ Accommodation at the hospital at which he worked and would be deciding whether he wanted his lying, cheating wife back at all.

Then natural justice had intervened. During our supposedly brief separation, things had not gone to plan. Far from welcoming me into his bed and his life, my lover Tony had immediately and callously dumped me, leaving me frustrated and alone in our family house throughout the entire first week of my freedom.

It should have taught me a serious lesson, but fate has a cruel sense of humour. Far from pining for each other, before the week was out both my husband and I had tasted forbidden fruit.

Pete’s bite of Eve’s apple had come in the pretty, petite, deceptively innocent-looking form of my lover’s estranged wife. Julie, a woman my age and my closest female friend had spent a night of passionate, highly adventurous fornication with my husband during which he had apparently fully satisfied her infamously demanding libido.

In the process she had also introduced him to many new pleasures including anal sex; something he and I had tried but never successfully managed. For some reason I found the idea of my husband enjoying something in bed with another woman that he and I hadn’t been able to share particularly hard to bear.

While this was all happening, my own voyage deeper into infidelity had come at the hands of Julie’s erstwhile lover Darren, a twenty-nine year old personal trainer at the sports club. Darren had seduced me very easily, bedded me equally efficiently then subjected me to what was without doubt the most exciting, most energetic and exhausting night of sex in my entire life in his squalid untidy bedroom in a shared house.

The walk of shame I had taken the following morning had unfortunately been observed by his housemate Will, who couldn’t have failed to understand what my presence in his house at that hour meant and might even have heard my orgasmic exclamations throughout the night.

But some good had come of all this; during their pillow talk, Julie had told Pete about her husband’s long and inglorious history of seducing married women and abandoning them as soon as their marriages were broken. Apparently I was only the latest in a long line of dumped conquests but was the closest of their friends who had fallen under his spell.

After Julie had visited me to tell me the same thing, I had flown to Geneva and begged Pete to take me back, something he had eventually agreed but not without both suspicions and conditions.

His suspicion was that I was only coming back to him on the rebound from my failed affair; that it wasn’t love for him but a need not to be alone that was driving my return to his life. No matter how often and how earnestly I assured him this wasn’t the case, I knew my husband retained a level of mistrust. Given my history, this was easy to understand.

Pete had finally agreed to have me back but on strict conditions, one of which was that if we were to have an ongoing marriage, it would have to be the Hotwife relationship he and I had originally agreed before my affair with Tony got out of hand. Going back to a normal monogamous relationship was simply not possible after all that had happened and most certainly was not what Pete wanted.

As he told me many times, I had got what I wanted out of my affair; his fantasies had barely been addressed at all. If we each paid attention to the other’s needs, we could perhaps make it work for both of us this time in an even-handed way that had been completely absent from my self-centred affair.

So our new marriage contract had begun.

The Geneva Convention, as we jokingly referred to it, involved Pete and me spending a few months as a conventional couple, trying to re-establish some of the trust my affair had destroyed. This was not going to be easy but we both understood it was essential before the two of us could embark once again on the Hotwife – Cuckold lifestyle we had tried and failed to establish the first time round.

This renewed romantic relationship was now a month old and, it had to be said, was working very well so far. Keen to succeed and now with the same ultimate sexual destiny in mind, both my husband and I had been trying hard to bring the romance back into our marriage. We had been out to dinner many times, the house was full of flowers and the smell of cooking; we had enjoyed a romantic weekend away as if we were a normal, affluent couple.

Emotionally though, the beginning had been predictably shaky. From the outset it was obvious that, whatever he said aloud, inside my husband no longer had the trust in me that had characterised the previous twenty-plus years of our marriage.

Although he never said as much, this mistrust manifested itself in many little ways. For example, Pete would ask me about my day and my plans in much more detail than before; he would look at my diary more often ‘to make sure his was up to date’. I even caught him quietly looking at my phone as if checking who I had been talking to or exchanging messages with.

All these were little things; given their cause there was nothing important enough to object to but together they created an atmosphere that left me in no doubt that it was down to me to demonstrate remorse and make my reformation obvious. So I left my diary easily available for him to find. I took the password off my phone so he could see everything. I told him every detail of my activities that he asked and after a week or so Pete seemed to be a little less nervous.

All the same I could tell things would never be quite as they were before.

It has been said many times by many people but until it happens to you, one never truly understands how a trust that has taken decades to build can be shattered so quickly.

And that was exactly what I had done.

Perversely, our sex life blossomed immediately; Pete and I made love passionately every day for the first week – often more than once - before settling down to a more manageable two or three times each week. My vaginal orgasms remained few and far between but with the promise of more partners to follow I could live with this disappointment easily.

Besides, there were always my husband’s world-class oral skills to fall back on if a climax became essential.

Although I had to accept with sadness that the depth of trust we used to have might never be restored, there was no doubt that our relationship was improving considerably. Our social life had resumed largely unaffected too; we had been out for dinner with our circle of friends several times and there was no sign of anyone knowing about the difficult patch Pete and I had just gone through – indeed were still going through.

An unspoken agreement seemed to have emerged too whereby the painful subject of my affair with Tony was never discussed. In return, I didn’t raise the rather less controversial subject of Pete’s night with Julie. I was concerned that this lack of discussion meant that we were still not properly addressing the main issue between us but at this stage it seemed more important to heal the wounds than to open them further.

My Hotwife bracelet with its blue charms representing each of my official dates with Tony had been consigned to a closet drawer but interestingly, I did notice that Pete’s collection of my semen-soiled knickers was still in its shoebox at the bottom of his closet.

There was however, no barrier to the open and detailed discussion of my night of passion with Darren; something with which my husband seemed completely obsessed as an example of what our future Hotwife lifestyle might look like.

Our wife-sharing bedtime fantasies returned too, but now they had a vividness that could only have resulted from us both having recently experienced amazing sex with another person. Pete’s horizons in particular had most definitely been broadened by his all-night stand with Julie to a degree that awakened a powerful if completely hypocritical jealousy in me despite my having cheated on him dozens of times with my two lovers.

As my husband and I grew closer once again, so the subject of our future lifestyle arose more and more. Indeed, from the very beginning it was clear that Pete was determined that we would follow through on his main condition of our staying together; to make his as-yet-unfulfilled desire to watch me being fucked by another man a reality.

But if that were ever to happen - without repeating the mistakes that had nearly destroyed our marriage - we had to overcome a few problems first. From the second week onwards we talked openly about this; how to find new lovers, how we might set it all up, how we might feel during and, more importantly, afterwards.

The emotional problems would have to be taken slowly, with love and as much trust as remained between us. While this was happening, the practical problems could be addressed, the main one being simple to describe but much harder to resolve: how were we safely to find lovers who would be as good in bed as both Pete and I wanted, who would allow him to watch or even join in but who would be totally discreet?

Discretion; the need to remain completely anonymous was, we both agreed, absolutely paramount. Neither of us could remain in our jobs in our hospital – perhaps not even in the city if what had already happened became known, let alone what we wanted to happen in the future.

And as for what our friends or our self-righteous kids would say if they ever found out... It was unthinkable!

Fortunately we both believed Julie could be trusted to keep our secret. My foolish liaison with Darren and my walk of shame the morning after were still a risk but perhaps a containable one. After all Darren hadn’t ‘kissed and told’ about his relationship with Julie so why should he publicise his one night stand with me?

I had met Julie for coffee only twice since she had told me all about her marriage and her one night stand with my husband, and both of those had been in the last week. Julie had been unsure whether she and I were still friends – something I wasn’t sure about myself until we actually met – so had kept a low profile as far as I was concerned.

Indeed it wasn’t until we had actually kissed our hellos that I realised I bore her no ill-will and we began to re-establish our friendship, albeit tentatively. She looked fit and attractive as she had always done but there was something about her china-doll blonde body that spoke of an inner strength that I hadn’t seen before. Most likely this was in my mind; a result of knowing how she had taken control of her one-sided relationship with her philandering husband and left him.

To make sure that this time the break-up lasted, she had deliberately started a very public affair with a young man barely half her age. The divorce papers had now been served on her husband, my ex-lover who seemed to have been genuinely surprised that his wife really wasn’t going to come back to him this time.

I’m no saint, as this story has shown, but sometimes the male ego defies belief.

Julie was now dating again, mostly using online agencies. She had tried the usual app-based methods but these were apparently dominated by married men looking for a quick no-strings fuck rather than a relationship. She blushed as she told me that she hadn’t ignored all the one-night offers she had received but had been saddened by the lack of emotional involvement they produced.

She clearly wanted another long-term relationship and was learning the hard way how difficult this is second time around. I felt sorry for her and profoundly grateful to be with a man who would let me enjoy both a loving marriage and an active, varied sex life.

I’m not sure whether she understood that my affair with her husband was supposed to be the beginning rather than the end of a life less monogamous for Pete and me but when we parted we agreed to keep each other’s secrets to the grave and to remain in touch often.

This was reassuring; as I drove home I went over and over in my mind how very important it was that Pete’s fantasies were fulfilled sooner rather than later and that, whatever he and I did in the future, we did not create any more witnesses than absolutely necessary to what most people would consider to be considerably deviant sexual desires.

For that reason, the wife-sharing websites Pete had first found that required the posting of photos were discounted immediately – which meant almost all of them. If we could browse the sites then our friends could too and who knows where our photos might end up?

The thought that someone who knew us might stumble across a picture of either Pete or me on a swingers’ website filled us both with horror. Similarly, all the swingers’ clubs I had found required photographic proof of identity as a pre-requisite to membership so these too were out of the question.

The idea of trying to pick up strangers in bars or hotels made us both nervous so despite all our arousing bedtime fantasies, by the end of the first month Pete and I hadn’t made much progress in terms of finding me a new fuck-buddy and providing my husband with his fantasy of watching me with another man.

In desperation I had secretly turned to my online friends again. Had I listened to them in the past, their good counsel might have prevented us getting into the predicament that had come so close to costing us our marriage. Over the past few days I there had been several exchanges of emails with three of my closest advisors and I felt that I was making progress.

I had tried to conceal my plans by asking them how they managed to find partners for their own wives. I’m sure they saw through my subterfuge but all three played the game and pretended my questions were genuine. In most cases the answer was that their wives’ fuck buddies had either been friends, work colleagues or pick-ups from singles bars but two of my friends had on occasion used the same rather expensive and to my mind highly unorthodox option.

The option I was reading about now.

***

Half an hour later I leaned back in my chair, my heart thumping. I had read all my messages then re-read one in particular over and over again.

Could this be the solution that got both Pete and me what we wanted? It was unthinkable and yet...

Despite all my initial doubts, on the face of it the answer was yes it could! It was so simple too – once you got over the initial shock and revulsion and thought about it objectively.

It was a big shock to get over though.

I thought again. Perhaps it really could work. But did I have the courage to tell my husband about the idea? He had been understanding beyond belief about my affair; would Pete’s patience and indulgence tolerate an even more extreme idea?

And would I dare even mention it to him? It was rather a shock to say it out loud to myself.

I was beginning to believe that my husband and I should pay for sex!

***

When Geoff, one of my online friends had first suggested the idea, I had dismissed it immediately as a disgusting perversion. After all, sex workers were prostitutes weren’t they? And prostitutes were poor, unfortunate people addicted to drugs and seething with sexually transmitted diseases.

Or so I had thought. When I had first given him my reaction, rather than take offence, my friend Geoff had explained in longer and more revealing emails that using escorts had brought both him and his late wife great pleasure throughout their later lives.

Geoff had been married to Sylvia for over fifty years; for at least half of which they had lived the Hotwife and cuckold lifestyle that Pete and were planning to embark upon. After bringing up four children (one of which Geoff doubted was his) and with six grand-children already, Sylvia had died of cancer five years previously. He missed her terribly.

Geoff had contacted me very early on in my writing career. Reading my stories had apparently brought back strong and fond memories of what at the time had been a very alternative lifestyle. He and I had exchanged many frank messages over the past months during which he had urged me strongly not to reject the notion out of hand. He assured me that, done the ‘right way’, it wasn’t dirty or squalid at all; that it could be a life-enhancing, virtually risk-free experience and was far less of a threat to my marriage than my affair with Tony had been.

He urged me to find out more, to try and understand the world of escorting and to open my mind.

If I could open my mind, he joked, then opening my legs would come naturally.

I had been very doubtful at first but over the last week a series of late night and early morning sessions on line had introduced me to the idea of escorts, taught me both the error of my thinking and the existence of a whole new world and a whole new language I had never suspected.

I quickly learned what ‘safe sex’, A levels, O levels, covered, bareback and BBJ’s meant.

I read online guides about the risks of using sex workers and how to minimise those risks.

I visited the websites of agencies and individuals and discovered the existence of escort reviews.

Gradually, before my astonished eyes, a whole new industry was being revealed. It began to fascinate me. I had of course, seen the movie ‘Belle de Jour’ but hadn’t really taken it seriously and yet here was that very world laid out for me to learn about and perhaps even understand.

The vast majority of escorts were female but after an hour or two of investigation I had found a handful of straight men and even a handful of escort couples whose existence I hadn’t even suspected but who were definitely out there, advertising online.

Once I had decoded a bit more of the jargon I realised that the MFM scenarios being offered were almost exactly the kind of thing Pete and I had fantasised about. I suspected their usual trade was MFF or MFMF (I was really getting into the language by then) but after steeling myself and setting up yet another fake email address I sent messages asking more questions.

Two couples in particular looked simply gorgeous and the cost, though expensive, wasn't insanely high for people on our incomes. They were both based in Manchester, which was far enough away for the risk of meeting friends or acquaintances to be low, but close enough to be manageable for an hour or two’s liaison.

What was most compelling was that it didn't mean publishing our identities on any of the swingers or dating websites or any other places where someone too close to home might have see it and recognised us. No-one needed to know our names at all or even see a photograph of either of us, let alone be able to download one.

Gradually I realised that, however unlikely it sounded, this might be just the compromise we needed.

What was even more important was that my husband Pete couldn't possibly see a paid escort as a threat to our relationship. Even better; all of them assumed that both husband and wife would be part of whatever happened so he would undoubtedly get to watch whatever happened. He might even get to join in of he wanted.

Emboldened, I investigated further.

The male halves of the two couples I had found were either 29 or 45 years old and in their pictures looked 'seriously fit', as my daughter Izzy would have said. The younger man was black, which gave me a thrill that a middle aged, liberal, middle class woman with background like mine should certainly not have felt!

I had started getting excited just thinking about it but of course needed much more research and it would be a difficult idea to break to my husband.

I smiled broadly when I thought of Pete and how much our lives had changed in such a short time.

How had he known that having a lover would feel so good for me and bring me so much pleasure?

How did he have the strength of character to let me sleep with another man and yet still love me?

If I dared talked to him about it, could our future adventures bring my husband at least as much pleasure as the past had given me?

Maybe, just maybe I had found a way they could! If only I could find the right moment to broach the subject.

***

Just then I heard the sound of the upstairs lavatory flushing. Pete was awake! I closed my secret email account quickly then slipped my laptop into my briefcase. By the time my husband entered the kitchen I was reading a professional journal and the kettle was boiling.

He ignored them both, took me by the hand and silently led me upstairs to the bedroom. Already highly aroused by my online findings and wicked thoughts of the future, I followed obediently as a good wife should.

An hour later, we were lying side by side in bed panting, my hand in his. Once again, the things I had done during my overnight stay in Darren’s bed had been explored in the minutest of detail. Many of them had been hotly and enthusiastically re-enacted too. As a result, my knees were scuffed, my thighs were sticky, my tummy felt as if it had been punched and a large dark patch was developing beneath my right nipple.

Alongside me, Pete’s face was sweaty, his flaccid cock was an angry red colour and his mouth and chin were covered in a combination of his semen and my juices.

My own face and chest were flushed pink from multiple tongue-induced orgasms.

I felt exhausted, sexy and desired. At least some good had come out of our brief separation.

***

I felt very happy for the rest of the day; indeed for the next few days.

Only in private did I behave differently. This would have been obvious from my early morning researches had there been anyone there to observe the intensity with which I searched the net and corresponded with my online friends.

Although the logic seemed clearer and clearer to me, I was by no means sure how Pete would react to my idea but I knew I had to find out soon.

***

“Prostitutes? Are you out of your mind, Penny?”

My husband’s shocked voice rang around the kitchen the following Wednesday evening. After three more days of investigation and a great deal of correspondence with my online friends, I had finally plucked up the courage to tell my husband the idea and had decided to strike while the iron was hot and before my courage failed.

His initial reaction, though strong, was like mine had been; disbelief along with a certain amount of revulsion. Fortunately I had been prepared for this so didn’t react in any way likely to inflame the situation.

“They’re not prostitutes in the way you’re thinking,” I said calmly. “They’re couples who enjoy sex with other people. That’s a big difference.”

“But they get paid for sex,” he insisted.

“That’s true,” I admitted. “But we can afford it and think of the risks we would be avoiding.”

“Like what?”

“Well, they’re professionals. They do this all the time; there’d be no danger of anyone getting emotionally involved. They wouldn’t need to know our real names or even where we come from. We could stop any time and just walk away with nothing but a bill to pay.”

“Hmmm!”

Pete seemed to be taking my suggestion seriously but was unusually hard to read.

“And they’re good at it too, if their reviews are to be believed,” I added.

“They have reviews?” Pete asked, amazed. “Like on Amazon?”

“Well, yes. A bit like that,” I smiled. “Have a look yourself. It’s just an idea and I know it’s off the wall but, well, it seems to answer most of the worries we’ve had.”

Pete looked very doubtful.

“Look. I’ve saved a couple of websites in favourites,” I said, moving to the computer and clicking on the top right hand corner of the screen. “I’m going for a run. Have a look while I’m out. Take your time. If you don’t like the idea then we’ll think of something else.”

As I crossed to the door, Pete was staring at the computer screen as if it was an unexploded bomb. It was time to deliver what I hoped would be the killer line.

“And of course they’re used to people being in the room when they’re fucking. There’d be no problem at all if you wanted to watch or join in. It’s what they do!”

I left the room, changed and spent the next half hour in my running tights and vest, pounding the pavements around our house, wondering as I ran what was going through my husband’s mind. When I returned home I found Pete in the kitchen, laying the table for dinner. He didn’t mention anything about my idea so I didn’t raise it with him. But when I checked the PC's browsing history early the following morning, I found he had not only visited the sites I had marked, but a number of others too.

I smiled inwardly; the future was beginning to look interesting.

Little did I realise that one of the worst, most complicated periods of my life was just about interfere with my plans in ways I hadn’t even dreamed of.

***

It all began the following evening. I was home alone, having just returned from a long, tiring day at work and was just beginning to cook myself something to eat when to my surprise I heard a key being inserted in the front door.

I started, puzzled; Pete was working late at the hospital that night and wouldn’t be home until eleven o’clock. I wasn’t expecting any other visitors and besides, a stranger would have had to ring the buzzer at the front gate to be let in.

I put down the tea towel I was holding and walked through to the hall, the place where months ago my first ever act of infidelity had begun, to find a familiar figure standing on the rug.

“Hi Mum!”

“Izzy!” I exclaimed, surprised.

My daughter Izzy stood just inside the front door with her backpack over her shoulder and a look on her face that made my heart sink. It was a look I knew only too well; something was wrong again and it was the kind of thing that only a mother could help with.

“What are you doing home?” I asked. “I mean, it’s lovely to see you but I wasn’t expecting to…”

“Don’t ask, Mum,” she frowned.

Izzy knew full well that her response would make me do just that; ask. The fact that she had made the four hour train journey home without even calling to tell me she was coming gave me a clue as to the seriousness with which she viewed the issue. It gave no clue as to its nature but if her past history was anything to go by, it would involve boys.

“Come through to the kitchen. I’ll put the kettle on. Unless you’d prefer a glass of wine...”

I smiled encouragingly though I could have done without my daughter’s love troubles at that moment. The future of my own relationship with her father needed all my attention. Izzy reacted strangely, shuddering visibly. I was puzzled; the idea of wine had never had a negative effect on her before – very far from it!

“I’d better stick to tea,” she said enigmatically.

I knew better than to press her for more; when Izzy wanted to talk she would talk.

“So how’s the course? How’s Simon?” I asked as casually as I could.

“Okay,” she replied, though from her tone of voice that was not the whole truth.

Izzy was studying at a top rated University in a coastal city a good five hours’ drive away from our home. Academically very bright, she was doing well on her course and until recently had been in a long term relationship with Steve, another student at the same school.

That relationship had come to an abrupt end a couple of months earlier when, after a foolish row with her boyfriend, she had gone to a University Ball without him. There she had met other friends, allowed herself to get drunk and, in an alarming parallel with her mother’s fall from grace, had been rather easily seduced and bedded by a young man she had only just met.

Simon, her seducer was apparently a very good-looking boy, a friend-of-a-friend who had been visiting for the weekend. Once he had gained entrance to my daughter’s knickers, the two of them had spent the whole night fucking noisily in her friend’s flat, much to the amusement of the half dozen other occupants who had heard her every orgasmic squeal.

As a result she had been immediately dumped by her boyfriend and had acquired the nickname Izzy-Oh-God, an unfortunate epithet that so far appeared to have stuck.

Luckily for her, Simon hadn’t just seen Izzy as a one night stand and had been making great efforts to keep their relationship going. Apart from being extremely fond of each other, forming a stable relationship with him was the only thing that could repair the damage to Izzy’s current reputation as a slut; a reputation not entirely undeserved and which Steve was doing his best to promote.

“Is Dad home?” she eventually asked once she had sipped her tea.

“He’s on lates tonight,” I told her.

Izzy looked relieved.

“Mum I need to talk to you,” she began falteringly.

My goodness this was quick! Normally we would have to go through an hour or more of awkward, trivial small talk before my daughter got round to the issue that was on her mind. I shivered when I remembered her last home visit; when she had told me about her break-up with Steve and silently prayed that her new relationship with Simon was still sound.

“I thought you might,” I smiled as reassuringly as I could. “What is it?”

Izzy swivelled on the tall stool, almost unable to look me in the eye.

“I… I think… I think I might be pregnant,” she said in a hushed voice I could hardly hear.

“Izzy!” I exclaimed.

“Please don’t be angry,” she pleaded, breaking into tears.

“Of course I’m not angry,” I said, taking her trembling body into my arms and hugging her close.

For a long time I held her, feeling her sobs against my inadequate bosom, wishing I was more the earth mother type when my children needed me.

“Why do you think that?” I asked when her tears had subsided.

“I... I missed a period. Or I think I did,” she mumbled tearfully. “And now I’m late for the next one.”

“How late?”

“A week.”

“Oh Izzy!”

I murmured over and over as my twenty-year-old daughter sobbed into my flat chest again. In her current state, there was nothing to do but stand there, holding and hugging her until she had calmed down and a more coherent conversation could be had.

After a long time, Izzy’s tears slowed. I made us both another cup of tea then moved my stool close to hers and waited for the story to begin.

“Are you sure you missed your last period?” I asked.

“I think so. I’m not certain; you know what mine are like.”

I did indeed know. My daughter had unfortunately inherited her mother’s erratic, unreliable menstrual cycle.

“I wasn’t sure then. But now I’m late for the next one so…” she stopped there.

“It’s okay. I understand,” I said in my most reassuring motherly voice. “Have you done a test?”

She nodded. “Twice.”

“And you’re still not sure?” I asked, surprised.

As a medical scientist, I knew the modern tests were very reliable indeed.

“It was inconclusive both times,” Izzy explained.

“You poor thing,” was all I could say, holding her close again as she snuffled into my shoulder.

“Do you know how it might have happened?” I asked when she had recovered at little. “I thought you were on the pill. You told me you were.”

“I thought I was too,” she laughed mirthlessly. “Maybe I forgot. Maybe I missed a couple. I was on antibiotics for a week too,” she added. “They made me sick.”

I nodded; all these were possible causes of failed birth control. It was most likely that she would never know – if she really was pregnant, that was.

“Does Simon know?” I asked.

Izzy looked into my face, her red eyed and tear stained cheeks hard for a mother to see.

“That’s the whole problem, Mum. The timing’s wrong. It can’t be Simon’s. If I’m really pregnant, it can only be Steve’s baby.”

This was even worse news. Steve was her previous boyfriend. Having dumped her by phone while she was actually still in the process of cheating on him, he had almost immediately been snapped up by my daughter’s former friend Lauren. I still strongly suspected it was Lauren who had let Steve know about Izzy’s cheating; she had always wanted to get her hooks into him.

Steve would most certainly not want to have anything to do with a pregnant, cheating ex-girlfriend and to be fair, I couldn’t really blame him.

“Are you sure you did the test properly?” I asked. “I mean, you followed the instructions to the letter?”

Izzy nodded.

“I think so. There’s no-one I dare talk to about it at Uni. That’s why I came home. I did a test just before lunch yesterday. When it came up inconclusive too I just had to come home.”

This rang a warning bell; it was a very long time since I had used a pregnancy test but both my memory and my medical training told me that they would best be done first thing in the morning. Given her personality, it was entirely probable that Izzy had been so keen to know the result that she hadn’t followed the instructions properly.

“Of course,” I said, stroking her long dark hair. “We’ll go to the all night pharmacy now and buy a pack of tests, not just one. Then we’ll try again together. Between us we’ll make sure we do it right, okay?”

“Okay. Thanks, Mum.”

“And we’ll make sure your Dad doesn’t find out, right?”

Izzy gulped.

“Oh God. I couldn’t bear it if Dad knew.”

I could have told her that her father was a great deal more relaxed and understanding than she gave him credit for but there was no point. Pete still didn’t know how she and Steve had broken up. I didn’t want him to know that neither his wife nor his daughter could be trusted to keep their knickers on when an opportunity to drop them arose.

***

“Shh! She’ll hear us!”

Pete’s amused voice mumbled into my pubic hair as he tongued my slit with the expertise I adored while an unknown number of his fingers worked their way beneath his chin and into my oversized vagina.

“I don’t care! I don’t care!” I giggled, my fingers entangling themselves in his greying hair. “Oh God YES!”

In truth, the carefully designed layout of our large house made it very unlikely that Izzy would be able to overhear anything at all that went on in her parents’ bedroom but even the thought of discovery was making our encounter feel more risky and consequently even more exciting - for me at least.

My daughter’s news and possible predicament should alone have made the idea of sex unappealing but to my shame it was having the opposite effect. By the time my husband and I were alone in our bedroom, I was much more aroused than a possible Grandmother-to-be should ever feel.

Despite Izzy’s very welcome presence and knowing nothing about her possible pregnancy, Pete must have sensed my increased arousal during dinner because the look in his eye was unmistakeable. I had vowed that, as we tried to put the trust back into our marriage, I would never refuse him my body. So, as we went to bed shortly after eleven o’clock, there could only be one possible outcome.

Ten minutes later my vagina was battered and oozing semen from our first copulation but having, as usual, failed to reach orgasm from my husband’s slender cock, Pete was ‘finishing me off’ with hands and mouth, using well-honed skills that had never yet failed to deliver the goods.

Already sensitised by his repeated if ultimately ineffective thrusts, my vulva was alive with the heat of arousal and a much-desired and massive orgasm was approaching fast.

“I can taste my cum inside you,” Pete growled into my groin.

“Mmmmm!” I moaned as his fingers began to stretch my entrance. “Is it good?”

“It’s good!” he replied, his voice coarse with passion as he concentrated on his wonderful work, his face buried in my groin. “But it would... be even better... if it was... from someone else!”

“From Darren?” I whispered as his tongue lapped the special, neglected place just above the hood of my clitoris.

“Darren’s cum... would be good,” Pete mumbled into my slit.

“Does your cum taste different from his cum?” I hissed, taking the risk of mentioning my previous lover Tony whose semen Pete had licked from my body many times. “Ahhhyyyeeesss!”

There was a pause while my husband’s tongue lapped along the creases at the top of both my thighs as if searching out every last drop of the pale, sticky fluid. My hips twitched involuntarily against his face.

“I don’t want to remember his cum,” Pete looked up into my eyes, his jaw shiny with goo. “I want to taste new cum inside you.” His head descended again.

“Mmmmm! That’s sooo good!”

I moaned as the flat of his tongue was drawn upwards across the underside of my diamond-hard clitoris and his fingers curled inside me in search of my G-spot.

“I want... to see you... being filled with cum!” he hummed into my re-grown pubic hair. “I want to see you... cum so hard you scream!”

I wasn’t far from that point now, I thought as Pete’s fingers began the short, fast jerking movements behind my pubic bone that were guaranteed to bring my world to a massive, choking climax. His mouth left my slit to give his arms and hand a better angle from which to finger-fuck me.

“I want to see you being fucked hard! I want to see your unfaithful cunt filled with cock!” he growled as his wrist moved up and down faster and faster.

“Mmmm yyyeesss!”

My whole body was now pulsating in time with the violent jerking of Pete’s arm and hand. As my cries grew louder and louder, Pete pulled the corner of the pillow towards my head with his free hand. I bit into it hard to stifle the noise as my climax began in earnest, choking off my breath, making the room spin.

“Cum, Penny! I want to see you cum for him! I want to hear you beg him to put a baby in you!”

“Mmmmnnnnggghhhh!”

Pete brought his mouth back down onto my clitoris at the same time as his fingers rasped hard across the rough patch inside my vagina. My fingers tightened in his hair until I was sure whole handfuls would come away, my hips bucking wildly against his fist and his face, my teeth tearing into the white cotton of the pillow case.

Pete was speaking softly but whatever else he wanted was lost in the orgasm that racked my body, my belly tightening, my whole frame convulsing on the bed, my legs tight against the sides of my husband’s head as my hips bucked and twisted uncontrollably until finally I collapsed helplessly on the bed, exhausted.

“What’s got into you tonight?” Pete panted, smiling then kissing me on the cheek, forehead and lips.

I could taste my own bitter, pungent orgasmic juices on his mouth and tongue and wondered once again why on earth men found such disgusting flavours so arousing.

“I don’t know,” I replied, my voice breathy and broken. “Is it a problem?”

“Only if I get too old to do what’s necessary,” Pete grinned, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “Maybe it’s because Izzy’s home.”

“Maybe.”

“It’s unusual for her to come home midweek,” he mused, rolling onto his back. “Has she told you why? She wouldn’t tell me anything at all!”

This was no time to start a conversation that might not even need to take place.

“Maybe she’ll tell me in the morning,” I said trying to deflect his question. “I’m so tired. You did too good a job on me.”

No man ever objects to having his skills in bed praised by the woman he had just fucked so Pete didn’t even try. A few minutes later I heard his breathing become slow and regular as he fell asleep, happy and exhausted.

I lay awake for a long time, listening to his soft snores; pleased to have made my husband so happy and wondering what his lust-filled words would mean for our future.

Was he really ready for our Hotwife lifestyle to begin again? He hadn’t mentioned it for some days; would he actually agree to us visiting an escort together?

And was I ready? Could a potential Grandmother be a Hotwife too?

I wondered whether across the landing, our worried daughter was getting any sleep at all.

***

“Come on, I have to be at work in an hour!”

Izzy and Pete had just enjoyed a pleasant father-daughter breakfast together in the kitchen while I got my clothes and papers ready for my own day at work. At my suggestion, Izzy had risen early to spend as much time as possible with her Dad, who I knew had to leave not long after seven o’clock.

It would also distract her from the ordeal to come; learning if she really was pregnant. Distraction was something she badly needed, if the bags under her eyes were anything to go by. Clearly sleep hadn’t featured greatly in the last few hours.

Rising early for me had been a relief; with both my own and Izzy’s issues on my mind I hadn’t had a great deal of sleep the previous night either.

Nestling in a bag in the corner of my closet was the triple-pack of home pregnancy tests my daughter and I had bought from the late night pharmacy the previous evening. Though Izzy had been keen to take a test straight away, reading the instructions carefully had proved me right; the best level of accuracy would be found if the test was taken first thing in the morning. So, despite her protests, my daughter had been obliged to contain her anxieties and, if the look on her face was anything to go by, had slept as little as I had.

But patience can only last so long; the moment we saw Pete’s car reversing down the driveway we half ran up the stairs in our robes to the family bathroom where Izzy literally tore open the packet of tests, ripped off her pyjama bottoms and sat down hard on the toilet seat.

I couldn’t help noticing that her vulva was completely devoid of hair, something I had never noticed before and which had to be a very recent development. Izzy blushed when she realised I had noticed her bareness but neither of us said anything; there were bigger issues to consider.

My own pubic hair had regrown since my affair had come to an end, I suspected to the disappointment of my husband as well as myself but it was an important physical manifestation of my return to a monogamous marriage, if only temporarily.

Once settled on the loo, Izzy stared at the test in her hand.

“Ready?” I asked.

“Here goes, Mum!” she replied with an anxious look on her face.

Then she took a deep breath and stuck her hand between her open thighs. There was the familiar hiss of female urine being passed and we both counted the necessary seconds.

Once time was up, Izzy stopped her flow of pee in a way no woman who had given birth three times could possibly still do. For a moment I felt both old and envious but then concentrated on timing the test by counting. Anxious moments passed in near silence.

“Three – two – one – okay!”

Together we peered into the little window.

“Oh no! Not again!”

There before us was the pattern that according to the leaflet meant an inconclusive result.

“Maybe the whole box of tests is faulty,” I said. “I’ll get some more from the hospital later; they’re batch-checked so they’ve got to work.”

“I can’t wait another day, Mum,” Izzy pleaded, tears forming in the corner of her eyes.

“Okay,” I said, exasperated. “There are two tests left in the box. If we do one each then we’ll know if it’s the test or just you and your body. If they both come up inconclusive then we’ll know the tests are faulty. Let’s do it one last time, okay? Have you got enough pee left?”

Izzy nodded then sat back down on the toilet seat, peeled the wrapper off the stick and stuck it between her legs. The hiss of female urine followed again while I timed her very carefully, this time using the bedroom clock.

“Okay, my turn,” I said when she had finished, grinning encouragingly. “Are you timing your test?”

“Yes of course.”

As Izzy slid her bare bottom from the loo to the edge of the bath, I slipped off my own pyjama bottoms and sat down on the warm seat she had just vacated. I opened the last remaining test then rather more clumsily repeated Izzy’s actions, pleased to feel the relief in my bladder as I counted the right number of seconds.

“There we are,” I announced, placing the used test in my lap. “Let’s see if they’re inconclusive now!”

I began to time my own test with the clock on my phone but before I got half way, I was interrupted by an excited explosion from alongside me.

“Not Pregnant!” Izzy’s voice was a high pitched squeal. “Look! Look! It’s clear this time! I’m not pregnant Mum! I’m not pregnant!”

She hugged me; I hugged her, both of us relieved and happy.

“Oh my God, Mum,” she was saying, her relief making her babble. “I’m so happy! I’m so happy! Oh God what a relief!”

It was a relief for me too. With my own marriage still in jeopardy, the last thing I needed was a pregnant daughter coming to terms with a second broken relationship within a matter of weeks. However smitten he was now, there was no way her boyfriend Simon would have wanted to stay with a girl of questionable morals carrying someone else’s baby.

I sighed, silently thanking God for this news, cursing my daughter’s lack of wisdom where boys were concerned and wondering whether any of it had been inherited from me. A feeling of relief washed over me when I realised I did not have to break the news to her father that his precious, innocent daughter was a slut just like his wife.

I was so relieved that it wasn’t until I began to stand up that I noticed the window of the test lying on my own lap and the terrible word it contained.

‘Pregnant!’

The world stopped revolving. My arms, legs and chest turned to stone. My breathing stopped.

“Are you okay, Mum? You’ve gone white!”