I don't know how often it happens with other couples, but fantasizing about wife sharing had become part of our pillow talk. Maybe it was because I answered my husband's questions about long-ago boyfriends and long-ago sex. There was nothing wrong with, or boring, about our life -- not the sex part, not the loving part, and not the day to day living part, but my reward for telling stories, maybe from time to time a little embellished, was a super turned-on husband.
It wasn't easy at first to talk about those other men who were part of that other life. Would AJ, this man I've been married to for such a long time, become jealous? "No," he said, "I know where your loyalty is. It's just that I like to think about your life before we were part of each other's lives, back when you were single and dating."
The pillow talk moved from long-ago erotic events to "what-ifs", little fantasies. "What would you do if... if a guy you thought was really sexy, like George Clooney, tried to pick you up?"
"...if you were tied to the bed and I brought someone you never saw before into the room?"
"if ...?"
This was pushing into the dark corners of our minds, testing to see what gave us erotic pleasure. Some ideas were turn-ons, very sexy and exciting: others, not so much. AJ increasingly talked about fantasies that included having another man look at me, touch me, have sex with me; now, in this life, not just in that long-ago one. Husband-approved sex with someone became a hot fantasy. We even did some role-playing. "I want you to imagine you're with someone you think is sexy," he said during one session, "and I want you to let him see your body." I did that -- nude, stretched out on the bed, fully exposed, available (at least in fantasy).
Once, on a Saturday morning after a session like that, we were cuddling under the sheet. More pillow talk -- "If you were naked on the bed with a guy in the room you know you would get fucked, don't you?" he asked.
I told him I knew that.
"Think about this. If you knew it was all right with me, would you?"
If only I could let go the way he'd like... well, I could pretend and decided to tease a little. I half rolled away from him until I was on my back "You know if someone like Frank," (Frank was one of those long-ago boyfriends I told AJ about) "was here..." I closed my eyes, imagined an older version of Frank beside the bed then I pulled the sheet away, and posed, arms above my head, there for the taking.
"Would this," I asked, "be the answer you'd like?"
I thought we were done with sex that morning. We were not. He leaned over me, kissed me, and his erection returned. It was, from his point of view, very much the right answer. AJ usually has excellent control of himself, sex with him can go on for a long time. But when he moved on me, over me, and in me, I smiled, tilted my hips and lifted up a little, turned my head to the side, and whispered: "I'm thinking about the way Frank used to fuck me." I didn't have time to think long.
BOOM!
Later that day he brought me a gift, a black sash.
"What's this all about?" I wanted to know.
He told me. "You've earned a black belt in tease. I loved the way you just let go of your inhibitions. I wish, sometimes, you'd do that in real life."
And that brings us to Rudy, a visiting belt in Distinguished Scholar who was on our campus for three months. There wasn't much overlap in our fields but his temporary office was near mine so we had a friendly relationship. Rudy, about sixty and therefore four years older than me, was coming to the end of his stay and would soon be returning to the UK. On the Monday of his final week, he asked me once again if I'd join him for a cocktail. The invitation had become almost a ritual between us: I had turned down his frequent suggestions before, and I think he considered making them just a pro forma thing -- reflexive, like saying 'Good Morning'.
I, remembering my husband's more than casual advice about letting go, surprised us both and agreed to the drink/meeting/date. Rudy was taken aback but soon enough we agreed to meet 6:30 that evening in the lounge of his hotel -- it would be a brief after work liberation. I called my husband to be sure he did not have a problem with what might be called a date.
He did not.
Rudy, off campus as well as on, is a charming man; slender, tall, fit, very bright, self-assured, and the Brit accent didn't hurt either. We talked about work and of personal things. He was in a happy marriage too but missed his wife and the company of a woman in general. "Especially one as attractive as you," he added.
There was a little flirting going on -- eye contact for a second too long, the casual brush of his hand over mine, things like that. Of course I had looked at the few people in the lounge and was sure there was no one there I knew --- I had a sterling reputation and meant to keep it.
After an hour and a half or so, it was time to go. It had become dark so Rudy walked me to my car, not quite hand in hand but with a body language that implied an intimacy. My remote made the Beamer chirp its "I'm unlocked" message and for the briefest moment I wondered if I had somehow been sending that message too. Not quite ready to get in I turned to Rudy to thank him for a very pleasant time. He used the isolation and darkness of the parking area to put an arm around me and pulled me closer. That fit in with the mood of the evening. I did not resist. As he tilted his head and moved toward me, I raised mine, and our lips met. It went from closed mouth to open mouth, to being held tight and in turn, after a moment, me wrapping my arms around him too, and actually feeling him start to get an erection. When it ended he said, "I am sorry, I couldn't resist."
I caught my breath and confessed, "Rudy, I didn't resist either."
Holding my hand, he asked an obvious question, "Would you come back inside with me?"
I took a moment and then said, "No, Rudy, I am not ready for that," squeezed his hand, and got into the car.
I pretty much broke the speed limit on the way home. AJ and I talked about that mini adventure. We talked about it at dinner, we talked about it when we went to bed, and later during sex. "I am turned on kissing you just after someone else did," he said. That played into something that was part of his version of our fantasies. "And I'd kiss you harder if your mouth was on other parts of his body." I knew the hardest, raw, passionate kisses I got from him was after I went down on him and he was saying... well, you can figure out what he was saying.
"You know if you went back in with him he was going to fuck you," he told me, "and I wouldn't have objected." Not that I needed reminding, but he went on to say why Rudy might be an ideal 'playmate'. He would soon be going away, this would not be an ongoing thing. That good night kiss with Rudy proved he and I had good chemistry together and I for sure knew he was healthy. What you may not realize is many academic institutions demand a complete health history as a condition for "Visitor" status from people who are not US citizens. I am the department's representative on the approval committee and read his records.
"I'll bet," my husband said as we were relaxing after not having made not love, but lust, "he will ask you out again."
"Rudy is only going to be here for a few more days," I reminded him. "In your MBA language, 'the window of opportunity' is closing fast. But I did what you asked and let go a little, and it was fun."
In retrospect, is anyone surprised that Rudy came to my office that next day, it was Tuesday, and asked me to join him for dinner. "I even have an excuse," he said, "Joyce (she is one of our doctoral candidates who was very close to finishing her thesis and graduating) has been asking me about the possibility of doing a postdoc under me. I'd like to talk about her."
I told Rudy it sounded attractive but I would have to get back to him. When he left I called my husband. "You know what will happen if you go," he said.
"If I let it happen, I am sure it will," I agreed.
"Why did you call me? For permission?"
"I don't know. I guess I wanted you to know."
"Do you want to go?"
"Honey, I am scared. This is happening too fast."
"Maybe, but nothing is cast in stone, and this is a chance for you to play with fire a little bit if you want to. You can always back away."
"What do you think?"
"Honey, this conversation has given me an erection. You are a big time tease. I want you to go. Let things unfold as they will, I will support whatever you do."
"Let me think about it, AJ." I hung up.
I did think about it. The intelligent choice would have been to decline, but AJ's "You have to let go" rang in my head too. Well, it was more than that, if I accepted this invitation it would be like accepting Rudy's invitation to return to the hotel, to his room, after that passionate goodnight kiss last night. If I accepted this invitation he would presume I was accepting that proposition, too.
My fingers were shaking when I dialed Rudy's extension.
It was decided: our date was set for seven that evening. It became the longest afternoon of my life. At five I left campus, went home and changed out of my professional casual pantsuit into a skirt and blouse. My blouse was silk and dark, my skirt dark red, wrap around, and reached to my ankle. Sandals completed the 'Southern Woman on a Date' look. At the last minute, I took my 'black belt in tease', wrapped it around my waist for an added bit of style. God, I felt sexy. I thought about my husband saying I had a black belt in tease. Well, why not do that thing I had done only a few times in that long ago real life? Why not, indeed? I took my panties off.
I left home before AJ got there.
At the lounge I found Rudy waiting. There are still fragments of that "head talk," the conversation I had first with AJ and then with myself about letting go circulating in my head.
Rudy: "You look beautiful. I love seeing you in that outfit, it’s even more attractive than the clothes you wear on campus. I didn't think, after last night, that you would come. I had not been close to an attractive woman since I have been here and had not kissed a woman since I left my wife at the airport. I guess I lost control."
Me: "I have not been kissed that way by anyone but my husband since before I married him."
Rudy: "I don't want to cause any problems for you, and he will never find out I kissed you."
And then I sealed my fate. "Rudy, I told him. He is not angry about it, he thinks, under those circumstances, it was fitting for that to happen."
By then we were sitting in the dining room and drinks arrived. I looked around and had trouble hiding my astonishment -- a man carrying a briefcase and wearing a business suit came into the lounge and was seated a little distance away. That in itself was not surprising, this hotel is popular with business travelers, but he wasn't a business traveler, he was my husband! He sat quietly, ordered a drink, and waited. I remembered part of our ongoing pillow talk was about him saying he'd like to watch me on a date. That was another part of pillow talk: he'd like to be sure I was not just making up a story.
Rudy's face registered concern: "He's okay with that? He's not angry with you, or me?"
"No, not at all angry."
"Does he know you are meeting me for dinner tonight?"
"Yes, of course, and he approves of that too."
It took Rudy a moment to absorb that and its implications. I could see the logical analysis working in his mind. 1) Her husband knew of the kiss, and 2) knew of this dinner date. 3) If one drew a line between those two points and extended it, it would extend to at least another kiss.
At least that.
And it did not take a leap of imagination to see that line extrapolated to his room in this hotel, and to his bed in that room.
I should tell you about the tables in the dining room. We were at a table usually set for four, there are usually two chairs on one side, a cushioned bench on the other. We were next to each other on the bench seat, and the waiter removed the two outside chairs. There were tablecloths that extended well over the edge of the table. AJ was sitting at a table a little more to Rudy's side than mine on the opposite side of the room. I could see my husband's leg to about mid-calf. If our tablecloth hung over the same length, and all the others in the room seemed to be that way, he could see my skirt from the floor to halfway up to my knee. When Rudy was looking at me, he was looking away from AJ. AJ raised his glass in a toast, smiled and winked at me. It was clear I was not making up a story.
Rudy was studying my face and thought he saw something there. "Something is wrong, what's wrong?"
I thought for a moment and lied: "I thought I saw Gary from my department pass by the door, but I was wrong. He's at a meeting on the West Coast."
"I understand you want to be careful, but if anyone sees us we have lots of reasons to be talking about work-related things, don't worry," Rudy assured me. Then he asked, "Do you see anyone here from campus?"
It was not as comprehensive a question as he might have thought and I did not have to lie. "No."
"Well then," he said, "if you don't mind..." He was sitting to my left. My left hand was on the table; he covered it with his, reached over with his right hand to my head and turned it toward him. We kissed.
It proved to him his ‘logical inference’ points making a line, was true.
He tested the next extension of that ‘logic.’
His lips opened.
Mine opened too.
I closed my eyes, and let the kiss continue. When Rudy leaned back I could see my husband staring. If my possessive and assertive husband didn't like something that was happening he would find a reason to come to our table and stop it. Or, he knows my cell phone was on, he could call.
"No regrets about being here?" Rudy asked.
I took his hand and asked, "Wasn't that kiss an answer?"
Our salads arrived, and we went through the motions of eating a little.
Rudy's right hand went under the table, nominally to adjust his napkin, but I felt it on the outside of my leg. It was, I am sure, still another test. I covered his hand with mine but did not push it away.