90 comments/ 50831 views/ 26 favorites The Symmetry of Sin By: chilleywilley The theme of this story is about a wife who had a once or twice a year lover for many, many years, which her husband (who is not a cuck) discovered when he was close to retirement. Not to give anything away, the end is more 'living well is the best revenge' than BTB. This story is copyrighted by Chilleywilley and may not be republished. * I've been accused of thinking too much, and it's probably true, I'm not one to react hastily, preferring to understand the problem and then choose the best alternative if there isn't a solution. As an engineer, almost every course of action involves 'on the one hand...but on the other". For example, when designing a piece of machinery, sometimes it costs a little more to make it easier to maintain, suppose on the one hand, an additional $100 in manufacturing cost saves $100 a year in maintenance cost, $2,000 over the equipment's lifetime. No brainer, right? Maybe not! If sales can't demonstrate the value of the extra cost, the customer won't pay the extra $100 cost, and we lose the sale! In reality, cost of maintenance is not always a factor in buying new equipment. It's cynical, but true, and in this case sales may veto a $100 in additional cost because they fear they will lose business. Very often there isn't a perfect solution to a problem, good enough will have to do, and it's a principle I've used throughout my life. And it's a good life. I married a good woman who gave us two fine children, and I considered my marriage a successful one. My wife is a good mother, good companion, hard working, interesting mind, good looking, my best friend, cheerful, and...adequate in bed. I suppose most men think that more and better sex would be a good thing...well, I think that anyway. I kept hoping a new age of sexuality would bloom in our marriage when the kids were grown enough to need less care, or again when they moved out, or maybe after menopause, instead a frost has settled in. Now I didn't marry my wife for sex. Frankly, I married her in spite of her modest sex drive, the mismatch in our libidos was something I came to terms with years ago, I accepted things as they were. Never the less, I couldn't help myself for harboring an irrational hope that the mismatch in our sex drives would at least narrow...even though while this dog wants to learn, it's a bit late and unfair to expect an old bitch to learn new tricks. Perhaps those who grew up in this modern age where sex is so heavily emphasized can't imagine a life where sex is just a one of many things to look for in a spouse along with appreciation of good food, good conversation, great sense of humor, and a pleasant, thoughtful demeanor. And love. Karen and I, we certainly love each other. The discords in our marriage were mostly over and done with, now we were comfortable with each other like old shoes, I was content with it. It was good enough. Still, it came as a shock to have her announce one evening, that she had absolutely no further interest in sex. She'd been to her doctor, discussed it and was told there was nothing that could be done about it, no Viagra for women. Desire was what it was. She loved me, but just had no interest whatsoever in sex. "Well Viagra helps men get an erection, it doesn't directly affect desire, but on the main point...So you wish us to be celibate starting from last month?" It went over her head, she was puzzled, "What did you say?" I shook my head and smiled, "Just trying to be droll. You want to be chaste from now on. Our relationship will go from husband and wife occasionally sharing our bodies with each other, to brother and sister, right? We remain tender and considerate to each other, do all of the social things we do now, and drop all but the most innocuous kissing and touching? Have I got that right?" "Just so! You expressed it better than I." "Well, we are in complete agreement on one thing." She had looked anxious before, but now her face shone with relief. "I'm so glad! I was so afraid you wouldn't take this well." I ignored her comment and continued, "We're both in agreement that the sex we've shared up to now isn't worth much effort to continue. It's stale, as rigidly scripted as a high mass, so as I see it, there are several choices available." I held my hand up dramatically and raised a finger with each point: "We can: • Have mundane, vanilla sex with each other, (our practice all these years). As Saint Paul said, "Better to marry than to burn" • Do what you've suggested, have no sex at all. Paraphrasing Paul, 'Marry but still burn. • Have an open marriage, you know, fuck around, singularly or as a pair. Sort of be married, be merry, and don't burn, at least in this life. • Or...try to make sexual relations with each other more interesting ...You look shocked Karen." Actually she looked stunned, her shoulders hunched and her expression like a rigid mask. "Chris, you're telling me you don't...didn't like to have sex with me? After all these years? I can't believe it. I certainly liked it!" I just shrugged, "You almost never initiated sex, which suggested to me that you didn't particularly like it. What you allowed us to do in our bed was not the boon you apparently think it was, but even vanilla sex is better than no sex. So frankly, I admit I blew hot and cold with the ritual sex, but you refused everything I suggested, so at some now forgotten point years ago you had worn me down, and I gave up all hope of improving either the frequency or the quality of our sexual activity. It's now apparent you value it even less than I do." "That's not true! We did lots of different things in bed. You're so very negative." "We ever do anal? You ever lick my ass? I did yours, you never even commented on it. I might as well been licking my thumb. And how about blow jobs with happy endings, remember doing those?" "Those are disgusting things, very few people do anything like that!" she said with a grimace "How about dirty talk, sex about anywhere besides in bed, role playing, dominance and submission games. How about that? Ever do any of that?" "You never asked me to do that." "Rubbish! But have it your way, what did you ever ask me to do? I can't remember a thing!" Sort of a pregnant pause as she frantically tried to think of something I broke the silence, "Karen, we remember it differently...but it's no matter. This conversation began with your withdrawal from connubial sex, and the details don't matter much at this point. We did it to ourselves, the lousy sex." I was pissed at her, and my long buried resentment kept coming to the surface. I was so mad at her right now; I wasn't much worried about her feelings so I had no problem throwing that last line about lousy sex just to add oil to the fire. She was livid barely containing herself, and I was obviously pissed off with her revelation too, not a good time to have a discussion. "Let's move on and let that crack lie, pun intended. I notice you didn't comment on the options I laid out. We both agree our current sex life is unsatisfactory although for different reasons, you because you want no sex, and me because I want more and better sex. You've proposed Item two, 'both of us have no sex at all, the marry and burn option. I use my one veto on that one, so you get to pick either of the remaining two: • Have an open relationship, be married, be merry, and don't burn. Or • Try to make our sexual relations with each other more interesting Which do you prefer?" Always give a person a choice. Sometimes it works. "Chris, it's not about your sex appeal or skills as a lover, I'm trying to say it's not your fault, it's about my lack of desire. I'll do it if you insist, but I have no interest or desire...are you listening to me?" My facial expression must have given me away. "Sorry, doing you duty lying on your back spreading your legs and thinking of England is not lovemaking, or even fucking, it's a lesser form of rape. I would have said you were the one not listening. What will you do? Sex outside of marriage or better sex within the marriage? Which?" She was finally fighting back, "Bull shit! That's a false choice; it's you that's not listening. I don't want any sex at all. None, nada, zed, zip zilch zero! No interest, but if you insist, we keep on as we are." "Indeed I am totally focused on what you said. Let me think. Look, you gotta not do what you gotta not do, right? So we declare sex to be outside our marriage vows. That satisfies us both, our marriage continues, you can be chaste, which is what you want, and I can be chasing, not my first choice, but it satisfies us both." "Chris you're not taking this well. What's the matter?" "Well, clearly sex has always been a lot more important to me than it was to you and s I was unable to change it, I accepted it. I'm not going to force you; it's no fun to be a trial to one's spouse. And I'm certainly not going to throw you out. I want you to know that this is really really difficult for me. You expect me to abandon part of my identity, my sense of self worth, my manliness, and my youth. My need for sex, my sex drive is running as strong as it ever did...and masturbation is not a substitute for the intimate touching, stroking, kissing, and joining together. It's not just the intercourse. Do you see?" "Chris! I still love you. I just can't be as physical as you want me to be. We still have all the rest. That's not changed." "I supposed we have an unspoken agreement here where each of us get the minimum they need one way or another, as something we can live with. We'll do the best we can, and after all, our marriage's never been defined by sex." I wasn't really sure she knew what I had said, but it really didn't matter to me. Actually, my discontent with marital sex had already gotten into the planning stage of an affair; well perhaps just thinking about fucking around would be more accurate. I figured one problem with having an affair would be that it might be easier to start than to end. What if I fell in love or the woman went bat shit crazy, or had a jealous husband would come round looking to exercise his second amendment rights on me. Maybe paying for it was the better deal, except that I didn't really like the idea of sex with strangers. Not two weeks earlier, I had been sitting on my screen porch one lovely Sunday morning in June, reading the Magazine section of the NY Times, and saw an article about sugar babes and sugar daddies. In the old days, if you wanted what was called a kept woman, I guess you just asked around or something, but like everything else these days there are internet sites to help you do whatever it is you want to do. The article was interesting, although basically hype for a particular site, evidently there were lots of struggling students, single women, married women, men and god knows who all else that were looking for rent money. A paltry(to me) $750 to $1,200 a month buys both companionship and sex once a week. Of course that was cash, so I suppose to the sex worker paying no taxes on it, in purchasing power it was worth more than that. You paid a modest fee to the website in order to read the bios and pictures of the currently available sugar babes as well as being able to e mail them. The ages were 18 to 45, and they varied from real lookers to...well, let's call them the ill favored. Assuming that they were real prospects and their pictures and ages were current. Now, after the wife's announcement, what had been theoretical pie in the sky became 'Whoa! Let's take a real look at this!' For about $50 bucks I could join the website and check them out. This was still a bit of fantasy, but if I were to hire one, I was resolved to be picky. I wanted someone who lived about an hour away so I wouldn't run into them in the supermarket. They had to read, preferably non fiction books, so I could talk to them. I didn't want a dummy. Unmarried at the moment so no husband with a baseball bat. I didn't want a total slut who looked and sounded like a middle aged street walker with bad feet, I preferred willing but nervous. I am partial to dark haired women, and foreign born is another attraction as I find them exotic, or at least different. I wanted someone who looked nice, but was not a total head turner. My experience in dating lo these many years ago was that really good looking women tended to be very high maintenance, and I didn't need that. And lastly, a grownup. Someone who didn't end all her sentences with an up swing in their voice. I didn't want to smell bubblegum on their breath. Not surprising, of course, no one even remotely fitted the bill. I got a great dog on Petfinders the first time I looked at the SPCA website. Finding a mistress would evidently be more difficult. I subscribed to two sugerbabe websites, and over the next few months I considered the time I spent looking to be pleasant recreational window shopping. No harm in day dreams, they've entertained me all my life. June slid past, then July into August I saw nothing that met my criteria, and bit by bit I lowered my expectations. I e-mailed several, met two for a practice interview, but neither one of them elicited a spark. A third woman seemed interesting, and we hooked up for six weeks. She was a nice black woman (I'm white). The sex was the full catalog, but I sensed that neither she nor I had our hearts in it. We broke it off by mutual consent. She felt 'funny' sleeping with a white man. I felt awkward because we had little to talk about across the divides of age, race, money, and culture. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The wife was out shopping with a couple of friends while I tackled some 'honey do' jobs. The drain in our bathtub was really slow. It has a built in stopper and typically it gets clogged with hair and soap scum, and it can be cleaned out from the tub side. This time the problem was in the drain pipes below. Access to this area is through a panel in back wall of the closet in the spare bedroom. Emptying out the junk so I could get to the panel, I came across a tin document box. I didn't recognize it but it had a really cheap lock which would have been easy to pick, but that wasn't necessary, it wasn't locked! Some papers had kept the lid from closing enough to engage the lock. Well isn't that an invitation? Pandora? Where are you? Inside were the love letters I had sent to my wife during our courtship, and a few from later on when I was traveling. Cards and letters the children wrote. The nice things in life that are so good to remember. Oddly underneath those were some envelopes from companies offering coupons for storm windows and duct cleaning and what not. What the hell was this crap? Well! Inside those envelopes was another set of love letters, from Mikhail A.K.A. Mikhail Borodin. What the fuck! I know the name! It took a moment to dredge it up, Yes! He was the Russian spy, a diplomat in China back in the 1920's? Or at least that was where I remembered the name. Certainly not this guy. The junk mail envelopes all had a stick on label addressed to "occupent," and our address. Obviously I would not have bothered with them regardless of the spelling of occupant but the misspelled word "occupent" would have allowed her to see that this apparent junk mail was special. That explains why my wife had a hissy fit one day years and years ago when she saw me sorting the junk mail directly into the trash before bringing the rest it into the house. She announced she wanted to look them over for coupons and such like. Hmmh! I probably handed some of those very letters to my wife. There were only one or two per year, and as I read them, most were setting up a day of just an afternoon for them to meet, starting as early as the fifth year of our marriage! A few times they managed to have an overnight fuck fest, other years they only met once for lunch and an afternoon of fucking. Of course they might have met much more often if they were in telephone contact, but the phone records were long gone. The letters stopped abruptly twelve years ago, no tearful or furious 'goodbyes'. Did he die? Did they break it off? I copied them all, and carefully set everything back in place, pushing down the lid so it locked. I finished clearing the tub drain. Shit! I cleared the pipes only to see my marriage go down the drain. I pondered what to do. Its one thing if it had ended years ago, another since it didn't. Well, if she fucked around once, why not twice...or god knows how often. We got the computer about 12 years ago, so...they probably moved their correspondence onto that! I had some time yet before Wifey was due home, so I fired it up. Well, nothing, as far as I could see. I went on line and bought a program that would record the keystrokes, web pages visited, and such and installed it. $29.95! I didn't know what else to do, so I decided to do nothing for the moment. I can't begin to tell you all of the problems I have worked out by being patient, studying, gaining understanding of what is going on, and then putting it aside for a while. On this, nothing has to be done right away, a few weeks of intelligence gathering, planning and thought would reduce the chance of an undesirable outcome. If what I've written makes you think I did not mourn for my marriage, cry at the bitterness of betrayal for a good while, you would be wrong. I was a wreck, as anyone would be, learning of a lifelong betrayal. We speak of women having a good cry and feeling better...it's true for men too, I didn't feel good, just a little better. It was with a great effort I kept a good face on things that evening, and said nothing about my discovery. The next morning I checked the keystroke program, and felt stupid doing so...there was nothing from her because she hadn't been on the computer. Just for hoots and giggles I opened windows explorer, and did a series of searches on the C drive. "Borodin" brought up nothing. "Mikhail" brought up a nearly a hundred contacts in my customers file, and one odd ball file name I had never heard of. Bingo! She never even password protected it! She just buried it under a series of innocuous file names. She kept a diary in Word of her affair starting from a few years before we got the computer. In another file were copies of the E mails between them. What the hell was she thinking of, going to write a book? I had to get more paper at the office store to print all this shit up. Oddly enough there weren't any pictures. None at all, I had no idea what he looked like. Naturally I thought the worst, tall, blond and handsome, and ignored the thought that he might be short, dark, and smelling of vodka. I also had no idea where they met. The affair varied in intensity over these years. The letters began when he lived in Massachusetts and at that time we lived in Bordentown, NJ, and I don't remember her being up there, but it doesn't matter. Like I said during the years covered by the letters, they got together 1-2 times some years, not at all in others and the pattern continued through their e mail years until a year ago. At that point, he retired, moved to Wilmington, Delaware, and since then they get together every other week. Isn't that fucking nice! He's apparently sick, poor bastard. You know, as in sick and dying, although more is the pity, not right away. He's taking heavy pain meds and can't get it up anymore and his doctor won't let him take Viagra so now they have a platonic relationship too. I can't say he's the cause of her cutting me off, but shit on a stick! Has she been doling out sex to me out of a sense of fairness? They went to Rehoboth Beach for two nights in a mini vacation this spring while I was at her goddamn mother's house parging the basement wall. You think you know someone, and then find out something like this! The Symmetry of Sin Rarely was our marriage or me mentioned in their correspondence, in one old e mail she generally said good things about me, but a few years ago, apparently I had been, quoting her very words now: 'Been allowed to paw her boobs once in a while so I wouldn't get suspicious of what we (meaning her and Mikhail) have together' Isn't that a pisser! She feigned sexual willingness for decades? And I never suspected? Naaah! I don't believe that. She showed all the signs of arousal, gave me feed back as we were making love, I really couldn't believe that she didn't enjoy it. This was probably just trash talk and clearly not meant for me...probably shouldn't take it literally. The greater reality was obvious though. She hadn't been faithful, and more fool me, I had been. What a goddamn kick in the nuts! A fucking insult! Their written stuff referred occasionally to having 'made love', but no mention of details. Perhaps we both got untalented sex, or maybe she was an insatiable wildcat in his bed, and a sloth in mine. I expect it was the former, but not knowing is not knowing, isn't it. As to her time, he only got a trivial amount of it, better if he had gotten none of course... Well, the past is done and gone. I had a strong hand at this point. I could make her choose between us, and I couldn't imagine she would choose him, if only because he was a short timer now. She certainly loved him as it went on for most of our lives. Hmmph! She was a bigamist.but really, what the fuck is it to me if she keeps seeing him at this point? Of late, I wasn't clad in white robes with a golden halo either, what with that sugar babe and all. But prior to that, I was straight arrow for all those years, and then this. Apparently she didn't see what she had done as cheating because in one of her letters she reasoned I got everything he got and then some, so it cost me nothing. Well that logic works quite well for me now. The outsourcing of sex just got validated and I was going to make up for lost time. Whether a mistress or a love interest, a new relationship is all about the future...the prospect of learning all about each other...the thrill of infatuation...the drift from newness into familiarity. An older marriage is very much about the remembered past. A shared past...well, for the most part shared with me. It's deeply knowing one another, except here was a part of her I didn't know. So part of our marriage, some would say the whole damn marriage, was hollow. What should I do about it now? I can't get those years of my life back, so what was the future for me? At this point, what did I want? • I could afford to divorce her, but my life style would take a hell of a hit, and I didn't have anybody lined up. • Did I even want to even start a life with another woman? Commit to another woman? Consume more years of my life if she turns out to be the wrong woman. I certainly couldn't afford two divorces. Not so attractive, an option, really. • Could I live with her and her lies? Well, albeit in ignorance I had been for almost thirty years and was content. As to sexual jealousy, she doesn't want any sex, and frankly right now I don't want to have sex with her either, but so what? We aren't doing sex! Just good companions now. • And maybe this is what marriage is about? What she did was certainly wrong, but 40% of the women and 60% of the men have cheated in their marriage at least once. Sure it hurts, tell me about it, but the marriage is a whole lot more than sex. • What if I did nothing? Turn a blind eye to it, and go on as we were, living a normal life, with my younger bit on the side. A bit of tit for tat that would avoid all the drama and anguish of confrontation. By avoiding confrontation, I was in control, whereas if I had it out with her, who knows where it would end up? For the first time in my adult life, I seriously considered what would make me happy, just me and to hell with everyone else. Putting aside the fact that I have been sharing her for years, and other than the no sex part, my marriage is/was OK. In a way there was double pain for me here; one, that she screwed the guy and two, that she loved him. I can convince myself that the sex part was like sharing a tough, gristly steak with a dog. You really don't begrudge so much, scraps from a meal you don't particularly like. Funny, I'd have been really ripped if I thought she gave him better sex than me. How we men use sex to measure love! Anyway, if I keep my mistress, get better sex, really good sex now, with someone younger and nicer looking, would that make up for what she stole? No, of course not, but in the here and now, it would be a step in the right direction. Living well is always the best revenge. No need to show my hand. Sugar babes come on in! I'm not going to rub her face in it, but now I don't have to concern myself if she finds out. How can she throw stones? Physically I realized that especially to someone thirty years younger than me, I was hamburger , and the new woman would be...if not prime then at least choice tenderloin, so I did want to improve my curb appeal some. I wasn't fat, but losing a few pounds would not be a bad thing, and exercising was always a good thing. So I started a diet so that I would 'be all that I could be' which wouldn't be all that much. I can't blame it all on the wife, but there was a lot of junk food in the house that henceforth I ignored. I cut down on the amount of meat I ate and doubled up on vegetables. And 'Oh bitter pill', I took the plunge and joined a gym. Worked out three times a week. I lost between half and one pound a week, and felt better as well. Borodin's relationship with the wife went back nearly to the start of our marriage; in effect she was a bigamist with two husbands. I wondered which one of us fathered our children? I went back to the diary and found no mention of them meeting around the time our children had been conceived, but of course they may have met at times she didn't record. Not knowing is not knowing, isn't it. I added DNA testing to my 'to do' list. Hair samples were the easiest to collect, from the wife and the kids and myself. I had everything in a package to send off...and then chickened out and threw it in the trash. My children were mine by dint of me raising them and imprinting myself on them. I fed them, changed them, cleaned up their vomit, taught them to speak, to reason, dried their tears, and brought them into adulthood with love. Paternity was something I didn't need to know, because it might affect my relationship with them, and raise hell with their relationship with their mother. Meanwhile on the sex search. I went back to the sugar babe sites, found yet another such web site, and even looked on Craig's list. On the new site I found a winner! Or so I thought. She was a legal immigrant from India with two kids. In fact I nearly missed her. I had emailed her and she said she had withdrawn her profile, and complained twice to the site because they were slow in removing it. Her days off were Sundays and Wednesdays. We began an e mail correspondence, and in a day or two switched to daily telephone calls in the morning before she went to work. I found out where she worked when she called me one time from the County library telephone system. I called the library on her day off and asked for Mitu and was told it was her day of. Bingo! She was at a vulnerable point in her life, very down on herself; she was abandoned by her husband who fled back to India darkly muttering about family problems, her own family back there wanted nothing to do with her in part because she failed as a wife, and worse couldn't afford to be a sponsor to bring anyone over here. She really wasn't making enough money to properly care for two children, and even her attempt to, in her words "sell herself," failed because in six months she only had two other people contact her, and both were abusive nut cases. On the positive side, she was a US citizen so they wouldn't deport her, which was really good because she wanted no part of the old country, and she had health benefits through her job, so really she just needed more money. I tried to set up a lunch meeting on Wednesday, but she pushed it off two weeks into the future and, it sounded as though she was less sure of going through with the arrangement. Maybe she was having second thoughts and stalling. I've learned when you see something you want, don't hesitate, seal the deal, you know money talks and bullshit walks! She had mentioned liking Robert Frost's poetry, and coincidently years ago I paid a dollar at a yard sale for a well worn first edition (1928) of West Running Brook by Robert Frost. I inserted $500 in new twenty dollar bills with a note to say that this was a gift without conditions. Actually I wanted her to have a taste what I was bringing to the deal. The note was carefully worded so if anyone else read it, it might seem odd but certainly not damning. I mailed it to her marked personal c/o the county library. In doing this I was saying that I was really interested in her and was not stingy. All good things to convey. I also e mailed her with my real name and address, and confessing to her how I found out where she worked. Mitu called me the day she got the book, shocked, flattered, and pleased at the earnest money and arranged to meet me for an hour when she got off work the following day. Five hundred dollars goes a long way towards paying for a baby sitter. I was a bit of a wreck. I haven't been on a first date in like forever! It was only to a chain coffee shop, but still. In the end I forced myself to relax, and go with the flow... Mitu was every bit the delight I expected. She was dressed in 'mother of young children nice' if you can imagine that. Neat, clean, practical, and not very sexy. Later I found out that while the skin she was showing was normal for Americans, in her upbringing it was shameless. She was tall for a Hindi woman and nicely curved. Initially she was very nervous too, I admired the courage she showed just to meet me, conflicted as she was. I was wondering if sleeping with me would damage her. Her face showed glimpses of a cheerful, bouncy personality behind the dominant worries about what she was doing with me. Serious second thoughts. We were the only persons sitting outside the coffee shop, screened from the street by bushes so we could talk. "I think I feel like a prostitute. Some sort of fallen woman. Certainly a failed person. This is very difficult for me. Sex for money is what this is when you come down to it." "Well sex and money are always combined one way or another, aren't they? Isn't a good marriage catch for a woman, a man who makes enough money so she and her children can be comfortable? Rich men rarely have ugly wives, unless it's the wife who has money, do they? If the woman is homely, she usually marries a man who is flawed as well. Would you seriously consider marriage with a guy with no job and no prospects for getting one?" With a flash of anger, "No! But unfortunately I'm still married to such a one as that!" "One who abandoned you and his children. Like you, I'm looking for someone I can enjoy being with first and foremost. Yes there is sex, but in my mind it is clearly secondary. Prostitutes have many, many partners, not much choice of whom, and certainly no emotional connection. None! The very definition of promiscuous! This is not what we are considering at all. You and I will have sex only with each other. Marriage is long term commitment, and this is short term, more like dating. Of course you can also date others and such, because I presume you have a long term goal of finding a husband. You just have to tell me when you become... intimate. "He will have to wear a condom. In addition to the money, I will owe you the same sort of support you would expect from a good friend. If you call me, I'll feel obligated to help if I can. You need a loan to get your car fixed, or take you to or from the airport, need someone to fix something around the apartment, or advise you on...I don't know, problems with the landlord? I can help with that. You will not be so alone. You can text me any time, and I will call you back. She was paying close attention and as she uncrossed her arms and leaned on the table, hands clasped together her body language suggested she was open to my argument. I needed her to buy in to these points. "Does that sound OK so far?" There was a pause, and she couldn't look me in the eye. "I do need somebody. At the Library, they're older and don't talk much to me...we don't have anything in common. I've never done anything...don't even know anyone who did anything like this. You seem nice enough, but frankly you're American and I'm Hindi, there is a big difference is there not? And that's not going to change. Also I have children to consider." She was wringing her hands. I shrugged. "You Hindi, me American that's good! We get to learn from each other, to me you are interesting, different, you know? Since you are an American now, it would be good for you to know more about our culture us, wouldn't it? Of course your children will grow up like the native born Americans that they are, and you knowing more about this country helps you help them. Of course you have to put your children first, and this arrangement helps you do that, but you yourself have needs that you need to satisfy. Having dinner in a nice restaurant, talking to a man...you need some adult time away from the children, an adult to talk to who has your interests at heart." Time to get her buy in again. She was looking more relaxed, the hands were unclasped and she brushed an imaginary wisp of hair from her face where her eyes were smiling and her mouth had a bit of an upturn, "Seem reasonable?" A smile of relief, "It does. Some nights I go half crazy with no one but the children to talk to...I love them and all...but they're children. And I read about men and women, you know, in romance books and what they do...well it's never been like that for me, with my husband and even that was a long time ago. You need to tell me about the sex part, because I've really only read about these things, and you should know that I won't be any good at it." "I don't know about you not being good at it. Mitu, nobody is born with experience and skill at sex, we all have to learn what we enjoy, what turns us on, and find a partner who will do those things. I understand that you are just starting out. As to the sex, I expect some times in bed we would be more...enthusiastic than at other times. I don't have weird tastes in sex, while I like the oral stuff, and maybe you're not experienced with it most men and women like it, and you will too. I'm ok with, we can start slow. I can teach you.I mean teaching is what lovers do for one another. And remember, I'm not looking for a sex slave, I'll do my best to please you, and you can say no to anything or quit anytime." I sensed it was becoming too long a speech. I needed to get her to comment and maybe commit, "So I don't see it as sex for money at all. Its sex and money, both are part of a stable and continuing relationship. The glue. Without the sex, I would have no particular reason to help you out. Without the help, why would you bother with an older man like me? " "Well, I don't have much of a choice, do I?" "What choices you have are not for me to say, nor are they my business. Mitu, I will not rape you or force you. If you will feel degraded every time you think of me, go with god, not me. I don't need that guilt. Look! I think you are a very personable, sexy, desirable woman. I am looking for companionship, friendship, and yes, sex. I don't want to divorce my wife so no marriage prospects, who knows how long it will suit each of us? "Now how are you different from me? You too are looking for companionship, friendship, and yes, sex, but not interested in marriage right now because you have to divorce your husband and it's nice to have someone with you while you are doing that. You and I both have a problem with our committed relationship because we are married to spouses that don't fulfill our needs. I think we'll be good for each other; it's a good match for us. You and I can help each other. If you aren't willing, if I'm not the right guy, do us both a favor and say no. If you want to think about it, I'll wait for an answer." It was three days later when Mitu called and asked if we could meet and go somewhere to be alone. I offered lunch and to do whatever she was comfortable in the afternoon. She took half a day off, and asked me to pick her up near the library. Not a problem. We met in the parking lot of a little used playground. She was punctual, slid in beside me with a hug that turned into a kiss. As her hand covered my cheek, and she nibbled at my lip, I gently stroked and the back of her neck, with one hand, and one on her hip, just below her belt. I liked kissing and was content to fondle the secondary erogenous areas. As her tongue slid across my lips, she lifted a knee, and rubbed her inner thigh against my leg. Wow! I slid my hand around behind her stroke the back of her thigh. "Chris, I have thought about this thing, and I want to do it. I'm not ready to remarry, or even look for husband material, and I certainly don't want a string of men coming and going. But I'm lonely for an adult, and especially a man. Men have a different perspective on life than women. There's some things I need to talk about with a man, and you're easy to talk to. Plus you've already given me some wise advice. And I do miss the sex...well, I never had good sex, but I think I know what I am missing, I what I read sex can be like, and I what that kind of sex. "Plus I'm a little timid, so maybe you pushing me to do those things that my husband, may he be happy with someone else wouldn't dream of and it will be good for me. But the thing that convinced me is that I think you really like women as women, not just for sex. So in the words of the kids, let's fuck! Oh I feel so bad! I've never said anything like that to anyone in my life!" She giggled and blushed, with her nose wrinkling in embarrassed joy. I laughed and kissed her. "You don't have to ask me twice, off to a motel!" We were like school kids both of us anticipating learning from the other. In fifteen minutes we were walking into room 114, the start of a long friendship. Now you may doubt my ability to judge the sincerity of women when it comes to sex, but if Mitu Patel wasn't the real thing, the real thing might have killed me. It's not fair to compare sex with my wife to the sex I had with Mitu that day, so I won't. She was joy that transcended life itself. Think of you and your wife naked in bed, and the intimacy and joy you feel watching your child suckle at her breast while she sings a breathy lullaby. Think of your first love's kiss on a spring evening, think of the imagined joys of heaven... think...think of her. We stood against the closed door, our lips nibbling, tongues flickering, she lifted up a knee again to better press her crotch against me. Her hands holding my face. My fingers traced the short hairs on the back of her neck while my other hand pressed the dimple at the base of her spine, pressing her against my raging hard on. The kiss devolved into her sucking the breath from my lungs, me sucking her tongue, milking its nectar. "Jason, close the curtains." "Ah, right!" I turned the vent on and made sure the curtain was closed. She shut the lights off, but there was enough light coming around the curtain to see I have an unusually deep voice, and as I broke the kiss, I turned her head to place her ear to my chest "I want you to feel the vibration of my voice as well as hear the words. You are lovely like the summer twilight! Your dark eyes are pools I lose myself in. Your hair is lush and fragrant and thick, you are beautiful to me unto the tips of your toes. Your gestures are the definition of grace, and your peels of laughter delight my soul. You are a treasure, and you please me greatly," The Symmetry of Sin She looked up at me, her eyes glistening with emotion, her lips parted to show her white teeth, and the tip of her tongue as it moistened her lips. I stepped back and began unbuttoning her blouse, planting kisses on her shoulders and collarbones as they emerged. Her skin was subtle shades of tawny brown, so soft and warm. She put her arms down so the blouse would slide to the carpet. There is something magical when a woman bares her breasts to a man. It's an intimate gesture revealing naked vulnerability, and trust. I wanted her to make that gesture by herself. I stepped back and said: "Mitu, will you show me your breasts?" With a blush, she reached behind to unhook the bra. The cups loosely covered her breasts as she brought her hands around and delicately grasped the tops or the cups with thumb and middle finger. The straps slid off of her shoulder. She lifted the bra up and away from her, somewhat blocking my gaze, and lowered her arms, letting the bra drop. "Your breasts are lovely. So full with lovely, suckable nipples poking out..." "My boobs are ugly! They sag and the nipples aren't high. Just look at them, they point down." "I am looking at them, and they are lovely! Who fills your head with such garbage?" I grazed her breast with my fingers. "Just now, are your breasts sending sensations of pleasure to your brain?" "Why of course!" I walked around to her back, my fingertips trailing the tops of her breasts, over her shoulders. "They're sending sensations of pleasure to my brain too." I gently reached over her shoulders and touched the tender flesh just above her collar bones, and pulled her to me. I lowered one arm across her breasts, rubbing one and cupping the other, by thumb and forefinger squeezing her nipple. I slid my other hand down her naked side, and under the waistband of her pants, my fingers tracing the crease between her mons and her leg. "Is your nipple sending wonderful sensations down towards your pussy?" "They are indeed doing that, but they are too small." As she covered them with her hands, lip quivering a bit. "They work fine. They fed your children, they are a means for you to feel pleasure, and they are beautiful...they are certainly beautiful to me." I continued to play with the nipple, and brought my hand out of her pants undid the button and the zipper, and surprised her by taking her wrist and putting her hand on my pants over my stiff cock. "Just the sight of these tits caused my cock to rise, so you know that they are sexy to me as well. I don't want a woman shaped like a 12 year old boy, nor do I want a teenage girl. You look like an adult woman should, you talk like as adult woman should talk, and you have the will to please me as I have the will to please you." Her fingers were probing my cock and balls as I slid her pants and Granny underwear off her hips she wiggled a bit to let them slide, and with a cry of lust, turned, stepping out of her pants and wrapped he arms around my neck as she mashed her lips against mine, using pressure to express her rising virgin lust. I can't express the joy I felt when that naked woman pressed herself against me in erotic expectation. We kissed, and stroked each other, until her hand reached for my zipper. I stepped back and took off my shirt. "Let me!" she said looking intently at my crotch as she unbuckled my pants and let them drop on my feet. With a coy smile, "Well! Will you look at that, it's struggling to be free." She squatted down and pulled my underpants down. My cock popped out and I think she was purposely positioned so it slapped her in the nose eliciting a giggle. "Oh look what got out and is attacking me!" "I shall teach you the charms that will tame this savage beast, you'll climb on him and ride, he'll take you wherever you want to go." She rubbed it, and kissed it with closed eyes and lips, reminding me I had some teaching to do. "Do you like the smell of my cock?" "Of course." "Sex talk is call and response. 'Do you like the smell of my cock?' is the call, and the response is 'I love the smell of your cock." "Oh, OK. Your cock smells ...like a cock. What else am I suppose to say?" I started to laugh "It was a dumb question, wasn't it," Which got us both laughing. This was gonna take time. She had had 5 minutes of sexual experience hundreds of times over, so this time I tried to give her some good orgasms without pushing her too much. Lick an American woman on her asshole, and she'll give a delighted yelp or murmur and call you a pervert, all the while loving it. Indian people have a heightened sense of 'unclean' to the point of it being a phobia with some of them, so I figured tame marital sex, with a bout of eating pussy was probably pushing her comfort zone enough for the first time with her. She loved it! I took my time, bringing her to the brink of orgasm sucking her nipples with my hand between her legs. I placed one of her hands on her tit, and she began to play with it. Wordlessly I watched and copied her movements on the other tit, letting her teach me how to please her. Her eyes were closed and soon she was whimpering and crying out softly. I slid down her body, using my mouth on her twat while my hands took over both breasts. She pulled my head into her as an orgasm flowed through her and she cried out softly. "Louder, louder, three are no children to hear." Her mouth opened wide with shrieks of pleasure as her thighs squeezed my head and she shook with pleasure. I knew this was going to be good for both of us. It was the start of the best year of my life, great, eager sex. The wife and I vacationed in Mexico, hung out with our adult children and in late spring, Karen pulled a scam so she and Mikhail who was now wheel chair bound could spend a weekend at the shore. It was great, because Mitu and I spent that same weekend in New York, living the highlife. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ It was almost a year after I took up with Mitu that my daughter called to chat. She sounded upset, and it took a bit of nervous chitchat before she came out with the real reason for the call. "Mom thinks you are screwing around on her. Are you?" "Well, she's said nothing to me about this. Are you violating a confidence to ask me?" She was clearly uncomfortable, "Well, no, at least I don't think so. Are you fucking around?" "Now do you remember the long walks we use to take as you poured out your teenage heart to me about your boyfriend woes? Oscar I think his name was? What he did, what you said, what should you have said and so forth? Even occasional tears and wailing. Do you remember that from your teen years?" "Sure. Of course! Mom just didn't understand." "Do you also remember that I listened intently to what you wanted to tell me, offered the best advice I could give, but never got in the middle between you and the boyfriend?" "Right. Oh god, I would have died of embarrassment if you had." "And rightly so, rightly so. I was there to support you as your father, not as a relation's councilor. You need to do the same with your mother. Listen to her, support her, but don't place yourself between us. You aren't...you can't be impartial; you're too involved with us. If we can't talk to each other, your mother and I, then we certainly can't speak frankly through you. If you mother has issues with our marriage, she needs to talk to me. If one of us thinks we need marriage counseling, it's up them to bring the subject up. I hope your mother didn't mean for you to ask me about this because if so, she did you a disservice. Your heart was in the right place, but it's not something I can talk to you about." "Pop, mom's really, really upset, so talk to her! Will you?" "Daughter, in life there are lots of things that bother, irritate, or upset us. Some we choose to let lie, and some we choose to confront. Your mother wants to talk about it? We see and talk to each other every day; she can bring it up whenever she wants to. Perhaps you could advise her to do that. So how is my grandson doing?" I was glad of the warning, as I could prepare a way to reconcile her to what I wanted, and I had set my mind on three goals. Number one was to keep my wife as a life companion. I enjoyed her company; she genuinely looked out for my interests, and took care of me and me her. Of course I wasn't sleeping with her, that aspect of our marriage was over, but the rest was good. Two Borodin was no threat to me, so she could fuck him, wipe his ass, whatever. He doesn't matter, his value to me is that when she brings up Mitu, I can use him a foil. The number three goal was to reconcile her to accept an open marriage, with me keeping a sweet young thing on the side. I could see a way for it to happen, but it depended on my wife to be the first to attack, and it looked like that was going to happen soon. I was ready for the shit to hit the fan that night, but Wifey was silent. She apparently stewed on my sex life for another month and then in a moment of idiocy, dropped the bomb after a family dinner with our children and their spouses. The attack came without warning, "Your father is being unfaithful. He is seeing another woman." Flew from her mouth in an intense, slightly quavering voice, she was sitting ramrod straight at the table with a bitter expression on her face. There was dead shocked silence all around. People were sort of looking back and forth at us. My youngest daughter looked like she wanted to crawl under the table. "Karen, this is really not the time to discuss this." There was suppressed rage in her voice, "Nonsense. I want us to talk about it. Now! It's awful!" "Karen, you don't mean nonsense, you mean no sense! You have no idea of the snakes that lie under this rock. It is far better to let it lie for now. I'm telling you, the future...our future will be better for it. You and I can discuss this later tonight and perhaps reach an accord with one another. Doing it in front of an audience will make it vastly harder." "Do you deny you are having sex with another woman?" The four young people were listening with rapt attention to this with heads swinging back and forth following the dialog like at a tennis match. "Fools rush in here. It is wrong of you to start this fight with our children in the middle, it can only end badly. Are you sure this is what you want?" "You haven't answered my question!" "Tell you what, Karen. You ask all your questions, and I will answer all of them but one. Then I get to ask mine and you will answer them, well all but one. No interruptions, no hysterics?" She nodded assent. "The answer to your question is no. Does that work for you?" "You're lying! I know you're having sex with her." I said nothing. "Well!" "I'm waiting for you to ask a question." "You lied when you said you weren't screwing some woman." "That's not a question either. What's wrong with you? Listen to what you are saying. You asked me if I denied having sex with another woman, and I said no. I am not denying that I am having sex with another woman. I answered your question truthfully." "What's the whore's name?" "Well, one can never be sure, but to my knowledge, I don't know any whores." "That woman! What's her name?" "That's the one question I will not answer. Rest assured she doesn't live around here. We, you and I, have no friends in common with her as far as I know. Also she is certainly not a whore. Her relationship to me is what in the old days would be called a kept woman. She's my mistress. Basically I pay her rent plus a little, and once a week or so, we have lunch, or dinner, usually followed by...a very happy ending. Oh, she is quite unsuitable for a wife, so you need not worry." "You must stop seeing her immediately!" A long pause. "Well Chris?" "Well what? You didn't ask a question. I'm answering questions, as we agreed." She stood up and leaned over her plate glaring at me, "You infuriating Bastard! Let me tell you something. I won't put up with it! I'm going to divorce your cheating ass!" I said nothing. My daughter piped in: "Dad, what you are doing is horrible. I simply can't believe you'd do something like this. Why are you doing this to Mom? You're disgusting, and for my part, I'm leaving." "Hold your horse's daughter. Hear the other side first. Wife, apparently you've run out of questions? Then it's my turn to ask you questions? And remember you insisted on this." She nodded. "Have you been completely faithful to me in our marriage?" "Of course. What do you think I am?" "Well, for starters a liar. Who are Mikhail Borodin and what is he to you?" She went pale. "He's an old friend." "How often have you fucked him?" "How dare you talk to me that way!" "You didn't answer the question." She was shaking like a leaf. "Oh god! How long have you known?" "My god, Mom. What is dad saying?" My son spoke for the first time, and waving my open hand downward I used my father voice, "You guys keep out of this! Karen, you had your chance to ask questions. It's my turn now. Again, back to my question, how many times have you fucked Borodin?" "Well not that many." "Give me a number!" Karen started crying. "Well you probably didn't keep count. Let me ask an easier question: When was the last time you fucked him?" There was a long pause as Karen wept and snuffled. "A few years ago." "About two years ago. When did the love affair start, when was the first time you two fucked?" Her face contorted in pain. "Please don't ask me that. Oh god! Oh god." I had intended to ask her who was the father of my children, but took pity on her. It was better to end it, I had made my point, and the supper was mostly over anyway. "I think that's enough for our children to hear. They now know that neither of us has been completely faithful. Remember, 'let you without sin cast the first stone'? How about dinner next Sunday night? Your mom and I need to talk now, so it would be best if you left us to it, and be mindful that for all of our failings, your mother and I love one another, and we certainly love you." The kids left, fled might be the better word, with obvious relief hugs and kisses while imploring us not to do anything stupid. As the door closed I said, "So for most of our marriage you've had a lover. So who's the father of my children?" "How dare you! Of course they're your children. How could you think that of me?" "Jesus, you've been fucking that guy for years, and have the gall to ask how could I think that of you? He's your second husband for fucks sake, your fun on the side. You assure me they're my children! I find out you love him, you've been fucking him all during our marriage, so why wouldn't you want a child with him! Which one was it?" She was speaking through tears. "I they are yours, I know for a fact!" "So you used condoms with him? Condoms that never fail?" Her silence was her confession, she fucked him bareback. "Answer me! You risked giving me a bastard to raise and an STD'S as well, didn't you! What, if anything, were you thinking?" Her tears were flowing: "We didn't use condoms, but I didn't see him when we were trying for children. But he was clean, I knew that. And we saw each other rarely." "Didn't fuck him when we were trying for children. Good! Fucking wonderful! How thoughtful. Never hurts to show such respect for your husband while you're fucking somebody else. I'm sure lots of thought and planning went into, merrily loving him and fucking him only when it was safe. A fucking erotic nightmare shadowing my marriage. So what now? Is it over?" "Oh god, this is so hard! Yes the sex is over...long over." She realized I was waiting: "But I still see him for an hour or two every few weeks. He's just an old friend and he's dying...dying alone, he has nobody." "He's an old friend and lover, you mean. So what do you see in the future? You going to drop him?" "Please don't ask that of me! Please! He really needs me now, he's only got a few months left, and we haven't had sex in years. It's not sexual. It never was sexual..." "How do you fuck somebody and not have it sexual? I'd love to know." "Well, we did come together in intercourse, but it wasn't the licentious sex you imagine." "Sadly, you being you, I believe it. It was always about love, billing and cooing, love making or maybe fucking, I wouldn't know, I wasn't there. You've shared your love between two men. How do you think that makes me feel? I'd have liked to have had some real sex from someone who was...was more enthusiastic and talented...less inhibited than you. But you wouldn't change, and like an idiot, I settled for mediocrity. So why are you here? Why didn't you run off with him? Why the fuck did you cling to me all this time? " "I loved you far more! Mikhail was just a friend. We used the love word, you must have found the letters, but it was somehow not really that. I was fond of him...Also it was a case of absence makes the heart grow fonder. The reason we rarely spent more than a day together was that by the end of the day he thoroughly annoyed me. It was odd. We never talked on the phone other than a few sentences. When we were together it was artsy fartsy talk about classical music and books, that sort of thing. Lately we've been going to the Metropolitan Opera Simulcasts in the theater. They are so beautiful." "So beautiful, so much fun for you, and you never asked me to take you to the opera, did you? Don't want to risk spoiling it for you and Red Mick." Her eyes were brimming and she stared out the window, upper lip quivering a bit, just like me, despite knowing and preparing for this, my emotions were brimming over too. "I wish I could say I really tried to stop it. Like I gave up smoking, but I'm trying to be honest here, I never really tried. I don't know if I couldn't, or perhaps I wouldn't make myself do it. How long have you known? And please have mercy on him, don't forbid me to see him, I'm begging you." "You're asking me to have mercy on your lover? Sweet Jesus! Well there's no fucking point in closing the barn door when the horse is gone, is there. See him whenever you want. You should suck his cock for him, even if he can't get it up, it feels really nice, and it's a kind and generous thing to do for him. Try to pretend you like it. "So what the fuck, Karen, you want to go back to where we were? I ignore your lifetime transgression against our marriage, because like you said in one or the e mails, you and he took nothing away from me?" "Exactly, that's the best outcome. He'll pass shortly, and we can go back to the way things were, just the two of us." Wonderful, the opening I've been waiting for! "Do you mean we should go back to the way things were between us 28 years ago when we were both faithful to one another, or go back to the way things were for the last 25 years when only one of us was faithful? Which 'way we were' are you thinking about?" She stared at me bug eyed as what I said sunk in. She started shake as the crying began. "You have a good cry, I'm going to take the dog for a defecatory walk down to the tavern and drown my sorrows in a beer. You're going to need to ignore my ongoing transgressions that started much more recently. You told Mikhail that what you did what him was OK, because it took nothing away from me, and so I telling you that what I do with her am OK, because it takes nothing away from you. I'll be back in an hour or so and you can respond then." Good, I thought. What can she say? How does she make up 25 years of infidelity and expect me to give up my pleasure on the side? A sense of peace came over me. The rage I felt when I imagined what she and Borodin had done in bed was smothered into cold ashes by what Mitu and I did. The Symmetry of Sin I didn't know anyone in the bar that night, so I enjoyed my pint in silence, the dog lay at my feet, having snarfed the saucer of beer and the dog biscuit Marie the barmaid/waitress offered him. Strolling back, the dog knew the walk was coming to an end and finally took his dump. I put my hand in a plastic bag and scooped up the doggy hand warmer, peeling the bag off my hand inverting it so the shit was neatly bagged. Speaking of the shit, Karen was waiting for me. "So tell me about it Karen. How did it start? Her voice was tired, we both were emotionally drained. I realized anew that I didn't give a shit about Borodin. "Get us each a glass of wine while you're up. So how long have you known?" She was calm now, funny, it was almost as if we were talking about people other than us, like gossiping. "Quite a while, about a year ago. Tell me about him. Why didn't you leave me way back when?" "Leaving you was never an option. Oh gee. I met him when I was teaching at St Ann's School. He was the business manager. It was a quick affair, over in a couple of weeks, almost before it began, I came to my senses. A few months later he moved to Massachusetts and worked for a big time prep school up there. We kept in touch, and every once in a while, got together for lunch or dinner, and yes usually sex. But I always made sure you got as good...better in fact, than him. I like him, I enjoy his company in small doses, and I assure you I've never loved him, he was more a really good friend. "How often is once in a while?...and where did you meet and fuck?" "No need to be vulgar. Maybe once a year, some years not at all, some a couple of times. He usually rented a motel room. I certainly never wanted him anywhere near our house. He didn't make much money and never managed it well, so he couldn't afford to travel. He never married, but loved music, theater, the cultural arts. Not that that really mattered. I guess I controlled the frequency. I did make one or two trips to see him, but again that was years ago. It was funny. When I had been with him for more than a few hours, he'd start to get on my nerves. When I had been away from him for a few months, I'd forget the annoying things and just remember the nice things. It's true what they say: absence does make the heart grow fonder. "Until recently, we were hundreds of miles apart. His health went south; he got prostrate cancer, so they removed it and a few other bits of cancer that had spread. He couldn't have sex after that. It's likely his fatal disease is upon him, so a while ago he moved to Wilmington. Two months ago they found it metastasized all over and is only marginally treatable, so he's on hospice and going down the tubes. I try to see him once a week. I'm the only one who visits him, the only one he has left. He's so lonely! It's sad; I can see the decline from week to week!" "I see. So about the time sex ended for him, you decided to end it for me? So you wouldn't have to force yourself to have sex with me to make up for what you did with him?" "No! God no. I never had to force myself to have sex with you. I'm just human; sometimes I was more eager than other times, that's all. Never think that. I guess its age, or something. I wish I did have some desire." "Nevertheless, when your pussy was no use to you other husband, you closed it down for me as well. No screwing with either of us, fair dealer that you are, his illness cut you off, so to be fair to the two of us, you cut me off. Who won and who lost on that, I ask you!" She gestured to me, her face a mask of shame. "Please don't say he was my husband. He wasn't even close to being that. Of course it was me that lost. " I said. " Only when you were found out. Well it's nothing new for you, is it? You've always controlled the sex. And this wasn't just about sex, was it? It was emotional adultery as well. Reading the same books so you could have a wonderful literary discussion. Anticipating him for weeks, me getting the occasional proxy fuck, then off to a motel for the afternoon or all night, dining, fucking and snuggling. Sex before breakfast. Nice! Meanwhile I got to hold you head and wipe the vomit off of your chin when you were sick. I put up with your shit while he skimmed off the cream. "And may I remind you I was working hard to bring in money to raise the kids and despite the heavy travel my job required, I was alone in my hotel rooms. When I was home, for all practical purposes you moved as little as possible in bed...never initiated sex. You refused every time I suggest...well, enough of that. It's all in the past and it will take a while to put it behind me. Nothing to be done about it now, is there." "Chris, I knew you were alone when you traveled. And it wasn't very often I saw Mikhail, and now, you're seeing this woman every week!" "I was faithful until I discovered you had never been. Nor do I know how often you fucked him, or if he was the only bit of extramarital fucking you did. Cheat with one, cheat with another." "He was the only one!" "So you say, but you can't prove a negative, can you. Once I would have believed you if you said you were always faithful. So what! Sure, recently I've been seeing a woman once a week more or less, but it is just friendship and sex. No love, we both know it's casual and not going to last. She's 30 years younger than me for god's sake, definitely not wife material plus I am paying her after all." "Chris that has to stop! I won't put up with it." "I suppose you will still see Borodin?" "Well, there's no sex there, it's only friendship. It would destroy him. It would be cruel to stop, but I will if you insist." "The emotional adultery continues, and I only have your word the sex has stopped. Let me tell you how it's going to be as far as I'm concerned. Had I know about your lovers, your cheating years ago, I would have dumped you. But at this stage in my life, I'm not sure if I want to do that. I do enjoy your company. You're a good mother to your children, a good friend and traveling companion. "To be sure, you were never much in the bedroom, at least with me, but since you declared your cunt dried up, and I'm having really really great sex on the side, it's a good trade. I'm good. I have her for hot screaming sex, and you for companionship so as far as I'm concerned, keep seeing Mikhail as often as you like. Spend an occasional overnight with him and maybe even a couple three or four day weekends now and then for as long as he lasts. But you can be sure I will continue with having a mistress as long as I can get it up. Think of it as you having outsourcing the sex in our marriage." She wasn't happy to hear this. "You and I will live together, and life between us will be mostly as it always has been, except instead of me being faithful and you having a lover, it'll be the other way around." She was pissed:"That is not acceptable. You have to stop seeing her!" "Let me point out that I've known for a year this drama was coming and thought about it a lot, I'll listen to what you have to say, but it's unlikely to change my mind. I was heart sick when I learned of your betrayal. Initially I wanted to hurt you as you hurt me, but that passed months ago. I expect it will take you several months to get your head around the new reality. "Jason, I really don't know if I can do this. I never thought you would do something like this." "And obviously it never occurred to you I would find out about your cock on the side, so you haven't had time to think it out, see where your options take you. I suggest we continue like we are for six months, you can talk to me about Mikhail, I'll keep the snarky remarks to myself, I know he is important to you. I suspect you would rather I not talk about my sugar babes. Look, we've been reasonably happy in an open marriage for years, the only difference is I've taken the horns you put on my head, and placed them on yours. If you can't wear them like I did, then as far as I am concerned, it's irreconcilable differences." She was softly crying and I felt little empathy. I finished the last of my wine, stood up and stretched. "When you declare it's her or me, you realize my choice might not be the one you want. There's wisdom in turning a blind eye. Look, I realize that Borodin is no threat to me, and you should realize that my bit on the side is no threat to you. You accept her without liking her, as I accept Borodin without liking him, and our marriage continues as it has mostly been. It's a compromise, I'm going to bed." There was indecision in her eyes. "Sleep on it, there's no hurry. I don't think either of us wants a divorce, I don't think you really want to move in with Borodin and be a full time nurse and a lover, and go through what's left of your life without me." "Sleep downstairs, or in the guest room lest your anguish keep me up." Epilogue It's amazing what sort of life you can settle into. Karen decided to live with the situation, and now that she's got her head around the arrangement, seems quite happy. She even decided to resume her sex life with me. I use a condom with her as I don't know what diseases Borodin had (she thinks I use it to protect her from me). It works both ways. Thanks to sexual competition, she now talks dirty in bed and sucks cock...willingly at that. I had my doubts this arrangement would work, (Once you've experienced gay Parie, how are you going to bed the old Babushka?) but she accepted that she would have to be less controlling, and more imaginative. She saw her other husband once or twice a week until the end, the six month prediction ended up being one year. At the very end, she mostly lived there for the last six weeks or so. She was with him when he died. There was no formal funeral as she really was his only friend. I went with her when she picked up his ashes, and scattered them on the steps of the Julliard School of Music, apparently his last wishes, probably not the Julliard's wish. She saw me pouring a little vile of piss on the ashes and raised an eye brow. Not wanting to make a scene I said:"Wodka"(which is how the Russians pronounce Vodka)" He was Russian and you loved him." My daughter and I refused to meet Mikhail on general principles. My son wanted to meet him, and didn't like him much. This came to me through his sister, so it might or might not be true, my son won't talk about it with me. Mitu was by far the best I ever found, we were together through her divorce, about three years all together. She and I still get together a few times a year. Her second husband is an American of Hindi ancestry. She has bad luck in husbands because like the first one, he's apparently not much in bed either, but is good to her and her children, and that is enough for her. When we see each other, we have lunch and a dirty afternoon. So now I get to play the part of Borodin...I like it much better than the part of the husband. Since Mitu, I have had a succession of women, and an occasional affair, you know, free pussy that I didn't have to pay for. If the relationship gets beyond the first few weeks, it tends to last for half a year or so, until things change and one of us ends it. We all pretend that wretched supper never happened. My daughter wisely ignores her parent's sex lives, which is fine. Nothing has changed with my relationship with her, or with my son. Our family is pretty much as it was before. My wife politely ignores my pleasures outside of marriage. I tell her I'll be out Tuesday afternoon, or Thursday evening, whatever, without mentioning what I'll be doing, (fucking) and she doesn't ask. Rather than to sit at home and dwell on the fun I'm having, it motivates her to go out with her mother, or her friends, whatever. Do I regret my wife's infidelity? What a stupid qu...sorry...yes, of course I do. Had I known at thirty what I know now, I probably would have divorced her. But I'm not a young man now, and I have a different perspective. I've thought a lot about the problems I was faced with, and I think I made the best decisions I could, given my priorities, and so now you may ask: "How do I feel about my life now?" I'm good...I'm happy! I've got my family, wife, children, grandchildren and the love that radiates among us all, as well as the pleasures of younger flesh. You can't get another spouse that's been with you for almost 40 years. We have agreed to compromise so each of us gets what we need. We still like each other as friends, and love each other mentally and physically. We share a bed, meals, walks and conversations we couldn't have with anyone else; for that is what a good marriage is, being able to accept our partners as they are, not as we would have them be.