Part One: Peter’s Story
When I married Chrissie, I did say that I would love, cherish and honour her and that belief still applies now. What I did not say was that I would want sex solely with her for the rest of my natural life so I fail to see how I might have broken the so-called marriage vows. I do still love her, though not in the way I did before, and I cherish her, but relationships are much more complex and that’s not enough.
Everything was so different when we first got together and I genuinely believed that I would want her and only her for the years to come. I suppose we all believe that and make the mistake until we realise that there is more, so much more to life and love than being with just one person. Then things start to go wrong. I don’t blame myself for it, though. Relationships can be a constant struggle and need a great deal of time and effort. They don’t just happen or evolve in the way we would want them to be. You have to be constantly aware that you should not take your partner for granted and just a simple slip of the tongue can be the catalyst for throwing away twenty, thirty, even forty years of your life. I kept the pretence up for as long as possible but then one day, when I least expected it or was prepared for it, it hit me like a brick wall and I realised that still inside me were untapped desires and emotions I was not accustomed to feeling.
Before I get into the details of how it all came about, let me just explain my scenario as perhaps it bears some similarity to your own. Before I met Chrissie, there were few girlfriends in my life, or rather girls that I’d had sex with. You would not have believed that from the conversations I’d had then with some of my drinking buddies, stories about three or four conquests per night, multiple orgasms, three or four in a bed. Forget it. Mostly it was bullshit or pure fantasy and, though I was not a virgin when Chrissie and I married, I was relatively inexperienced and did believe that I would only ever want to have sex with Chrissie for the rest of my days.
Is that naïve?
Of course it is yet we still believe in this rubbish these days and expect that our normal desires and instincts will suddenly leave us after we have that piece of paper that says we are now joined together in wedlock. Never again will we fantasise about a person’s breasts or thighs or how thick and long their cock might be or how we might like to caress their naked buttocks or suck their nipples. Please, come on. I defy anybody married who can say, hand on heart, that they only have those thoughts for their husband or wife.
Getting back to events, I was more concerned and practical when Chrissie announced one morning that she was pregnant.
“Peter, I’m pregnant. Pass the toast please.”
That was how I learnt that I was soon to be a father. There was none of this “Peter, darling. Sit down, I have some important news to tell you. Oh isn’t it wonderful, you’re going to be a daddy. I’m so happy.”
No, none of that at all. I just stared at her after the announcement with a mouthful of toast and whiskey marmalade.
“Close your mouth,” she said, “and don’t stare at me like that. It’s one of those things that happen and we have to deal with it.”
Should I have been happy, sad, overjoyed, angry, afraid etc.?
I was none of those.
“You’re pregnant?” I asked, as if I had never used the word before.
“Yes, it’s due in September. I don’t know the exact date but it’s going to be a bloody uncomfortable summer for me and that’s for sure.”
And that was it talked about.
From then on it became a way of life.
Being pregnant really did not suit Chrissie in the least. To me, she was not the type of woman that should have a child. Her outgoing personality was totally disconnected from
motherhood right up to the day she gave birth to Annette. Up to that point, the pregnancy was merely a biological function.
But then it all changed and it was then I realised that our marriage, as I knew it, was over. I was no longer the one she had pledged those vows to. I was merely the support, a crutch, a way of making things a little easier. Chrissie only had room for one type of love then and overnight she became a mother, not a lover. Not my wife and not the fun-loving, swinging, self-opinionated, strong individual that I married but a run-of-the-mill mother. The type that campaigned for mothers to unite and get their tits out in every public scenario and feed their life and existence-consuming bundles on everything natural, organic and free range.
I knew sex from then on would be a problem. It was already becoming fairly mechanical then but it had played an important and integral role in our relationship previously and I was surprised at how easily she dismissed it. There was no more passion in the kitchen, in the hall, pinned up against the freezer or on the landing. She no longer unzipped my flies or undid my belt while I was getting ready for work or crept into the shower next to me. Gone were the games, the role-playing and the dressing up. Instead I was given a “seeing to” every few weeks and only after I made it clear that I was being denied one of the joys of a marital relationship.
Stale, lifeless and very much non-existent.
And then the inevitable happened.
I met Lisa on a work training course in Brighton. The course was about time management and if you’ve ever been on one of these, you’ll know there is a tremendous bonding with the other students, and topics of a very personal nature are discussed in the conference room and the bar in the evenings. Of course, you wouldn’t believe that at the beginning of the course. At the “introduction ceremony” when embarrassingly we all introduce ourselves and set what they call the “ground rules” for the duration of the week, you see most of the group as a set of losers. The type of people the company can afford to lose for the week and won’t be missed. Or the staff who just want to skip most of the week and be handed the leather binder which can be left on the top of the cabinet next to the telly to gather dust. But you get a certificate which you can impress your friends with or hang in your loo. Or you can just bin it the moment you get home.
There was a spark there the second I saw her. An almost animal instinct in many ways and there should have been – she was beautiful. The students in the group were from various companies and she was a recruitment consultant for one of the major employment agency chains. It seemed destined that we were to spend the nights together; our rooms were on the same landing. She was confident when she introduced herself and stood up while all the rest of us lowered our eyes and prayed the introduction moment would pass in the blink of an eye.
Lisa “picked me up” the second evening of the four-day course. We had all been taken out to an Italian restaurant and returned to the hotel at 11 p.m. A number of the others were already yawning and when she collected her key, she asked if I wanted a drink with her in the bar before going to bed. I agreed and got us a couple of large brandies.
She told me a little more about herself. I already knew that she was single, twenty-six years old and had recently mortgaged a flat in Wandsworth. She’d then worked for the company for three years and went to university in Durham. I told her about myself and it was surprisingly easy to speak with her. The alcohol obviously helped. We both knew that we should not have been there and that we both needed someone, anyone, just a total stranger to talk to. I explained my relationship with Chrissie and she confessed a number of problems with her recently dumped boyfriend, namely his bad habits.
Then she just smiled and invited me up to her room.
I should have been surprised or shocked but I wasn’t.
Things like that simply did not happen to me or had never happened before. True, it was a fantasy I often had and there I was, a healthy man in his late twenties or possibly early thirties with a wife who was indifferent to me, an under-used libido and a long way from home. The woman I sat with was beautiful, tanned, smooth skinned and had offered herself to me for sex, to satisfy both our needs with no strings attached.
What was I to do?
What would any man do in that situation?
Within minutes we were writhing on her bed, our clothes having been pulled off and lying in a heap on the floor. Her tender body lay on top of me and she forced her thighs against mine. The passion was too intense; I ejaculated the moment I entered her but she did not stop forcing herself onto me and using her fingertips. She needed a climax as much as I did.
It happened. But it was not over then.
After a short rest, she stepped off the bed and bent over unashamedly and lifted my tie from the heap of clothes on the floor. She turned and smiled at me with the tie in her hand and knelt on the bed and wrapped it around my neck. As she pulled me up from the bed I became excited again and she drew me toward the bathroom and the generous sized shower cubicle.
“We need a shower,” she said as we both stepped under the tepid force, “and I’ll shower you,” she added.
And shower me she certainly did.
Her hands covered every square centimetre of my naked body, parts that Chrissie had never felt. I put my hands out to cup her breasts but she pulled them away.
“No, not yet,” she said. “It will be your turn shortly.”
I stood fully erect as she knelt before me and soaped my thighs and genitals.
She stopped for a few seconds and stood up to delay my near climax. I was almost ready to burst. She pushed her lower half closer, tighter against me as I cupped her breasts, ejaculated onto her stomach then continued soaping her until she came as well.
Later I returned to my room consumed with guilt but I hadn’t regretted what happened. We both needed the release. She told me the following day that nothing could come of our brief encounter and we could only be memories or ships that pass in the night.
It was a perfect agreement for me and, frankly, what every married man wanted to hear after a dangerous liaison of such magnitude.
So perfect that the following evening she invited me to her room again and forced me to strip slowly in front of her as she sat sipping a cocktail. I obliged and then instructed her on what items of clothing to remove as I watched. We then masturbated each other before having penetrative sex.
When I returned to London, I was pleased to be back with Chrissie and my daughter but now I had a new passion. Lisa and I made love without inhibitions and it was exactly how I would have liked it with my wife but she was a changed person. Before Annette was born we had, in my view, great sex together but it was not as intense and basic as it had been with Lisa. Talking dirty had always been a turn on for me but Chrissie never really liked it and she found it put her off. My encounter had given me a greater longing for passion I had, for far too long, been without.
I was still guilty of course but I attempted to overcome that by buying Chrissie more of the small gifts she, at one time, enjoyed receiving.
But now she was different.
After a few months and a few failed attempts at spicing up our limited sex life, I told her about Lisa. The time seemed right and it just slipped out.
I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. What an idiot I had become.
It had been a few weeks since my last “seeing to” and I just wanted her to be more like Lisa in the bedroom. Just for one night, a few hours maybe. I asked her to undress me and rub some oil on my back and masturbate me. She was disgusted with me and told me so, which only angered me.
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “This is just part of your fantasy. Go and take a shower.”
But I continued with the truth even though I knew it would not help and she soon realised I was not lying.
At first, she just stared at me in disgust. I thought she might break down and hit me, which I deserved.
But she didn’t.
“So what do we do now then?” she asked.
This was not the reaction I was expecting and I was thrown.
“What?” I replied. “Chrissie, do you understand what I’ve just told you?”
“Yes,” was all she said calmly.
“Jesus Christ. Have you lost all your emotions?” I asked.
“You’ve just told me that you had an affair with someone younger and more exciting than me. It’s happened and there’s nothing I can do about it, so what’s the next step? Do you leave me and the child and go shack up with her?”
“Stop it!” I demanded and got up and walked around the room.
“My God,” I started. “You really have lost it all, haven’t you? Why are you not screaming and throwing things at me or at least telling me to get out?”
“What good would that do? Now let’s be logical about this. But why have you told me? I never suspected anything.”
I thought.
Why had I told her?
“I had hoped that for one thing it might anger you, so that I could see that there’s still a spark left in you. Some passion, some emotion, just something left of the girl I married.”
“Look,” she cut in, “if you want to go off and have sex with any old trollop that throws themselves at you, go on and do it. But don’t expect me to say well done, what a good boy you are.”
She threw her hairbrush onto the bed.
“Jesus, I’ll never understand men’s sexual needs,” she added and walked to her side of the bed. I pulled her back.
“Then try. Just for once, try and understand mine.”
“Ah, so it’s my fault, is it?”
“Yes ... no. Well, I don’t know.”
“Now, you look. I don’t want to discuss this now. I need to go to bed. Have you any idea how difficult it is to bring up a child? I just don’t need this right now. It’s the last thing I want to deal with.”
I went downstairs to get myself a drink. It was a good idea to sleep on it and I spent the night on the couch. However, the following day I needed to talk about it and Chrissie was not interested. As far as she was concerned, the matter was over. She asked again if it was my intention to split up and was relieved when I said no. That was the last thing on my mind. When she was satisfied, she conceded that we had a problem and it needed discussing but not at that time as her brother was coming in a few days and she did not want to create an uncomfortable atmosphere.
Thinking logically, I agreed. However, she had accepted that we had a problem and that was one hurdle out of the way. So we went along as usual, putting up a pretence for the sake of Annette and Eamon. But the seeds of doubt had already been planted and I did think sometimes that it might have been better had we split up then. Perhaps when Annette goes to school in a couple of years we may just do that. After all, they say that one in three marriages break down. As for having an affair, I’m not too sure it’s what I really want. I’d rather Chrissie and I sorted it out and start again. But I doubt that she would be prepared to do that. Our sex life to her is not a problem but how can I get her to see things from my point of view?
I rather envy Eamon in some ways. Being gay must make life much easier. He can go off and satisfy his needs without the problem of being tied down to one person and feelings of love probably don’t come into it. I’ve heard these stories of gay men having sex together with a number of partners or one night stands every week or so and then just getting on with their lives. I really don’t understand it all when he tells me that it causes emotional problems. As far as I am concerned, there can only be one sort of passionate love and that must be between a man and a woman. Though I don’t in general find homosexual relationships unacceptable, I can’t believe that they are as intense as heterosexual couplings. How can they be? Gays simply cannot understand the problems that come with it.
What does surprise me though is the friendship he’s struck up with Nick. Never in a million years would I have imagined that. Nick has always appeared to me to be a respectable parent. I just can’t see why he would want to have sex with another man. But I suppose he is fairly vulnerable at the moment; after all, it was not that long ago that his wife died. He’s just a little confused and I can understand that. Not that it would ever occur to me to sleep with another man but I do sympathise with h
im and I’m confident that as soon as his daughter is a little older, he’ll find the right girl and all will be back to normal.
However, that’s not my problem and unless things change in my relationship, I fear that we will be going our separate ways sooner rather than later.