The Mouse that Roared

We never really know ourselves, do we? We're never truly aware of all of our hidden desires and wants and needs, and it seems to me that we don't even know that we're somehow suppressing those things. But sometimes something happens – something unplanned and unexpected – that opens our eyes to the inner self and lets us view ourselves in a whole new light.

When that happened to me just a few months ago, I didn't really believe what I was seeing. In some ways I still find it hard to comprehend that I had all of that hidden and suppressed inside me.

What that? Let me explain...

My name is Marina, which is hardly a fashionable name. There again, I'm hardly a fashionable girl. I'm twenty-seven now, going on fifty as my wonderful husband, Matt, is fond of saying. Or rather, was fond of saying. Up until last summer I was the picture of an old-fashioned girl – shy, demure, conservative and lacking in a great deal of self-confidence.

This was certainly not Matt's fault because ever since we met, he has been at pains to boost my self-belief and bring me out of my shell. He has never failed to tell me that I am beautiful – his words, you understand – and that I am desirable. Despite my shyness, we have always enjoyed a wonderful sex-life, and I was never in any doubt that he found me attractive in that way. The evidence was... well, obvious.

But for all that, I honestly believed that I was just very fortunate to have found someone with an odd taste in women – someone who likes their ladies small, slender and shy.

We had been together for five years when this all began, and in all that time Matt had never once pressured me to do anything that I didn't want to do. Well, except for going to the dentist, but that really isn't what I'm talking about. It got to the point where I was starting to fret that I wasn't being a proper wife to him, sexually, and that I wasn't exploring his desires or even giving him the opportunity to tell me about them.

Maybe I was afraid of what I'd hear, or maybe I was just too damned shy, but whatever the cause it was becoming obvious even to me that there was more to life than simple love-making, and that most men seemed to have interests in that direction – whatever 'that direction' was.

Without boring you with details of my days of preparation, worry, nervousness, mental-anguish and fits of self-denial, I finally plucked up the courage to raise the subject one evening (after a few glasses of wine). I stammered and stuttered my way through my concerns and finally managed to ask Matt directly if there was anything that he might like me to try in the interests of increasing our pleasure together.

I have no idea what I thought his answer would be. To be honest, I didn't really understand what all of the possibilities were, but I did know that I would listen to his answer carefully and react as sensibly as I possibly could no matter how outrageous his response had been. Deep down, I knew that I would be looking for any reason I could find to say 'sorry, but that's just not me', but at least I was trying.

Despite all of my preparations, when his answer came I was shocked. Oh, not by what he suggested – not in the least. No, I was shocked by my body's reaction.

We were in bed, snuggled under the duvet after a gentle session of love-making, the sweat still cooling. I had stammered my question and could hardly look at Matt as I waited for his answer.

"Well," he said, at length, "There is one little thing. Look, you know I love you, right?"

I nodded, dread seeping into my bones, "Of course."

"I'd like... if you'd be happy to... I mean it would be just for me... that is, it would mean so much..."

"Matt?" His nervousness was increasing my dread by the second and I was now desperate to hear his answer. "Tell me."

He closed his eyes and spoke quickly, "Well, I know you're shy and I know it's asking a lot but you did tell me to be honest and so here it is... I'd really, really like one little photograph of you... I mean one of you showing a little... just topless maybe or even just in kind of revealing underwear or something like that. Just for me, just to keep locked away so I can look at it when you have to work away or you go to visit your parents. But only ever for me, never to be looked at by anyone else ever, I promise that. And like I said, I know it's a lot to ask what with you... well-"

"Okay." My mouth moved before my brain fully engaged gear, simply because my body had already decided. Despite all of my preparations, all of my dread and fear, I found myself feeling something that I had not even considered possible – I was suddenly, irrefutably, turned on by the idea.

Looking back, I'm fairly sure that it was Matt's evident excitement and hope that had me reacting quite so strongly, but I can't deny that the thought of being photographed in such a way – something I'd never once considered before – brought heat to my groin.

That night there was a lot of comments along the lines of 'you sure', 'I will', 'just for me', 'it's okay' and so on, and there was also another bout of love-making. It was the latter that had my mind absolutely made up over this thing – it was intense and wild and... well, liberated, I guess.

In the days that followed, every time I thought I had got over the shock of how my body reacted to the idea of Matt pointing a camera at me, something else – the look in his eye, a glance at my reflection – had me trembling in anticipation and excitement. It was so weird, to feel something like that when there was no precedent and no hint that I could ever feel that way.

Matt's reaction was almost as unexpected as mine. When the day for the photograph came, he was shaking so much that we had to dig out his old tripod, and even then the start of the session was twice interrupted for frantic bouts of love-making.

Finally though, the photographs were taken and the three images loaded onto our computer. When I first saw them I could scarcely believe that they were of me – not because I failed to recognise the person staring – smiling! – back at me, but because I was still finding it hard to believe that I had actually gone through with it.

In the first I was wearing a translucent white bra and panties, staring coyly at the camera. In the second I had lost the bra and was sitting on the edge of the bed with a look of nervousness and anticipation mingling awkwardly on my face. Oh but the third... in that I was naked, completely, standing at the foot of the bed with one hand partially covering the pale hairs at my groin and the other covering almost nothing of my bare breasts, staring at the camera with a smile that could have been interpreted as shyness, but seemed far more lascivious when you stared harder at it.

Viewing them led to a third bout of love-making – although its wild intensity spoke little of love yet shouted lust – and the printing of the pictures brought about an unheard of fourth session. It was during the latter that I experienced a shockingly intense orgasm – my first ever during sex. If I'd had any doubts about what I had done, they scattered like mice before a combine harvester when that happened.

In the days and weeks that followed, I basked in the knowledge that I had unlocked my innermost desires. Matt and I made love more often than ever before, and the satisfaction I received made all of my nervousness seem like a bad dream. Even with the passage of time, the effect of those photographs never waned and even the quickest glance at them – or at Matt looking at them – had me doing things I'd never dreamed myself capable of, such as dragging Matt into bed, and sometimes deliberately letting him see me changing.

While these things might not seem so dramatic to you, for me they were alien and new and so desperately exciting. This was the new me, the real me, and the discovery left me reeling with delight.

I had finally unearthed my most secret desires. Or so I thought.

In late June Matt and I moved from our apartment into a new house in a quiet little village – one of those lovely country cottages. We could only afford the new place because it was terribly dilapidated, but we didn't have a care in the world. Our friends, Suzy and Michael, lived on the outskirts of the village and were off travelling at the time of our move. They were kindness itself and let us stay at their house while we carried out the necessary work on our new cottage to make it habitable.

For us it was a perfect arrangement and we moved a lot of our things into their place to save money on storage while the work progressed. Matt even set up his computer so that he could keep up with things where he works – and so that he (and we) could have the occasional peek at the magical photos. Many an evening we returned paint and plaster covered from the new cottage and livened ourselves up with a quick viewing and a much longer play on Suzy and Mike's double bed.

The work went without a hitch until the end of the second week when we were awoken by a phone call from one of the builders telling us that there had been an overnight leak in one of the new heating pipes. Despite being tired from the previous day's work and the previous night's sex, we dashed off to the cottage within minutes, leaving the keys to our friends' place under the front doormat because their own handyman was due that day to replace a broken wardrobe door.

Once the leak had been dealt with and the mess cleared up, we left the cottage to the builders and returned to Suzy and Mike's where the handyman, a surprisingly young guy called Danny, was just leaving. Suzy had told me that he was an easy-going, quiet sort of guy, but to Matt and me, he was cheerfulness personified and friendly in the extreme.

After he had left, Matt and I exchanged slightly puzzled looks, shrugged and went through to the bedroom to change out of our scruffy work clothes. I had just finished peeling off my sweaty t-shirt when I noticed an strange look on Matt's face.

"What's up?"

He forced a smile, "Um, nothing."

Matt is great at many things, but lying isn't one of them, "Something's up. What?"

"Look, Mar, I'm really, really sorry and I swear on anything you name that it wasn't on purpose."

I was beginning to worry, "What wasn't? What are you talking about?"

Matt closed his eyes and nodded at the computer monitor.

Which was sitting where he had set it up. On the table next to the wardrobe. Or more accurately, next to the wardrobe with its new door. The monitor was displaying an old Matrix screen-saver.

It took me a few seconds to work out what had happened. The screen-saver would only be running if the computer had been running recently and neither of us had touched it when we'd dashed out that morning. Which meant that it had either been deliberately switched on, or a bump on the desk would have woken it up from the power-save mode after we had left it on last night... My heart leapt into my throat, and with a shaking hand I nudged the mouse.

The Matrix array faded and I was now staring at my own image. The third picture to be precise.

Behind me Matt said, "I'm so sorry, Mar. It must still have been on from last night and I guess he put something down on the table, or nudged it or... Oh, Mar, I am just so sorry..."

I barely heard him. It felt as if my whole body was tingling – every nerve, every fibre – and I knew that I should feel shocked, maybe even horrified. And I was beginning to feel shock, but not in the way that I would have imagined just a minute earlier. Oh no – I was shocked at my body's reaction to what I now knew must have happened. I shook my head firmly in denial, knowing even as I did so that I was fooling no one.

"Mar? Can you ever forgive me?"

I realised that Matt was at my side now, staring down at my near naked form on the monitor. I turned to him and put a hand on his arm, "It's okay, Matt."

"No, it isn't. It's unforgivable after all the promises I made to you about those pictures."

"Matt? Listen to me," my mouth was working but I had no idea what I was going to say next. I just knew that I couldn't leave my beloved husband in mental anguish for a second longer, "It really is okay. I know this sounds like an alien speaking and believe me, I really didn't expect this, but it's okay. I mean... well, I'm not sure what I mean, except that I don't feel bad about it. In fact, it's kind of... good. No, not 'kind of' good, it's... a bit exciting..." I closed my eyes and turned away, "Oh, Matt, what on earth must you think of me. I just wish I could lie to you and tell you I'm ashamed or whatever but... well, I'm not. It's me that should be sorry."

Tentatively at first, then firmer, his arms encircled me, "Are you serious?"

"Yes."

"You find the fact that... someone saw the picture... exciting?"

"I'm sorry. I'm terrible, I know, but... yes."

"Terrible?" Matt squeezed me harder, "It's... well, it's fantastic."

"What?"

"Look, Mar, I... kind of wondered what it would be like if another guy got to see how gorgeous you are under all those clothes but I knew you'd never let anyone find out so I pretty much buried the idea. I just knew you'd think I was a real sleaze and I wasn't sure that I'd find it exciting anyway, so I just never said. But now... now it's happened... well, I think it's really fantastic." He squeezed me again, "As long as you really do though... find it exciting, I mean."

Not only could I not lie, I suddenly didn't want to. The insistent hardness against my butt didn't exactly help, either, "I do," I managed, "I can barely believe it, but I do. And if you do as well... damn Matt, I really can't deny it, but it has got me all hot and bothered."

He spun me to face him, "Oh my god, you mean it, don't you?"

I giggled. I have no idea where that giggle came from, but it was perfect for the moment even if it did have me clapping my hand over my mouth. "I do," I managed through my fingers.

"You do realise," Matt took a deep breath, "that he probably stared at that picture for ages? Probably even got turned on by it?"

Hearing the words made it all even more real and I could only nod.

"And you... still don't mind?"

"I can't believe it, but no, I don't." My mouth was dry.

"And you don't mind that I find this such a massive turn on?"

"I think I love that bit the best," I managed, "No, I know I do."

If it's physically possible, we fell on each other then. Our remaining clothes were pretty much ripped off and the next moment I was staring up into Matt's feverish eyes as his erection slid into my soaking wet depths.

If I had thought that our love-making since the photo shoot was intense, then there is no word for the extremity of passion I felt as we moved together on our friends' bed. Matt was wild, his hands, his mouth, his teeth moving over my naked body, his thrusts powerful and rapid, his breath coming in ragged gasps. I matched every thrust with a buck of my hips, cried his name time and again, ground my body against his hands and mouth, and let my mind free to enjoy every sensation.

Within a couple of minutes I could feel the insistent pressure inside me welling up, my body screaming for the release, and I cried out, begging Matt to fill me. It was all he needed to push him over the edge and as he stiffened every sinew and began to pulse deep within me, my own orgasm shuddered through me, wave after wave of heat and light and joy.

We never did get up again that evening, just stayed in bed making love and telling each other how much we loved them. It was a wonderful night, a new start where none had been expected, a night of new experiences and new thoughts and feelings. It was heavenly.

For all the joy that had come upon me so unexpectedly, it still took me a few days before I fully believed that we had discovered something so new and wild within me. I spent hours playing devil's advocate against myself and used every conceivable argument to try to puncture this new knowledge. Eventually, though, I had to accept the truth – that I had enjoyed being seen like that by a stranger, or more accurately, that I had loved it.

Matt had been the wonder that he always is and had left me to think things through by myself, but now that I had come to my conclusion, he was as eager as me to explore the possibilities. In the course of a few hours, I went from shocked acceptance to enthusiastic co-conspirator as we tried to work out exactly what would please each other.

Surprise after surprise awaited us as we discovered that my newfound desires matched Matt's with a precision that was downright spooky. Even our qualms were compatible, and by the following morning – following hours and hours of wonderful sex – we were in full agreement on how to proceed.

We had accepted that I was a latent (no longer) exhibitionist, and now we were going to find out just what sparked that new inner me. In turn, we would find out what appealed most to Matt – and if our discussions were anything to go by, that would be pretty much the same for both parties.

It might all sound a little clinical when described in those terms, but there was nothing clinical about the way it was making us feel. For me, the shy, retiring mouse, it left me constantly aroused – almost painfully so at times – and for Matt, my protective, loving husband, it left him in a similar but more obvious state.

The one thing we were certain of before the experimentation could even begin was that a display through a photograph would not satisfy our curiosities. We also knew that there would be a limit to what I could do – or more to the point, what I would want to do. With the whole gamut of possibilities between letting a stranger see more of my body than anyone but Matt had ever seen and the upper limit of letting anyone touch me (strictly out of bounds under all circumstances), it was hard to know where we could start.

Matt solved the problem while we were shopping for groceries at an out-of-town supermarket. He pointed over at the clothing section. "How about a wardrobe malfunction?"

Such was the intensity of my reaction to any mention of the subject, I was suddenly fearful that I would start to orgasm right in the middle of the bakery aisle. It was, I had to admit, a great idea since we had both agreed that it would be easier all round if the 'first outing' seemed to be accidental... I finally managed to squeak a 'yes' and we went looking for a potential garment.

We chose a summer dress that could be worn strapless or with a halter and hurried home to try out some scenarios.

With a little practice, I could soon wear the dress in its strapless configuration and have it slowly slip, millimetre by millimetre, until only the firmness of my aroused nipples held it up. One final shrug would see it dropping away, leaving my breasts exposed – if I ever had the nerve to go that far.

Practice would have been completed a lot earlier, but such was the excitement that it generated, there was a great deal of time lost (if that's the right word) in sudden trips to the bedroom.

The choice of audience was just as easy – Danny the handyman was due to come over and service the Aga the following Friday, a week before Suzy and Mike were due home. Since he had already seen my photograph it would, we agreed, make takings things a little further much less stressful. After a whole lot of persuading by Matt, I also agreed that it made it easier for me because Danny was, when all is said and done, rather cute.

Careful planning is all very well but on the Friday morning I was a total bag of nerves. I slopped coffee all over the kitchen table, dropped a plate, squeaked every time a phone rang, and giggled at everything. It got to the point where Matt asked me whether I thought I'd even be able to go through with our plan.