Two Open Marriages

"Did you have sex with Jill? Did you sleep with her?"

Those were not entirely unexpected questions from my wife Laura. I'd been wondering when they would come for many months. You would have thought I'd have been better prepared to give the answers, and indeed I had thought about all the various ways I could answer them as well as all the excuses and rationales.

Although tempting, I could have said that I was having one of those age crises, the kind that hit on certain special birthdays that end in a five or zero. In this case, I'd hit sixty. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I'd been having an age crisis every year since I turned sixteen. I didn't plan to use that as an excuse for my burgeoning relationship with Jill.

All the other rationales were complicated.

Laura and I had been married about ten years. It was my third marriage and her second. We both had kids and grandkids by previous spouses, and for me, in one case, a girlfriend. In between our various marriages we'd lived with other people, and even while I'd been married previously I had special friends for long time periods with whom I had intimate relations.

At first I'd felt bad about my infidelities, but increasingly I realized that no one person was going to provide everything that I needed in terms of mind, body, and spirit in our relationship. I defined myself with that trinity, and also always thought of my relationships as connecting in those three realms, and for each space there were multiple dimensions. I was a spiritual person, so the concept came easily to me, and I lived it daily.

I also acknowledged my own high sex drive, coupled with the fact that the women I married tended to be at the opposite end of that spectrum for some reason. I had thought my three wives were rather obvious cases of 'bait and switch;' lots of wild and crazy sex in courtship and on the honeymoon, and then slowly everything sexual or physical all but ceased to exist in our relationships. I suppose I was ripe for outside relationships on many counts.

I'd met Jill about three years prior. She was forty, married, no children, and cute as a button. I resisted seeking her charms for almost a year, and that ultimately worked in our favor. We became friends - really good friends, and because she had a lot of free time and I was semi-retired, we found ourselves on the same town committee to build a new library for our rapidly growing town, as well as just able to get together routinely for coffee and to talk. We were in North Carolina, near Chapel Hill, and soon the word was out that we were heading the library committee. Every contractor within a hundred miles wanted to meet with us, present plans, and get an inside track.

Our friendship blossomed during long design sessions when we'd go over requirements, suggestions, and specifications from hundreds of people in response to a town-wide questionnaire we mailed. We were allocated town funds to hire an architect, so we also spent many hours with the small firm helping us on that front. There were obviously some core requirements, and then some 'nice to haves' that we could use as options depending on what the town fathers eventually decided as our ultimate budget.

In our frequent meetings that first year, Jill and I found we could talk about anything and we did. After rushing through our library work, we'd just talk about anything. We learned each other's history, and then peeled back the veneer we often hide behind with most people. I opened myself to her, and she did to me.

I fell in love, and so did Jill.

Our relationship blossomed because we became so mentally and spiritually intimate. All that we were lacking by the end of that first year was a physical relationship. Several times we both carefully expressed our frustrations with our spouses and their lack of physicality. We were both careful for a long time not to use that a springboard into the bedroom. This topic was just one of the many things we talked about.

Saying that, one might expect that I fell out of love with Laura, but I didn't.

To add to the potential awkwardness of the situation, as I befriended Jill, so did Laura. Jill's husband Tom wasn't absent in our friendship either. Laura and Jill would go off and shop or do girly stuff together. If the three of us got together, I might wander off to do some tasks or errands for an hour or two only to find the two women talking a mile a minute when I returned home.

One day Jill and I found ourselves on her living room sofa with architect's plans for the new library and rulers spread out in front of us on the coffee table. Suddenly, the library became a distant concern. We kissed, but it was kiss unlike any other we'd shared. One kiss led to another, and then another, and then there were clothes scattered about, and then we consummated that love we grown between us right there on her living room sofa.

I hadn't had such an intense partnering with anyone in my entire life. I hesitated to think about the term 'soul mate,' but in those first few minutes when we connected in all the dimensions of mind, body, and spirit, I was left wondering if perhaps I'd been wrong, that perhaps there really was such a concept in the universe of love, and I'd just mated with mine. Jill apparently felt the same way.

As we lay there panting after several orgasms, I asked Jill, "When did you know?"

I could feel her grin against my chest as I held her. She kissed my skin again. "Pretty much right away the day we met. I told you I hadn't had sex with my husband for the past six years. He's older, but that's not an excuse; you're older than he is and you just turned me inside out with four big orgasms and I don't think I've ever been so full of man stuff ... and ... I don't know how to say this, but I've never felt so close to anyone as I do to you right now."

She continued, "My husband's just not into me or into sex. Anyway, I dried up years ago; I figured that was my due. I even wondered if it was premature menopause. It was a rare day in any year when I had sexual wetness in my vagina; even when I masturbated I had to use spit or lube. The minute I met you, well, I flooded my undies. My wetness ran down my legs. I thought you were so sexy. If you remember, I had to leave the meeting for a visit to the ladies room to stem the tide and to try to erase the aromas I was trying to leave around me to attract you to me."

I muttered, "Pheromones?"

"Something like that. You got to me instantly, and I hoped I was getting to you. You were very polite and gentlemanly. I was turned on, tuned in, and peaked out. I hate to admit it, but I knew right away that we'd make love some time. I masturbated thinking about you. I didn't think we'd have waited this long, but I know we were both trying to be good and be considerate about our partners."

"Are you OK with what we did?"

"Oh, more than OK. This is the highlight of my life, and I hope it continues. One thing about being ignored by one's husband is not just the lack of physical contact, but it does a number on you psychologically. I have a shrink I talk to regularly; I've been in analysis on and off for years. I lost all my self-esteem and sense of self-worth when Tom turned me off. If the person you love and who told you they loved you stopped paying any attention to you one day, then suddenly you are a bad person in every way you can imagine. You make up stories about all the stuff that's wrong with yourself that turned your spouse away from you. You're not sure why, but you know you must have done something wrong or have a personality trait that suddenly got seen and became the ultimate turn off for your mate."

"It's been terrible - every day I've been crying, for years ... and then you entered my life and gave me a smile that told me you loved me unconditionally. I went home that day and cried, not because of the losses I'd felt, but because you'd found me and obviously saw value in whom I was. I was floating on air because after that meeting where we met you came up to me and asked me out for coffee the next day. All you've ever done since then is validate me and send me loving feelings. You're my dream lover."

I watched as a tear ran down Jill's cheek. She said, "Oh, Jim, in the past hour you've just pulled me even further out of that deep and lost-lasting depression that Tom left me with. I feel on top of the world ... like I'm manic, only I'm not, I'm just in love again with someone who I know loves me."

Jill squeezed my entire body into hers, one of her breasts trying to etch her initials into my heart in the process.

"Do you still love Tom?" I asked cautiously, almost afraid of the answer.

"Yes, of course, although after what I just said you might think I didn't. Don't you still love Laura?"

"Yes. I feel the love I'm capable of holding inside just expanded a hundred fold because of you. I can give more to everyone I meet. I feel like I'm floating on a cloud of love."

"Me too. Tom has his downfalls, but I still love and care about him. I guess I'm like you, I just discovered I can love two men at the same time."

We kissed and I asked, "What now?"

Jill giggled, "I'm sort of hoping that if I give you really good blowjob that you'll go down on me for a while, give me another beautiful orgasm, and then make love to me again and try to fill me to the brim." She gave me a kiss laden with a lot of tongue.

"Well, that certainly will cap off the absolute best day ever." Even as I spoke, I was sliding down the sofa to the floor and moving between her beautiful legs. I wagged my tongue at her with a lecherous grin, making her laugh; and then I slowly approached ground zero and made contact, and that made her moan long and hard into the beauty of the sunny afternoon we shared.

Having made love for the first time, we suddenly had an unquenchable thirst for physical contact with each other. We both found it hard to be in a committee meeting with someone else without wanting to just step aside and make mad and frantic love to one another. We started to make time to be with each other in intimate ways - to make love, and to just be with each other.

* * * * *

I couldn't help but contrast the two women I loved, not to try to choose one over the other; but because together they formed a complete whole in my life and I marveled at how they complemented each other.

Laura was five years younger than me. She'd had a rough time going through menopause, and one result was that she lost her desire. Her interest in sex, cuddling, touching, and related topics was next to zero, and when she did rally to the cause I could tell that she was doing something with me because she felt she had to and not because she desired to. I could tell when something was being forced, and with her anything other than pleasant and stimulating conversation was forced. Making love to me in any way had become an onerous chore.

Laura was good looking, a tall strikingly beautiful brunette. She was athletic, loved hiking, skiing, and balanced that with a strong interest in music, including singing in two different folk groups who sang semi-professionally and routinely did 'gigs,' plus yoga, meditation, and a love of reading nonfiction. One of her music groups cut a CD that had sold pretty well, and that was a big boost to her self-esteem. She also had two sons, both early in their careers but with successful starts; one was married and had one child who Laura doted on when given the opportunity.

Laura loved games, particularly board games or card games like bridge, games that had complex and ordered rules to follow if one was to excel. She had a keen mind and seemed to be able to memorize every card played, a trait that put me at a distinct disadvantage if I played opposite her.

Laura's career focused in academics, starting as faculty, then department chair, to assistant dean and then the dean of academics at Tidson College only a few miles away in another suburb of the sprawling Research Triangle Park. She often taught economics or political science - rational subjects she called them; but increasingly as her career peaked, she dealt with continuous updating of the curriculum and coordinating those changes with the national college accreditation institutions. Unfortunately, those institutions moved at glacial speed compared to an economy and social institutions that now moved at the speed of light over the Internet, so she learned to be assertive and effective in lobbying for changes.

Jill was a pixie - an oversexed, hyperactive, passionate, creative and ready-to-try-anything imp. I worried she'd blow away in the wind, and that always gave me an excuse to be holding onto her when she was near and we were together in a place that afforded me that luxury, even in calm air. She loved and even craved physical contact with me. The more kisses I could rain down upon her the better. The more I touched her in intimate places, particularly in public places where we might get caught, the better. The more we made love, the better; and the more kinky I could make our lovemaking sessions, at least up to a point, the better. She was willing to try just about anything.

Jill was twenty years younger, stood exactly five feet tall and weighed under a hundred pounds. She looked trim, even shapely for her small size, with legs that turned an eye, coupled to well-proportioned hips and a cute little butt that'd catch your attention as she walked away from you - particularly if she was wearing tight cutoffs or a bikini as she did in the summertime. Besides her petite size, she had a striking face, a perky nose and pleasant mouth, angular cheeks, and big round eyes that grinned her happiness to everyone around, and all that surrounded by long brown hair that she often pulled back into a ponytail or piled up in some mysterious way that made her look so sexy.

Laura's personality was rooted in intellectual pursuits, sometimes of a serious nature. She often crusaded for the environment, clean water, women's rights or other similar causes. Jill had a wonderful sense of humor, loved to laugh, enjoyed creating fantasies and talking about all the possibilities in the world. She'd had a long-term illness that put her out of commission when others were starting their careers, and then married Tom who wanted a housewife instead of a career woman. She did art, volunteer work, and wrote poetry and a couple of novels.

One other fact was inescapable about Jill - she was comfortably endowed! She had a set of knockers on her that defied the laws of gravity and made every male eye (and many females) turn in awe and wonder as she passed by. They weren't grotesque or bulbous; they were just perfectly shaped and positioned, a point I thought remarkable - truly remarkable. Somehow, in seeing her you knew they were 'naturals,' just the way Jill was overall. She knew how men looked at her, and delighted in teasing them in some subtle way, sometimes in a way that gave her a silent laugh at how they reacted.

Growing up and in school, because of her pint size, she'd been given the nickname 'The Pixie' and never lost it. She liked the implication of mischievous cuteness and magic that the name implied. The overall impression of Jill was that of a cute 'sexpot' - a small, hot body that might do just about anything and potentially had. She had a philosophy in that regard: 'Tell little, and keep a significant amount of mystery about yourself.' The Pixie had an unusual personality. She was a closet rebel, carefully figuring out what was 'normal' and then doing something to skirt the edges of that normalcy.

* * * * *

So Laura's questions hung in the air as I looked at her with a slight smile, partly because it had taken her so long to read the tea leaves and cookie crumbs. Her tone was matter of fact, almost as though she were asking whether I had a PB&J for lunch. "Did you have sex with Jill? Did you sleep with her?"

I gave an oblique reply after thoughtful consideration. "Jill and I have a unique and growing intimacy with each other - a closeness that we've found and that I need in my life. We have many touch points in mind, body, and spirit, and that's not to take anything away from our relationship or marriage, it's just that she fills in some gaps and I really care for her."

"Gaps where?" Laura's voice suddenly had that 'pissed off' quality to it. I'd obliquely answered 'Yes' to both of her questions.

I gave a measured response, "No two people can be everything the other person needs or wants, that's why we're social beings and why we go out in the world and interact with many other people in many different ways. I know I don't fill all of your needs, and I bless that you go out and do your music and other hobbies with your friends. I wouldn't even mind if you also found someone you felt particularly close to in some way, the same as I feel about Jill."

"But, you're not supposed to latch onto another woman. You ..."

I interrupted, "When we met and you learned about me, and in all the years you knew me before we wed, and many times since, I've reminded you that I have always had several intimate friends at any one time, even when I was previously married. I need an outside confidant, female, who I can be entirely open with just as I'm open with you. Why, I don't know, but as far as Jill is concerned vis-à-vis us, I am not acting out of character. This is what is normal for me."

I paused and went on, "I am not trying to make you mad or to break up our marriage or hers. I remain in love with you, and care greatly for you. Jill loves her husband. I don't believe I've changed in how we interact or express our affection to one another. To the contrary, my interactions with Jill energize me. She's younger and inspires me to take a fresh perspective on things. If anything, I think you are the beneficiary of my relationship with Jill. Instead of a sixty year old fading into his golden years, you remain married to a vital and energetic man who continues to reach out in new ways to new people."

I added in a more definitive and somber tone thinking about our lack of a sex life, "I have made the adaptations needed to your preferences for physical contact and intimacy, as well as accommodated the time you spend away on your various clubs, groups, and hobbies. I don't begrudge you any of that. Don't behave differently about my intimate relationship with Jill." I felt bad as I said this last bit. I'd complained to Laura so many times about our lack of a physical relationship I'd lost count, only to have her tell me, 'But this is the way I am.' Well, now that karma had come full circle. I had filled in that important gap in my life. She on the other hand expected me to become a eunuch because she'd decided she didn't like sex or a lot of physical contact. There was nothing offered to me to take the edge off; no handjobs, blowjobs, dirty talk, or any other accommodation to my needs. I'd always thought that was kind of selfish on her part, and had even told her that more than once.

Laura was not pleased at my statements, and made all sorts of mad sounds and clucks, but I had long ago decided to stonewall the issue. Sex was my number one priority in life, but more important than that, I wanted and needed Jill in my life. That said I didn't want this situation to morph into an either-or decision or some ultimatum. At that moment, I felt Laura would lose and I didn't want that to happen. I wanted a win-win all around, perhaps not with optimal happiness, but with some contentment at the outcome. I'd already made a lot of accommodations by not spending every waking hour with Jill despite my proclivity to do that; she felt the same way.

Laura glared at me. "Let me think about this some more! In the meantime, just make sure you're not taking advantage of her in some way." Laura stomped out of my home office with a dark cloud over her head. I opted to leave her alone and let her decide when we might need to talk further about this situation. I purposely blew into the air towards the doorway as she left the room, purportedly pushing out of the room the last of the dark energy she'd projected.