A Bargain Ch. 07

I nodded. "It was like they had no self-control at all."

"You know, I used to think I'd like to be so turned on that I absolutely couldn't control my lust. No matter what happened it wouldn't be my fault. When I first got to college I often drank so much that I completely lost control. Then one night I got gang- fucked by a bunch of guys at a fraternity party."

That was news to me! "You never mentioned that before! Do you want to talk about it?"

"No more than I just have. It's not exactly a high point of my life, and it happened a long time before I met you. But I learned something about myself from it. Sex for me is only good when I CHOOSE to lose control. That's why it's so good with you. There comes a point where I simply give you my complete trust, and you always know exactly what to do."

"But what if I can't satisfy you? What if you choose to lose control with someone else? What then?"

"You know how we've sometimes talked about expanding our marriage to include another man or another woman - or even another couple. But there would be a price. If we find out that we enjoy someone else, that's fine. If we discover that someone else gives us better sex, that's fine too. But if we decided that we had to HAVE that other person, then we've lost not only our marriage but our family."

"Dianne, are you saying that you absolutely don't want to . . . you know . . . swing?"

"No, I'm not saying that at all. But I think we need to assess the risks before we go blindly charging into something like that. I think we could really enjoy sharing sex with other people. But we could also lose our marriage doing it."

"Would you divorce me if you found out I was having an affair?"

Dianne gave me a scowl. "Buster, if you start sneaking around on me, I'll make you regret it!" Then she smiled. "Don, if that was the right thing for our marriage, then it would be fine with me."

"But you would have to know about it, right?"

"Yes, of course. And if I take another man to bed, I'll tell you, first."

"And if I said I didn't want you to?"

"Then it would be time to assess our marriage, wouldn't it?"

I held Dianne and kissed her gently on the lips. "How do you know I didn't have sex with someone at the convention? How do you know I've been faithful to you?"

Dianne gave me an incredibly loving smile. "Because, you silly man, if you did anything differently in bed, I'd notice. There's no way you could have sex with anyone else and hide THAT from me!"

"Like to put that to the test? Make doubly certain that I didn't have sex on my trip?"

Dianne gave me a deep, throaty laugh. "We'd better go to the bedroom! I don't want the girls to find us out here in the morning. And there's one thing I'm absolutely certain about. I'm going to fuck you until staggering to the toilet is almost beyond your strength. Let's see if you can do the same to me!"

About a week later we again talked about Jenn/Orgasma. Ed had scanned the pictures of Orgasma and Bruno and e-mailed them to me. I printed them out and showed them to Dianne. "Yes, that really is Jenn. So sad," she said. She knew I was feeling guilty, even if I couldn't explain why. She could.

"Jenn was truly wrong, Don. She was thinking about herself and own pleasure. She wasn't worrying about you. She was only worrying about having you find out. That's not love. That's just selfish desire."

"But what if . . . what if she had fucked him that one time and then put it behind her? What if I never found out and she never did it again? Would it really have mattered?"

"Yes, it would have mattered. Maybe not as much since you hadn't gotten married yet, but she was still cheating. And cheaters can be counted on to cheat. Again and again."

"So thinking she might never have done it again was just a dream? Wishful thinking?"

Dianne smiled at me. "You're a little slow, but you're getting it! You were in love with Jenn, but you didn't know who she really was. You were so caught up in the fun of teaching her about sex that you forgot about the deal she made with you. She offered her body to you so she could cheat on an exam. Remember how worried she was about somebody finding out? She didn't care if she cheated. She just didn't want to get caught.

"If Jenn had wanted a new car that you couldn't afford, she would have slept with the car dealer in order to get a discount. 'Just don't tell my husband!' would have been her only request. If she had felt an itch that needed scratching, she would have found somebody to scratch it. You were lucky she found that guy before you married her."

"LUCKY? I thought my life was over when I saw him fucking her! How can you . . .?"

"Shush! Don't you understand anything? If you had married Jenn, eventually you would have been forced to confront her infidelity. It was only a matter of time. You still see her as that poor little girl you talked out of her clothes. But she was a clever witch who intuitively knew she could control you by making a deal with you for her body. Are all guys as ignorant as you? Jenn strayed, but you found out. She chose the guy with the thick dick. She saw him the first time she went to the pool. You even came in and heard her talking to me about how big he was. How much worse would that have been after you had married her? After a couple of kids?"

I thought about what Dianne had said, and through the fog of lust and love I'd felt for Jenn, I belatedly realized that Dianne was right. I had been very, very lucky.

"Actually, that's not the real reason I was lucky."

"Oh? Is there more?" Dianne gave me a special smile I knew very well indeed.

"I seem to recall a certain naked wench trying to bring me back to life. Was I imagining those times she masturbated in front of me? All those nights cuddling naked with me? That night when I finally got it up as she sat on my lap? Would we have ever gotten together if Jenn hadn't left me so completely screwed up?"

Dianne smiled knowingly. "You still have a lot to learn, my husband. Don't forget. Jenn told me all about the deal she made with you. Jenn told me how you managed to keep from fucking her, even though she begged for it. I decided to leave you alone - and wait until Jenn screwed up. And I knew she would. Just like I said before, I knew she would eventually offer her body to somebody in exchange for something she wanted. And I knew you would eventually find out.

"When she did it before you were married, I knew she had completely blown it with you. That gave me my chance. You fell in love with her when she was running around naked with you. Why would I keep my clothes on? Besides I have bigger boobs! You never had a CHANCE!"

Dianne looked at the expression on my face and began to laugh. I started to laugh, too. We were still laughing a couple of minutes later when we christened the sofa in the living room. It's a wonderful memory, and the stain still won't come completely out.

END GAME

That was more than seventeen years ago. Occasionally I wonder what happened to Jenn. She's certainly too old to be the star in a sex show. Did she marry that guy? Is she happy? But Jenn is just a faded memory, actually a fading memory of a person I never really knew. I shared something with her that I thought was special - but it really wasn't, for her at least. And who would've expected that a bargain to get one woman naked would get me happily married to another?

To the surprise of many of our college friends, Dianne and I have been married for more than twenty years. Yes, we're very happy. And yes, our love life is full and varied, although we still haven't tried swinging. If she wants to try another man, I'll go along with her wishes. But I'm really not interested in sex with another woman. Except when one of us is sick, we still always sleep together naked and wrapped around each other.

Besides Dianne has this uncanny ability to distract me. Somehow she always knows when I'm remembering what happened with Jenn and that guy, and for a few days Dianne acts as if clothing is an evil curse. She's got one hell of a body for a woman who's popped two kids, and does she ever know how to use it! And now that our girls are grown and out of the house most of the time, we spend a lot of time naked and together. She still likes doggy-style best. So do I!

Author's Note: At the beginning of this story, I defined the meaning of "bargain" as a transaction, or a contract, or a deal, or perhaps a concord. But a bargain can also be something that has a greater value than its cost. It's impossible to ignore the emotional cost I endured, but in spite of that cost, it's clear to me that Dianne's love was the real bargain in this story. What say you?