Beginnings

Life went on as usual for the ten days or so. The rape was never mentioned but it was never out of my mind for more than a few minutes at a time. In contrast, I got the impression that Judith had put it completely behind her - if anything she seemed even more buoyant than usual, chattering quite happily about inconsequential things as if there were no sign of a cloud over our lives. I definitely felt that something was not right but I could not put my finger on what it was until everything crystallised the night we watched an episode of a detective series on TV. The moment that I realised that the plot centred round rape, I tried to switch channels but Judy insisted that she wanted to watch.

The serial rapist in the program turned out to be a security guard who worked at the top of a large office block. His windows overlooked a housing estate and from that vantage point he was able to choose his victims and find out the exact times that they would be alone. The modus operandi was to gain access to the house by dressing in what appeared to be a police uniform and claiming that he was giving advice about a local prowler. The three married victims were all devastated by the attack, afraid to leave the house and unwilling to let any man near them, even their husbands. One was actually suicidal and pictured recovering in hospital after a failed attempt. All three gave what I thought were very convincing portrayals of the effects of rape.

A young tarty single woman on her way into town for the evening inadvertently gave the taxi driver the idea that there was something there for him, so he stopped his vehicle near some woodland and climbed into the back with her. She slapped his face, he punched her back prompting her to climb out and leg it into the woods. The driver only pursued for a short way before giving up but the young woman kept on running until she tripped up, fell through a mess of brambles and finished up with a broken ankle. Fortuitously (for him), along comes our friendly neighbourhood rapist. Now although he got a large amount of his pleasure from the planning of his other attacks he is not averse to enjoying a free fuck that drops in his lap, so he gives the injured girl exactly what he gave the others. Next day the star detective sends his sidekick along to the hospital to interview the new victim. Now although she had a black eye and a badly scratched face, she is shown sitting up in bed in a very sexy nightie, laughing, joking and even with the young constable. Then when he returned to the office and was asked how she was taking it he said, "Well it's certainly not going to ruin her life."

Sitting in my chair after the program had finished I saw it all clearly. I would have hated for my wife to be psychologically damaged like those three married women but it seemed unnatural that she should instead have reacted far more like the young tart. Unable to leave the thought alone, I suddenly blurted out, "I can accept that rape is possibly not such a big a deal as I always believed but I'm still surprised that it hasn't affected you more than is has, especially as the man was only your second."

"How do you mean 'only my second?"

I tried to spell it out. "You were a virgin when I met you and now another man has had you so that makes him..."

Before I could finish speaking she started to laugh - the laughter was genuine because tears of mirth began trickling down her face. When she eventually regained control, still sobbing Judith gasped, "Keith, you really are priceless. Whatever gave you the idea that I was a virgin when we met? I would have thought that when we first had sex my hymen must have been conspicuous by its absence - didn't you notice it was missing?"

"Course I noticed - I just assumed that you had lost it naturally," I said, trying to gain back a bit of dignity. "Didn't you tell me that you were once a star gymnast and I know you were once very keen on horse-riding.

"Don't tell me that you fell for that old chestnut - the myth propagated by generations of guilty girls. Keith my pet, something has to be stuck up there to rupture a hymen, a long finger can do it but it's usually the tool specially designed by God for the purpose."

I had to rapidly readjust all my preconceptions but everything was now making a lot more sense. "So how many sexual partners have you had?" I asked.

"God knows - I don't."

I seemed to shrivel inside and I think the shock must have shown on my face because she said far more sympathetically, "Come on Keith, don't look like that. I wasn't unduly promiscuous, certainly not much more than any other healthy girl. Hell, if I had still been a virgin at twenty-one there would have been something badly wrong with me."

"If you had so much sex before we met, why did you make me wait for nearly a year before I could make love to you?"

"'Make you wait' that's rich, Keith if I hadn't seduced you, I don't think you would have ever got round to it."

"You didn't seduce me," I said petulantly, the details of that first time forever branded on my memory.

"Keith, you were happy just to kiss me and suck my tits. In the end I got the situation right, I got the mood right and then I whispered in your ear, 'You can have me if you want' - in my book that was seduction. I was getting desperate; I don't know how I managed to go almost a full year without having a stiff cock inside me."

My mental picture shattered. I think that it was a desire to strike back that made me ask nastily, "How did you manage?"

"If you want to know the truth, I didn't," she said.

"What?"

I could tell from my wife's face that she wished she had not spoken but she explained, "I used to have a Hungarian boyfriend called Stefan and we actually shacked up for six months - the sex was bloody good but we found it impossible to live together. So we split but continued to fuck occasionally. Then I met you and he got engaged to a girl from his own country. In their culture that meant that there was nothing for him before the marriage so we helped each other with our frustrations. A couple of times a week he used to come round to my flat late and stay until morning."

That rang a bell. "Did he have a big, very old car."

"Yes - it's a classic, he said that it is over thirty-five years old."

It did my self esteem no good to remember the number of times I must have delivered her straight into the arms of the waiting lecher. "Was he the only one?" I asked, trying to salvage some consolation out of the wreckage.

"Yes."

I had hardly started my sigh of relief when she said, "No wait - I went to a party one night and got pretty blathered. I definitely remember that there was a prick up me at some point - I think it was only one."

"And that's it?"

Judith seemed to be thinking and I assumed she was trying to remember any other lovers but when she spoke it was to say, "I've just told you it wrong - I actually went to that party after you and I had started screwing."

So she had been unfaithful before we had started having sex and she had cheated on me afterwards. The obvious question was what she had got up to since we got married. I asked it. Judith looked at me a long time and then she said slowly, "Keith, I'm not going to volunteer any information but I am not going to lie to you either. You wait there while I make us both a nice strong drink but while I'm away I want you to think very seriously about whether you really want to ask me any questions."

The warning was there. Judy had intimated very plainly that I would hear things that I didn't want to but I was left with compunction to know. Almost before she had sat down I asked, "Have you had sex with Martin?"

"Yes."

"How many times?"

"I've been doing it with him for three years. The first time it happened I was still doing secretarial work but soon after that he made me into his assistant. At the start we used to do it in his office a lot but then we calmed down. Now when he picks me up in the evenings it isn't always to see a client. If we know of an empty house with a bed we go there and sometimes to a motel. Other times it's in the car but then I usually just give him a blow-job - that's why we always use his car, I tried doing it in mine once and almost dislocated my neck."

"I can't believe that you have been having an affair for three whole years - with him of all people," I said unhappily.

"Martin and I have sex but it is hardly an affair. We just do it when the situation is right. At slack times it's sometimes twice a week but during busy periods we've often gone over a month without bothering. We work it so that I always go out roughly the same number of evenings out every week."

"And I suppose that you spent the night with him at all the overnight visits to head office - and the annual sales conference."

"No I didn't fuck Martin at any of those but I was hardly faithful to you. The main feature of those events is the bed hopping that goes on at night."

"How do you mean?"

"Use your imagination - all the people from the other branches together, off the leash for the night and looking for a bit of excitement. The guys generally stick to girls from the firm but I found that there are always other men in hotels who like a bit on the side. I've never missed yet and two or three times I've taken on more than one."

"Is that the lot?"

"No."

My mind was blank. For a moment I was at a loss to think of any other time when she might have had opportunity but then came a slight suspicion. At the various parties that we attended I did tend to rather lose track of her and at the most recent event I had been puzzled at the time. Meeting Judith returning from the garden in company with a male, she explained that she had been admiring the gazebo and yet I had a memory of her having being shown that recent addition to their garden on a previous occasion. "Does something go on at the parties?" I asked.

"Keith - the parties are nothing but goings on. If you didn't hide yourself away in a corner with Fay every time for your long meaningful discussions you couldn't help but see. I'm always glad to see her there because it gives me license to get up to all kinds of naughties. Everybody is at it except you two. Fay's husband Rudi is once of the worst, a real ram - I've been with him several times. I'm pretty sure that Fay knows the score and I sometimes think she deliberately tries to keep you out of harms way - I know that she has a big soft spot for you."

"I feel so stupid - I can't understand how I could be so blind."

"Don't blame yourself - I was pretty crafty and I have also been exceedingly lucky. You almost caught me several times but something always turned up at the last moment to save me, like three weeks ago at Bob and Diana's. Bob had hidden some old curtain material at the bottom of the garden for us to lie on and as soon as you were nicely settled with Fay we crept down there. We were going at it hammer and tongs when we heard someone coming and it was you. You've got some nasty habits yourself Keith - whoever heard of urinating in someone's garden instead of using the toilet. So there we were lying there when you wandered right into the rose arbour where we were, faced the far side and started pissing onto the bushes - if you had turned the other way instead we would have had to either call out or get drenched. When you had gone back in Bob said, 'If he's murdered my Mother McCready I'll bloody kill him.' It was really rather funny."

I suddenly desperately wished that I had turned round and seen them. Hoping to prolong the feeling of excitement that her story had caused, I asked, "What other times."

"Usually I felt safe in the garden but not long ago I was in a greenhouse sucking this guy off, I've forgotten who it was. Well you come out and pause just outside the door to light a cigarette. We just froze like statues, me with his cock still down my throat. It was raining so it was obvious that you intended to come in but when the door was part way open somebody called to you and you went back to the house. I could see you so plainly through the glass and I'll never understand why you didn't see me."

I was shocked at the perverse pleasure I was getting from hearing these stories so in reaction I said rather nastily, "You certainly run with a loose morale crowd, no wonder you are not so keen on the parties that I get invited to."

"All groups of people who party a lot are exactly the same. If sex was not driving the parties they would not be nearly so popular."

"There has never been a whiff of that kind of thing at the parties thrown by the people from my office."

"It may interest you know that on different occasions, both Guy Harcourt and Roy Phelps have made pretty determined efforts to get into my knickers," Judith told me smugly. "I could have been very tempted but it was too risky - I think that both are the type who would be likely to brag about it. Apart from that, I got the impression that they had some kind of bet about it."

Guy and Roy controlled sections in my department. Both were married, Guy to a rather sweet attractive girl but Roy's wife tended to the plump side and seemed to spend a lot her time pregnant. It was a certainty that neither were going to get a good appraisal from me next time round. "OK so I'm the only one not at it but you seem to have shagged every male that you have come into contact with. There can't possibly be any more."

"Only a few," she said. "You have forgotten that men buy houses."

"Tell me about them," I said, shaking my head in despair.

"The first one was just after I got my own account, he was a rich guy in his fifties and he was interested in one of our most expensive properties. I took him round for the second time during the day and he really liked it. At the end he said, I'll sign on the dotted line straight away if you can give a little sweetener. I was offering it to him at full price, I got more commission that way, but there was a nice discount available. So I told him that I would ring the owners to ask if they would lower the price slightly, I would have only pretended to ring, but he said straight away that he was not interested in saving cash. 'I was hoping for something far sweeter than that,' he said. We were standing in the only room that still had a bed in it so it was obvious what he wanted."

"You let him screw you just to sell a house?" Despite all that she had told me it was hard to believe that she had actually prostituted herself.

"There was nothing to think about. Selling the house at full price meant a lot of prestige and a very nice bonus - it paid for that fabulous holiday in Bermuda so you benefited as well. He's actually the only purchaser that I have ever been with more than once. I went to see him again after he had moved in, it was not part of the deal but I had half promised - his wife was due to arrive from abroad the next day. I skipped the sales meeting for that month and spent the night with him instead. He is the oldest man who has ever screwed me by a long way but he had a lovely penis and a lifetime of experience. I think he gave me one of the best fucks of my life."

"Tell me about all the others."

"There were only three. There was one other that I did it with to clinch a sale and I just fancied the other two - there is nothing much else to say." There was a long pause and then Judith said, "That's it - I've told you everything."

Still I did not speak. I was actually disappointed that she had no more salacious details to relate. Logically, I should have been devastated by her catalogue of sexual encounters with other men but I was remarkably unaffected - although that may have been because there had not been time for it to sink in properly. I did not know whether to tell Judith honestly how I felt or whether she might find it strange that I was not at least a little upset. "Say something," she prompted.

"What do you want me to say?"

"Do you hate me?"

"What really hurts," I said, "- is that all this time I thought that you were happy with the sex I gave you. I believed that you liked me making love to you."

"I do, I do Keith, you must never think that I don't," Judy reassured me quickly. "Making love to you is special, you always make it into almost a religious experience. But that is part of the trouble - it's like having a Xmas dinner for every meal. My trouble is that I like a varied diet, a mixture of plain food and spicy food. I like normal English stuff but also pasta and Italian - even beans on toast can be very enjoyable in the right circumstances."

"Or a Chinese," I provided.

"I'm actually rather partial to a bit of Caribbean," she grinned.

"German sausage."

"What exactly are we talking about here?" Judy asked starting to laugh.

I laughed too. My mood had turned surprisingly light hearted - after what I had heard, it was a matter of either reacting that way or going away and killing myself. I think that my change of attitude stemmed from the realisation that my wife's promiscuity was not due to a fault in me. I could change. "Perhaps you can teach me to lighten up in bed."

"I'd love to. You don't know how much I have wanted to but I was having it so good that I was afraid the slightest thing would start you being suspicious. The first thing that you have got to realise is that sex is fun."

The strange thing is that had her confession comprised of telling me only about Martin I would have been terribly distraught but the magnitude of the numbers of men she had been with made it so impersonal that I could hardly mind. In fact I found the whole idea more than a little exciting and could not even work up any righteous indignation about her obnoxious colleague. For as long as I could remember I seemed to have been pretending at life - but this was real. It was at this point that I finally admitting to myself the emotion that had flooded through me while gazing through that farmhouse kitchen window. My wish had been not that the rape had never happened and nor that I might have the rapist helpless before my revenge - my wish had been that I could have been looking through the window while the assault was actually taking place. Judith broke into my reverie by asking, "Now that you know, what do you want to do?"

"I don't know - what do you want to do?" I said turning the question back on her. My mind was in such mess that I hoped for some pointers before committing myself to anything.

"I have been very happy with my life and given a free choice I would like to carry on the same but I haven't got a free choice. Despite all that I have told you, being married to you is very important to me. I don't equate sex with love and I actually love you very much. Our life together is too good to throw away, so if you want I will turn over a new leaf. It won't be easy but I will do it to keep you."

"I'm tempted to tell you to carry on as you have been but I'm not sure that I want you to screw Martin anymore," I told her honestly.

"Are you saying that I can carry on except for Martin? He's is no problem - I only do it with him now out of habit."

"If it makes you happy and doesn't affect the way you love me - Yes," I told her. "Anyway, stopping now would be a little like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, don't you think.

"You are very understanding - it's one of the reasons that I love you so much."

"I'm just not sure how it will work in future," I said. "The men buying houses and the ones you meet on your nights away are not a problem but it might be awkward you going off with other men at parties with me knowing."

"There is a very simple answer to that - you start playing the game too," she told me with a smile. There are at least three very attractive women who are dying to get you in bed. One in particular has got the hot's for you so badly that I could get jealous about it. You may not believe it Keith but you have a lot more to offer than most of the husbands who think they are such shit hot lovers. With a bit of coaching from me you could soon have all the wives on the party circuit eating out of your hand - if that is all you want them to eat."