Betsy - Reawakened Ch. 03

What was surprising was how graphic the conversation was. None of them had to edit themselves because there weren't any kids around. And while that allowed a certain freedom of speech, as it were, it was astonishing just how willing they were to let go and say what was really on their minds.

It was in that light that Betsy offered, "Just because we're married doesn't mean Darren needs to know everything I did in college. I don't ask him about all the women he fucked while he was stationed overseas, even though I know he did. We weren't a couple then, so it's none of my business. I only care who he fucks now."

"So, he's fucking other women now?" Rob quickly said, his ears perking up.

"Stop dear," Paula spoke up; her hand going to his arm, a look of fear etched on her face.

"I'm just wondering," he replied. "We're among friends. We're talking about sex. It seemed like a fair question, considering."

Betsy picked up on the subtle innuendo he was sending out, the others at the table missing the obvious look of embarrassment Paula had on her face. That or they didn't get the inference he was making. But she did. She just didn't understand the significance of it. Not until she boldly asked, "Okay... what's going on with you two?"

"W... what do you mean?" Paula asked nervously.

"There's something going on. Why the hell would Rob ask me if Darren is screwing around on me?"

"I never asked if he was screwing around. That would imply you don't know about it. I was just wondering if, you know, he fucked other women that you know about."

Carrie leaned forward, now seeing in Paula's eyes what Betsy had already clued in on. She'd seen that expression many times during their college years.

"Okay... Betsy's right. Something is up with you Paula. Spill it."

"I... I'd rather not."

Rob leaned closer to his wife, whispering into her ear as his hand ran along her thigh. She closed her eyes, a sweet, innocent smile appearing, which belied the sexual tension that was buried inside her chest. Taking a deep breath, she exhaled slowly, nodding her head as she listened to whatever it was he was saying to her. Batting her eyes when she opened them, she looked at her friends. Their expressions varied, from curiosity to concern.

She cleared her throat and said, "Well, it's obvious you know that Rob and I got married under some unusual circumstances."

"I'll say," Carrie chimed in, referring to Paula 'accidentally' fucking Rob after Carrie's engagement announcement get together at her parents' house. The circumstances, as Paula referred to them, were common knowledge. At least, they all thought.

"Well, I wasn't drunk that night."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"I wasn't drunk. I knew it was Rob all along when I went into his room."

"I don't get it. What are you trying to say... that you deliberately slept with him?"

"There wasn't a lot of sleeping, sis," Rob laughed.

"He's right," Paula shrugged. "I pretended to be drunk. I figured he'd kick me out as soon as he realized it was me. But he didn't."

"So you're saying you wanted to have sex with him. Why?"

"Good lord, Carrie. You've known me for years. You know exactly why I wanted to."

"Because you weren't supposed to," Betsy chimed in. "That's the same way she was in college, Carrie. If she saw a guy she wanted, she went after him. It didn't matter if he was dating someone else or not."

Paula shrugged and said, "That's who I am. I love to fuck. I've never been a one-man woman. I don't think I can be, to be honest."

"Okay, okay... I'm lost here," Mack said, shaking his head.

But Darren was on the same track as Betsy, filling in the blanks rather quickly. "So, when did you realize your marriage was in trouble?"

Carrie became indignant, coming to the defense of her brother and sister-in-law. "In trouble? What the hell kind of question is that, Darren?"

"Oh, it was always in trouble. But it was doomed two years ago," Rob answered, his frankness as alarming to his sister as was the sense of calm with which he said it. "I couldn't take much more. We were on the fast track to a divorce."

"How long had you been screwing around?" Darren asked Paula.

She smiled. "It would probably be easier to tell you how long I didn't."

"PAULA," Carrie exclaimed, recoiling from the table like she'd been pushed.

She was unfazed by her reaction. Instead, she explained. "I told Rob early on that I couldn't see myself being faithful, although he didn't believe me. And I tried for a while. I really, really tried. But... I lost control of myself about two years in, right after Emily turned one. At that point I didn't care anymore. I needed to be me to be happy."

"I can't believe I'm hearing this!"

"Let's be honest, Carrie... Rob and I weren't in love. Hell, I wanted to fuck him that night. And it was pretty obvious after I'd been in his room about two minutes that he wanted to fuck me too. He'd been eyeing me at the party."

"Rob?" Carrie asked, wondering if that were true. He nodded, taking his share of the blame.

Paula sighed. "I never dreamed I would end up getting pregnant. I totally mistimed my cycle that month, and I paid the price. We both did. Rob didn't want to get married to me anymore than I did to him. We were both in shock. But that said, we love our kids... and we've been good together as parents, so something wonderful came out of our having to learn to deal with each other."

"So, you had an affair," Mack said out loud, his wife's eyes widening in disbelief as she came to the same conclusion.

Paula shook her head. "I wouldn't call it that. What Darren said was more accurate. I screwed around."

"Well what the hell is the difference between an affair and screwing around?" Carrie snapped quietly, her anger coming to the surface.

Rob patted her hand. "Relax, sis. It's been over two years. Our marriage is fine. In fact, it's better than ever."

The look of shock on Carrie and Mack's faces had Darren and Betsy snickering. And that only made Carrie more upset. "I'm failing to find what's so funny about this."

"Aw, Carrie. Calm down," Betsy grinned. "Rob's right. If they were still in trouble, would they be here now? They've obviously found a way to deal with it. Now we need to."

"This is my brother we're talking about!"

"Your brother is sitting right here, Carrie. And he's okay with it."

"How can you be okay with it, Rob? That doesn't make any sense."

"Actually, what doesn't make sense is making two people that barely know each other get married because they made a mistake. I would have taken responsibility for Emily."

"And I would have had her. I really never considered abortion as an option. It seemed wrong in so many ways," Paula added.

Focusing his attention on his sister, Rob tried to get her to understand. "I didn't love Paula when we got married. I learned to, over the years, but I'm not going to say it was easy. And even then, we weren't in love. We are now... deeply."

The conversation stalled for a bit, everyone processing what he'd just said. Carrie kept staring at the two of them. She could see the love in their eyes, which she had to admit, was new. It was something she hadn't seen before, but she never noticed the absence prior to the bombshell that had just been dropped on their little dinner party. She could see the difference in them.

"This is all so confusing," she finally said, opening up the discussion again.

"I know it is, Carrie. But be honest. Do you really think forcing us to marry was a good idea?"

"Me? No... I hated it. But that had more to do with having to share my wedding day with a whiny, pregnant bitch," she laughed.

That moment relieved the tension, but it didn't mean there weren't more revelations to come. Mack, still puzzled, asked, "So what the hell was all of that about screwing around. How is that different than an affair?"

"I wasn't cheating on Rob. At least, that's how I looked at it. I was just screwing men. There was no emotion involved. Betsy said it best... it was like I was in college. If I saw a man I was attracted to, I came on to him. But that didn't mean I cared about him. I love men."

"No, you love their penises," Betsy corrected. "You'd screw a door if it had a dick attached to it."

"Probably," she snickered.

Mack looked at Rob, amazed that their marriage seemed more solid than ever. "So you just forgave her when she stopped?"

"Who ever said I stopped," Paula winked.

That revelation opened up an entire dialogue about Paula and Rob's arrangement. He told the others that while he was devastated at first, and it nearly led to the end of his marriage because he'd been so unhappy up to that point, he realized he'd overreacted to finding out about Paula's infidelity. In many ways, he knew it all along. It was only when it was confirmed by a friend that things got dicey. When asked how he'd come to grips with it, he admitted what changed his mindset was a cartoon he'd seen in Playboy.

He admitted he had a subscription, finding the magazine highly entertaining. It wasn't just the pictures of naked women inside. It was the idea of the current trend crossing the country; the same sexual revolution that so intrigued Betsy, and now Darren as well.

The cartoon he mentioned wasn't so much funny to him as it was thought provoking. It depicted a housewife, lying on her bed. There was a man on his way out the bedroom door. His suit jacket was over his shoulder, and he was buttoning his shirt as he left. The woman had obviously just had sex with him, and she was smiling, her attention on the partially open closet. In the darkened sliver behind that opening, there were two eyes, showing there was someone in there. The caption read Okay, honey, you can come out now. Your boss is gone. I'm pretty sure you got that promotion.

That naughty work of art had a profound effect on Rob. Not only did he realize it was erotic in its very nature, it somehow spoke to him. It took him a couple of weeks to come to terms with it. There was something about the way the woman was drawn; the innocent yet excited look on her face, as if she were utterly proud of what she'd just done. And then there was the oddly simplistic technique in how the eyes of the husband in the closet were drawn. You could only make out those eyes, the rest of his face and body hidden in the shadows. But they were incredibly expressive, and they undoubtedly showed how turned on he was.

He wondered at first if it was just how he was interpreting the way it was drawn. Perhaps someone else might look at it and find an entirely different meaning to it. He only knew for sure what it meant to him. That woman on the bed was Paula, and the eyes looking out from that hidden spot in the closet belonged to him. He just wasn't sure why that idea excited him so much. It had nothing to do with the boss depicted. That could have been any one of the men she'd been with over the years walking out their bedroom door. He only knew the idea of what she did, and that he had watched her, appealed to him sexually.

It weighed on his mind for weeks. He'd find himself closing the door to his office and taking the magazine out of his desk, looking at the cartoon, daydreaming of what it would be like to be that man in the closet, and how it would really make him feel. Finally, one day in a fit of pent up angst, he threw the issue in his briefcase and headed home.

"I pull into the driveway, and I couldn't help but wonder if Paula might be in the house with somebody. I hadn't told her I was coming home early, and I actually got excited about the idea of catching her in the act. But I knew better. We were trying one last attempt to save our marriage, and she'd actually been a good girl for a change."

"You don't know how hard that was," she laughed. "I'd been sneaking around for years."

"How did you get caught to begin with," Mack asked.

"You know, that part is behind us. I don't want to relive the bad part. As far as I'm concerned, our marriage started the day he came home with that magazine. Hell, I was stunned he had a subscription. That was the first thing that shocked me."

"No it wasn't," Rob chuckled. "My sneaking into the house though the back door surprised you."

"Well, that's true. I accused him of coming home to start an argument. I didn't bother trying to go down the 'you don't trust me' road, because he had absolutely no reason to."

"So what happened?" Betsy asked.

"I walked in and found her doing dishes in the kitchen. She accused me of coming home early to start an argument, even though we hadn't had one in a month. I assured her that wasn't true, and that's when I opened up my briefcase. I pulled out the magazine, and she arched an eyebrow. I told her I had a subscription... I'd kept it secret from her, and that actually made her laugh."

"How come?"

Paula said, "I laughed because I found it funny. Why else would you laugh?"

"No, I mean, what did you find funny about it?"

"Mainly because I'm going around having sex with other men for most of my marriage, and he's hiding a damn nudie magazine. If I'd known he was reading Playboy, I probably would have thought better of him all those years."

"Yeah, well, who would have thought you'd be so open-minded... about everything. I was nervous when I showed her the cartoon. But I didn't beat around the bush. I pulled it out, opened it to the page and showed her the cartoon. And I asked her what she saw in the picture. I was genuinely interested in how she perceived it, versus how I did."

"And I told him that I saw a happy woman that looked very satisfied sexually and a husband in the closet who apparently liked what he saw. Then I asked him why he was showing it to me."

"And I didn't have an answer. I just stood there, fumbling around like a big buffoon. I'd practiced all the way home about what I would say if she saw the cartoon like I did, and when she did, I couldn't find the words."

"But I knew," Paula said, kissing his cheek. "His dick was so big it was hard not to notice."

"So, what did you do?" Carrie asked, now suddenly on the edge of her seat, the story becoming more exciting to her.

"I told him to go park his car around the corner while I made a phone call. I don't think he knew I was serious at first, but when he walked back into the house, I'd changed into some lingerie. I told him to get into the closet, and to keep quiet."

"Who was it?" Mack asked.

"It was our insurance agent," she confessed.

"And you were okay with that?" Carrie asked.

"To be honest, I was a mess at first. I mean, the guy isn't a friend, but I obviously knew him. I felt betrayed at first, and not by Paula. Seeing him walk through the bedroom door with her was a shock, and it hurt to know he was the one."

"He was just the one I happened to call, dear. I could have called any one of a dozen guys and you would have felt the same way. We've been over that."

"Oh, I know. I'm over it now. I'm just sharing what I felt at the time. And as gut-wrenching as that was, I wouldn't change it. I got so excited seeing you two together. It was hard to keep quiet, I'll tell you that."

"So, that's it? You just started sleeping around with Rob watching?"

"No. He actually doesn't watch that often. When I was done with Bill, I told him to let himself out, and when I heard the door close downstairs, I called out to Rob just like the girl in the cartoon. Although I said our insurance agent was gone, and I think I may have gotten us a discount."

"She did, by the way... so that was awesome!" Rob laughed out loud.

"Rob was on me so fast he nearly knocked the breath out of me. It had been years since he'd fucked me like that."

"And afterward, we shut down. It was so quick and hot, but in the end, we were right back at square one, unable to communicate. So we did what we'd been doing... we went to bed in separate places."

"You slept separately?" Carrie asked, nearly misting up learning about the difficulties they'd been through.

"I'd been sleeping on my couch in the den for so long at that point it didn't seem all that odd at first. It only got odd when Paula showed up."

"I couldn't sleep. I woke up thinking I'd dreamt the whole thing. It seemed too good to be true, really. So I went downstairs and woke him up."

"With a blowjob. I can't tell you the last time that happened. Then we made love right there on the couch, and afterward, we talked. I mean, we really talked."

"I asked him if it made him horny watching me. He said it did, but it was the idea of me being with another man that was the biggest turn on. It seemed so out of place, since that's what I'd been doing all along. But he didn't know and that made it different. Now that he did know, it changed for him somehow. So, we discussed how he felt, and then we discussed how I feel when I'm with another man, and we came to the conclusion that we both wanted the same things, but we didn't know it. When he came home from work the next afternoon, I was all dolled up to go out. He asked what I was doing, and I told him I had a date."

Mack nearly spilled his beer, snorting, "You're kidding!"

"Nope. I told him I was going out, and I'd be back, and he needed to wait up for me. I left and came home at midnight to show him the evidence."

"Evidence? What evidence?"

"You're not that dense, Mack. I took off my panties, and I showed him my pussy. I have to admit I didn't expect him to dive right in like he did though."

"Okay, NOW you're kidding," Betsy laughed.

"I can believe it," Carrie chuckled. "I grew up with him. He'll eat anything!"

Paula shrugged again. "Be that as it may, the rest is history. We don't go nuts with it. I don't screw around as often now because I know he's okay with me being with another man from time to time, so I can be more discrete. I took way too many chances before he knew, but I didn't care about my marriage then. Now I do. I cannot tell you how much I love this man," she smiled, kissing him on the cheek again.

"I love you too, sweets," he hummed happily.

"Well, I don't know about you all, but I'm horny now," Betsy said with a hearty laugh.

"You didn't answer my question," Rob said with a wicked grin.

"What question is that?"

"Does your husband screw around?"

"If you're asking if I'd be okay with it if he fucked your wife, I'm not sure," she replied candidly, shocking everyone at the table, including Darren. "I don't think he's into what you are... but I intend to find out what he is into this week."

"Are you serious, Bets?" Darren asked, unsure of just what she had in mind.

"I don't know. We haven't talked about anything like this... ever. The most I have to go on right now is you saying this afternoon that you want to spend the week finding that woman I was right before I got pregnant with Neil. I think instead, we need to talk... maybe we're being too retrospective in our thinking."

"Retrospective?"

"Perhaps. Maybe instead of looking for who I was a long time ago, you ought to look at who you want me to be going forward."

"I don't want you to be uncomfortable, Betsy. I just want to have a little fun this week."

"And I do too. But why stop after a week? After what we just learned from Rob and Paula, I don't think it would do us any harm to talk about these kinds of things a little more honestly. Do you?"

"Of course not."

"Good. Like I said earlier, I think it's silly to try and go back and recapture something that happened before. If you do, it'll never live up to what you want it to be, because you're too busy comparing and contrasting. I think it would be wiser for us to talk things out, and go from here."

"Wow, you're making this sound like you don't want to --"