Fatigue

She stood there in her black filmy negligee. She was giving me her arched eyebrow look, as she had her chin raised. Her bra and panties matched her negligee, all black lace. Her high-heeled shoes were also black. It contrasted nicely with her pale skin.

"You're taking too long, pet." She said, looking at me as I was unbuttoning my shirt.

I so didn't want to play this game. I hated it. What had once been exciting for me, had lost its appeal, by about... oh,... a long, torturous year.

I undid the last button, and pulled my shirt out of my pants. Then I took it off completely, and pulled a hanger out of the bedroom closet, to hang it back up. I hadn't broken a sweat today, and I felt I could wear the shirt again in a couple of days. A little spritz of water, a fast rolling, and it would be fine.

"Faster," my wife said, impatient.

I shot her an annoyed sideways look. She caught it.

"What was that?" She asked, a little heat in her voice.

I said nothing, as I undid the clasp on my pants, and slid the zipper down.

"What was that look?" she demanded. "You don't give me that look."

"Hey, give it a rest, will you? I'm not interested." I told her as I pulled a leg out of the pant. Pants? I don't understand plurality with clothing. If they are "pants," then why aren't they "bras'es" or "sleeveseses?"

"...What did you just say?" she said, striding up to look me in the eye. Her heels let her do that.

"I said, give it a rest." I told her as I tossed my pants into the hamper. "I'm not interested. I've had a day, and I'm just not going to do this bullshit you.... I'm just not."

She stared at me a couple of seconds, her eyes flared open in disbelief. I was pulling my jeans off a hanger and then slipped into them. The fact I was getting dressed wasn't lost on my wife.

"Fine." She scowled at me. "We're going to talk though," she then turned and walked out of the bedroom.

++++++

I walked into the kitchen, and there she was, poised in the middle. Her arms were crossed under her breasts, and she had that impressive scowl roaring down the lane in third gear.

The paddle was on the kitchen table.

Oh, this was going to be one of those one-sided conversation/lectures, about my place, and then she'd act nice and tell me how sympathetic she was, which would end with her spanking me. Then I'd have to sit and listen while she told me about how she'd fucked whoever-the-asshole-was-for-today.

++++++

This had been our game for a few years. I'd gotten pissed off by the idea of her sleeping with other men, and we'd turned that into an aspect of our sex lives.

It had been good. About once a month, she'd go out, find a willing cock, and go to town with the owner. Then she'd come home, tell me about it, and I would be so pissed off, so angry, I'd absolutely plow her for hours. It wasn't an act of sexual love, it was raw fucking. It was reclaiming what I thought was mine.

All over the house. Behind the house. A couple of times, on the upstairs bedroom balcony. In the car. On tables, furniture, in the shower, over the car hood in the garage, on the neighbor kids tree-swing, restaurant bathrooms, and in friends houses.

All over the place. We'd loved it.

Then, slowly, over time, the once-a-month thing had crept up to being twice, then weekly ... and I stopped counting. That progression took about eighteen months.

My wife, Helen, had talked about the increase with me, openly and frankly. I'd been lost in my own hormonal storm, and for a while, I agreed to almost everything.

Slowly, how Helen and I talked to each other changed. It took time, and I didn't notice it until I sat down and really thought about it, a couple of years ago. I seriously didn't like where we were in our marriage anymore.

Then she started acting dismissive. Followed a few months later with contempt.

That was followed by her giving me "I need you to do something" orders.

Orders preceded routines. Things she expected of me. Most were okay, a couple I wasn't enthused about, but I went along.

In that whirlpool of sex and hormones, I'd gone along with it.

I was noticing it now, and excusing it, because it was still easier to go along...except for the growing resentment. I'd tried talking about it to her, but she'd either be dismissive, or she'd improve for a week, then we'd be back into the situation I didn't care for.

Then one year, that wedding anniversary rolled around.

++++++

I took Helen out, treated her nicely on our anniversary, romanced her, made her smile and giggle. We came home, I made love to her... let me be clear, I loved her long, slowly, doing everything she likes... and she enjoyed it. But that was just it. She enjoyed it.

She didn't get crazy and screaming, like when we fucked. She lay there and took it, essentially.

Then she said "Thank you," turned over and went to sleep.

I was only halfway through my hardon, and she went to sleep?

"Hey," I said, a bit irritated, as I nudged her shoulder, knowing she wasn't asleep as she lay on our bed. You can't fall asleep after having a dick in you twenty seconds ago, so she was putting on a show. "Come on..."

"Joe, stop." She'd said, not even turning her head to look at me. "It's been a nice evening. I'm very satisfied. You've done a good job. Now please, let me get some sleep. I have a date tomorrow."

I stared at her for ten seconds or so, then I asked "What about me?"

Helen sighed, and she said "What about you?"

That.

Right there, I got it.

I see several things as being needed in a relationship, let alone a marriage. Many you can do without, but there's three fundamentals in my mind: Love, trust, respect. The other things are kind of secondary, but very important.

Right then, I didn't love her. I also felt she didn't respect me.

"Fuck you." I said, and got out of bed.

I rode the couch that night.

++++++

Helen was back to being loving for a while, and I think she twigged onto how unhappy I was when she came back from her date after work, and I wasn't interested in reclaiming her, hearing about it, or even talking civilly with her.

I think I scared her.

Then I let myself get swayed back into whatever it was we'd started.

The next week, she was out prowling again, and yeah, I fucked her into submission afterward.

Two months after that, I had new marching orders.

I was to orally service her daily. Once in the morning, and as soon as I got home.

I refused to deal with creampies, and wouldn't touch her if I knew she'd had a date, without cleaning herself before I got to her. I'll do my own messes, but not another guys. That had been a long-time rule.

Then she started wanting me to be naked when I went down on her. I was okay with that, honestly. She would return the favor in the afternoon, occasionally in the morning if time allowed, and I really enjoy getting a hummer.

Except, slowly, the blowjobs dwindled away. First they became less than enthusiastic, then mechanical, then they kind of disappeared.

Then came the second blowup.

++++++

I was going down on Helen, I'd finished the third circling of her labia, and got my tongue in there.

I tasted it right away. That wasn't me.

Some other guys spunk was in my wife.

I hadn't known she'd had a "date" today, which was another breaking of the rules.

I popped up on my hands, my arms holding me up and shouted "What the fuck?!"

Helen looked at me, down her body as she lay on our bed, her knees up and she giggled.

"Surprise!" she laughed.

I slapped her ass. Not playfully.

"AHH!" she yelled.

I was out of the bed, standing beside it, my finger aimed at her.

"You hit me!" she accused.

"What the fuck?" I jabbed the air in front of her. "What the actual fuck, Helen?!"

"Ow!" she said as she was rolling away from me while also trying to rub her cheek where I'd pinked her.

"What is this galloping horseshit?" I asked really loudly.

"Oh come on!" Helen shouted back. "It'll be fun!"

"No creampies!" I accused.

"What difference does it make?!" she shouted back. "Yours, his, what's different!?"

"What's different is we agreed!" I told her, coming around the bed. "You'd be clean! I'm supposed to know when you are doing it!"

"Well, now you know!" she shouted back. "I don't see what's different about you eating yours or his!"

"I DO see it as different!" I said. "Don't do that! What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

Her response was to just shove me, and then shoulder past me to get to the bathroom. The door slammed closed, and I didn't see her until the next morning, mostly because I rode the couch again.

Now my trust in her was pretty shaky.

I felt she didn't respect me.

Love?

++++++

Because I'm stupid, two weeks later, despite us sitting down and talking about my issues, we were back into the thing. Whatever this thing we were doing was.

She'd had her first date, post-fight, told me about it, and I was supposed to fuck her into a coma.

Except I wasn't interested in reclaiming her. Usually, the day of her dates, I'd start boiling while I was at work, get fired up, and rush home to "deal with it." Except while at work, I didn't get excited. I was more like mildly annoyed.

Don't get me wrong, the mental trigger was there, and yeah, for me it's all caveman. "Woman taken from me! Get back! Ugh!" That absolutely fired off in my hindbrain.

But the rest of my brain was more of "...uhmmm... well, okay, but..."

"What?" Hellen asked me, as I had her over the back of the couch, her skirt off, my pants off, and I wasn't sporting the diamond-hard meatstick I usually did. Oh, I was hard, but not like usual, and my drive wasn't as normal for this situation.

"Nothing," I responded, as I slipped into her. Me using words was unusual, normally it was monosyllables and grunting, full steam ahead.

While we did fuck, it wasn't like it had been. It was shorter, less intense, she was unsatisfied, I was confused... and emotionally tired.

I didn't know I was emotionally wrung out, I couldn't explain it to myself at that point, but I sure knew what it felt like.

Her next date was the same. She was getting annoyed. I was still confused, and honestly, a little embarrassed.

The third date, was worse.

"What's going on?" She asked, irritated, as I actually undressed before getting to the fucking. Normally, if I got my pants all the way down, that was enough for the moment.

"Hmm?" I asked.

"You." She gestured at me. "Why are you..." my pants came down. I was still soft.

I picked up my pants, folded them, and put them on the kitchen counter.

She looked up at my face, and she could see I wasn't wearing my "Rargh! Fuck!" expression. In fact, I think I looked bored.

"What is this?" She asked, standing up from where she'd been bent over a kitchen chair.

"Nothing," I muttered, knowing what she meant. Again, I was feeling a bit embarrassed.

"I can see it's nothing," she pointed at my noodleness. "You better get to 'everything' pretty quick Joe!"

Well, the boner I'd been trying to coax myself into wasn't going to show up after that statement.

I probably should have done anything but what I did... which was to stand there, half-naked, limp, and sad.

My wife invoked the name of a deity's son, and walked out of the kitchen. The bedroom door slammed a few seconds after that, as I looked at the kitchen ceiling and asked myself "What's going on?"

++++++

"Honey, what's going on?" Helen asked me an hour later.

"I don't know." I said. "The mind is willing..."

"Do you... is this... not working anymore?" she asked.

"A lot isn't working anymore..." I trailed off in response. I hadn't meant to say that aloud. Damn.

"Why isn't it?" Helen asked as she sipped her drink.

"What?" I asked. "I said "A lot," which part do you want to address?"

"Uhm,... the sex?"

"I really... it just..." I glanced down at my crotch. It had nothing to say. "I don't really know."

"Do I... not do it for you?" she asked.

"No! No! You do!" I said, and it felt like I wasn't being honest with myself.

"Then what is it?"

"I think... I think I don't enjoy this anymore." I ventured, not certain if that was the answer.

"What does that mean?" she asked, sounding a touch annoyed.

"I don't know yet. I haven't figured it out." I shrugged. "I mean, I just don't... I'm not feeling it. The caveman throw-woman-over-the-shoulder thing... it's not happened for your past... what?... three dates?"

She just looked at me.

"I'm not feeling it." I repeated.

"But you're still attracted to me?" Helen asked.

"Well, duh!" I said, but that didn't feel right to me. I was surprised that it didn't feel right.

"Good..." Helen didn't sound enthused. She sounded more observational, simply confirming something. "... do you think we should... that I should stop the dates for now?"

"Yes," popped out of my mouth before I could even consider it. It was right there, no hesitation, no brain/mouth barrier.

Helen gave a slight frown of disappointment.

I just stared at her, my answer felt right.

"Okay, we can do that." She said, a smile creeping onto her face. A smile that didn't reach her eyes. "But you better step up your game, mister!" she finished with a laugh. That had never been a problem.

++++++

It was a problem.

We decided to cool off for the night, which I was still embarrassed about. Instead, we went out, and hit a nice restaurant. We ordered the food, we sat there, we talked... or I talked.

Helen said a lot of "Uh-huh," and "Yes."

I noticed her attention was a little off, so I tested it. I thought it was funny.

"... but Mac just said he was still fetishizing puppets, and that he was addicted to that movie that "Lord of the Hoops" guy made years ago, with all the oversize puppets." I finished a statement with.

"Uh huh." Helen answered as she looked over the top of her phone at something behind me.

"But since Mac has forty-three kids with barnyard animals, mostly by the litter, he says his real problem is dehydration, whenever he watches public broadcasting kids shows... he can't stop... Helen?"

"Hmm?" My wife asked, her eyes fixed on her phone again.

"I lost all our money buying G.I. Action dolls online."

"Mmm." She said, looking to the side. "Okay."

I waited.

"I'm sorry, what?" Helen asked after maybe twenty seconds of my just staring at her silently.

"Where were you?" I asked, my voice a little lower than normal.

"Right here?" she asked, shaking her head and glancing about, like it was the obvious answer.

"You sure that's the answer you want to go with?" I inquired.

"We're sitting right here, honey." She said acting like I was bothering her now.

"Yeah, but in your head, you were somewhere else." I told her. "Would you care to share?"

"Honey, I'm right here." She told me. She reached across the table, and laid her fingers overtop my hand where it rested.

"No, you aren't." I again informed her. I moved my hand, and started eating. I wanted to finish and get this over with. I wanted to reconnect with my wife, not be an inconvenience. Since that wasn't happening, I wanted it to not-happen not-here.

"Fine," she huffed. "Be that way."

++++++

It was two days before we thawed and tried touching each other. Well, I rolled over, spread her legs, crawled between them as she slept, and went down on her is what I mean.

She woke up as soon as my tongue circled her clit. "Mmm... mmmhhh..."

Ten minutes later, she came on my face. Then to make things better, since I wanted to score some make-up-for-being-a-jerk-in-her-eyes points, I kept at it.

All in all, after her third orgasm, she was pushing my head away. "No, stop... too... ohh,... that's so good... sensitive!..."

I propped myself up, and smiled at her, my face wet with her juices.

She stretched languidly, and then opened her eyes to smile at me.

"That was so nice." She informed me.

"Oh?" I asked.

"Mm-hmm." She confirmed.

I gave her the rakish smile, and started to lower my lips to hers again.

"No! No!" she laughed. She started skootching up the bed, trying to get away. "No, I'm too sensitive now! Honey, that was wonderful! Stop! Ahh-ha-ha!" she exclaimed as I playfully bit her inner thigh.

"Okay, okay,..." I laughed back.

I rolled over her leg, and got back to my space in our bed. I laid there, smiling at her, my erection pointing up and back toward my chest slightly. I was hoping for some reciprocation. It had been a while.

"Mmm... that was so nice." She said as she snuggled against my arm, the smile on her face. She made sensuous flexing motions with her lower body and legs against me.

"Happy to help, Ma'am." I drawled at her.

In the midst of her slight gyrations, her hand brushed against my cock. Her eyes opened, and she saw it, bobbing slightly in the air above my stomach.

Then she reached down, wrapped her fingers around it, and with a feather touch, she slowly stroked it.

Oh boy, this was gonna be great!

Her hand moved up, and her fingers played over the head, pausing there to give little squeezes, and then traveled back down.

"You are so good at that." Helen said, as she let go of my rod and rolled away.

What...?

She got out of bed, crossed the room to the chair that she'd left her robe on, slipped into it, and walked out the door with a smile on her face.

Was she... going to the bathroom? I mean, the other bathroom, down the hall, not the one in... Was she going to the kitchen? Where?...

Then I heard the 'fridge door open. That was followed by it closing.

She was making coffee?

My cock started to lower, coming to rest against my stomach, then retreating as it shrank back down.

I waited, to see if she was coming back.

Stupidly, I waited twenty minutes. No wife appeared.

++++++

I did my three S's, and got dressed.

I walked into the kitchen, and there was Helen, on her phone, sitting at the table with coffee on the coaster in front of her. She was two-thumb texting.

Checking the coffee pot, no, she had only made enough for herself.

I wanted to ask her a question. Several actually, depending on the answers.

Instead, I put the coffee pot back, leaned two-handed against the counter, and looked out the window over the sink.

"Honey, can you pick up something for me?" She asked.

I glanced over, and she wasn't looking at me.

"If you ask while looking at me, maybe." I said, a flat tone of voice.

"Great!" she said, eyes on the screen, still texting away. "I'd like you to get me..."

I had already hit the "ignore" button in my mind as I headed to the closet where my shoes were.

"Honey?" she asked a few seconds after I left the kitchen.

I was slipping into my shoes.

On my way out the door, heading for breakfast, I heard her say "Joe?"

++++++

Respect was not something I was seeing from Helen, I mused.

Trust... I didn't feel good about that.

Love was there, on my part, but it wasn't like it used to be.

The pancakes at the diner were good though.

++++++

Helen had sort of figured it out enough, to ask me "What's wrong?" when I got home, and no, I didn't go down on her.

This time, she was bothered that I said I didn't appreciate her ignoring me, and taking me for granted.

"I'm not," she said, actually sounding sweet.

"I call bullshit." I said in return, feeling tired. "In fact, I call double bullshit."

"But... is this about this morning? Joe, I loved that!" she said, sitting back in her seat. "You were wonderful!"

"And where was mine?" I asked.

"Yours?" she seemed perplexed.

"Mine."

"Joe... that was your duty." She told me, a little annoyance in her voice and on her face. "To me. You agreed to that."

"No, I didn't agree "to that." I said, a little heat creeping into my voice as I scowled. "I never agreed to being ignored, and one-sided sex, especially after we fight. That was the start of make-up sex, and you blew it. Actually, you didn't."