Henry & Rene - Beyond Monogamy Ch. 01

The following chapters describe a period of unease and discontent in the sexual relationship between my wife Rene and myself and how we gradually opened ourselves to new sexual experiences which brought us closer again and gave us greater satisfaction. During this past year we revived and enriched our desires, reestablished our positive sexual partnership and, for the first time, engaged in sexual experiences with other people. I have participated in most of these new erotic explorations though often my greatest satisfaction comes in supporting my wife's more active role and my highest excitement from watching her with others as she seeks greater sexual fulfillment. Rene and I understand better now the primacy of our sexual desires and the importance of new sexual experiences to who we are individually and what we have become as a couple. We are in tune with our stronger libidos and embrace the lust and the ardor and the sexual urgency deep within us. Now, we don't deny our needs or avoid what may help us meet them. We can draw on what we have rediscovered or newly learned in the past year about how to satisfy ourselves.

What I have written here is based on memory and on entries from the journal I have kept most days since high school. Quotes are based directly on my journal entries or are as close I can recall them, and many incorporate my wife's recollections. Even if some wording is not exact, all reflect to the best of my understanding the intent and the character of the speaker. The first four chapters were completed within two weeks of our return from a recent vacation in Barcelona and Languedoc. Rene has reviewed my drafts and I have made many revisions based on her corrections and suggestions. My wife and I look forward to future pleasures to be described in later chapters as I find time and inspiration.

In the Beginning

"My name is Henry. I am 34, a lawyer in a long established firm in the upscale village of Eindhoven in Westchester County, north of New York City. Handsome enough at six feet two inches, sandy hair, blue eyes, good build. Since my high school years women have seemed attracted to me and I never suffered for lack of sexual opportunity. My need often to seize these changed a decade ago when I met my wife to be.

My wife, Rene, 31, is an artist--a painter--and a strikingly beautiful woman. Now, after working hard to regain it, she has again a firm and luscious body. Lovely face and bright appealing smile. Long chestnut hair, deep brown eyes, sensuous mouth. Ordinarily elegant, stylish in the way she presents herself. When she wants to be, stunning in her sensuality. A low husky very sexy voice. Five feet seven, 128 pounds with the right curves in the right places--but very much in balance, in pleasing proportion, nothing exaggerated. Her long legs, her tight ass, even her ankles, are lovely to behold! As ravishing as she was when we met over nine years ago.

We met at a pool party at my uncle's country house in Columbia County. She was with another guy. As I soon grew accustomed to, Rene's personality, beautiful face and perfect body always attracted a group of men. When I first approached the group she was with that afternoon she was describing her first job at a new gallery in SOHO. I was struck by her remark that in fact the most interesting new art could be seen in several small galleries in Brooklyn. She named them. I took the opportunity to mention to her I recently had visited those galleries and others nearby while working a summer job for a law firm in that neighborhood. Her quick glance confirmed I had gotten her attention, though I soon passed on to mix with other guests. As she was getting ready to leave I caught her for a minute without her companion and asked if she would meet me to visit a few of those galleries some afternoon and then to have a drink to talk about what we had seen. To my surprise and pleasure she said yes. We did meet and walk and talk and have dinner two weeks later. Things moved fast from there. After five weeks we moved in together. I finished my law degree at Columbia the next year and eighteen months after we met we were married. We celebrated our eighth anniversary this past summer.

We were drawn to each other by mutual physical desirability certainly, but we soon found we shared common interests and were compatible in many other ways. We both enjoyed art, historical and contemporary, though Rene preferred the latter more than I do. We both were devoted readers, especially fiction, though I preferred the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; Rene enjoys contemporary fiction more than I do. We both like watching modern dance and foreign movies and listening to a variety of contemporary music, especially from Africa and Asia. We both love hiking, traveling, and eating in French, Italian and Indian restaurants. From the first I admired Rene's paintings and over the years I have been supportive of each new artistic direction she has taken.

Rene is more gregarious than I am. She enjoys parties and receptions--and dancing--more than I do. She is usually ready to engage with strangers, always looking for new friends, while I am less willing to spend time with people who don't share my interests. I dislike women who are giddy and who giggle, who are preoccupied with celebrities, high fashion and the latest hot consumer items, or who are unable to engage in discussions of contemporary social and political issues. Though Rene often has to fend off the attentions of men she finds uninteresting, she readily responds to men she finds attractive. At times she becomes very flirtatious. At first I minded that. But not now.

Rene and I lived together four years in Brooklyn. I worked for a large law firm and Rene's painting career was beginning to take off both through her work being included in group shows and in selling more of it through several galleries. Then suddenly our lives and our plans for the future changed dramatically when we learned Rene had inherited over six million dollars from her great aunt, Teresa. While Rene was an undergraduate at NYU she had grown very close to this aunt after the death of her husband. Aunt Teresa lived just off Washington Square and Rene cared for her during her final illness. The inheritance was not a complete surprise, but the amount certainly was. With a new sense of security we reconsidered what we wanted for the future. After many discussions, we decided to opt for a quieter, more comfortable life in a more bucolic setting, though one still very accessible to the city. We bought an 1850 farm house and property a mile from the center of Eindhoven, 30 minutes north of the City by commuter train.

The farm house, which we recognized would need a great deal of remodeling to suit our needs and our tastes, was set far back on a quiet winding road and in back looked out over a large field with a pond and woods further on and a very narrow distant view of the Hudson. What appeared to have been a horse barn, still with stalls and a hay loft overhead, intrigued us with its longer term potential. Using more than a half million dollars from Rene's inheritance funds we worked with an architect and a contractor to reconfigure and modernize the farm house. We took one of the upstairs bedrooms for a temporary studio for Rene, knowing that it would later become a guest bedroom, and another for a study/library with a large screen for movies and television. We created a master bedroom on that floor all across the front of the house. We upgraded the covered porch on the front of the house and added another one across the back. The change we especially valued on the first floor was converting what had been two large rooms in the rear of the house into one long single room for the kitchen and dining area and with large windows all across and French doors in the center leading to the long porch across the back.

Second phase projects over the two following years included construction of a swimming pool and hot tub behind the house and a repurposing and redesign of the barn which now overlooked the pool from one side. The lower level of the barn became a kind of super sized cabana while the old hay loft became a very large studio for Rene with wonderful light and great views over the back field, the pond and the woods and plenty of room for supplies and storage.

We lived in a furnished apartment in Eindhoven for nearly a year while work on the house was underway and moved into the house in the fall, nearly a year after we bought it. The pool was built the following spring and finally, late this spring, work on the barn building was completed and Rene's studio was moved from the house to the hayloft. We felt settled in.

As part of our move from Brooklyn I joined a small but very old Eindhoven firm handling the legal affairs of a number of the wealthiest families in the area, some who had been here for generations, as well as legal work for select local businesses and non profits. The work with the old families required discretion and sensitivity to their opinions and interests and to the special arrangements often reflected in their wills and trusts, property ownership and in marriages, divorces, remarriages, settlements and other private matters. I found I enjoyed the work, learning the history of the region and its people and the often behind-the-scenes forces that made things happen around us. Rene's painting progressed steadily through several phases and she now she has contractual relationships with galleries in Brooklyn, Boston and in nearby White Plains.

Among our shared interests is our enthusiasm foreign travel. Even before the inheritance we managed to take wonderful trips, mostly in Europe, especially France, England, and Italy. Fortunately our work has allowed us flexibility in scheduling. Now we can expect foreign travel to become a more frequent and prominent part of our lives.

During the past winter we decided we would vacation for three weeks this next summer in Barcelona and in Languedoc in southwestern France. The latter is not a glamour destination but the region has interesting history, nice countryside to explore, and many vineyards, though not the most highly regarded ones. Although in the past it has produced vast amounts of inexpensive wines, in recent years Languedoc growers have rediscovered vines that flourished long ago and they have replaced some inferior wines with more internationally popular grapes. Also, we wanted to try an area not frequented by tourists, especially American tourists. I had been intrigued by a vacation rental listing in the Columbia Law School alumni magazine for a small 17th century stone house in a tiny village near Beziers. In photos the house, one of several on a winding street too narrow for cars, looked authentic to the period but still comfortable enough; what especially caught our attention was the small rooftop terrace with views out over vineyards in three directions. We could picture ourselves sitting on that terrace, espresso and croissants to start the day and then, late at night after dinner, sharing wine and romance by candlelight.

We also picked Languedoc because there was a good train connection from Barcelona in Spain. Last year three of Rene's paintings had been featured there in a show, "Emerging American Women Painters" at a well regarded gallery near the Picasso Museum. This was the first time her paintings had been shown abroad. Those shown in Barcelona had then led to invitations for solo shows of new work in Bologna and Berlin, so we were likely to be in both those cities over the next several years. Ramon, the director of the gallery in Barcelona, had written to Rene of his admiration for her work and inviting her to let him introduce her to his gallery and his city if she were ever to be in Barcelona. I assumed he was inspired by her personal photo sent for the exhibition catalog, attracted not only by her paintings but also by her beauty. Rene was certain he would extend his hospitality to me if we arrived together. We arranged to spend several days in Barcelona, go by train north into France as far as the ancient Roman city of Norbonne where we could rent a car and drive on to our small wine village.

In the back of our minds, we also hoped this trip might help us revive our flagging sexual relationship. We did not talk explicitly about what we wanted to happen but we both felt that new places and new people might stimulate us in some still unspecified way. Though our sex lives were loving and often pleasurable after a nearly a decade together, we acknowledged the fire had cooled, at times the flames almost flickered out for weeks at a time. We recognized this was a frequent condition for couples but we found it unacceptable and we agreed to work together to change it. We recalled how important sex had been for us not so long ago and we wanted to regain that intensity. What we were at risk of losing became even clearer as we shared memories of earlier experiences that had given us special pleasure and excitement. We also agreed to speak more frankly about our wants and needs and how they might be met.

Although we were very satisfied with the farm house after the changes were made and we looked forward to the completion of the other projects, a year ago we found ourselves in a kind of languid mood regarding our sexual state of mind. I recall vividly the evening when we began to share our views. We were sitting in chairs on the rear porch looking out toward the woods, gin and tonics in hand. The sun was almost down to the west.

The Way We Were

Rene opened this discussion. "Henry, I like where we are now in this lovely house in this comfortable village. I am pleased with my painting and I'm beginning to make new friends here through the Artists League and around town. You seem to be thriving in the law firm and with new friends as well. But there is something that keeps me from being satisfied and I suspect you feel the same way. Do you know what I mean, Henry?"

"Probably, Rene. We haven't talked about this but I wonder if we both may be fearing we have lost something almost without noticing it. But why don't you tell me what you mean, what you are feeling."

"Henry, I am very sad about where w are sexually and I wish I knew what we can do about it. It seems to me we have been losing interest in having sex for quite a while now, at least over a couple of years. You don't seem to want sex with me very often and when we do have sex it is with little energy or passion. You seem to have lost interest in sex, at least with me. And I know I have not been initiating sex either, or responding enthusiastically when you do. We seem to be in a kind of downward spiral together. But what to do about it?"

I suggested maybe this had to do with so many changes, our move, the projects relating to the house, my adjusting to the new law firm, and both us to the community, missing some old friends and some of the things we did love about Brooklyn and Manhattan. "Maybe I have been preoccupied, and I know you really have been pushing with your painting. Maybe we have just forgotten what we enjoyed and what we needed for the kind of relationship we assumed we would always have. "

"It is so different from the way it was, Henry. I used to think a lot about having sex with you, what I could do to inflame you and then how to satisfy you. And I wanted it too, my own pleasure and excitement. The sex was good. I thought about sex a lot then and I wanted sex a lot. I liked to excite you not only during sex but also other times too--often when we were out--by whispering sexual things to you, by dressing and acting to tease and excite you. I knew part of you liked it when you saw the way other men looked at me and when sometimes I would flirt a bit--or more than a bit! Mostly I did it to arouse you and it almost always worked. Sometimes you would become enraged in jealously, but always the sex was good and hot when we got home--even sometimes before we could make it home.

"Where did that go Henry? We have become undemanding of ourselves and each other. I admit, I have gotten lazy, gained some weight and paid less attention to the way I dress, become more conservative that way. There is nothing spontaneous or imaginative about our sex anymore. Nothing new. I know this happens for many couples, probably most, after thy have been together as we have. But I don't want it to happen to us. And there is no good excuse for it I can think of. It's not even that I don't think about sex. I do, but it's not sex between the two of us that helps me have a rare orgasm."

"What does arouse you then Rene?"

"Henry, I don't want to talk about that now. I want to need you more passionately and I want you to respond to me with more passion-- to respond in part because my passion arouses you. I want to feel more desire and to become more desirable. Do you think we can achieve that if we try, together?"

We returned to this matter often in the following weeks, especially when we were relaxed after a few drinks. Maybe we thought a slight buzz would free us to say more frankly what we were feeling deep down. Even with that though, I did not say to Rene I found certain contradictions in what she was expressing about her desirability and her sexual desires. I felt our dilemma was not limited to the changed sexual chemistry between us or that talking about it would solve the problem. I was conscious I had not revealed to her how my feelings about sex had changed over the past several years, not about Rene as a wife and sexual partner but rather about what interested and excited me beyond that. I wondered if her sexual interests had changed as well. If so, neither of us seemed prepared yet to share these changes.

Rene was correct in remembering how in our early years together, both before and after we married, I become insanely jealous when I would see her at a party flirting with other men, even when she told me she did it mainly to arouse me for later when we could be alone. Sometimes she would tease me further by telling me how much she had enjoyed talking to a particular man. She knew that always took me to a high emotional level while we had sex, trying to reassert my exclusive claim on her. Maybe she interpreted that as insecurity on my part. I always viewed her flirting and teasing as not only for my benefit but also reflected her arousal when an attractive and desirable man found her attractive and desirable. I understood she needed for other men to want her, sexually. She seemed somewhat in denial about this.

What I could not tell her yet was how seeing her with other men was no longer a source of jealousy or threat to me, how now I found it intensely stimulating, especially if she was with someone attractive who I knew to be interesting or influential or young and fit. Sometimes I noticed men who seemed to stimulate her were my colleagues or clients--but I also saw she found a similar turn on often when she was flirting with young workmen we had hired on the farm. My changed reactions when I saw her in these situations had been influenced by my reading erotic stories about women, often married wives, having sex secretly with men who were not their husbands--and sometimes not so secretly with the approval of a husband who wanted to be told about it afterward or even to be allowed to watch. Now when I saw Rene speaking quietly but intensely with another man, I often felt an erection as I observed their interaction. Later, I inevitably pictured Rene having hungry sex with that man, raunchy and ribald behavior on her part. Often when we did make love my pleasure came mainly from envisioning her opening her legs for him, giving herself with a fervor she no longer demonstrates with me. Often recently after seeing her in an animated conversation with another man I imagined her on all fours having hot sex with him, then calling me over from my chair where I watched, asking me to lean over to kiss her while this other man enjoyed her greater gift. That had become a favorite fantasy.