In Absentia: Two Anniversaries

Jack had no response then and has said nothing since then about what I had done with Arthur Vickery, though I have asked him several times. I was disappointed in this lack of response, of him not sharing his feelings on what I had done--taken the lead on something sexual with another man.

As I thought further about Jack's reaction it occurred to me he probably was deeply embarrassed each time he saw Arthur Vickery, especially when they met in situations where Jack was required to exchange pleasantries with Arthur. After all, Arthur was involved in decisions impacting the careers of younger members of the firm. But Jack never mentioned any of his interactions with Arthur or any feelings about what I had done.

I had coffee several times with Arthur. After several months I learned he was involved with a woman closer to his age and then soon he told me he was engaged to her and was very happy.

Jack continued to work very hard. His billable hours increased as did his rate and our income. He appeared to be highly regarded in the firm, in fact the pick of the younger lawyers, on a fast track. I was often alone in my studio with my painting, and feeling lonely. Sex with Jack became less frequent, more hurried, less loving, unsatisfying for both of us. I wondered why his place in the firm seemed more and more important while our relationship and responding to my needs was diminishing in comparison. This could not continue.

*************************

Our Second Anniversary: A Gift Named Thomas

The same week the next June I attended the same picnic on the same lake. This year it was on a Saturday. Jack was away again for the firm, this time in Argentina. His excellent Spanish made him a logical choice; he felt he could not pass up the assignment. I caught a ride out with a young female lawyer who was putting in an appearance while her husband stayed home with their new baby. I saw Arthur Vickery with his new wife. I teased him. "Arthur, make sure you aren't away for your first anniversary." I'm not sure he appreciated my attempt at humor.

I was lonely again that day but, this year, more determined not to show it. During the late afternoon I danced with a half dozen men, several of them attractive young and single lawyers. All of them knew Jack and knew he was away. I had dressed in a light diaphanous summer dress certain, I felt, to provoke the male gaze and to please it. After several drinks I was enjoying flirting and teasing and feeling strong arms around me as we danced. I was beginning to feel very horny--and daring, maybe dangerous. This year, for my second anniversary, I was ready for something to happen.

The woman I rode with told me she needed to leave and I said I was sure I could catch a ride back to the city with someone else, I wanted to stay on. For a good while I was sitting at a table with an attractive young lawyer named Thomas Bremen, matching him through several gin and tonics. I had danced with him several times and he had held me very close and I could tell he liked me, the way I looked, the way I responded to him while we danced. It was near sunset. I told him I needed to be thinking about how to get home. His response was immediate, "Amber, I will be happy to drive you home. I would like to do that."

"Thomas, that's perfect, but would you mind if we stayed until the sun has set. I feel a bit tipsy and would like to sit awhile before I get in a car. " He was OK with that. Then I said to him," Thomas, I know the perfect place to sit to watch the sunset. There is a bench down that path with a perfect view. Why don't you come with me. I think you will enjoy what you can see from that bench. I know I will it enjoy it too."


So I led him down the path to the bench, the same one Arthur Vickery and I had sat on the year before, and Thomas and I sat down and were quiet together and watched the sun move lower on the horizon. It began to cool a bit and, perhaps with my very light dress in mind, he asked if I was chilly and put his arm loosely around my shoulder. "Not so much chilly as a bit sad and lonely today, Thomas. I like your arm around me. It's very comforting. Do you mind?"

"I like it." His arm tightened around me. He pulled me closer.

"I don't want you to feel sorry for me, Thomas. Its not your fault. But today is my second wedding anniversary, and right now I'm feeling somewhat abandoned. Jack and I have been struggling a bit."

"I'm sorry you are sad, Amber. What can I do?"

"Thomas, do you have a girlfriend, someone to be with tonight?"

"Lila is in Italy for three weeks, Amber. She is an adjunct in Art History at Case Western, leading an alumni tour in Tuscany. She couldn't afford not to do this for the department; she is hoping for a tenure track opportunity. She wanted me to go along but you know what it is like with the firm. Being away for several weeks is not to be done by someone as junior as I am."

"Yes, Thomas, I know how it is. Believe me."

We sat quietly for several minutes, his arm still around my shoulder, and I leaned further into him for warmth.

"Thomas, I don't want to shock you, but would you mind kissing me. I need to feel close to someone and I've been thinking for the last hour or more I really would like to feel your arms around me and to kiss you. I hope you don't find that entirely off putting."

"I would love to kiss you, Amber. And to have my arms around you. I'm sure you know how beautiful you are and how hard it would be for any man to resist an invitation to kiss you and hold you. I can't. "

So we began to kiss and Thomas held me still more tightly with both his arms around me and I knew he could feel my breasts against his chest as we kissed. Gradually, then suddenly, our kisses shifted from sweetness to hot and wet and openly sexual, my desire building and I hoped his as well. It was what I needed then. I moved one hand to his knee and then slowly up along his pant leg and I felt his hardness and for a few minutes I rubbed him gently through his pants. Our kisses became more passionate. And then I said to him, "Thomas, would you drive me home now?"

We were quiet on the drive to our apartment building and as we parked I asked him, hoping he would say yes, "Thomas, would you like to come in for something to drink? A young wife shouldn't be alone on her anniversary. Someone should be with her is what I am feeling right now."

"No, she shouldn't, Amber. You shouldn't be left alone. And I would like to come up."

So he came up on the elevator with me to our apartment. I was excited but nervous after our kisses, by his quick hardness under my touches. It was tempting to ask him to sit with me on the couch and resume our pleasure. But I resisted--for awhile. I fixed omelets for us and we opened a bottle of wine and relaxed together talking, flirting more directly, both of us feeling fortunate to be together, not alone. We began to kiss again. As earlier on the bench I started it, wanting something to happen on my anniversary, something sweet but already needing more than that too. I reminded myself except for the innocent interlude with Arthur Vickery a year ago, I had not been with another man, even for warm kisses and touches, for nearly five years, since shortly after Jack and I began. I sensed where things might go with Thomas unless I stopped them--and I admitted to myself I did not want to stop. As we paused I offered him another invitation. "Thomas, we have some really good weed in the other room. Would you like to try some of that with me?"

He smiled and nodded his head and I went into our bedroom and came back with a fat joint which we passed back and forth for some minutes. Not talking but communicating nevertheless. I knew we both felt it. Soon we were both floating on the same very high cloud. I leaned back on the couch and pulled Thomas toward me. We seemed to know then where we were going together--though feeling so mellow I was in no great rush to get there. And I soon learned he wasn't either. Quite the opposite.

I kissed his neck and around his ear. I wanted him to feel my mouth and my lips and my tongue and my warm breath, to register my growing hunger for him. By now our tongues were playing hot darting games and wrestling and then sucking too. I placed one of my hands on his arm and immediately felt the size of the bicep and then as I pressed more tightly I could feel the hardness. His obvious strength surprised me and it thrilled me too; Jack was strong but not like this. Touching Thomas made me realize how long it had been since my hands had explored another man's hard body.

I moved my hands across his chest, feeling there also the hard ripples of his abs. I began too unbutton his shirt, a couple of buttons at first, enough to allow my hand to slide inside and find his left nipple and graze it, then rub it with the flat of my hand, slowly back and forth, and to tweak it with my fingers. Then I moved to the other nipple and did the same. I could feel his response in his ever more demanding kisses. I thought to myself, I have never been with a man who was not turned on by my attention to his chest and his nipples; not one seemed able to resist that. I heard Thomas whispering. "So sweet, Amber. So sweet." Not a term Jack ever used with me.

I told myself I needed and deserved a warm and willing partner to offer relief to my aching loneliness and to my rising desire. And I knew this was more than that: it was the first time I admitted to myself I needed something beyond and different from what Jack had been giving me--emotionally and sexually. I was ready for unrestrained sex with another man and I needed it. Admitting this frightened me; I could not know where this would lead, what it might do to my marriage and to my sense of myself.

Feeling high together seemed to put Thomas in an even more generous and patient mood. Though he took his time, just what I wanted, clearly he knew how to tease and provoke and stimulate. I loved what he was offering and gave up any pretense of stopping. He took the lead. Each step, for me, was better than the last.

"Would you like my mouth on you, Amber?"

"I would like that, Thomas."

"Ask for it then, Amber. I want you to say out loud what you feel."

"I want your mouth, Thomas. I want you to taste me."

"Where, Amber?"

"On my pussy. Please, Thomas. I'm already very wet for you."

"To lick your, pussy? Do you want my tongue on you?"

"Yes."

"To find your clit?"

"Yes, Thomas."

"Ask for it, then."

"I want your tongue on my clit, Thomas."

No one, certainly not Jack, had ever played this kind of sexual word game with me as a way to build mutual desire. I had imagined this kind of frank intimacy but I knew it would not work with Jack now--and really never would have. With Thomas I found it very arousing and was torn between continuing this teasing talk and my urgent need for his mouth and tongue on my sex.

"To suck it Amber?"

"Yes."

"Ask for it."

"Suck my clit, please Thomas. Suck my clit. Eat my pussy Thomas. Is that what you want? To eat my pussy? To hear me ask for it?"

I was very warm and slick with anticipation. Thomas used his mouth and his tongue, going so slowly, more teasing, taking me higher and higher, step by step, responding to my words and then my sighs and moans. Not like Jack who would be unwilling, perhaps unable, to wait for me as long as I needed--or ever to keep doing me after my first orgasm. Thomas, knowingly and generously, would pause to ask me if I wanted him to keep going, putting my pleasure first, not leaving me in need, staying with me, staying for my first orgasm.

Then, after telling him I wanted more, he would begin again. Each time seemed better than the last, and after my second or third orgasm he began to use his fingers while his mouth was still on me, first one and then two fingers moving in me while he tongued my clit. Then, his thumb in my pussy, moving very slow.

He wanted to talk again. I was ready. New for me and I craved more of it.

"Amber, does this give you pleasure, with my thumb in you while I am tonguing your clit?"

"Its good, Thomas. All good. You must be tired. And how can you wait so long for your own satisfaction?"

"I want to be good to you on your anniversary. To give you a special anniversary gift, a surprise. I like being with you. I know it will be worth the wait. Amber, you can tell I like the dirty talk. It turns me on."

"I can tell, Thomas. I want to be good to you too. Whatever you need. My return gift."

He put his mouth on my cunt while he teased my ass with his finger, just soft pressure, testing my interest. It surprised me, something new, and I was ready for it. I moaned a bit as he slipped just the tip of a finger in me, probing, very softly, but then a regular in and out, a kind of slow finger-fucking my ass.

"How do you like that, Amber?"

"Its nice to feel your finger there, Thomas. This is new to me, only once with a boy in college before I was married. I don't think Jack would like this. You are being very patient with me, Thomas. But I like everything you are doing to me, for me--and talking with you too. You turn me on in new ways."

He moved his thumb to where his finger had been and gradually pushed the thumb in me, slowly going deeper, making me feel much fuller there. This was more than I recalled ever feeling in my ass. It made me wonder what it would feel like to have a sizable dick in me there.

"Amber, is that uncomfortable for you?"

"Just a bit, Thomas, but I am getting used to it. Don't stop it if you like it."

"Amber, I like thumb-fucking your ass. It will make me happy if you learn to enjoy it too. Do you mind me saying that?"

"No, if you like it, I want it too, for you, for being so nice to me, for giving me pleasure. Say whatever you want."

"Do you like it well enough to ask for it, Amber? That would excite me."

I wasn't sure which words to use but I wanted to respond to him. Finding myself in this situation with someone I was with for the first time spiked my sense of the erotic to perhaps the highest level ever and I wanted to stay there with him.

"Thomas, please fuck my ass with your thumb. Thumb-fuck me. I want your thumb while you suck my clit. Take pleasure from me as you give me pleasure." The combination, his mouth and his thumb, and my obvious enjoyment of them both, and my saying out loud what had been taboo words for me, and saying them for him to hear--and for me to hear myself saying them. It all just made me hotter and hotter. Wanting more. I kept repeating those nasty words, and that just took me higher and higher to a long, pulsating, climax.

As we slowed again I thanked him and we began to kiss again and let our hands roam, languidly, over each other. He was such a generous lover, just what I needed. It seemed this was the kind of sex I had always needed, never had. Finally I made the ask. "Thomas, would you come inside me now?"

"How would you like it, Amber?"

I asked him to let me ride him. Again he asked me to go slow so he would not lose control before I wanted him too. It was so nice looking down at his face with my hands on his chest. I rode his cock the way I wanted it for as long as I wanted and then to repay his patience finally I asked him to take me the way he wanted me. He asked me to let him come into me from behind and he told me how much he loved seeing him cock move in and out, coming all the way out and watching the head of his cock split my lips and slide all the way back in again, deep so I could feel the hair around his cock tickling my pussy and his thumb again pressuring my ass.

Finally, I said to him, "Enough Thomas. I need hard and fast fucking. That will be the best anniversary present I want from you. If you need to think about your girlfriend while you are pleasuring me, close you eyes and think of her. You have given me enough."

He took me the way he wanted and as I felt him shoot his cum in me for the first time, I heard him say, 'I wasn't thinking of my girlfriend, Amber.' Which added to my pleasure.

That's the way we were that first time together. I led him up to our bedroom and we went to sleep. We had sex twice more, once when I woke up several hours later, wanting him again. This time he took me in the missionary position with no touching more than that and we both were smiling as he filled me and he went vey slowly again to keep me with him for a long time and he came in me that way, though I did not. I pleased myself with my fingers after he went back to sleep. Then again early this morning when we both were awake we fucked again, mostly with me on top, but now less patient, less restrained, hot and hungry. We slept again.

After Thomas left I realized, a bit fearfully, that my feelings about him had begun to deepen and real affection began to grow--not love but also more than sex. Thomas had given me the anniversary present I needed. Gift giving was one way I began to think about our time together. We were lovers and friends, perhaps friends with regular benefits. Too soon to decide.

I already was wrestling with what to tell Jack. I knew I did not want to keep my night of pleasure a secret; I wanted Jack to understand, to feel not only my anniversary loneliness but also the growing distance between us, the loss of intimacy and mutual regard, and my strong feeling we could not continue as we have been. I could not live with loneliness and silence.

******

During that first night with Thomas I heard, but did not respond to, three phone calls. I knew they were from Jack, so very far away. Selfishly, spitefully, resentfully, all during that night I hoped he was lonely too, that his night had not been like mine, pleasurable, satisfying, intimate, revealing.

On Sunday afternoon, I sent a long message to Jack. I did not want to talk to him yet. I wanted him to read my words and to think hard about what they might imply for our future and to be prepared to talk honestly with me when he returned.

This is the message I sent: "Jack, I'm sorry I could not take your calls last night. I was occupied. I missed you yesterday and last night. But not as much as I had expected.

"Yesterday at the firm's annual get-together at the mansion on the lake, I spent some of the late afternoon with a handsome young lawyer from your firm. I'm sure you know him but just now I won't recall his name. At the end of the party I needed a ride home and he offered to do that for me. I had had a few drinks and when we arrived at our apartment building I asked him to come up for a glass of champagne to help me celebrate our second anniversary. I liked him a lot. We were in the same mood. His girlfriend was away for several weeks so we were feeling a similar loneliness-- and need.

We never did get to the champagne I had bought for our anniversary. I'll keep it for when you are home. I fixed him an omelet and we drank white wine and then I invited him to share a joint of that good grass you found for us, and we did that together on the couch in our study. That really put me in a much better place just as it did when you and I smoked it together. Do you remember that night a few weeks ago? And he and I got very high together. We were feeling very laid back, very simpatico, just getting to know one another. We began to kiss and touch, and then we did more. He was very good to me Jack on a night I needed someone. Just for last night, my anniversary, he gave me everything I asked for and with such sweetness and patience--and I did the same for him, Jack. We satisfied one another, and more than once, more than twice. I will enjoy thinking about the things we did for one another, enjoy remembering them, and I will tell you about them all, if you wish, when you get home--and about whatever happens tonight when I will see him again. Don't call tonight, Jack. Please.