Marilyn was My Wife's First

Authors note - All sexual references are reserved for characters over the age of 18. The main characters are all parents, and children are incorporated necessarily as part of the storyline. The protagonist involves a life changing diagnosis, and how the 3 main characters react over time. Certain medication and treatment details have been intentionally obscured. Anyone unfortunate enough to understand will find the hidden easter eggs quickly.

Motivation for the story is to bring greater attention to the complex quality of life challenges faced by patients, survivors and families impacted in the prime of life by sexually sensitive cancers. When the alternative is continued illness or death, it is incredible what some are asked to give up in the hopes of eventually returning to a more normal life. This story is 100% fiction, and was written primarily for entertainment purposes, despite the distressed inspiration.

"In order to try and save your life, we have to ruin it first." - Anonymous oncologist

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It's 6:30 AM on a cool September morning. I'm standing in my kitchen, but not standing still. The coffee is brewing, and the house is a hive of activity for me and my 2 young boys. Andy jr., 6, just started first grade and his younger brother Harry, 4, is in his final year of preschool. My husband Andy Collins, 45, is off to work already in his role as owner of a successful independent business focused on residential home services - heating, air conditioning and plumbing. I'm Marilyn, 35, mom to these two active boys and wife to Andy.

Trophy wife, really. Ok, a MILF? Definitely. Classic second wife also. Andy had a brief marriage before he met me, but more about that later. Spoiled wife? Well, I guess I can admit to that too. Andy and I have been happily married for over 10 years. I've lived my best life as a stay at home mom ever since Andy jr. came on the scene. I love this time in our lives, watching the boys grow. Especially now that they aren't in diapers anymore. Andy's growing business affords us all an envious, privileged lifestyle - something neither of us were accustomed to for most of our lives. Now that the boys are in school, I have at least half my day free to focus on me - working out, shopping, keeping my 5'6" 125 lb athletic body beautiful and full of sex appeal.

I set a bowl of cereal in front of Andy jr. and slice a toaster waffle for Harry.

"Come on boys, keep eating - you're going to miss the bus."

I buzz around the kitchen cleaning up and preparing lunches for the boys. The queasiness in my stomach from yesterday morning is returning. I nibble on a bagel and take a small sip of coffee in hopes things settle down. Maybe a minute sitting in a chair will help, but actually it just highlights the stress I am feeling as we all fall a little further behind in our morning routine.

"Boys - upstairs to get dressed. Faster!"

I drag myself from the kitchen towards their rooms to supervise progress. The top of the stairs delivers no respite from my now intense nausea. Instead of turning right to head into the boys rooms, I abruptly turned left into the kids bathroom, slamming the door behind me.

I am overwhelmed in a cold sweat Almost immediately, the few nibbles of bagel and coffee consumed moments earlier go heaving into the toilet. I guess I could manage it if this wasn't happening for the third consecutive morning this week. The feeling is all too familiar, I guess it's happened to me two times before, with Andy jr. and Harry.

"Oh Shit" I said out loud, covering my mouth and hoping the boys didn't hear. Oh Shit is right.

I rinsed my mouth out in the sink and prepared to hustle the kids out to the bus. My head was spinning with all the implications that I couldn't deny to myself anymore. One thing is for sure - Andy is going to kill me when he finds out. I can't ever let him discover that I am pregnant.

I mean how can this actually be happening? Especially given Andy's condition. I knew the risks all along. And now, I feel like such a fool.

Nine Months Earlier

Saturday, early December. A day where Andy and the boys are home together. They are out in the yard, cleaning up, raking leaves, mostly just making a mess of themselves. Andy is using a leaf blower to create a giant pile of leaves, the boys are entertaining themselves by jumping headfirst into the pile. I am busy preparing our lunch of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.

"Lunch is ready - come inside." I shout from the kitchen window into the backyard.

The boys appear in the kitchen. Andy knows better, holding behind to remove his shoes, socks and any other pieces of clothes that are covered in the leaves and detritus of the backyard. Unfortunately he failed to hold back the boys, who now have tracked the outside mess inside.

"Back to the garage. Take off your shoes. Brush off your clothes!" The edge in my voice quickly conveys my seriousness.

Andy and the boys reappear and lunch resumes. For me though, the damage is done. My lunch is getting cold while I stop to clean up the mess left behind on the kitchen floor.

"Stop and eat your lunch honey. I will clean up our mess later."

I ignore him. Andy's carelessness letting the boys charge inside without removing their coats and shoes infuriates me. I am super pissed, and the silence around the table means everyone knows. As lunch concludes, Andy comes behind to offer a hug and I sharply rebuff him.

"Marilyn, what's gotten you so upset?"

The fact he doesn't understand already simply adds to my irritation. I dismiss his question and suggest he go outside without the boys to finish the yard chores. Or, I would call the landscaper on Monday and have him do it - what I expected we were going to do anyway.

It's a shame I am so pissed off now. Realistically, it's my fault. I have mood swings. The kitchen situation just set me off. And I wish it hadn't, because it sours the mood for our anniversary dinner tonight. 10 years! This was our opportunity for an intimate reconnection. We already hired a babysitter. Now, we are going to waste tonight's romantic dinner resolving this afternoon's tension instead of setting the mood to celebrate our marital milestone.

The sitter arrives at 6. My ice is thawing somewhat as Andy drives us to dinner, I reach over and slide my hand across his leg and give him a little seductive smile. I'm once again looking forward to opening a bottle of wine and enjoying an intimate dinner together. We take our seats and the waiter pours the wine. Cabernet. Worthy of a special occasion. We toast to the next 10 years and savor our first sip.

"I'm sorry I lost control of my emotions today, Andy. I shouldn't have taken my frustration out on you."

"I don't want to talk about that anymore." He smiles, and reaches across the table to take my hand. "I want to talk about how we recognize this milestone properly. With a couples vacation. Or, jewelry. How do I show you a token of affection and how happy I am to have you as my wife."

I sigh, and take a heavy sip of the wine for liquid courage. "Andy, if you really want to show me how much you love me, you'll go ahead and schedule your vasectomy."

Andy's eyes narrowed. We've been over this ground before. "I thought we agreed our family remains...incomplete? Neither one of us was ready to do something irreversible."

This was an opportunity to say something thoughtful. Instead, I blurted out "You just turned 45. We already have 2 boys. I'm all good."

Whatever I was thinking, should have stopped there. Instead I felt compelled to pile on. "Birth control was fine when we first were married. Now, 2 pregnancies, breast feeding, on hormones again and then off again, I'm older. Shit, I don't know. I just can't tolerate it anymore. I despise the way it makes me feel some days. I need to come off of these damn hormone manipulators once and for all."

There was some awkward small talk. The waiter appeared to take our dinner order. Andy changed the subject away from family planning. He was ready to move on, and our dinner continued uneventfully. We returned home and after paying the babysitter, Andy carried me up the stairs in his arms. Our love making was intense as it always was, with Andy standing and authoritatively taking me from behind, just like our first time. My orgasm was automatic and reflexive, he was so strong and so dominant in the bedroom, really as he was in every room. Just once it would be nice to slow down and explore each other's bodies for a while as lovers. Maybe sometime before our 20th anniversary?

The First and Second Wife Club

A 10 year age gap exists in our relationship. Enough to be non-trivial, but not enough to make it super relevant. More than enough time however, for Andy to have been married and divorced before he ever met me.

Andy and his first wife Angie were college sweethearts. They dated exclusively in their freshman and sophomore years. For reasons never fully explained to me, they broke up abruptly the summer before their junior year. I believe it was due to an episode of infidelity on one or both sides, but Andy never seemed comfortable discussing the details, even though it happened more than a decade before we met. Whatever it was, it still bothered him years later.

They dated independently for their junior year, and quickly Angie found a new steady boyfriend, Brandon Templeton. Both Brandon and Andy traveled in similar social circles - they knew of each other, but were never close. Certainly they weren't getting any closer now.

As spring semester kicked off, there was a house party off campus attended by Brandon, Angie, Andy and dozens more students. The PDA between Brandon and Angie during the party was intense - almost as if she was putting on a show to intentionally taunt her ex. She was obviously drunk, high, or both. Eventually, seeing enough Andy decided to make an early exit, and on his way to the door observed Brandon, Angie and two unfamiliar men moving awkwardly upstairs towards the bedrooms. Something about this made Andy uncomfortable and he lingered downstairs for a while contemplating what, if anything to do.

Ultimately, Andy felt compelled to head upstairs to see what was going down. Looking through the open bedroom door, Brandon was on top of Angie, her legs were spread apart, he was clearly fucking her. The 2 men Andy didn't recognize were standing off to the side with their pants dropped to their ankles, stroking their erections, waiting their turn. Angie's eyes were closed, and she appeared to be mostly unconscious. Brandon made his grunt, and then abruptly stood up.

Andy decided he didn't need to wait for any encore. He stormed through the door, grabbed an unsuspecting Brandon by the back of the neck, spun him around, and savagely punched the center of his face. Blood splattered everywhere. The two men off to the side apparently got the message, and by the time Andy was preparing to deal with them, they were gone. Brandon was knocked out unconscious. So was Angie.

This wasn't one of those times to stand around and wait to see what happens next. Andy made his own hasty exit. Next on the scene was the police. The party was over, and the cops were tending first to Brandon. As soon as he came around their attention shifted to Angie. Brandon recognized the bad look. He wasn't even sure who hit him. Angie wasn't sure where she was. Eventually, the tension passed with no arrests made or charges filed - they had arrived at the party as a couple after all.

Obviously, people talk. Angie was at first embarrassed, then incensed. She abruptly ended her relationship with Brandon. Angie claimed she never consented to group sex, or sex of any kind at the party. Brandon was supposed to protect her, and instead set her up for a gangbang. As the days progressed, witnesses appeared to suggest it was her ex Andy that intervened to break up what was retrospectively being acknowledged as a rape scene.

Angie sought Andy out at first to clear the air, and then to thank him. Her relationship with Andy was long over on the day of the party, and she had been intimate with Brandon several times prior, consensually. She didn't hide that from Andy, and felt no reason to. But Angie flatly proclaimed she hadn't consented to be drugged or shared. Angie gave Andy a huge lingering hug and thanked him for stepping up to defend her when her supposed new boyfriend and lover sold her out.

It didn't happen right away, but by the start of senior year Angie and Andy became a couple again. Andy wasn't letting her get away this time, and asked her to marry him over holiday break. She accepted the proposal and they enjoyed a quiet wedding the fall after graduation.

The couple found post graduation employment together at a local TV, radio, and media conglomerate. Andy was in advertising sales and Angie worked in client relations. Both were customer facing positions and a lot of time was spent out of the office. The role suited Andy's confident and bombastic personality. He was built for outside advertising sales. Very quickly their combined household income exceeded $100,000 USD. and they had the lifestyle as young professionals to show for it.

Three years passed quickly. Career pressures meant neither Angie nor Andy were spending as much time together as either liked. They managed to reconnect most weekends. Weeknight intimacy was increasingly rare. Part of Angie's job as an attractive, young account manager involved entertaining long term established customers. Happy hours and bar times, paid by the company and often extending late into the evening, were routine. One night, Andy stopped by a familiar establishment well past happy hour hoping to see if Angie was still around. Unfortunately, she was. Except when he spotted her, she was at the end of the bar making out with her ex-boyfriend Brandon.

Again, Andy didn't hesitate. At 6'3", 235lb Andy was an imposing fighter - even more so when catching another man with hands on his wife. Andy grabbed Brandon by his head and shoulders and began beating him viciously. The police were called and arrived within seconds. This time, Andy spent the night in jail. Unfortunately for Brandon and especially unfortunate for Andy, Brandon was seriously hurt - spending days in the hospital and months in rehabilitation. Despite her marital circumstances, and her partial drunkenness at the time, Angie awkwardly acknowledged to the police she was kissing Brandon consensually. Without any obvious alternative, the authorities charged Andy with felonious assault. Andy's attorney suggested due to overwhelming evidence and witness testimony - including that of his wife, that he accept a plea deal with the district attorney before the judge could convict him and impose a prison sentence of as long as 10 years. The assault charge was reduced to a misdemeanor, and Andy pleaded guilty to the reduced charge. Despite the plea, Andy still faced jail time and was sentenced to 12 months in prison with 6 months suspended.

After his release, Andy's world had entirely changed. He was fired from his media sales job. Angie was divorcing him, they had married too young, she didn't want to stay married to someone so violent and controlling - and now with a prison record. With no wife, no job and no place to live, Andy needed a fresh start. He took the first and only job he could get, working as an install crew member for an old high school friend with a small heating and air conditioning business.

The work turned out to be a lifeline for Andy. Soon he wasn't installing air conditioners, he was selling customers their new systems. His sales talent transcended the business and before long, it had grown to a dozen employees. The high school buddy that brought him in suggested Andy buy him out - his wife had been transferred for her job across the country and he wanted the capital to restart his own business there. Andy didn't hesitate and quickly wrapped his hands around the operation as the sole owner of the company.

Andy's bombastic, bigger than life personality was tailor made for the home service business. He was first in the office, usually at 5 or 6 AM. Restocking service vans, dispatching technicians. Andy's business became his new mistress. He made a point never to date the girls from the office, and the endless stream of work and things to do made it easy to forget about his painful divorce.

I had just graduated college and at 22 was ready for my first job. I answered a craigslist ad for office accounting help and that became the day I met the man who would eventually become my first husband. It was June, peak season for home services and I was hired and put to work the same day. The learning curve was exhausting and the days were long. We started early, scheduling repairs, replacements and installations. In that era, everything was a time consuming, manual process. In time I progressed to managing the girls answering the phones, scheduling crews and many of the executive accounting functions which is what I went to school for. All things critical to the profitable operation of the business.

Andy was a constant presence in the office and the field. He was never unavailable to anyone. Fortunately for me, most of the women were either married already or in committed relationships of one kind or another. Andy never made eyes at anybody. At the time, I didn't know he was divorced or any of the details on how his first marriage ended. I would have never suspected he was an ex-con.

After working for an entire year, one evening I found myself alone in the office with Andy as we attempted to close the books on the prior accounting month. Almost unconsciously I began gently rubbing his back as he was engrossed in a spreadsheet. He made no acknowledgement of my advance. Over the next several days I started to get bolder, changing how I dressed in the office and making attempts to flirt when no one was around. About a month after my campaign for affection started, Andy closed the door to his office and decided to take a stand on my behavior.

The lecture was brief and to the point. He asked me to dial it back. It was so charming, he went out of his way to tell me he found me attractive but he didn't believe in office romance. Going for broke, I pulled off my shirt, tossed it in his arms and asked him if he was fully convicted in his beliefs. To my complete shock, he spun me around, pulled down my shorts and panties in one stroke and whispered "Marilyn, now is your last chance to turn around and walk out of my office before finding out."

"But what if I don't want to?" I turned, looked at him with my bedroom eyes and seductively bit my lip.

It was on. Andy dropped his own pants, bent me forward over the desk and took me sexually with authority - the same way he tackled everything in the office. He hadn't penetrated me more than 3 minutes before I shuddered through the most violent climax of my life. He quickly followed.

I didn't want an episodic romance with Andy. I wanted a relationship. That was going to take time. Andy had erected walls around himself due to the scars from Angie. We began dating outside of the office. It was a slow progression, but after 6 months we became more or less inseparable in the office and out. He refused to acknowledge our relationship to the staff, but it was an open secret we were dating. After a year, my apartment lease was expiring and my roommate was getting married, so we weren't going to renew. I had to find a place to live and convinced Andy to let me move in with him. From that point forward, we were finally an official couple.

It took a full year of living together before Andy was ready to propose. He was 35 and I was about to turn 25. It was time for us to settle down.

The next 4 years were all about the business. Sure, we were newlyweds too - we made love every night, but Andy wasn't ever going to be a sensual lover. That wasn't his style. He thinks fast, acts fast and mates...fast. We may have been husband and wife, partners in every sense, but the business remained his one true love. There was little time for cuddles and emotions after sex when the alarm clock was set to ring at 4:30 AM every morning.