Marriage Pulled Back from the Abyss

"I was apprehensive like you were, but I wanted to please you. I wanted you to be happy," I said.

"Jeffrey, it was to make the US happy and more sexually aware! It wasn't just about me. And all the times we talked about it... oh fuck, baby, our love-making was so intense. Every time I told you a cuckold story, your cock got so hard, and you fucked me like an animal! Weren't you excited at all watching me?" She now looked like a sad little girl, waiting for an answer. To Kay, it was all so black-and-white, which mirrored Marissa's view.

I grabbed her hands, but she jerked them away and shook her head. "Don't distract me, Jeffrey."

I looked into her eyes and said, "None of the good, sexy, fantasy emotions and sensations were there while I watched." I rubbed my chin in thought and continued, "Kay, it was like an out-of-body feeling. My brain was screaming, 'This shit's real!' I knew that after he penetrated you, that you and I... hell, that WE, would never be the same!"

Her eyes softened. She patted my hand and held it, "Honey, nothing was going to change. It was just sex. It was like using a dildo or a vibrator on myself. You're not jealous of them, are you?"

'Da fuuuuuck?' I thought. "Kay, your dildos and vibrators are inanimate objects, totally controlled by you. They cannot be intimate with you the way Don was. I mean, the passion, the kissing, the caressing were real, and you felt it and reacted. You touched him just like you do me! The intimacy, the human interaction, and the connection were real. A sex toy can't connect with you on that level."

I took a deep breath and went on, "In our mind's eye, fantasy exists in a world where nothing bad happens. Yes, we can simulate and feel things in our role-play. We can even imagine and enjoy bad things, but they never have consequences. With our two vibrant, creative imaginations, we can safely role-play all kinds of forbidden things. However, when it's strange flesh and blood, controlled by a conscious, unique human mind, the enormity of the shared intimacy is overwhelming!"

Kay exhaled loudly and said, "Honey, you overthink things too much. Your great mind is your greatest treasure, and it's one of the things I so love about you, but you can't let it control you." She shook her head sadly. "Fucking Don wasn't going to make me love you less or respect you less or be any different with you than before. It was fantasy with real characters, like a stage play or a movie, and you were a full, willing participant."

"Kay, darling. I understand intellectually that the physical actions of what was happening might have been nothing but biology-101, Sex-Ed, or performance art. I understand porn actors do this all the time. That's them. I can't accept the idea that another man fucks my wife, makes intimate connections with her, and nothing in us changes. On the physical and psychological levels, our bodies even create chemicals that bond us when we're intimate with someone."

"Bonding? With Don? Jeffrey, it's not like I was going on a three-day weekend with him. Maybe fuck him a couple of times, blow him and have him eat me, with you watching and enjoying. Then, you and I have wild sex all night until 1:00 pm checkout time tomorrow. Then we'd take up again at the house! Fucking. That's all it was." Kay was getting pissed. "You over-reacted, damnit. Then, you got violent with Don! I wouldn't be surprised if he files assault charges on you!"

I was shocked, but I bit my tongue, literally. I thought, 'Cooldown mode. Deeeep breath'. "Kay, didn't you see him smirk when he came in?"

"Oh, Honey. He's just an arrogant prick. Literally. You are so very comfortable in your own skin, more so than any man I've ever known. Why would...?"

"You have no idea how difficult seeing this was." I cut her off. "Yes, I tried hard to let it happen. And back to me getting violent with Don, did you hear him threaten me? Call me names? He was playing this alpha-male bullshit on me! He sounded like he had some kind of right to my wife based, I guess, on your few minutes of foreplay with him!"

Kay slapped her knees in frustration and sprang off the couch. She walked to the mantel and rested her head against it, ironically just below our wedding photo. She let out a loud sigh, staring down absently at the hearth. Kay said, "So, you let a pissed-off guy, who'd been making out with a woman when her husband puked all over his legs, get you that upset? Jeffrey, I just don't get you!"

"Kay, he threatened me if I didn't leave; he insulted me, called me a cuckold. Said he'd fuck you after you ditched me! Wasn't that the other rule we'd agreed to, besides the condoms? No humiliation? Wasn't Don supposed to be a human sex toy for your fun and pleasure?"

She turned around, shaking her head slowly, hands behind her, in full pedantic teacher mode. "I still think you over-reacted. The ever-fragile male ego rose up. I think you made too much out of this." She took a deep breath and added, "I love you, Jeffrey. You're my best friend, my life partner, the guy whose children I will have. Don was just a phallus with a life-support system."

I nodded. "Like a guy in a coma with a hard-on?"

Kay smiled, "Yeah, kind of. Same idea, though! I think we just had a break-through!"

To illustrate the absurdity of her so-called reasoning and logic, I exclaimed, "Yes! I can do this now, Kay! Just get another guy, maybe a fetishist, and let's wrap him up in plastic wrap, with only his hard cock sticking out. Encasement, I think it's called. We can give him earplugs, a blindfold and make him like the coma-guy. You come in, ride him to a couple of quick ones, maybe sit on his face and then blow him, and then we roll him out and have mind-blowing sex all night!" Kay's jaw hit the floor, and I was on a roll. "Damn, baby! Problem solved! Gimme a high five!" I rose and extended my hand.

Kay stood there flushed with rage. Her eyes teared up again, and then her face collapsed into a crimson, twisted mask. Without warning, my wife slapped me hard twice, once with each hand. "I fucking hate you right now!"

My face burned from the slap, and my heart, still aching from the deep hurt which had begun earlier at the Hyatt Regency, was now breaking. My face was as red as Kay's, who stared at me with a mixture of horror and... fear.

Kay drew her hands to her mouth, her tears now streaming. "Je-Jeffrey... I can't... I". She stepped back in horror. "I'm so... so... sorry. I don't... I lost... was pissed... Ohhhh...".

I responded in a low, flat voice, devoid of the tremendous emotional tsunami rolling through me. "Kay, you know I'd never lift a hand against you. Only a real piece of shit would ever hit a woman. I love you more than my own life. What you did just now hurts worse than a bullet, and it's not physical pain I'm talking about. So, please, if you ever get that angry again, just use a fucking gun." I didn't realize I was crying until I tasted salt. I counted to five, waiting for her to make a conciliatory move, but she just sat down on the hearth and wept, her head on her knees.

In that flat, dead voice I recognized as mine, only because I felt my vocal cords vibrate, I added, "I think I'll sleep in the guest room tonight. In the morning, I probably need to pack my shit and leave. For a while, anyway." I thought, 'It's your move, Kay. You can stop this.' All I heard was her crying.

I got some workout shorts from the laundry room to sleep in and made up the guest room bed. I heard Kay next door in the bathroom showering. Then, about a half-hour later, I heard her crying. I wanted to go to her, but I didn't even know who she was right then. The whole nightmare repeatedly played in my brain, and I struggled to understand and find some peace. Fitful, troubled, sleep finally came around dawn.

--

The smell of coffee entered my consciousness before I physically awoke. I felt Kay sit on the bed, and when I opened my eyes, there she was with two cups of coffee on a tray. "Morning, Jeffrey. I want to apologize for hitting you, and I know you'll say, 'It's okay, baby,' but it's not. Never will be. I'm sorry, and it will never happen again." She tenderly touched my cheek, closely examining me and frowning. She gasped and said, "Oh no! Jeffrey. I bruised you!" Her sad look broke my heart.

I lay my hand over hers and nuzzled her palm with my sore cheek. "It's okay, baby. I pushed your buttons pretty awful."

Kay bent close and kissed my forehead. After a few seconds, she said, "Here's a big mug of strong coffee. I didn't sleep much, and I'm sure you didn't either." I nodded my head.

I sat beside her on the bed and said, "Thanks for the coffee." I took a sip. "Where to now? For the first time in five years of marriage, we went to bed angry. I'm sorry for my part in that."

Kay said, "Yes, the sadness of that made me cry."

Together, we simultaneously said, "I should've come to you!" We both laughed, mostly a nervous laugh, but it felt sincere. The tension eased some Then, the doorbell rang, and Kay rushed out of the room, muttering something that began and ended with an expletive.

I heard the voice. The words were indistinct, but the tone, the word delivery, and inflection confirmed it was Marissa. Kay must've guessed and probably wasn't too happy. I washed my face, combed my hair, and went down to the family room, taking care not to spill our cups of coffee.

Kay was returning from the kitchen with two more mugs of coffee for Marissa, and... as the whole family room came into view, I saw it was her husband, Rodger. Yes, I was relieved. I'd seen the two cups from the stairs before I saw who arrived with the older woman, and my adrenaline surged as I'd half-expected to see Don. That was something I'd never put past Marissa doing.

Instead, there was Rodger, a willing, loving, cuckold husband, if Marissa was to be believed. The man looked pretty ordinary, except there was something about him. Docile? Overly-attentive? He dressed in expensive khaki pants, a polo shirt from a local top-tier golf club, and expensive Italian casual loafers. But I noticed a stiff, unnatural bulge in his pants that puzzled me.

Marissa introduced us, and I sat beside Kay on the sofa; she thanked me for bringing her coffee from upstairs. Marissa and Rodger sat in the comfortable chairs flanking the fireplace, each facing us at an angle.

Marissa came right to the point, her alpha-bitch flag flying from her mainmast. "Jeffrey, you are lucky I persuaded Don not to file assault charges on you. He says he is painfully sore this morning. I think you need to call him and apologize and thank him for not calling the authorities."

I looked at Kay, who had a bit of deer-in-the-headlights look. Clearly, Marissa intimidated my sweet wife. Rodger sat attentive but as aware as a houseplant; he appeared to be merely an extension of his wife's will. Marissa was looking at me with haughty, scarcely-disguised contempt.

"Well, Jeffrey?" she spat. "Can't you think of anything smart to say?"

Seizing full control of my voice and emotions, I said simply, "Don threatened me with physical violence if I wasn't out of the hotel room when he finished his shower. Being a bigger man, and presumably a 'proper man'..." I looked at Rodger, whose eyes faintly widened, "I took that threat seriously and ended it before he could attack me. I'm sure my wife heard the same thing. He wasn't using his smooth-talking, panty-melting, inside voice at the time."

Marissa said, "Well, Kay is pretty upset with you, so if Don does have you arrested, don't look for her to give a shit." She looked at my wife and asked, "Right, Kay?"

My wife was taken back and responded, "While I think Jeffrey might've reacted a bit harshly, Don was a total jerk, and he did threaten my husband. Twice." There was a touch of pride in the way she said, 'my husband'!

Marissa didn't look happy. She pivoted and attacked me anew. "Imagine a man is engaged in passionate foreplay with a beautiful woman, with her willing-participant of a husband watching. Then, without warning, that weak-kneed husband vomits all over him. Doesn't that man have a right to be pissed? In fact, I think Don showed admirable restraint!"

"Listen, Marissa," I said, "What happened to me could've happened to any normal man when he saw the enormity of what was about to happen! I'll admit that it wasn't one of my golden, shining moments, but the moment I acquiesced to my wife's desire to fuck another man to [air quotes] 'spice up our sex life' and to [air quotes] 'make our marriage better' was by far the sorriest moment of my life."

The older woman said derisively, "Oh, Jeff-reeey! It's all about you, isn't it? My Rodger isn't like that. He loves me enough to allow me sex with other men, and we have a fantastic marriage. Yes, Rodger loves me enough to let me bring variety and excitement into our marriage! Our sex life is wonderful, isn't Rodger?" He smiled and blew her a kiss, which she smilingly caught and patted onto her cheek. She added, "It takes real, unselfish love to let your wife go to another man and have her return. Then, she shares the incredible high you've so lovingly given her!" Rodger nodded.

Kay just sat there, maybe a little dazed. The lightbulbs were going off in my head. I suddenly understood my wife ate up every scrap of this mumbo-jumbo, new-age, male-bovine scatological waste product that came out of Marissa's lovely pie hole.

I now unfurled my battle ensigns, lit all the boilers, wired-down the safety valves, and attacked. Looking at my wife, then at Rodger, and finally, at Marissa, I said. "Two things Marissa. Don't ever question the depth of my love for my wife because my love is absolutely unconditional. Second, let's do talk about my disconnect with all this lifestyle notion. Okay?"

They nodded. Marissa crossed her legs and flashed me a shot of her shaved cunt, just under the hem of her short skirt. In her probing, ice-blue eyes, I saw a flicker of what might be a challenge, a tacit 'Eff-you.'

I continued, "The crux of the issue with so-called 'loving cuckolding' is how we perceive the experience. Kay says it is just meaningless sex. Nothing but a zipless, nothing fuck. That's reasonable to her. After all, she is in full control of how she will think, feel and react because her husband has given his approval. She takes risk-free control only because the husband assumes all the risk by agreeing to allow it.

"Her husband will both watch and participate by enabling and approving her fantasy as it's turned into reality. He is the chief enabler, and she gets a free pass from guilt and worry. Moreover, when her date leaves, her husband will be the beneficiary of a woman in a heightened state of sexual arousal, at which point they will have wild, unrestrained sex. She gets to have two cakes and eat them both, without consequences. He, or me in this specific case, bears the whole burden. This is how it's supposed to work, right?"

Marissa nodded and said, "It's deeper than that, but basically, you're right. You will eventually evolve and lose your harmful insecurities, your toxic masculinity and subordinate your ego, just as Rodger did." That sent a shudder through me.

I carefully chose my words. "On the other hand, I see this shifting of control with a huge difference. In my case, I'm relinquishing control by permitting my wife to have intimate emotional and sexual relations with another man. My actions will create and reinforce a perception and attitude in my wife and her lover, which they associate with weakness and timidity. That dynamic will exist in every man who fucks my wife in this 'lifestyle' and will slowly consume my wife.

"My wife will also cross a similar threshold by joining him, albeit with my permission, in this emotional and physical subordination of me. She will eventually adopt that view as this process becomes 'normal' and a defining part of our marriage. Deny it all you want, but your view dismisses the whole emotional and psychological impact on all involved. I see Don as a poster child of this madness, who has been conditioned by his exposure it."

Marissa started to speak, and I cut her off with a raised hand; her eyes flared in anger. I continued, "Specifically, I am a natural pleaser. It is just who I am, and my nature is more amative than anything else, which opens me up to having my good nature either abused or treasured. I know I have a deep-seated need to please people to feel accepted. That's my cross to bear, and occasionally, people do take advantage of me. I also think it makes me attentive to Kay, especially in bed. Especially orally." I looked at her, and she nodded with a sly smile that said a lot. "Some people can mistakenly see that as weak and submissive."

"Now, here's the sticky part. Like many pleasers, I want to agree to almost anything my wife would want in order to please her. Seeing Kay take pleasure is a huge turn-on for me. Unfortunately, in this case, that 'doing this for her' was letting Kay fuck others. That turns my desire to please her against me. And the insidious, filthy part - I'll wager she got this from you, Marissa - is Kay's use of that cold, calculating phrase, 'If you love me, you'll do this!' Tying love conditionally to something potentially destructive is sick and abusive!"

Marissa looked at Kay and spat angrily, "You put up with this idiotic, insecurity bullshit? I'd give him the choice of watching me fuck Don or waiting for me to get home from my date and then hear all about it."

Marissa turned her abuse on me. "You are such a submissive pussy, just like Rodger. You say you're easy-going and laid-back, but truthfully, you're just fucking timid and insecure." She shouted, "You'd love it if you just let yourself go! I saw you look up my skirt, and the look on your face was priceless when you saw my cunt. Give me an hour with your husband, Kay, and I'll have him eating my cunt and jerking off on my high heels, licking it up and thanking me for it!" 'The mask just fell off the creature,' I thought with relief.

Kay's eyes went wide. She looked from me to Marissa and back. I'm a good judge of people. I saw a way forward, but it was risky as hell if Marissa happened to agree. However, I was counting on her fucked-up controlling personality to save the day. I thought, 'To hell with it; put it all of it on one roll of the dice!'

I responded, "All right, Marissa. It's just sex, right? What if I decide to fuck someone? Do I get a pass? Do I, Kay? Can I fuck Marissa? Other guys do, and it's not like we're sneaking around behind Rodger's back. In fact, why don't we swap partners, fuck for a couple of hours, and then eat cheeseburgers at Ray's Smoke House? Is that good for you two?"

Marissa's lips curled, and the tall woman looked at me like I was a bug. "You just don't get it. This is about sharing your wife. It's not an open marriage or swapping. This is about female control, which is scientifically proven to be better for marriage tranquility. The upside for you men is that you come along for the exciting ride as a loving partner."

I ignored Marissa and turned to Kay. "What if I asked you for permission to fuck other women? We could trade out every other Friday. Week 1, you cuckold me. Week 2, I cuckold you. We'd have a great time, and we could regale each other with these splendid, erotic tales of how our partners could fuck us so much better than our pedestrian little hubby or wifey! We could even pick-up pointers to use in our new, hotter, better sex life! I might sign on for that. Kay? How 'bout it?"

Marissa started to speak, and I said, "Hush! My wife needs to give me an answer." The bitch's mouth hung open.

Barely audible, Kay said, "No. Huh-uh. That's... not the way this works."

Marissa said, "There you have it."