Menage a Trois

This is the first in a series of stories concerning changes in a couple's sex life resulting from the great recession. It's not all bad, but they do have to broaden their outlook.

*

Back in the Great Recession, or whatever the correct term is to describe 2008's Wall Street cluster fuck, like a good deal of other innocent bystanders, I found myself without work and with no realistic prospect of finding any work.

Fortunately I had a wife—a tall, blonde, sexy wife who worked in a more or less bulletproof job on Wall Street. When the shit hits the fan, they don't fire the auditors. They just work them harder.

And even more fortunately, she had a cousin who owned a bookstore called the "Black Cat" in Greenwich Village. I never did find out why it was named the Black Cat. Unlike many bookstores, it didn't have a cat. Rachel is allergic to cats.

Okay, you say. You can see why it was fortunate that I had a wife with a recession -proof job, but what was so good about a shirttail relative who owned a hole-in-the-wall bookstore in the Village?

I'll tell you. First, Cousin Rachel and my wife, Sandy, convinced me that I should go to work for Rachel instead of just lying around our midtown apartment feeling sorry for myself. It was only a twenty –hour-a-week job at minimum wage, but it got me out of the house, and working for Rachel was always entertaining. My God that woman had a dirty mind. I didn't think she was coming on to me, mind you—well, not at first. But working with her was like hanging around a frat boys' locker room. The woman was a magnet for dirty jokes and she loved to share them. Furthermore she was really funny. Some people can tell a joke and just ruin it every time. The whole room just goes silent when they try. Not Rachel. She had the touch—timing I guess. The woman was funny.

Later I learned that Rachel is one of the horniest women I've ever met. I guess I should have expected that, given her penchant for telling me dirty jokes, but I was still surprised. Even better, my wife knew just how horny Rachel was but was still willing to let me go to work for her. Sandy had gone to college with Rachel, and the two of them had cut quite a swath through Penn State.

Now I knew that Sandy had "a history" as they say, but her "history" didn't bother me—even though I didn't know all the details. It just made her all the more attractive. I had no illusion when we got married that I was getting an innocent virgin that I would have to teach the joys of sex to.

Quite the opposite. I had been the innocent virgin (well, near virgin) when I met Sandy, and she had been teaching me for the two years that we dated before marriage. And the things she had taught me! Now, as we entered our late thirties, we still reveled in our sex life. Okay, okay. Perhaps not with the passion and frequency of the first few years of our relationship when it seemed that our lives revolved around each other and the wildly creative sex life we enjoyed.

But nothing that intense can last forever. Somewhere in our early to mid-thirties the intensity and passion, the frequency and intimacy, began to fade, imperceptibly at first. Well, at least not at a level we wanted to admit to each other or even to ourselves, but it was there. The change was there. It was happening and we both knew it.

Part of the problem was that we had each developed a passion for our work. As I said, Sandy is an accountant. How anyone can develop a passion for accounting is beyond me, but I accepted it in her. Her passion for her work was just another part of the whole package that I loved.

And me? Well, I made my living as a commercial artist. Now, I acknowledge the passion was more directed at the art than the commercial. I took such great satisfaction out of my ability to create beauty from the inert tools of my trade—paper, canvas, pencil, charcoal, watercolors, pastels, oil paints, and even the burgeoning world of electronic media. Moreover, my view of the commercial part of my trade was always one of amazement that someone would actually pay me to apply my creative skills for their purposes. I didn't care if it was an artistic rendering of a package of Huggies. It was creative, and I loved it. I didn't earn what Sandy made as she moved through her career, but I made enough to feel like a useful contributor to our union.

So as we progressed through our thirties we jointly accepted the fact that there was more to life than fucking. We didn't give up fucking to be sure. But we did ease up enough on the sexual aspect of our life style to explore other facets of our personalities and make a damn good living doing it.

But now the harsh reality of 2008 had put a strain on our relationship that had never existed before. Just as I lost my job and the part of my life it fulfilled, Sandy's job seemed to grow exponentially, and she was, as they say in Arkansas, happier than a pig in slop. And it really sounded like slop to me. Really, how can you get excited about how AIM Insurance should have booked the changes in value of a credit default swap? What the fuck is a credit default swap, for that matter? She must have explained it to me half a dozen times, but it always just blew right by me.

Meanwhile I was just sitting around our apartment feeling sorry for myself. Daytime TV was abhorrent, and I just wasn't cut out to be a house-husband. I mean I tried, and I more or less got things done—shopping for groceries, cooking (when I couldn't convince myself we could afford to go out or at least order in), dusting and vacuuming, laundry, and all the other mundane chores we had previously paid others to do for us. As I say, I got it done. But there was no joy in it. No creation of beauty. Besides, it just didn't take me that much time to get the chores done, at least in the slap-dash fashion I went at it, so I still had a lot of time on my hands.

So what to do with the time I used to spend illustrating Huggies? Once I convinced myself that daytime TV was a wasteland I tried reading porn on the Internet. I had always enjoyed reading porn on the Web, especially when Sandy and I read it together in bed, but it just wasn't the same without my hot naked wife next to me doing her best to keep me from finishing the story. And now, when my hot naked wife eventually did get home from her day job trying to keep the titans of Wall Street on the straight and narrow, or at least figure out how far they had strayed during the last accounting period, she was either still completely wound up over the latest accounting outrage she had uncovered or so tired she could barely hold her head up. Neither condition was conducive to sex.

Finally I set up a little studio in a spare bedroom and decided to try returning to my art, but that failed also, at least at first. When I sat down before a blank sheet of paper, my first instinct after so many years of commercial art was to begin sketching a package of Huggies or some other similar unabashedly commercial image. That got me no satisfaction at all—still bored and feeling sorry for myself.

That's where we were when Sandy and Rachel came up with the idea that I should go to work for Rachel. I was not in a good situation, and it was showing no sign of improving, just like the economy. Now I'm not much of a bookworm (Rachel was the English major in the family, which I suppose explains why she owned a bookstore), but I had reached the point where anything that would get me out of the house sounded like a good idea. Besides, I already knew about Rachel's lewd sense of humor, and she wasn't that hard to look at either—short (maybe five-two), a nice round butt topped by a narrow waist and big round tits that occupied much of her chest (she really liked to flaunt those tits). She had freckles, a turned-up button nose, a mop of unruly red hair, and an infectious smile that went well with her lewd sense of humor.

I quickly figured out that Rachel really didn't need any help at the bookstore. It was empty most of the time. I learned that she owned and ran it just because she liked books. It didn't need to make money, because Rachel had inherited a boatload of money from a deceased aunt (unrelated to Sandy unfortunately). Sure, the downturn had dented the principal a bit, but not so much that Rachel would ever notice. When I asked her about it she just said, "Oh I have people who take care of that. If it was a serious problem, they would tell me." Nice, I thought, to have so much money that you don't notice any affect on your lifestyle from a Wall Street catastrophe.

On my first day, I asked her what she wanted me to do.

"Well, Stevie," she said. "One of us needs to go out and get our morning coffee. Why don't you do it today, and then I'll teach you how to run the cash register so I can go get the coffee tomorrow." She opened the cash register and handed me a twenty for her coffee and mine. Now there was a time when I might have been pretty pissed about being sent out to get coffee, but after six months of watching Oprah, Ellen, and Judge Judy, getting the coffee was fine with me. Caramel Macchiato for Rachel and a straight brewed coffee for me. Her calling me Stevie was a new feature in our relationship, which made me a little nervous, but for now the task was coffee.

The trip to the coffee bar was actually quite pleasant. It was a nice morning and there was a really cute girl behind the barista bar who wanted to flirt. Her name was Angel. Like Rachel, Angel was short, maybe five-two. She was slender with a tight cute butt and a pair of smallish tits that set up high on her chest and seemed to point straight out. She had olive skin and long dark hair. And, oh yes, there were these wide brown eyes that you could just get lost in.

When I got back to the bookstore, Rachel looked at her watch and raised her eyebrows. Oops, I thought. Spent too much time flirting with the barista.

"So," she said. "Angel was behind the coffee bar, eh?"

"Uh, yes. But, how did you know?"

"Because it took you half an hour to make a fifteen minute coffee run. That means you spent at least fifteen minutes flirting with Angel."

"Oh," I said feeling totally busted.

Then she laughed. "I knew that would happen. She flirts with every male who comes in there. Actually I'm surprised you got back here as quick as you did."

"She is cute," I said, still feeling a bit defensive.

"I've noticed," Rachel said as she finished a sip of her coffee. "She has a really hot little pair of jugs and you probably couldn't see it behind the counter, but she has the cutest little ass. And there is this mole . . ." deliberately stopping her description of Angel's finer attributes just when it was about to get really interesting.

I was silent as I processed what Rachel was telling me. Finally I said, "My, you do pay attention to detail."

Rachel was leaning over the counter now, giving me a stunning view of her cleavage. She was looking at me over the top of her coffee with this snarky look on her face.

"And what about the mole?" I continued. "Where is her mole?"

Rachel chuckled, a mildly evil chuckle. "That . . ." she said, "is for me to know and you not to find out, since you're a married man."

How interesting, I thought. Maybe I can find out more about this from Sandy. Sandy always claimed that she and Rachel told each other everything.

"All right now! Time to get to work," she said in a voice so loud I almost choked on my coffee. She handed me a feather duster and told me to dust the books. Oh well, I thought. Now I'm the janitor. It still beats watching Oprah.

Later in the afternoon, as promised, Rachel showed me how to run the cash register, and she went for the coffee the next morning. It took her 45 minutes to make the 15 minute coffee run.

When she finally walked through the door I said, "So there must have been a male barista today?"

"No. Just Angel."

"So was she flirting with you?"

"Ummm," she said as slurped her frou-frou coffee. "Of course."

"I see," I said, not really surprised since Sandy had told me that Rachel was blatantly bi-sexual.

"We talked about you, too."

"Oh really."

"I don't s'pose you'll tell me any of the details?"

"She liked you, but I told her to stay away, cause you're my best friend's husband."

"Hmm. It's always nice to have help staying on the straight and narrow," I said.

"Actually, I wasn't worried about you starting something you shouldn't. It was Angel I was worried about, and maybe your ability to resist. She can be pretty persuasive."

"So you don't think I can say no?"

"Oh, I think you can be had," she said with a snarky smile. "Most men can in my experience."

"I see," I said, ignoring her comment about her lewd experience. "Besides, I guess you want me to always bring the coffee back in 15 minutes?" I wanted desperately to get the subject of the conversation off me.

"Oh, don't worry. She'll still flirt shamelessly with you. I just made sure she holds it to that. I also told her to make the coffee after she flirts so it is still hot when you get back here. Yesterday's drink was lukewarm."

"Oops. Sorry about that, boss."

"Not to worry. I expected that to happen. Problem's fixed now."

"So now that the problems with Angel are all fixed, do I get to find out where that mole is?"

Rachel laughed. "Don't push your luck big boy. Let's get to work. Now that you know how to run the cash register it's time you learned the inventory."

"Okay, what do I do?"

"Just wander around and look at the books. But do try to remember where things are so you can help the customers. Oh and by the way, did you sell anything while I was gone?"

"Nope. It was quiet as a trading floor during a bank holiday."

"Huh?" Rachel didn't understand the analogy.

"I didn't sell anything. That's something Sandy says, but I don't really understand it either. I've just learned she means it was really quiet."

"Your wife lives in a different world. Get to work. Oh and if you find a book that looks interesting, sit down and read it for a while. There's no point in working in a bookstore if you can't read the books."

Wow, what a job I thought. Not as good as drawing Huggies, but it sure beats watching Oprah.

On about the third day, I discovered that Rachel had an erotica section in the back of the store. Most of it was the usual junk—that is, trash as the writing goes, but perfectly satisfactory if the objective is to read something while you masturbate.

I was leafing through a book when Rachel came around the end of the bookshelf. She laughed. "I wondered when you would find this section, or have you been here all week?"

I felt like a kid caught looking at a Playboy at summer camp. "No, no!" I said with unnecessary firmness. "Just got here."

"Oh, I see," she said in a skeptical voice. "Like that book?" she said referring to the literary gem I had just placed back on the shelf.

"Oh, I was just glancing at it."

"Really," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Yes. Just checking to see if it was what I thought it was."

"And was it?"

"Seemed to be."

"Yes. Well, in this section you can pretty much tell a book by its cover?"

I laughed. After a moment's pause I asked, "Do you sell much of this stuff?"

"More than everything else combined."

"Really?"

"Absolutely, and one thing you need to know, you never ask a customer browsing in this section if you can help him . . . or her. They'll politely say, 'No thank you,' and run out of the store. But if you leave them alone, they'll buy something nine times out of ten. Oh and one more thing—don't make eye contact with them when you cash them out. They are more likely to come back if you don't look directly at them. You know how it is. Anonymity and porn fit together, like . . ."

"A horse and buggy?" I volunteered.

"Actually I was thinking of something else," she said making a lewd gesture with her hands that implied fucking.

"So your version ends in "y" also?" I said with a laugh.

"Could be." I knew then that I was going to spend the rest of the afternoon with an ear worm:

Love and marriage,

Love and marriage,

Go together like a cock and pussy

She hadn't said it, but I knew it was what she meant.

"It's not great literature, but people like it. Did you know there is actually a book here that starts out, "She was the best of fucks and the worst of fucks"?

"How original," I said taking my turn at sarcasm. "Is it any good?"

"For shame. You're asking a lady if she reads porn?"

"Yes," I said with a lascivious smile.

She laughed at me and turned to walk away. Then she paused as if an idea had just struck her. She spun around so she was facing me and put her hands under her big tits holding them out towards me. "What do you think?" she asked.

I tried unsuccessfully to choke back a laugh. After a few moments of silence spent watching her flaunt her tits, I spoke up, "I think you read porn . . . and I think you have great tits."

Now it was her turn to laugh. Then she dropped her hands away from her tits and said, "Okay. Enough fun and games. Get back to work."

As she walked away, I couldn't resist getting in the last word, "Since my work includes reading some of the books, I think I'll just read some of this literature for awhile."

"As you wish. I recommend Lust in the Afternoon. It's on the third shelf, about halfway down. I'll call Sandy and tell her to expect you to be horny when she gets home this evening." There was no way to get the last word in with Rachel.

She was right. I was horny when Sandy got home. She was, as usual, completely wound up about some accounting outrage her team had unearthed during the day. I quickly realized that if I was going to get any relief from my condition, I was going to have to play this with care and patience.

First I just let her rant until she paused for breath. "Can I get you a drink dear? It sounds like you need one."

"Oh, . . . yeah, sure. Best idea I've heard all day."

"Shall I make it a double?"

"Yes. Scotch, neat." Her voice was very firm, a long way from wound down. She was still in her outraged audit partner mode.

I returned with the drink and she took a long pull on it (damn near half the glass) and then launched into another tirade about the day's accounting travesty. I let her ramble on nodding appreciatively from time to time, as though I had the faintest idea what she was talking about.

After awhile I stepped behind her and softly massaged her shoulders.

"Your shoulders are very tight," I said.

She continued to ramble on about her day, but I could tell she was winding down. Her tone of voice and pace had changed. Now she just sounded frustrated instead of outraged.

After a couple of minutes of massaging her shoulders, I made my move. "Would you like a backrub?" I asked.

Now I know that offering a backrub doesn't sound like much of a seduction move, but with Sandy it was. I couldn't count the number of times we had begun a heated sexual encounter with me giving her a slow, sensual back rub.

She looked back at me and smiled. "That would be nice," she said. "But first, get me another drink. It's been that kind of day."

I'm so sorry," I said. "While I'm gone, take off your jacket and your shoes and relax."

"Okay. Put a little ice in this one. I think I kind of inhaled the first one."

"Ya think?" I said to myself. Out loud, I said, "It sounds like you earned it."

When I returned with her drink (and one of my own), she had shed her jacket and shoes and moved to the couch, sitting with her long legs curled beneath her, her skirt riding well up on her thighs.

"My god you have beautiful legs," I said.

"You're a lecher," she said, "and I can tell you've been spending time around that oversexed cousin of mine. I swear that woman could seduce a nun." Then she giggled. "In fact, I think she did once."