My Wife's Way

We sat outside, on a concrete patio in Dallas, in June, under a grated bamboo pergola, huge fans circulated the air which was hot like the air inside an oven.

"You really don't want what you think you want," Nicole, my wife said, knowing what I couldn't admit to myself.

"I'm going find a guy who I like and play this game the way I want to,"she added.

"But I want you to do it the way you want." I said, my heart turning into a small swarm of bees.

"We'll see." She mused. "I know you think you want humiliation, except you really don't. What you want is to pretend to be humiliated, pretend to suffer while I do it the way you want it done."

I felt helpless. Years ago I told my wife I was a sexual submissive and that I had a cuckold fetish.

She grinned. "But I love that about you darling because I know beneath the fantasy you do kneel. I know you love me. I know. But I also think you're mistaken about what you really want and you need a real test."

She tapped her fingers on the table, turned her eyes to a pot of pink and red petunias swaying in the corner, her gaze signaled our conversation was over.

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We had been together for five years. Nicole had cuckolded me, that is, fucked other men, numerous times.

I explained my submissive/cuckold fantasy only a month after we met. I remember her saying, "I might like that."

Two weeks later she texted me.

"I'm having lunch with an old lover. I'm sure he'd like to go back to my apartment afterwards. Are you up for trying this cuckold thing?"

Each man we'd played with had been unique. We did it several ways. The first two times she met the guy alone and went back to his place and had sex with him. Most of the time we met the guy for a drink first and then on another date, met him at a hotel where she and he had sex while I watched.

A week or so after each scene an angst had crept into my heart like a broken piece of concrete. I started asking questions. Has he contacted you? Why didn't you respond to my text earlier today? Were you texting him?" My questions had the effect of causing her to pull out a water cannon, aim it at my heart, and shoot: "You're not a real cuckold darling, anytime I initiate something with another man you burn with jealousy."

Without saying, we stopped looking for other men. We spent time being ordinary going to the the farmers market on Saturday morning then stopping at a coffee shop to read the newspaper and share a tangerine.

She had taken a job as an administrator in a financial firm-a job that required her to coddle several male brokers. Almost immediately she was ready to quit. After her second marriage it was clear she was done catering to dominant, narcissistic men. She wanted to write for a living. She was halfway through a second novel.

We sank into our neighborhood, like the roots of a common bush. We needed time to hold hands, cook dinners, watch movies, get a new sofa covering, and lay in bed with our mouths open and not say much.

I remained in chastity and she still whispered stories to me about the men she'd fucked which caused me to bath the back of her womb with blasts of semen.

But I didn't kneel at her feet. She didn't lock me in a cock cage or make me stand in the corner. Yes, I cleaned the toilets, vacuumed, shopped and cared for the house but never at her request. The few times I'd suggested I submit by doing domestic chores she agreed the way she does when something doesn't matter.

I started to believe cuckolding was just a fantasy we'd share together in bed. We'd tried to make the fantasy real but when we did, it came with unexpected baggage, my baggage.

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Early in our relationship I had once asked her who, in her past, if anyone, had broken her heart. She hesitated to speak, an aura of uncertainty overcame her, as if I'd walked halfway across a narrow bridge over a deep chasm and had beckoned her to come out. My wife is not a chatty woman, nor does she wear her heart on her sleeve. She exhaled and then told me the story of K- a bad boy from Southern California, who she'd met on business trip not long after her first divorce.

"He was tall. Had broad shoulders, green eyes, soft blond hair on his chest, and a beautiful boat. That first day I met him he'd put a work order on my desk, looked me in the eye and said 'You made a mistake. There are consequences for errors. You need to meet me at Granada's tonight for a drink to discuss how to correct this matter.' That night he took me back to his apartment, bent me over his green sofa and fucked from behind."

"Did he have a big cock?" I pried, the bees lifting up in my heart.

"A lot bigger that yours." She grinned, taunting.

I laughed. From the start of our relationship Nicole had a salaciousness that rose up through the nice girl she inhabited most of the time.

"The next weekend he took me out on the ocean in his boat. I remember how bright blue the water was that day. We went way out. The city shrunk behind us. I took off my bathing suit. He made me feel so free. Dolphins swam alongside the boat, leaping and diving playfully, showing off, giving us a private show. It was magical."

As she talked I sensed something possessed her and that my physical presence shrank, as if I became a much smaller subject on her landscape and that her territory expanded immensely, and while I still existed, I was more like a small dog sitting in a corner, loved by her, but waiting for a biscuit that might never come.

She told me she knew her relationship with K would end badly- like a binging alcoholic knows nothing good can come from another pint. K was a bad boy and had other women.

Her premonition came true. She flew to San Diego to meet him for a long weekend and he didn't show up at the airport as planned. He didn't answer his phone. She sat waiting for five hours. She flew back that night. It was one of the worse days of her life.

Though that ended their lust, years later they reconnected by email. He apologized. They fell into the habit of sending brief emails to each other on birthdays. From time to time she spoke of him as if he were alive within her, as if there might come a day when she would welcome him home.

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Shortly after our fifth year anniversary in August she received an email from K. As she read it to me in the car I felt myself slip into the kind of angst I'd felt when she'd cuckolded me in the past. It was long and written with the touch of a troubadour, but not overly ingratiating or obsequious. Though I was determined not to say anything, my mind sought some way to devalue his words.

"He sounds lonely," I said.

He'd just ended a relationship with a much younger woman. His father was sick and he was getting ready to put him in a nursing home. He had a Harley and had two week excursion planned with a friend, up and back to Seattle in a month.

I shook off my angst and didn't ask about their communication. But a week later, on a Saturday night she was late to bed. She had been downstairs alone for quite a while. When she came upstairs she said K had written. Something in her expression told me I was about to hear something significant. The lights were out. I had lit a candle. She lay down on her back in bed, still dressed, on top of our thin cotton quilt.

"He told me the biggest regret he had in his life was leaving me."

There was moment of silence and then she sobbed as if recalling the recent death of a beloved pet. I rested my arm across her chest.

I was about to say "He probably says that to all his ex girlfriends," but his words had touched her. Whether he was genuine or not, she took them as if they were as genuine as salt. I imagined she took it as an acknowledgement of his mistake, for walking away from her when her desire for him had been rapacious and as raw as a fresh cut. He'd admitted what years ago she'd hoped was true. It brought tears to her eyes.

We made love that night. In the middle of thrusting into her, I leaned down and whispered, "are you thinking of him?"

She turned her face away from me.

The bees rose in my heart. "What was I doing?" I pressed into her harder, thrust deeper.

She pushed me away and out of her.

"Yes I'm thinking of him but not the way you want me to." She growled, a thread of sadness dragging down her words.

"I'm sorry." I rolled over on my back and watched the ceiling fan whirl. "You're right." I said after a minute, "I'm glad he said that. It must have felt good to you."

That's all that was said. My wife got up and dressed for bed. She was snoring just a few moments after she laid down. Our fights rarely kept her from falling asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.

In many ways I had done what every man who loves a woman tries to do but usually ends up messing up. I tried to atone for the men who had hurt her. I wanted to repair the cracks and fill in the vacancies she'd endured in past relationship. I wanted to be THE guy. It seemed possible to be THE guy; to be her hero; not to live up to an ideal, but to be attentive, present, emotionally strong, and not constricting, not binding her up with rules that helped me feel secure. Could I be a lover who helped her breathe more lightly, playfully and flow as she never had?

I knew, on some level, this idea was ridiculous because I myself was hopelessly bound up in my own fears and insecurities even though I preferred to imagine I wasn't. How could I really, genuinely let go? Even if I did wasn't it just a fantasy that doing so would help her resolve some long smoldering desire she had for K?

We didn't speak again about K for over a month until one day, while staying in a hotel room on the Mississippi River I asked, "Have you heard from K?"

"Yes. We've been writing back and forth." She stated.

"Since last month?" I said, holding my breath.

"Yes." She said.

"How often?" I asked.

"Almost every day." She said.

"And you haven't told me?" I tried to sound calm.

"There was nothing to tell." She declared.

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The news hit me as if a stick of dynamite had exploded in the hotel room next to ours. I felt waylaid. So much for my emotional strength, my unconditional acceptance. I felt like a double fool. I got out of bed and stood by the window, looking out. Who she was?

It was the first conflagration in our relationship in a long time and one I knew I would need help putting out.

An old friend came to mind. Over the years I had stayed in touch with Haruki, a man we had encountered in Santa Fe. He owned a sushi restaurant. Elise loves sushi. His restaurant had a sidewalk sign outside that read "Shushi" with an arrow pointing to the front door. We imagined the misspelling was an effort to appear authentically Japanese. He'd greeted us with a slight bow and shiny bright eyes.

We'd had many conversations about my desire to be a cuckold husband. Nicole and he had shared a cantor of saki in his condominium. Later, as I watched, he took her on a small white futon in his living room.

What I remembered most about that night was his erection. He'd lifted my wife up onto his cock while he stood. He was all muscle. She clung to him like a frog on a window. His cock drove in and out like a wet chrome jackhammer until he came inside her. When he lifted her soft pale perspiring body off of his cock, a gush of semen burst from her vagina as if she were pregnant and her water had broke. I never knew a man could cum so much. She refused to let me inside her for a week afterwards.

That night before we left, Haruki told me my cuckold desire was pure selfishness. That despite the apparent "gift" to my wife, it was all about me. He said I was driven to it like an unfed dog is to a bowl of food. "When you want to learn to give yourself up, write me," he said and handed me his card.

I wrote him once directing him to our blog where I written a lengthy story about our encounter, He wrote back. "Your wife loves you enough to fulfill your fantasy. Do you love her enough to let her fulfill her fantasy?"

I didn't understand his question. My wife didn't have fantasies.

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The next morning I wrote to Haruki to explain how badly I'd reacted when I learned Nicole had been writing to K.

He wrote back. "Respect her feelings. Trust her."

I wrote again, elaborating, explaining how she had been writing for weeks without saying a word to me. I explained how it was a lie of omission, a non consensual relationship with a former lover that undermined the foundation of our love. How could she do this to us?

He wrote back right away: "Respect her feelings. Trust her."

I decided to call. He obviously didn't understand the threat.

He sounded glad that I'd called. He'd closed his restaurant in Santa Fe and was opening a place in Grand Junction.

"You and Nicole must come see me sometime. I'll fix her her favorite California roll."

His voice was buoyant. He talked at length about his failures in the restaurant business quoting the Japanese proverb: fall down seven times, get up eight. I told him he could start by spelling "sushi" correctly. He laughed loudly, the kind of laugh that's so exaggerated I imagined his mouth flung open widely while he honked out vocal spasms.

"She has an old lover who writes her almost everyday." I said.

"Yes and you feel anxious that she cares for him. I have read your email. Have you read mine?"

"Yes I have. You say the same thing "respect her feelings and trust her."

"That's right. Have you told you want to be a cuckold husband?"

"Yes. But we need limits." I stammered.

"Your wife has a great deal of water in her personality. Limits are like dams that cause her to stagnate. You must have the courage to allow her to flow."

I laughed.

"You must allow her the full heat of his ardor so that she might turn to steam. But if you cause her worry she'll turn away to protect you, she loves you. But his fire will linger in her. If you quiet your worry, and sit calmly, while she is touched by him, one day she'll wake up and the fire will be out for good. And, she will know you have honored the whole of her being."

I listened and then went silent, feeling ashamed of my fear. "I don't know if I have that kind of courage."

He ignored my words.

"You must tell them both you will stand aside, and tell them both that it's most important to you that her desire flow freely."

"But why tell him? She will decide." I interrupted, anxious to claim some ground.

"She's the receptive one. You must assure him that the fire he's started is fine with you."

He was telling me to clear the way so that they might enter their own little house of pleasure, fall into each other's arms, and consummate their lost love.

"Peter, you need to step aside, and wish them well, as if you were their doorman. I know you understand."

With that he hung up.

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That spring Nicole wrote to K explaining we'd be in the San Diego area at a writers' conference at the Welk Resort in Escondido.

I'd held off on telling her what Haruki had advised. With the trip planned I told her. My wife waved off my promise to step aside with an incredulity, as if I'd told her I'd bought a condo on the French Riveria.

When I started to tell her I'd tell K the very same thing, she interrupted me.

"Look, I love you sweetheart and appreciate what you're trying to do, but don't start assuming something is going to happen. He may not even want to meet."

Something told me she was nervous, she wanted to hear back from him that he'd love to met for dinner, but she feared rejection

So we said no more about her relationship with K.

We landed in San Diego and met K at an Italian bistro in Escondido. He wore khaki shorts, a blue tee shirt and flip flops. His sandy blond hair was down to his shoulders and he had a slender though muscular build. He was tanned and had an alert buoyant face. He wore a cologne I didn't recognize, and brought a pink rose for Nicole.

Nicole hugged him and they embraced for a long moment, more like old friends do than lovers. He pushed his hair back, took a long slow breath with a half crooked smile on his face, his broad shoulders and chest rising and then he exhaled as if meeting Nicole was a big relief, a weight he could finally set down. A cluster of irritation rose in me as I was sure he was being overly dramatic.

We sat at a small table in the corner. K and Nicole both ordered margaritas. I had a water. They began to reminisce naturally, like they'd been kids together, talking about mutual events and friends and the old workplace they'd known. K would interrupt her gently. "No no it wasn't like that, we saw whales the first night," Nicole laughed. He told story after story. Smiling endlessly, ready to laugh with a playful confidence that was never overdrawn. He leaned toward her as she leaned toward him, eyes connected. He exuded an intimacy or a readiness to respond as if absorbing her words, making them a part of him. As the night wore on ,their words meandered through the warm humid air with an ease that suggested an effortless confidence, that they had located kind spaces within one another, and in having done so could saunter off, with joy simmering within for a good while.

"You look good," she said slowly.

"So do you," he replied.

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Later in the hotel we undressed without words and got into bed together. I pulled her close. Her body seemed warmer, softer, more fluid and receptive. I kissed her neck and she pressed back against me. I rolled her over, pushed her night leggings down and entered her. She groaned softly as if she felt relieved, a sound she usually makes which delights me more than a starry night.

She opened herself, her body hungry, which raised my urgency, as if I could satiate it. Quickly I began thrusting hard and deep. But when I went to kiss her she turned her head away.

"No." She put her hands on my chest and pushed me off.

"I'm tired" she sighed with a somniferous heaviness pulling down her eyelids.

"Go to sleep, sweetheart," she whispered patting me gently on the chest. In minutes I heard her soft snore, her breathing disrupted by short staccato snorts which was common when she'd had more than one drink.

She'd denied me before but never after connecting with another man, a potential bull. I wanted to beg, to plead, even to press forward and take her, make her say "red," our safe-word to stop me.

I didn't. I felt I'd be blocking something. Disrupting, pushing the river as an old therapist had once advised me never to do with a woman. I lay looking at the ceiling. Haruki came to mind. I propped myself up on my pillow and opened my phone and wrote a haiku.

tear down the great damn

let the river find its way

float on your wife's joy

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She kissed me goodbye the next morning and headed down to the writing conference where she'd be participating in a number of seminars until lunch. I fell back asleep.

At noon she texted: I'm going to lunch with K.

She hadn't said anything about meeting K. I assumed she and I would meet for lunch at the hotel restaurant, eat and go our separate ways.

"Are you okay with that, darling?" She texted.

I didn't wait too long to respond. "Have fun sweetheart. I'm sure you have more catching up to do."

I tried to be evenhanded though my heart tilted.

A couple of hours later another text arrived.

"We're headed out on his sailboat. Hope to see some whales. Will be back after dinner. I love you!!!!"

My heart felt like a bee's nest that had just been struck. I responded quickly.

"Oh my. Sounds magical, darling. Have fun."

I willed that text.

I had stuff to occupy my mind. I had a watercolor pad, 14 watercolor markers, two fine point permanent black ink markers, an iPad, ebooks, a bluetooth speaker, and headphones. I had my walking shoes. Our rectangular hotel room had 4 lamps, a king sized bed, and a small desk near the window on which I'd work on a small watercolor painting if I got tired.