Once Is Not Enough! Or Is It?

As we headed upstairs, Lana remarked. "I hope we didn't scare her off. She's done a lot better job than the last kid they had. She was kinda cute, huh."

"What?"

"You keep saying that - what. The pool girl, she's pretty, don't you think?"

"Pretty? Yeah, I guess..."

"Jack, don't tell me you didn't notice how pretty that girl is. You're not getting old on me, are you, so old you don't notice a pretty girl?"

"Honey, I was a bit distracted by the situation. Her looks were not my top concern at that moment. The fact that we were butt-naked and she had just watched us fuck was kind of on my mind."

She laughed, "Yeah. That was kinda hot, huh? Wished I'd known she was watching."

"That made you hot, an audience, huh? Maybe you can add to her duties. Hire her to show up on purpose at the right time."

"Oooh, that does sound hot. You like having that young thing watching Big Jack in action?" She continued, teasing me, "You like showing off the big guy to that young girl. I'll bet you did. And I'll bet she liked it, too," she laughed.

"You're a naughty little vixen. Of course, if you hire her to watch, you're going to want one of those college boys to watch you, aren't you? That's what you're angling for, isn't it," I teased back then wished I hadn't. Although joking, I was becoming more and more suspicious...

"Oh shit, Jack, I think you need to fuck me again. This talk is making me so hot."

But in spite of what she said, she was pulling a pair of shorts on and a tube top - my 42-year old wife was now wearing tube tops - and she looked devastating in them.

Unbelievable! I was getting erect again.

"I'll be right back. I'm going to go gather up the clothes and make sure the girl is okay."

Lana headed downstairs and I stripped off my soggy socks and headed to the shower. Now I needed to wash the chlorine and the sweat off of me. The shower felt heavenly. I hummed to myself as I rinsed soap off.

"Her name's Ellie. She's a sophomore at Uni." I heard Lana say as she came back in the bathroom. "She's fine now. I talked her down and she's good. She was real embarrassed and thought we wouldn't want her back. I think she was worried about her job. I assured her everything was fine and I got her schedule so next time she won't catch us fucking by accident."

You know if you break that sentence down, you can just as easily get, "I got her schedule so next time she can catch us fucking on purpose."

Maybe I just have a suspicious mind...

As I came out of the shower, my naked-again wife breezed by me for her shower. "I'll clean up and we can go to dinner. I didn't get anything ready. I was too excited and too flighty to mess with planning a meal."

Yes, go to dinner, to that quiet restaurant. And finally, we could talk, would talk. We had to talk about Germany. It was probably already too late. I had avoided it too long, hid from it.

No more.

III. PANDORA'S BOX

We went to a quiet restaurant in old town, a small place where the food was good, the service was very good, the drinks were great and the ambience was fantastic. It was the type of place where you could easily spend two hours eating, drinking and visiting. It reminded me a lot of Mediterranean Europe in that respect.

Lana had on a peasant blouse, white cotton with hot pink trim, matched to a pair of hot pink capris. Her midriff was bare and the top did little to hide the shape of her unfettered breasts or hide the telltale shadows of her light-brown aureoles and her big nipples. Even Ray Charles wouldn't have missed those nubs poking through the material. Our waiter certainly didn't.

In other words she looked hot! She always looked hot these days and that kept me in some state of arousal almost constantly.

When she asked where I wanted to eat, I suggested this place because I wanted to talk...about the elephant in the room...before it trampled us. If I was truthful with myself, I would have to admit it already had.

When we started the meal, it was interspersed with playful banter, then through dessert and our first drink, Lana carried the conversation, until by our second drink, she realized I hadn't said anything for almost 15 minutes.

"Jack? Where are you? I'm sorry, was I talking too much?"

"Oh, no. I was just listening and thinking...Okay, actually I wasn't listening that close. I was mostly thinking..."

"Yes, you were thinking..."

"Crap, I was trying to figure out how to talk to you about what I have to talk to you about, that I don't want to talk to you about."

The distress in my voice was obvious.

"Jack, what's wrong? You're scaring me. What has you so...are you leaving me?"

Her eyes welled up.

"What? Oh, heaven's no. I'm sorry. No, baby..."

"Jack..."

"Here's the thing. Since our Germany trip, you have changed, a lot, specifically when it comes to sex. You've become a, a, dynamo..."

"Is that bad?"

"No, honey, that part is great. But..."

"But?"

"It's the why. Why you are now a sexual dynamo, insatiable, saucy, flirtatious, sexually oriented..."

She didn't understand, "Jack, our vacation, we had a sexual awakening and..."

"No, Lana, honey, you had a sexual awakening. We had an experience. It didn't change me. It changed you."

"And that's bad? I don't understand..."

"Lana, the sexual awakening and the new supercharged Lana are not the problem, per se. It's more about the why...and why you are always so horny, so insatiable."

She was searching my eyes, slightly shaking her head, trying to understand.

"Lana, what happened? What happened that made you change?"

"We had that crazy sexual experience with Ray and Tami, and then slept with them and discovered a whole new world of..."

"No, Lana, honey. You discovered a whole new world of sexual experience - sex with somebody else for the first time in your life, with another man, a different man...for the first time."

"But you had the same experience. You slept with Tami. You screwed her brains out as I remember..."

"Yes, honey, but that wasn't new to me. I had slept with other women. And sleeping with Tami didn't change me. It didn't change how I feel about sex, how I feel about you. It was just an enjoyable experience, that when it was over, it was over. A nice memory, yes, but that's all."

Lana's eyes were welling up again and her lip was quivering. She was on the verge of understanding, but hadn't made the last connection, the last piece hadn't fallen into place.

"Lana, my love, we are not having wild sex almost constantly because you can't get enough of me. You're not insatiable because you can't have sex with me as much as you want. You're insatiable, because you haven't satisfied the new need you now have."

She was still slowly shaking her head no.

"Honey, think about it. We have sex all the time, fantastic sex. But you're still not satisfied. Because you haven't had that one thing you need, the one thing that's been missing since we came home."

"No, no," she murmured.

"You haven't had sex with another man, a different man again. You haven't had a new, strange cock..."

"NO! STOP IT!"

Her eyes darted around. She dropped her voice.

"That's bullshit. You, you...you're wrong. That's not true. I don't...haven't..."

"When's the last time you were satisfied, sated, all fucked out?"

"I'm going home."

She stood. I stood. People were looking, trying not to, but looking. Lana made a beeline for the car. I quickly stopped and paid the tab. I exited the restaurant and heard the Audi's turbocharged engine scream as Lana tore out of the parking lot.

This is why I hadn't tried to talk about this. This is why I had delayed. I suspected she didn't consciously realize what was going on, or if she did, then she was in denial. I wanted so badly to be wrong, but every day brought new proof that I was right. The clues just kept piling up.

Lana would see a guy that caught her interest - minutes later she'd be fucking my brains out.

A man, a stranger would pay attention to her - later, she'd fuck my brains out.

She'd wake me up in the middle of the night moaning, mumbling the names of men I had never heard of - then she'd wake up and fuck my brains out.

The men in the mirrors.

She brought them home with her, euphemistically.

I caught a cab home. I had never been so depressed in my life. I didn't know what I would find when I got there - maybe a suitcase in the entry. Whatever, it wouldn't be good.

Our perfect life was over. It had been over for months. It ended when Lana discovered the feel of a different dick in her, a different body on her, a different lover fucking her.

I managed to marry a virgin...at the time, I thought it was amazing...Crap!

Pandora's Box was open and I feared nothing would, could, ever close it again.

IV. BEGINNING OF THE END

When I arrived home, I walked up the steps to the entry - no suitcase on the porch.

I tried the door. It was locked.

I unlocked it and walked in - no suitcase in the foyer. I looked up the staircase toward the master suite. There was no sound. The house was dead quiet.

Then I saw it halfway up the stairs, a yellow blouse draped on a step, hastily dropped there.

Lana wasn't upstairs. The Audi wasn't in the garage.

I went to the bar and poured a drink. Then I poured another.

I went out to the patio bar, made another drink and flopped on a lounge chair. An almost full, waning moon was rising. It looked depressing to me. I don't know why. Maybe because it was alone, so solitary, hanging there. Maybe because it was diminishing, soon to disappear completely.

A warm breeze was gently stirring the hairs on my arms. My eyelids felt heavy. I was tired. I started to drift off.

My cellphone rang.

"Lana. I'm so..."

"Jack. It's Sheila."

"Oh, hi Sheila, sorry I thought..."

"She's here Jack. She doesn't know I'm calling you. She forbade it. I'm in the bathroom. I just wanted you to know she's safe. I'll call you when I can."

She disconnected.

Lana was safe.

But she was gone.

I knew she wasn't coming back. Once I had a wonderful wife, a wonderful life, a wonderful home. Was that it? Was my life as I knew it, over?

I guess I could just accept it. And then what? Go through the motions, drink, get laid, work, sleep, repeat.

Or I could not accept it. I could fight back. I could try to fix this situation, solve the problem, help Lana.

Maybe we could never have again what we had, but maybe we could have something else. Maybe we could find a different happiness.

Or maybe once is all you get...

V. DARK DAYS

It was two weeks. I spent the first four days in an alcohol induced fog. I never drank till I blacked out, just till I felt numb and "grayed out."

The fifth day a client called. I pulled myself together and flew to Portland, Maine for a consulting job.

The tenth day, I returned home. I tended to the yard, whipping it into shape. I cleaned up the detritus of my four-day semi-binge, did laundry, pressed some shirts and slacks, fixed myself a real meal.

But my world had gone gray, lifeless, joyless...

On the 14th day, a Tuesday, my cell rang.

"Hi, Jack. How are you?"

"Hi, Sheila. I'm okay. Well, sort of okay. I'm functioning. I thought I would hear from you sooner."

"I'm so sorry, Jack. It's been. It's been difficult. I've been slammed at work and the rest of my time...well, I've been trying to sort things out with Lana. She's staying with us for the time being."

"Is she okay? I mean, how is she? What did she tell you?"

"She's, well, she's a work in progress. Jack, she lost it. First, when she showed up here, she said you accused her of cheating on you and that you were a lying bastard and had twisted things around on her. I'm sorry, Jack. I believed her at first..."

"I didn't say that, and she didn't..."

"I know that now, Jack, but then...anyway, two days later she asked for the name of our lawyer. She was going to file for divorce, mentally cruelty or something..."

"I didn't receive anything..."

"No, she didn't file. She couldn't, at least not with our lawyer. He declined to represent her. She didn't tell us why and he can't. But that's when she broke down. She told me everything, at least her version, about what happened in Germany, with you and the young couple, and about the last few months..."

"Yes. That happened, if she said we had sex with them...and the last few months, well, I, how do I explain that?"

"Jack, this must be painful. I'm sorry. But I need to hear your side of this. You are my friend, too. You were my friend before Lana was. I care very much for you and I want...I want things to work...I don't know what all to believe, but I know what she told me at first was not true...at the very least, it was distorted."

"She was upset. I upset her, Sheila. I didn't know how to deal with...well, what needed to be dealt with...I...I guess she couldn't, didn't accept that what I was telling her was the truth."

"What is the truth, Jack? What has happened?"

"It's a long story."

"Right. Listen. Chuck is home tomorrow. If you're available I can come over and we can talk. He can keep an eye on Lana, keep her occupied. I can say I'm working. Okay?"

"Thank you, Sheila. I'm free all day. Would you like breakfast?"

"Do you still make those amazing pancakes?"

"For you, I'll make a double recipe. I remember how many you ate the last time..." I laughed.

It was the first time I'd laughed in over two weeks.

"You would remember that," Sheila scoffed.

"I remember wandering where the hell you put them with that body of yours."

She laughed then coyly, "What about my body?"

VI. SHEILA

That was a touchy subject, her body. Mainly because I had, from the moment I met her, wanted it, wanted her.

Sheila (and Chuck): Sheila and I met on a project in Belgium 16 years ago. It turned out we worked out of the same city, so after we returned home, Lana and I got together with her and her first husband.

Chuck and Lana had been friends for over 18 years. Chuck was a colleague of Lana's back at her first job.

Sheila and Lana became fast friends and when Chuck crossed paths with Lana again a couple years later, we hooked him and recently divorced Sheila up for a double date with us. They fell head over heels for each other and the rest was history.

Chuck, 40, could be my younger brother. We have similar faces, his jaw a little more prominent and his eyes less blue, more grey-blue. His hair is a shade darker but he combs it similar and wears it the same length. He's a bit taller, an even six foot and just a bit slimmer than me, weighing no more than 175. We've jogged together in the past and his build and musculature is similar to mine. He's a handsome man - like I said, he looks a lot like me! (lol)

Sheila, 38, is tall, at least 5'-10" and probably weighs no more than 125 pounds. She has a model's body. Her breasts are small, no more than full A's, with the perkiest damn nipples, not as big as Lana's, but possibly longer - always pert! Though slender, she is shapely with a slightly triangular torso, very slim waist and nicely flaring hips. Her hip bones are prominent and sexy and her butt is small and muscular. I have seen her in a bikini and while not my idea of a perfect shape, she has a stunning look. When I watch her move, the term slinky comes to mind - in the most sensuous sense of the word.

She has a beautiful, slender, slightly angular face with a slim, slightly long nose, full lips and deep blue eyes. Her hair is a medium blond, I thought dyed, and she wears it very long, down to her mid-back.

You're probably wondering why I never went for her? The answer is simple: Lana. I was and am, with one temporary and mutual exception, a one-woman man. So while I was and am attracted to Sheila, I was never tempted - well once...

Flashback

(This event occurred two years before our Germany trip and explains our relationship with our best friends a little.)

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

I wore "dress casual," slacks and a sports jacket with an open-collared shirt for our dinner with the Martin's as directed by Lana. Lana, well what Lana wore should be illegal and I'm pretty sure it is, at least in Utah and the Bible belt. She had on a silky, shimmery, dove-gray cocktail dress that was slit up the side to above the knee, was backless ending in a V about an inch above the crease between her butt cheeks, and had a draped, plunging neckline that terminated between her breasts about nipple level, exposing the sides of her lovely, plump mounds. Of course, her big nipples might as well have been exposed for all the dress did to hide them. Her hair was cleverly stacked on her head with curled tresses hanging down - really stunning. To complete the dress, she was wearing four-inch, silver-sequined heals, carrying a matching silver-sequined clutch and had a three-tier Swarovski crystal choker around her neck. I damn near came in my slacks.

"Hoooly Moooly, honey! You realize with that outfit, you could break up a perfectly good marriage on the eve of their anniversary. Chuck is already a little sweet on you."

"Wait till you see Sheila's outfit," Lana slyly replied.

Chuck and Sheila were picking us up for dinner so I made drinks for when they arrived. I was busy at the bar when they came to the door. Lana let them in.

"Honey, Chuck and Sheila are here," Lana called from the foyer.

"Come to the bar. I made a couple drinks if we have time."

"We have time," Chuck called back and came around the corner. We met and shook hands then shared a hug. Chuck was a very likeable guy and we had also hit it off well. He was the closest I came to a male best friend. We didn't do a lot together, separate from the women, but if either of us did any guy things, it was with each other - mostly an occasional golf game - the only activity Lana and I didn't share in.

Chuck and Sheila were also a fairly private couple and we all fit together well.

I was just about to ask Chuck how he was doing. I hadn't seen him or Sheila in over a month, when I blurted out, "Holy Shit!"

"I'll take that as a compliment, Jack. I assume it was," Sheila said in her sultry southern drawl, which she could pull out of a hat when she wanted or speak like an "anywhere-in-America newscaster" if it suited her.

She came over and wrapped me in a big hug, grinning from ear to ear.

"Good grief, Sheila, are sure you got enough body paint on for where we're going?"

The dress she had on, and I use the term loosely, or should I say "sparsely," was a gauzy, clingy, strapless number in a pale powder-blue and the material was practically see-through. It looked like it was painted on her body, hence my remark, and it followed and highlighted every contour of her svelte, gently curving body - and talk about those nipples - ooph!

"Chuck, did you bring a gun. We may have to shoot our way out of wherever we're going to keep our women from being "babe-napped."

"Gotta nine mil in a back holster and a pea-shooter in an ankle wrap. How about you?"

Chuck has a great sense of humor and a quick wit. But my wife is pretty quick, too.

"Oh, don't worry. Jack is packin'. I'm not positive what caliber it is, but I'm sure it's big enough to handle any wild things that come at him." Lana joked and laughed.

"I've heard that about you, Jack." Sheila teased.

"Oh, about what from whom?" I parried.

"That you're packin. As to where I heard, well, Lana sort of let it slip out...well actually, she's posted it on Facebook!" She laughed. We all joined her. It was going to be a fun evening.

After a couple of drinks, I asked where we were going, just as the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it hon," Lana offered and walked out of the bar. Watching her ass gyrate in that dress as she left made my cock twitch. It didn't do any good to look back at my company. Sheila's tits were staring right at me. And she saw me look and smiled. I just hoped Chuck didn't notice me leering.