One Wounded Seagull

"Well, she can borrow me but she can't have me," he laughed.

"How much can she borrow?" I asked. "Would you fuck her?" (That was a word I hadn't used since my affair with Ray.)

"Probably," he replied. "She wanted to on Tuesday night, but it wouldn't have been right for her or for me. She's over her upset now, so we probably will do it some time before she moves on."

"What do you mean, 'moves on'."

"She'll find herself a proper partner some time and settle down again like she was with Greg. That's the kind of person she is. And she'll want to have kids one day, you saw how she was with ours. But it will do her good to play the field for a while before she goes steady again."

"And you'll be the first one in the field available to play with?" I said. I was just holding myself together, not wanting to reveal my insecurity to Don.

"Could be," he replied. "I'm not going to say No."

I didn't sleep well on Thursday night.

*******

He fucked her on Friday

Don was home all day on Friday, and after I had sent the kids off to school I left to attend a parents' meeting. Kylie and Don had the house to themselves. I had little doubt that they would take this opportunity to 'play'. So I wasn't surprised when I came home to discover them engaged in energetic and noisy sex.

I went out and sat in the garden, unsure of what I should do or say. I was there about an hour when Don came out. "Hi Lue, I didn't know you were home. What are you doing out here?"

I tried to keep my voice steady: "I was waiting for you to finish. I didn't want to interrupt the two of you."

"Oh, OK," said Don. "Kylie is packing a few things and I'm going to run her across to her parents' place. She's going to stay there for the weekend and come back here on Sunday night. She'll be going back up north on Monday morning. Would you be able to take her out to the airport then?"

Don seemed unaware that there might be one or two other things a husband should say to his wife after she had just found him committing adultery. On the other hand, I couldn't think of anything appropriate to say at that time either.

We went back inside. Kylie gave me a sheepish grin. "Thanks for having me. You've both been so helpful. I would have been a total mess if I had stayed up there without Don and you to help me sort myself out. I'll be back here on Sunday night and I will be going back to work on Monday, so I'll see you Sunday Lue. Thanks for everything."

They went out to his car and drove off. Don was gone all afternoon, which gave me enough time to run through the entire gamut of emotions; all the way from wallowing in self-pity, to a level of calmness and rationality that would have outdone even Donald.

As soon as they had gone I burst into tears, ran back inside and threw myself onto the bed. After a while I calmed down and stood up. I looked at the bed - the only place where the bedspread was messed up was where I had been. Kylie must have straightened it up after the wild activity she and Don had engaged in. I laughed inwardly. He was right, she had a tidy mind.

So I smoothed out the bedspread again. I mustn't be less tidy than her. Then it occurred to me; had they left any wet patches on the bedspread? I inspected it closely - no marks. Kylie must have kept all of Don's semen inside her with no leakage. I was strangely disappointed - it was as though what I had seen hadn't happened and they hadn't been there.

It slowly dawned on me what I was doing. I was being stupid. What would I have done if I found a wet patch? Taken a sniff to find out if she smelt different to me? This was ridiculous: "Grow up, Lue." I told myself. "This will pass. You have to allow Don to have his fling. It would be hypocritical not to. You had yours, now it's his turn."

I thought of what Don had said. "You're a free person and I can't control what you do, just like you can't control what I do." He had let me be free and if I loved him as he loved me, of course I should allow him his freedom as well. I did love Don. This was his taste of sexual freedom. I was sure I wasn't going to lose him to Kylie, but that didn't stop my feelings of insecurity. It was inevitable that he would be making comparisons - at 36, how could I compete with a gorgeous young 22 year-old?

I tried to occupy myself with some office work, but couldn't stop my mind from going back to the sight of the naked Kylie on top of Don. It played over and over in my mind like a slowed down movie. Somehow it had become a silent movie - at least I didn't replay the sound track as well as the visuals. I was picturing a close-up of the point of entry - a slick shaft disappearing up inside a stretched vagina as she dropped down, the shaft re-emerging and rolling the rim outward as she rose back up.

The children arriving home from school provided a welcome distraction from my rambling thoughts. Then Don came back just before dinnertime and we did family things until the kids went to bed. Don explained that he had spent the afternoon at Kylie's parents' place, talking with her family. "Her mum and dad must have had her at an early age," he said. "They're not much older than me."

"Well." I replied. "If you had started early enough, at forty you would be just about old enough yourself to have a 22 year old. What does it feel like to have sex with a girl young enough to be your daughter?" I was becoming sarky. A little sane voice inside my head was telling me to back off. There was no good to be had from antagonising Don.

He ignored my sarcasm. "Yeah, it's been a while since I had sex with someone that age," he said. "She's probably about the second-best 22 year old I've fucked."

"Only second best?"

"The first one was better."

"Yes, but she's 36 now."

"Still good."

I fell apart on Saturday

Saturday was occupied with the usual things - running the children and their friends to various sporting and social activities. All day, I tried to behave as though everything was normal. Then, after dinner, a bit of TV and putting the kids to bed, I sat on the lounge next to Don. I wrapped my arms around him, buried my face against his shoulder and burst into tears.

"I'm not coping," I sobbed. "I'm not strong like you. How can I compete with somebody who is only 22?"

He pulled me across and hugged me to his chest until I calmed a little. "Lulue, it's not a competition." He hadn't used that pet name for many years. It was what he had called me when we first met and fell in love.

"Don't tell me that you weren't comparing her with me while you were fucking her." (That word again.)

"I will tell you that," he responded. "I was too busy enjoying what we were doing to make comparisons. Look, of course, I was just being led by my cock. She wanted it. She wanted it on Tuesday night but it wasn't right then. It was right yesterday so we did it."

"You took advantage of her." I accused.

"If you say so. But she took advantage of me just as much as the other way round. Look, Lue, Kylie had never had anybody other than Greg, so she was experimenting. And, I must admit, so was I. It was different. It was good and I'm not going to say that I am sorry I did it. But I'm not going to feel any great need to do it again and I suppose I can now say I won't go to my grave wondering what it would be like with someone other than my first and only."

I leaned back on the lounge. "You really won't want to do it again?" Then, before he could answer I leaned back against his chest: "Oh Don, I'm so sorry. After what I did, and after I kept on doing it, how can I ask you not to do it again?"

"Lulue, what you did was different. Our marriage was ratshit when you broke free. No, you can ask me not to do it again and I won't. Not with Kylie, not with anybody. It hurt you, and I won't."

"Care for a cuddle?"

*******

Mending a wounded seagull

It was usually Don who suggested that we have sex. This time it was me asking our traditional 'care for a cuddle?'. A quick trip down the hall and we were in the bedroom. We undressed each other, pulled back the bedclothes and fell together into the bed. It was the welcome-home sex we should have had on Wednesday.

The love we made that night was so all-consuming that it wiped all thoughts of Kylie from my mind. It was only the following morning that I thought 'when I was on top of Don, I wonder if my anus was as much on display as Kylie's was?' Then I dismissed the thought from my mind. I was proud of myself - I was getting control of my thoughts. I was on the mend.

We took the kids to the park to play all Sunday morning and I felt everything returning to normal. Then, after lunch, Don drove over to Kylie's parents place to collect her and bring her back in time for Sunday night's dinner. It required a conscious effort to suppress the troubling thoughts of the two of them being together alone in the car on the way home, but I succeeded.

They arrived home. Kylie started apologising as soon as she got out of the car. "I'm sorry Lue, I thought it was all right between you and Don. I didn't realise . . . "

I cut her off. "Let's leave it for now. It's OK. Don and I have sorted things out."

After dinner we talked about Kylie's family, her friends, her trip into the city on Saturday morning and the party she went to on Saturday night. It had been almost a year since she had last been down here to visit her mum and dad. She said her mother hadn't been very fond of Greg, and wasn't sorry about the split up. Her brother would probably go up north to visit her in a month or so. And so on. And on.

The elephant was in the room, but by unspoken agreement we kept it well hidden behind a very thick curtain.

Don left early on Monday to work with a client. We breakfasted and I sent the kids off to school. We had a bit over an hour before I had to take Kylie to the airport. She was packed and ready to go. We went into the lounge room and sat down. "OK," I said. "I'm not upset any more. Don said it was a once-only thing, but it did happen. He said it was good, was it?"

"You really want to know?" She was incredulous.

"I don't just want to, I need to. I want chapter and verse, then we can all put it behind us."

"Can I start from Tuesday night in Don's room?" she asked. I told her that Don had told me that she wanted to do it then but he didn't think it would be good because she was distraught about the split-up.

"That's right. You know, it's funny because it's supposed to be the girl that says 'No'. Here I was crying and vulnerable. I had been rejected. I was really wanting it and here it was the man saying 'No'."

"I was a mess and Don was trying to get me to change the way I was thinking. But even before Greg walked out on me we had been talking. From the time I started working with him I knew Don was different. He is such a deep thinker and he is so full of ideas. He told me about the seagull and his ideas about personal freedoms before, but it didn't all come home to me until Tuesday night."

"So when I came down here and saw the two of you together and you both seemed so cool with everything, on Friday we went for it as soon as you left the house." She thought I seemed cool with the situation? I didn't know I was that good an actress.

"So tell me about it," I said.

"It was fantastic. It was so much better than with Greg. Don wanted to find out what I liked to do, but I didn't know what to say because Greg never did much except get on top of me and stick it in. I haven't ever been licked down there before because Greg wouldn't do it. That was the first thing Don did. It was like a sex lesson. He showed me so much and it was the best lesson I have ever had in all my life."

My husband the sex educator!

I thought 'maybe I should lend her The Joy of Sex.' Alex Comfort's wonderful tome had been our bedtime reading for several years.

"You know I walked in and saw you on top?"

"I thought you must have seen us when you came home early. Me on top never happened with Greg either. Everything with Don was different. It was so good, so good."

I told Kylie that I had heard enough now and thanks for telling me her side of the episode. I said that I supposed she was lucky in a way to have done it and I felt that I was coming to accept it, sort of. She said "Can I ask you a question?" I knew that question had to come some time.

"Have you . . . "

I looked at her and smiled ruefully. "Yes. I did. A couple of years ago. It was a real test of Don's seagull story. He would run his life that way and he actually thinks that when I did it, it was a good thing. I would like to be like that too, I really would. But I don't think I can."

"I don't know that I could either," she said.

I reached across and gave her a hug. "Wait and see what happens," I said. "Just don't rush into the next part of your life." I was being motherly. "Probably best to stay away from married men, too." I laughed.

"I'll still be working with yours," she said, "but we'll keep it professional."

I drove her to the airport. There is 5-minute parking at the drop-off and I spent the whole time hugging her goodbye. We both had tears in our eyes as we broke apart and I climbed into the kombi to drive back home.