Penny's Promiscuity Ch. 16: Shocks

'Finished!'

I said to myself as I clicked on the 'Publish Story' icon and leaned back in my chair, feeling pleased as I watched the cursor spin for a few seconds before the confirmation message appeared on the laptop screen.

Moderator permitting, the latest chapter in my story would be on line within a few days. No doubt the first troll attack would follow within minutes of publication but I had become immune to their extreme nastiness by then.

Well, almost immune.

I looked up at the kitchen clock. My husband Pete wouldn't be downstairs for at least half an hour. I poured myself another mug of tea then returned to my laptop, opened my secret author's email account and began to read the half dozen messages that were waiting in my Inbox.

***

It was Sunday morning, four weeks after Pete had returned from his conference in Geneva when the two of us had come as close to splitting up as I ever wanted to get. It had been the end of a two-week period apart during which we were to make the most important decisions in our twenty-year-plus marriage.

During our brief separation, I was to decide whether I wanted to remain with my husband or leave him and live with Tony, the close family friend who had seduced me the previous November and with whom I had been carrying on a passionate affair ever since.

In my defence, my husband had been pressuring me to take a lover for over year. Wife sharing had featured strongly in our bedtime fantasies for a long time and he had said he was keen to turn it into a reality.

When that reality had arrived and I had confessed my adultery to Pete, far from divorcing me, to my surprise and relief he had agreed that the affair could continue as long as it didn't pose a threat to our marriage and I promised to be honest and truthful about it the whole time.

To my shame, I had been neither of these, falling badly in love with Tony, arranging meetings and romantic overnight stays with my lover behind my husband's back to the point where he and I had actually planned for me to leave my husband and move in together, possibly even getting married once our respective divorces had come through.

The deceit had been so serious that, once it had been discovered, my cuckolded husband hadn't been sure he could live with me any longer. Pete had insisted on us having a trial separation to make the decisions we had to make freely and unencumbered by our marriage.

I was supposed to spend the time living as Tony's wife, deciding with which man my future lay. As I was doing this, my husband Pete would be living in Consultants' Accommodation at the hospital at which he worked and would be deciding whether he wanted his lying, cheating wife back at all.

Then natural justice had intervened. During our supposedly brief separation, things had not gone to plan. Far from welcoming me into his bed and his life, my lover Tony had immediately and callously dumped me, leaving me frustrated and alone in our family house throughout the entire first week of my freedom.

It should have taught me a serious lesson, but fate has a cruel sense of humour. Far from pining for each other, before the week was out both my husband and I had tasted forbidden fruit.

Pete's bite of Eve's apple had come in the pretty, petite, deceptively innocent-looking form of my lover's estranged wife. Julie, a woman my age and my closest female friend had spent a night of passionate, highly adventurous fornication with my husband during which he had apparently fully satisfied her infamously demanding libido.

In the process she had also introduced him to many new pleasures including anal sex; something he and I had tried but never successfully managed. For some reason I found the idea of my husband enjoying something in bed with another woman that he and I hadn't been able to share particularly hard to bear.

While this was all happening, my own voyage deeper into infidelity had come at the hands of Julie's erstwhile lover Darren, a twenty-nine year old personal trainer at the sports club. Darren had seduced me very easily, bedded me equally efficiently then subjected me to what was without doubt the most exciting, most energetic and exhausting night of sex in my entire life in his squalid untidy bedroom in a shared house.

The walk of shame I had taken the following morning had unfortunately been observed by his housemate Will who couldn't have failed to understand what my presence in his house at that hour meant and might even have heard my orgasmic exclamations throughout the night.

But some good had come of all this; during their pillow talk, Julie had told Pete about her husband's long and inglorious history of seducing married women and abandoning them as soon as their marriages were broken. Apparently I was only the latest in a long line of dumped conquests but was the closest of their friends who had fallen under his spell.

After Julie had visited me to tell me the same thing, I had flown to Geneva and begged Pete to take me back, something he had eventually agreed but not without both suspicions and conditions.

His suspicion was that I was only coming back to him on the rebound from my failed affair; that it wasn't love for him but a need not to be alone that was driving my return to his life. No matter how often and how earnestly I assured him this wasn't the case, I knew my husband retained a level of mistrust. Given my history, this was easy to understand.

Pete had finally agreed to have me back but on strict conditions, one of which was that if we were to have an ongoing marriage, it would have to be the Hotwife relationship he and I had originally agreed before my affair with Tony got out of hand. Going back to a normal monogamous relationship was simply not possible after all that had happened and most certainly was not what Pete wanted.

As he told me many times, I had got what I wanted out of my affair; his fantasies had barely been addressed at all. If we each paid attention to the other's needs, we could perhaps make it work for both of us this time in an even-handed way that had been completely absent from my self-centred affair.

So our new marriage contract had begun.

The Geneva Convention as we jokingly referred to it, involved Pete and me spending a few months as a conventional couple, trying to re-establish some of the trust my affair had destroyed. This was not going to be easy but we both understood it was essential before the two of us could embark once again on the Hotwife -- Cuckold lifestyle we had tried and failed to establish first time round.

This renewed romantic relationship was now a month old and, it had to be said, was working very well so far. Keen to succeed and now with the same ultimate sexual destiny in mind, both my husband and I had been trying hard to bring the romance back into our marriage. We had been out to dinner many times, the house was full of flowers and the smell of cooking; we had enjoyed a romantic weekend away as if we were a normal, affluent couple.

Emotionally though, the beginning had been predictably shaky. From the outset is was obvious that, whatever he said aloud, inside my husband no longer had the trust in me that had characterised the previous twenty-plus years of our marriage.

Although he never said as much, this mistrust manifested itself in many little ways. For example, Pete would ask me about my day and my plans in much more detail than before; he would look at my diary more often 'to make sure his was up to date'. I even caught him quietly looking at my phone as if checking who I had been talking to or exchanging messages with.

All these were little things; given their cause there was nothing important enough to object to but together they created an atmosphere that left me in no doubt that it was down to me to demonstrate remorse and make my reformation obvious. So I left my diary easily available for him to find. I took the password off my phone so he could see everything. I told him every detail of my activities that he asked and after a week or so Pete seemed to be a little less nervous.

All the same I could tell things would never be quite as they were before.

It has been said many times by many people but until it happens to you, one never truly understands how a trust that has taken decades to build can be shattered so quickly.

And that was exactly what I had done.

Perversely, our sex life blossomed immediately; Pete and I made love passionately every day for the first week -- often more than once - before settling down to a more manageable two or three times each week. My vaginal orgasms remained few and far between but with the promise of more partners to follow I could live with this disappointment easily.

Besides, there were always my husband's world-class oral skills to fall back on if a climax became essential.

Although I had to accept with sadness that the depth of trust we used to have might never be restored, there was no doubt that our relationship was improving considerably. Our social life had resumed largely unaffected too; we had been out for dinner with our circle of friends several times and there was no sign of anyone knowing about the difficult patch Pete and I had just gone through -- indeed were still going through.

An unspoken agreement seemed to have emerged too whereby the painful subject of my affair with Tony was never discussed. In return, I didn't raise the rather less controversial subject of Pete's night with Julie. I was concerned that this lack of discussion meant that we were still not properly addressing the main issue between us but at this stage it seemed more important to heal the wounds than to open them further.

My Hotwife bracelet with its blue charms representing each of my official dates with Tony had been consigned to a closet drawer but interestingly, I did notice that Pete's collection of my semen-soiled knickers was still in its shoebox at the bottom of his closet.

There was however, no barrier to the open and detailed discussion of my night of passion with Darren; something with which my husband seemed completely obsessed as an example of what our future Hotwife lifestyle might look like.

Our wife-sharing bedtime fantasies returned too, but now they had a vividness that could only have resulted from us both having recently experienced amazing sex with another person. Pete's horizons in particular had most definitely been broadened by his all-night stand with Julie to a degree that awakened a powerful if completely hypocritical jealousy in me despite my having cheated on him dozens of times with my two lovers.

As my husband and I grew closer once again, so the subject of our future lifestyle arose more and more. Indeed, from the very beginning it was clear that Pete was determined that we would follow through on his main condition of our staying together; to make his as-yet-unfulfilled desire to watch me being fucked by another man a reality.

But if that were ever to happen - without repeating the mistakes that had nearly destroyed our marriage - we had to overcome a few problems first. From the second week onwards we talked openly about this; how to find new lovers, how we might set it all up, how we might feel during and, more importantly, afterwards.

The emotional problems would have to be taken slowly, with love and as much trust as remained between us. While this was happening, the practical problems could be addressed, the main one being simple to describe but much harder to resolve: how were we safely to find lovers who would be as good in bed as both Pete and I wanted, who would allow him to watch or even join in but who would be totally discreet?

Discretion; the need to remain completely anonymous was, we both agreed, absolutely paramount. Neither of us could remain in our jobs in our hospital -- perhaps not even in the city if what had already happened became known, let alone what we wanted to happen in the future.

And as for what our friends or our self-righteous kids would say if they ever found out... It was unthinkable!

Fortunately we both believed Julie could be trusted to keep our secret. My foolish liaison with Darren and my walk of shame the morning after were still a risk but perhaps a containable one. After all Darren hadn't 'kissed and told' about his relationship with Julie so why should he publicise his one night stand with me?

I had met Julie for coffee only twice since she had told me all about her marriage and her one night stand with my husband, and both of those had been in the last week. Julie had been unsure whether she and I were still friends -- something I wasn't sure about myself until we actually met -- so had kept a low profile as far as I was concerned.

Indeed it wasn't until we had actually kissed our hellos that I realised I bore her no ill-will and we began to re-establish our friendship, albeit tentatively. She looked fit and attractive as she had always done but there was something about her china-doll blonde body that spoke of an inner strength that I hadn't seen before. Most likely this was in my mind; a result of knowing how she had taken control of her one-sided relationship with her philandering husband and left him.

To make sure that this time the break-up lasted, she had deliberately started a very public affair with a young man barely half her age. The divorce papers had now been served on her husband, my ex-lover who seemed to have been genuinely surprised that his wife really wasn't going to come back to him this time.

I'm no saint as this story has shown but sometimes the male ego defies belief.

Julie was now dating again, mostly using online agencies. She had tried the usual app-based methods but these were apparently dominated by married men looking for a quick no-strings fuck rather than a relationship. She blushed as she told me that she hadn't ignored all the one-night offers she had received but had been saddened by the lack of emotional involvement they produced.

She clearly wanted another long-term relationship and was learning the hard way how difficult this is second time around. I felt sorry for her and profoundly grateful to be with a man who would let me enjoy both a loving marriage and an active, varied sex life.

I'm not sure whether she understood that my affair with her husband was supposed to be the beginning rather than the end of a life less monogamous for Pete and me but when we parted we agreed to keep each other's secrets to the grave and to remain in touch often.

This was reassuring; as I drove home I went over and over in my mind how very important it was that Pete's fantasies were fulfilled sooner rather than later and that, whatever he and I did in the future, we did not create any more witnesses than absolutely necessary to what most people would consider to be considerably deviant sexual desires.

For that reason, the wife-sharing websites Pete had first found that required the posting of photos were discounted immediately -- which meant almost all of them. If we could browse the sites then our friends could too and who knows where our photos might end up?

The thought that someone who knew us might stumble across a picture of either Pete or me on a swingers' website filled us both with horror. Similarly, all the swingers' clubs I had found required photographic proof of identity as a pre-requisite to membership so these too were out of the question.

The idea of trying to pick up strangers in bars or hotels made us both nervous so despite all our arousing bedtime fantasies, by the end of the first month Pete and I hadn't made much progress in terms of finding me a new fuck-buddy and providing my husband with his fantasy of watching me with another man.

In desperation I had secretly turned to my online friends again. Had I listened to them in the past, their good counsel might have prevented us getting into the predicament that had come so close to costing us our marriage. Over the past few days I there had been several exchanges of emails with three of my closest advisors and I felt that I was making progress.

I had tried to conceal my plans by asking them how they managed to find partners for their own wives. I'm sure they saw through my subterfuge but all three played the game and pretended my questions were genuine. In most cases the answer was that their wives' fuck buddies had either been friends, work colleagues or pick-ups from singles bars but two of my friends had on occasion used the same rather expensive and to my mind highly unorthodox option.

The option I was reading about now.

***

Half an hour later I leaned back in my chair, my heart thumping. I had read all my messages then re-read one in particular over and over again.

Could this be the solution that got both Pete and me what we wanted? It was unthinkable and yet...

Despite all my initial doubts, on the face of it the answer was yes it could! It was so simple too -- once you got over the initial shock and revulsion and thought about it objectively.

It was a big shock to get over though.

I thought again. Perhaps it really could work. But did I have the courage to tell my husband about the idea? He had been understanding beyond belief about my affair; would Pete's patience and indulgence tolerate an even more extreme idea?

And would I dare even mention it to him? It was rather a shock to say it out loud to myself.

I was beginning to believe that my husband and I should pay for sex!

*** When Geoff, one of my online friends had first suggested the idea, I had dismissed it immediately as a disgusting perversion. After all, sex workers were prostitutes weren't they? And prostitutes were poor, unfortunate people addicted to drugs and seething with sexually transmitted diseases.

Or so I had thought. When I had first given him my reaction, rather than take offence, my friend Geoff had explained in longer and more revealing emails that using escorts had brought both him and his late wife great pleasure throughout their later lives.

Geoff had been married to Sylvia for over fifty years; for at least half of which they had lived the Hotwife and cuckold lifestyle that Pete and were planning to embark upon. After bringing up four children (one of which Geoff doubted was his) and with six grand-children already, Sylvia had died of cancer five years previously. He missed her terribly.

Geoff had contacted me very early on in my writing career. Reading my stories had apparently brought back strong and fond memories of what at the time had been a very alternative lifestyle. He and I had exchanged many frank messages over the past months during which he had urged me strongly not to reject the notion out of hand. He assured me that, done the 'right way', it wasn't dirty or squalid at all; that it could be a life-enhancing, virtually risk-free experience and was far less of a threat to my marriage than my affair with Tony had been.

He urged me to find out more; to try and understand the world of escorting and to open my mind.

If I could open my mind, he joked, then opening my legs would come naturally.

I had been very doubtful at first but over the last week a series of late night and early morning sessions on line had introduced me to the idea of escorts, taught me both the error of my thinking and the existence of a whole new world and a whole new language I had never suspected.

I quickly learned what 'safe sex', A levels, O levels, covered, bareback and BBJ's meant.

I read online guides about the risks of using sex workers and how to minimise those risks.

I visited the websites of agencies and individuals and discovered the existence of escort reviews.

Gradually, before my astonished eyes, a whole new industry was being revealed. It began to fascinate me. I had of course, seen the movie 'Belle de Jour' but hadn't really taken it seriously and yet here was that very world laid out for me to learn about and perhaps even understand.