Recognition

I came up with a theme, but I found I had two routes to take. I didn't know which one to do, so I decided to do both. The stories are similar. The other one is called 'No More Second Fiddle'. That will be published later. You are going to find similar phrases in both stories, but in most cases the response to the phrase will be different. The outcome is the same, it's just how they get there is different. Neither of these stories will please some people.

Sorry, I got a bit carried away with this one, it's a bit longer than I normally like.

Please just enjoy the stories, they are fiction just like Macbeth.

We were having an uncustomary lay-in, the children were at her parents' for the weekend. We were going to an award ceremony for her this evening in a local hotel. It had been let slip she was getting something, but not what. It would give her time to prepare a small 'thank you' speech. She looked at me from her side of the bed, she was lying on her side, she was beautiful.

"You know I love you, right?" Why was it a question? It sounded to me like she had or was going to do something I wouldn't like.

Things had been chilly between us for a couple of months.

We made love last night, it was slow and passionate, but I think she felt like it could be for the last time. It may well be.

"Actually, I'm not sure you do anymore. The past two years you've been so wrapped up in your work most of the time, and the last few months it's as if me and the kids don't exist, and I'm just a housekeeper and cook for you."

"I'm sorry sweetheart, it'll be over soon."

"I don't believe that either; you keep saying that. I have warned you." She reached for me, but I got out of bed before she could touch me, I looked down at her and said. "You can fix this marriage, it's up to you."

"How?"

"That's up to you. If I keep telling you what you're doing wrong, you will never learn and eventually you will blame me for nagging you."

"I would never do that to you."

"You seem to forget how long I've known you. If I keep on telling you what to do, you will soon tell me off for trying to control you. You need to work out what's wrong."

"Is it because I work too much? It's for us, the kids and our plan. I'm here every and all weekend, no work on the weekend, it's a rule we have, I've stuck to it." She had. Oddly enough, I hadn't.

"A marriage is a seven day affair, not just at the weekend, and no working too much isn't it."

I walked towards the shower; I heard her gently sobbing.

I had just got the shower to the right temperature when she followed me in, I could see she had red eyes, she'd been crying. I held her. I wanted to help her, but she had to work this out for herself. We washed each other in a slow gentle fashion. She sank to her knees and took me in her mouth. It wasn't long before I was hard, she's very good at this when she does It, which isn't often enough, I suppose for a man, it never is.

She swallowed when I finished, she stood up, opened her mouth and filled it with shower water, rinsed and spat it out, then she kissed me.

I would normally return the favour by getting down on my knees, but not today.

We left the shower and dried each other. It was all very quiet; very little was spoken.

We both dressed and had breakfast. I went to my home office to finish off a report I was writing. She did housework, emptied the dishwasher, hoovering, washing, dusting, that sort of stuff. She made lunch, without the children it was all quite reserved. After we finished lunch, she said she had to go into the hotel to help set things up.

I looked at her. "Give my regards to Gerald." That was her boss, and I felt he was the problem.

"He's not going to be there."

I gave her that, 'Oh yeah right.' look. She looked down at the floor.

I went back to my office; my report was done. I just needed to send it away for peer review. I had a quick read through out loud and pressed the send button. I had a little more to do to prepare for tonight's ceremony and then I sat pondering on how we got here.

I met Cheryl, the woman who was to become my wife at a recruitment fair. The aerospace company I worked for was an apprentices dream. They were using me as a shining example of what was available to young people in that industry. She was there as an example of what was available at her university. She was pretty and looked intelligent. The university hadn't sent a stunning woman for this job. That would have probably put people off or not set the right tone.

We bumped into each other whilst getting a coffee. I was first to the coffee pot, but she looked a bit frazzled, so I let her go first. "A gentleman." She said.

"I try to be, and sometimes I succeed."

"You have this time." She said with a smile.

An hour or so later I saw her head towards the coffee pot again, so I followed her, this time she let me go first. We got into a conversation about apprenticeship v university. I cheekily asked if we could carry on the conversation over a drink this evening. She accepted. We spent the evening chatting, not just about education. We discovered we were from adjacent towns and had quite a few things in common. She gave me a kiss on the cheek when we parted. I learnt her University was 100 miles or so from home. That put the mockers on my thinking we could make something of this. That was a pity. We didn't swap phone numbers and I feel we parted as friends the following day.

A couple of days after I got back to work, I got a message from my tutor that a young lady had been on the phone to the apprentice centre, he gave me her phone number. It got me wondering about long distance relationships, the fact she was at university probably full of young attractive students, not a simple aircraft technician, I was probably feeling a bit insecure.

But fate played a hand before I made a decision about phoning her, and two weeks later we were again both at a recruitment fair. As soon as she saw me, she rushed across, and it wasn't. 'Hello, how are you?' or 'why didn't we swap phone numbers?" it was. "Why didn't you phone me?" She sounded a bit grumpy.

I told her that I didn't think it would work over the distance.

"That's your excuse then is it? But really you don't like me."

"Oh no, I like you too much." That made her stop.

I explained my reasons about her being a high flying management, psychology student, away with handsome young fellow students. I was just a spanner monkey, in fact not even that yet, I still had 9 months training to go. I laid my insecurities bare before her.

"I don't like having my heart broken."

She stroked my face and said. "I would never do that to you."

That was the first night we slept together.

I finished my apprenticeship and we married whilst she was still at Uni, with both of our parents' help we made it work whilst she finished her studies. I would visit her most weekends in my clapped out Ford Fiesta, good job I was a technical man able to keep it on the road.

My wages weren't brilliant, but as I was still living at home with Mum and Dad and doing all the overtime I could, which was great, because it gave me extra experience and stood me in good stead with the company. I managed to save up enough for a deposit on a small flat that we had been looking at. Cheryl 's graduation was the proudest day of my life, it outshone my meagre achievements of passing my apprenticeship. She got a first in both disciplines.

We moved into our little flat. That was when real life struck at us. She couldn't get a job that used the degrees she had. The best she could do was manager of a shoe shop. I held her close when she cried herself to sleep because after 3 years at University, she was only selling shoes. No one wanted managers with no experience. We searched far and wide. Anywhere within a 30 mile radius. I would take time off work to run her to interviews, she got good reviews, but no jobs. I used these trips to teach her to drive. Which unfortunately cost me a gearbox when she forgot what the clutch was for. Never mind second hand ones were easy to find on eBay. It was just a cold and wet job when I had to do it because she had an interview the following day. She showed her appreciation in the most fantastic of ways in the shower.

She came in one day all happy, she had placated a difficult customer and turned it into a training experience for the saleswoman. She had been spotted by a customer who recognised what she had done and how she had handled the situation, leaving everybody happy. She offered her a job in her accounting business as an under manager. Things started to look up. In 18 months she was earning as much as me without overtime. We managed to start saving and that was when we made our plan.

We both enjoyed travelling, but recently we'd had little chance to do it. So, the plan was when she reached 55, a year after me, we aimed to have enough money and investments to pack up work. Buy a caravan or a motorhome with a little car on the back and tour Europe, with the aim of spending the winters next to the Med. Go out and travel whilst we are still young and fit enough to enjoy it.

All that overtime I did and the experience I gained was recognised by the company because I was moved into the trials section where they tested new stuff we put on aeroplanes. We would write the test procedure, test the aeroplane or the new bit of kit. Assess the results and write a report on what we found. It was a brilliant job, I loved it and with a substantial pay rise. But with Cheryl's promotions and pay increases she was already earning more than me.

But after about 18 months in her new job, we had a little hiccup, she fell pregnant. I don't know how that happened, well, we know how she got pregnant, we were doing a lot of that. We were taking precautions.

We sat down and had a long talk with both sets of parents and with their help, Cheryl and I decided she had the greater earning potential in the long run. Engineering tends to be dead man's shoes; my next promotion could be years away. The people I worked with loved their jobs and stayed in them till they retired or died. Not so in Cheryl's business, manpower turnover could be frantic. I would become a stay at home Dad and do all the procedure, assessment and report writing at home, with the grandparents looking after baby Derek when I had to go into work to physically test something. My work was happy with that.

Then a year later Susie joined her brother Derek, and I had two children to look after. By then the company had allowed me to become just a procedure and report writer. I no longer did physical testing which pissed me off because that was a fun bit. But we now had two children that needed looking after. Two babies would be too much for the grandparents, as much as they loved them. I seemed to do most of the work looking after the children and the cooking in between the report writing, it seemed to work. And our investment fund and savings were slowly growing. They did take a hit when Susie came along because the flat we had wasn't big enough, so we bought a small house. We changed it a little bit, we made sure I had a little office downstairs and a big shower upstairs. Now we probably weren't on track to meet our aims, but we discussed it, and it will probably be a smaller or older caravan than we had been looking at.

Whilst she was off on paternity leave with Susie, she thought it was about time she moved jobs, she had sort of outgrown that one and she managed to get a job in an advertising agency. She did well, very well. She picked up the nuances of advertising and was able to move the right person onto the right advertising campaign, after listening to what the customer wanted. She seemed to have an instinct for it.

She was promoted quickly. By now I had left my company, and I was doing contracting work. The work was mainly for my old company but other companies as well, and occasionally I did some assessments and wrote a report for Cheryl's people. It allowed me the flexibility to look after the kids and sort out the house. Life was good. Cheryl would blitz the house on a weekend, so I had very little tidying and dusting to do during the week. Most of the washing got done at the weekend, so I had clean clothes for the kids during the week. We laughed a lot, we loved a lot. If we didn't make our plan in time at the age of 55 we weren't so worried because life was fun.

In my eyes Cheryl grew more beautiful as she got older, she filled out a little bit in all the right places. She dressed well, she gained class, she was a right MILF and I enjoyed the benefits. I wasn't too shabby myself, all the running around after the children kept me fit, plus the odd five mile run a couple of times a week and eating well helped.

Then two years ago she got another promotion. Her wages far outstripped mine. All the excess was going into a joint investment account. As I spent the day sitting in front of a computer writing, it gave me the chance to dabble in the stock market. I made a fair bit on that, and I was squirrelling it away for a bigger motorhome. I didn't tell her, but we were on target.

It was when Gerald turned up, that was when things changed. There was more work for her, longer hours, more pressure. Sometimes when she got in she was too tired to do anything. And the meetings away seemed to increase. Customers used to come to their office where, with their technology, they could display their ideas. But recently she seemed to go to them. And when I asked, I was told it's just the way that Gerald did business, you go to the customer, they don't come to you. She kept on how good he was. There was barely a day she didn't go on about him.

I brought it up that she was getting too close to him, and it might lead to something that could damage our marriage. She took that to mean having an affair, and she said so, she told me not to worry. She stroked my face like she did all those years ago and said. "I would never do that to you sweetheart." She stopped talking about him as much, but I still worried. She still did not work any weekends, but she was so tired I ended up picking up more of the cleaning and washing. She still showed an interest in the motorhome magazines, and we still talked about our plans and places we wanted to see.

Then a couple of months ago, she changed, just subtly, it was hard to put my finger on it. The coldness in the bedroom and then the sudden heat almost as if it was guilty sex. It was just how I felt, she would still talk about Gerald, but she sounded different when she did. Something had happened.

After this last promotion we would get invited to the more upper echelons of the company functions. As well as the company family picnic where everybody was invited.

I was looked upon as a house husband, and in most cases ignored because I didn't make the sort of money they did. By now Derek and Susie were at school and I was often asked to supervise physical trials that I had written the procedure for as a contractor. Now that was more fun. Cheryl's colleagues didn't know what I did, they just assumed I was a stay at home Dad that did a bit of writing. Or how much money I was making in my market trading and my contracting for trials. We would be able to buy a big motorhome.

I told her about how I felt, going to these functions and being ignored. She told me I was being overly melodramatic. I warned her that she was paying attention to her team and her boss, while ignoring me, it was damaging our marriage. I didn't appreciate being left in the corner or playing with the children at company parties. I wondered if something had been going on with Gerald.

I told her she would have to choose between company and family. That was when she stroked my face again and said. "You and kids every time sweetheart." I didn't reply.

She told me it was all for us and that our aim was only about 13 years away. The kids would probably be married by then, if not they could look after the house for us, and we could be off gadding about Europe.

Being suspicious I kept an eye on stuff. It's a sort of thing trials engineers do, to expect things to go wrong, you look for stuff to go wrong. It sort of justifies your job when test points fail. I could find nothing. There was no rushing in going to the shower when she got home. I would surprise her at work for lunch and she was always available, although occasionally I might have to wait half an hour or so, if I did it was normally in her office. Her work times had increased, but only ever during the week. She insisted on not leaving for a meeting on a Sunday, that was family time.

And a couple of times I would turn up at the hotel unannounced and meet her as a surprise. Nothing. Did she know I was coming; did she track my phone? I turned tracking off after that when I followed her, but not being able to track me might raise a suspicion.

There was always a reason for her to go away when I checked, and they seemed valid. Interestingly Gerald only went on a few of them, they appeared to be the high profile ones. But they did seem to be arranged at the last minute. I didn't understand that, and when I queried it, I never got a reasonable answer. I did turn up at a hotel when Gerald was there once, I watched for quite a while before I made myself known. Nothing, I saw nothing. I left my phone at home for that trip. I never found anything. I just had this sense of unease the way she kept on about Gerald, how good he was, how helpful he was. I felt it was being pushed more and more into the background. If I mentioned how I was bothered about Gerald, I just got ignored or told he was married and that I didn't trust her.

The coldness of the sex hurt; it was like it was just something she had to do. There was no love in it. She told me she was tired with all the work and not to worry, it was all for us. And then she was as hot as we had been in our early days, hotter in fact because we knew what each other liked. She surprised me one day by calling me upstairs. She stood at the top of the stairs wearing her purple Axford vintage corset, stockings, 5-inch heels and over the elbow leather gloves. She was holding our white bondage rope in her hands. "Sweetheart I have a surprise for you, I'm sure you know what to do with this." She held out the rope. I took it from her, she walked into the bedroom, turned round and placed her arms behind her back. I tied her wrists together and then her elbows, not too tight, not together in case she ended up laying on them. When tied, she turned round and said to me, "I have a request, when you take my bum can you put the vibrator up my pussy and turn it on full bore."

She turned round and bent over, I could see the glass jewelled butt plug up her backside, that was when I noticed the lube on my bedside table. Oh, this is going to be good. It didn't take me long to get my clothes off. I laid her on her back and started licking her pussy, paying attention to her clit, with my fingers buried inside her trying to find her 'G' Spot, but failing on purpose. I was teasing. She loved that, well probably not too much. Sometimes when we played like this, I would have to gag her. She was so loud, but not tonight. She was very wound up, she came quickly. I was hard, I lifted her legs up and I entered her in one go up to the hilt. It didn't take long, and she was coming again, now it was my turn for my favourite. I flipped her over onto her belly, she got up on her knees. I pulled the plug out, there's going to be no need for lubrication, but I gently squeezed a bit just to make sure it didn't hurt. I grabbed the vibrator that was lying there, turned it on to full power and it slipped easily into her pussy, she groaned. I entered her backside. It was tight, it was lovely. I felt her coming. Her whole body spasmed and that brought me off too.