The Athlete

Lying in bed beside Beth I returned to the subject of his endowment. Making my voice deliberately light, I said, "Don't be shy - I'm just interested - exactly how big is Paul's cock?"

In answer, she reached out, took hold of my far from flaccid prick and gave it a friendly squeeze. "I'm not telling you," she said. "But if twenty six years ago I had both of you standing naked in front of me and I had to choose between you only on that criteria - you wouldn't have stood a chance."

There was no more conversation because we were engaged in the most passionate and prolonged sex that we had shared for a very long time.

The next morning we again went up to the flat together just before ten o'clock. Beth stopped outside his bedroom door and said, "You better look after him if it bothers you me doing it."

I shrugged and made myself smile. "No - you know the routine; I'll probably make a mess of it. There's bound to be a pile of washing up again – I'll look after that." I spoke the words bravely but as I walked away, I felt like the tamer who has turned his back on the tiger.

There was no real risk, of that I was certain but there was exhilaration in leaving my wife exposed to the temptation of another man's body.

Like before, Beth joined me while her charge attended to bodily functions in the bathroom. "I have been thinking - how do you manage to get his pants on without touching his dick?"

"I do touch it," she said in a very matter of fact voice. "He does need it tucked in comfortably. Nurses do it all the time and I am acting in the role of honorary nurse. There's absolutely no significance in touching a man's private parts if it isn't in a sexual context."

I had other questions but knowing that she expected them I said nothing. When Beth realised that I was not rising to the bait she added mysteriously, "I have touched other penises besides yours you know." This had been a running joke throughout our marriage. Despite persistent questioning about her previous sexual experience, she had steadfastly refused to give me any details claiming that it was nothing to do with me. Nevertheless, from time to time over the years, she found occasion to slip in these tantalising references.

From that day and thereafter, we provided Paul with his evening meal and spent most evenings with him, watching his television or just sitting talking. Early on, while Beth was downstairs cooking, I brought the conversation round to Serena. Before I could mention my reservations about her fidelity to him, Paul told me with tears in his eyes how much he was missing her already. He went on to reveal their plans to marry and to say how dependent this was on doing well in the Olympics, explaining that a medal or near miss guaranteed a lucrative tour afterwards making personal appearances and taking part in invitation races. "It's all down to Serena now," he concluded sadly, "- but then she always was the one with the real talent." In the end I had not the heart to cast a cloud on his horizon.

Towards the end of the first week, when we were alone, Beth said hesitantly, "Paul would like a nice long soak but he is going to need help getting in and out of the bath. I think that you ought to do it. He's a big lad and he might be too heavy for me if he slips."

This put me on the spot. I had no wish to see his scars and my enthusiasm for touching him had not improved but more importantly, I enjoyed the excitement of leaving Beth alone with him. The risk seemed only theoretical but wilfully exposing my wife of twenty-five years to a young naked black man undoubtedly got my adrenaline flowing. I shook my head as if this held no importance. "No love," I said. "You have got the knack of looking after him and I will be close by if you do have trouble."

Beth accepted my decision without argument and I got the feeling that she had made the offer only as a gesture. A little later she took him for his bath and I busied myself going through the motions of cleaning the kitchen but with my ears tuned to sounds from the bathroom. I heard the bath fill and then an urgent exchange of words as she did have trouble manoeuvring him into the water. Then there was some splashing followed by a long period of low-level chatter.

And then my wife started to giggle. I listened hard but heard no sound from him. The giggling died, there was a pause, a splash and then she giggled again, louder and for longer - and this time I heard his laughter too.

Beth never giggled. A good dirty chuckle or even a belly laugh was more her style. When the girls were small she had occasionally done a forced giggle when joining in their mirth, making herself sound like them, forgoing for a moment the parent child relationship. This giggle was not like that. Certainly not forced and containing, I thought, elements of both embarrassment and excitement. My mind whirred trying to visualise a picture a situation that would explain the emission of that particular noise. The only one to fit was this: - For some reason she is soaping his groin area and he gets a stiffy, she giggles and splashes water to make it go down but instead it gets bigger - this makes her giggle again and he laughs too.

I waited until Beth and I were alone but then immediately asked, "What was so funny in the bathroom."

For a moment her face looked blank but then, as though remembering she said, "Oh, he got an erection - that kind of thing happens. The poor lad was terribly embarrassed so I made it seem funny to put him at ease." A few days later I asked casually asked if Paul ever suffered an embarrassing hard on after that first time and was rather surprised to hear that he had one every time he was in the bath and that they either ignored it or joked about it.

I must mention that during the period that she had been acting as his nurse, my sex life with Beth had improved immeasurably. Early in our marriage we had not been able to leave other alone but over the years the incidence of our lovemaking had waned until, for a long time, it had been fairly steady at twice a week. During that summer it had increased somewhat but someone with a statistical bent would quickly find some correlation with the times Serena had sunbathed almost nude in the garden. Now it was Beth who was the more amorous, snuggling up and frequently grabbing hold of me before I touched her. She was also inclined to skip the long period of kissing and fondling which had, for us, always been an essential part of making love, seeming now eager to get quickly to the screwing. It is strange in view of the situation that I never ascribed my wife's increased passion an inspiration similar to my own after playing voyeur in the garden. I just accepted it as a bonus and thought no more of it.

The hospital had provided Paul with a special stool with a slanting seat, designed for use by people on crutches. When he got out of the bath he half perched on and half leaned against the stool while he got dry and then dressed. This day, I had heard him get out of the bath and as usual had set three mugs and put on the kettle ready for when he emerged. Suddenly I heard water running into the still full bath that he had just vacated. I could think of no reason why this had happened except one - and that was that the noise created had to be the object of the exercise. Had Beth turned on turned on the tap deliberately to prevent me hearing something?

You may wonder why I had not at some time gone down and listened outside the bathroom door. It was important that I should not do that because to do so would be nothing less than spying - displaying a lack of trust. I listened hard but always remained in the kitchen, anxious to take no action that would validate the suspicions in my head. After a short while, over the sound of the water I heard a long low guttural moan and soon after the tap was turned off.

When Beth and Paul emerged, having taken slightly longer than usual, I took them their coffees leaving mine on the side, then walked quickly to the bathroom and locked the door.

Looking round, everything at first seemed as it should be but then I noticed two rub or scuff marks on the rug by the side of the bath. Closer examination revealed that both scuffs contained minute flecks of what could be cream coloured toilet paper. The slight dampness to my touch was not significant because Paul's wet feet must have passed that way. This was suspicious but not conclusive but then glancing, up I saw a large glob of what was obviously semen, trickling glutinously down the outside of the bath.

My heart was pounding almost out of control but I rejoined the other two, picked up my drink and saying nothing, sat observing them. It may have been my imagination but Paul appeared more relaxed than at any time since leaving hospital and Beth seemed to be secretly pleased with herself. I contained my anger through the rest of that long day and it was not until we were alone in our own part of the house that I said coldly, "So you've started giving him a quick hand job have you?"

Beth froze and looked at me but she did not deny it. "It's not like you make it sound but yes - I did help him. I was going to tell you if you had given me the chance."

"That's why you ran the water to stop me hearing what was going on," I said scathingly.

"I only did that so he wouldn't worry. Tom he's a young man and he has not had any sex since his accident - if I'm any judge he got precious little before. Since the accident he has been numb but now his feelings are coming back with a rush. He sat on the stool with his penis sticking out all stiff and throbbing. I could see that he was in real pain and I just had to do something." She paused and then added with a bit of a laugh in her voice. "I couldn't see how I could possibly pull his pants up otherwise. I just reached out and I hardly had to touch it."

"I don't see why he couldn't do it himself." Even to me I sounded churlish.

"He can't that's why not. His right hand is still useless and he says he has never been able to use his left. He has tried but that hand is so tired from doing all the work with his crutches that he says he gets cramp almost immediately that he tries. Can't you see that I had to do something?"

"So this is just another one of your nursely duties - I don't believe it."

"I'm sure that thousands of nurses must have done it in the right circumstances."

I was about to dispute this but then I remembered something that I had once read. The bit in the book told about a man who had lost both hands in an industrial accident. After a while his regular nurse on night duty took pity on his distress and masturbated him. She thought that it was just a one off act of pity but the next day he looked at her appealingly and soon it became a nightly ritual. The nurse in question returned home to her husband each morning believing that she had only done something in the spirit of the caring profession but after his release, complete with prosthetic hands, the ex patient hung about the hospital hoping to continue the 'love affair'. This memory choked the words in my throat so instead of speaking, I leaned forward and give Beth a kiss to show that I was not going to make an issue of it.

When he again had a bath, that night as we prepared for bed Beth said casually, "I had to help Paul again today."

I was just going to say 'didn't she help him every day' when I realised what she was telling me. I merely grunted and in that way accepted it. My rational mind could accept that done in a detached way this could hardly be classed a sex act but at a more subconscious level I kept getting aroused, picturing her fingers clasped round his big stiff black cock, wanking him until thick cum spurted from it. Beth did not feel obliged to tell me that she had done it after that but I knew from the running water that it had happened and knew that this had become part of Paul's bath time routine.

Science denies the existence of a sixth sense on the basis that claimed effects cannot be reproduced under laboratory conditions yet everyone at some time experiences something which can't be explained in any other way. Beth and Paul were in his bathroom as usual, fresh water was being added to the bath after he had vacated it - as usual, I could not hear anything - and yet I knew with absolute certainty that something different had occurred. So when they came through to where I had the coffees waiting I was deliberately scanning for some clue. I did not have far to look because on the upper part of my wife's dress over one of her breasts, there was a fair sized wet mark. Beth immediately noticed me looking and as if having feared such scrutiny, gave an unconvincing shrug and explained, "I seem to have splashed myself - I had better nip downstairs and change this dress."

It did not look like a splash mark to me. Rather it looked as if someone wishing to rinse something off the dress had wet only the minimum area necessary to prevent unnecessary disturbance to the garment. I could think of only one substance that she might want to remove. Now if I wanted to toss somebody off, (not that I ever have), I would do it from the side and not directly in the firing line, (unless of course that was the object of the exercise). The evidence pointed in only one direction and the conclusion shocked me. You see this was a painful subject for me. During the marriage we had enjoyed a full and uninhibited sex life in all but one respect - and that was oral sex. Beth had only taken my prick into her mouth an average of once a year, then not very deep and for only a brief period. My cum had never passed her lips. She was also reluctant to let me suck her cunt due to the implied obligation to reciprocate with an act that she had no wish to do. Now, after all those years, I suspected that Beth had done for another man what she had persistently refused to do for me.

I followed Beth downstairs and found her in our bedroom, dressed only in bra and pants, and selected a fresh dress from the wardrobe. She turned round as if she had been expecting me.

"That wasn't a splash mark on your dress. What the hell did you wash off?" I blurted.

My wife looked me straight in the eye. "You know what it was Tom," she said softly. "I sucked Paul's penis and some of his stuff spilled onto my dress."

I felt as if I had died - as if everything that I had ever known was crumbling around me. No matter how certain I had been in my mind, deep down I had hoped that she could give me an innocent explanation. "How could you?" I managed to say.

"It was surprisingly easy," she said but her tone of voice made the words less trite than they may appear.

With an effort I controlled my voice. "What really hurts," I said, " - is that it's something that you have never done to me no matter how much you knew I wanted it."

"Can we sit down on the bed. There is something that I should have told you a long, long time ago. Perhaps if I tell you now it might help you to understand."

Reluctantly I sat myself near her. How could she possibly say anything that would make this gross thing understandable?

Beth reached out as if to take my hand in hers but then changed her mind. "About a year before I met you I had been to the pictures with a friend and afterwards we split up and I stated walking home alone. It was summertime and a warm clear night. When I got to the park I took the short cut across the park - this was something that I very rarely did but it saved over ten minutes and I was tired. Halfway across, three youths came up and grabbed me - I say youths because at least two of them were younger than me. They dragged me into the bandstand, got me on the floor and started pulling my jeans down. There was no point screaming because I had seen nobody else in the park so instead I begged saying 'Please don't - I'm a virgin.' It was a lie but they believed me and the oldest one said, 'OK - you can suck us off instead.' I had no choice - it was one thing or the other. I had to do it properly and they said that I had to swallow their cum as part of the bargain. Later I realised that I should have just lain there and thought of something else while they raped me but I was terrified of getting pregnant. I think that I sucked one of them twice - I do know that when I thought I had finished another prick was stuffed in my mouth but perhaps I lost count."

At this point my wife's voice began to falter but she controlled herself and continued. "Afterwards they started being friendly, acting as if they had done nothing wrong. One gave me a cigarette and when they let me go another called out 'See you around' as if I had met them to do it willingly. When I got home I drank salt water trying to make myself sick to get all their stuff out of me but it didn't work. I had a bath then put all the clothes I was wearing into a bag and next morning got it in the dustbin without my mother knowing. The clothes were covered in what the police call forensics but I wasn't going to tell the police what had happened to me. I never told anybody about it - until now, telling you. For years afterwards I had dreams about it - they didn't really stop until after Abigail was born. When we got together, I knew that you wanted me to suck you but when I tried it all came flooding back and I had the same 'overpowered' feeling and couldn't go through with it. Many times over the years I have set out determined to do it for you but always had to stop when the feeling came back. "

A surge of love and sympathy caused me take hold of my wife's hand but then Beth took a deep breath and I wondered whether to remove it, guessing that she was about to speak about the incident with Paul. "Tonight Paul was perched on the stool and I was drying his legs, he had an erection but then his prick seems permanently stiff these days. Usually I dry one leg then move round to dry the other but this time I stayed where I was and reached but without me realising my breasts must have been pressed against one leg while I was drying the other. As I stood up I noticed that his penis was even bigger than usual and the skin was so tight it looked like it might split. I reached out to do what I usually do but the moment that I touched it he winced with pain. His cock felt extremely hot to the touch and you could almost see waves of heat rising from it. From the look of agony on his face, I knew that I had to do something. I crouched down in front of him and started blowing on it to cool it down - that may seem silly but it was all that I could think of. Going by his breathing I thought this was working and it pleased me so much that I spontaneously leaned forward and kissed the head of his penis."

Beth's eyes flicked up to my face reading reaction and then, apparently satisfied she said, "The moment that my lips touched him, I knew what I had to do. I felt that I could go through with it because I was in control for the first time. I'm not going to tell you that it was over quickly because it wasn't. I could feel that just having his cock in my mouth was soothing him and I made it last to calm him as much as possible. When he did cum that was a lot more than I expected. I swallowed most of it but quite a lot bubbled out of my mouth and some fell on my dress. Tom, I believe that I sucked the pain and frustration right out of him and because of that, I that I feel proud of myself and not at all ashamed. But I'm sorry that you guessed what I did and have been hurt by it, especially after the way I have denied you for so long. I didn't mean to be unfaithful to you and I still don't think that I really was."

Beth stopped and not daring to see my face, stared fixedly down but her words had done the impossible. I moved closer, put an arm round her shoulders and kissed her forehead. "Does this mean that you will be able to do it to me now?" I asked.