Secret Sex 1 IT''S GOOD FOR MY MARRIAGE PEOPLE SEEKING LOVE IN THE WESTERN WORLD SEEM to have marriage, or at least a relatively permanent domestic partnership, as their goal. From our earliest childhood games, we are conditioned to expect to spend our adult lives with a single mate of the opposite gender. The varying disciplines of social science offer a multitude of reasons for this, ranging from the need for tribal males to feel secure about females tending hearth and home while they are out hunting or making war, to the requirement of a readily discernible lineage for stabilizing the concept of inheritance. Whatever the reason, it is clear that each of us is expected to form a single alliance with another person for life. Divorce statistics show that this expectation is frequently unrealistic. Again, the social scientists offer a variety of explanations for why this is so. Some explanations are far-fetched, while others are plausible. We feel that the only one that is certain is sexual.
After seeing, touching, and coupling with the same partner''s naked body for a period of time, a person tends to grow bored and to hunger for change. Self-styled experts have come up with dozens of ways to prevent monotony from killing a marriage. A glance at the magazine racks in any supermarket or at the self-help shelves in any bookstore will present many examples. Depending on the publisher''spoint of view, solutions may involve couple''s therapy, exotic vacations, wardrobe suggestions, or even a new recipe for strawberry cheesecake. This chapter contains stories told by people who claim that they have rescued their marriage from the doldrums of sameness by engaging in extramarital affairs. Nelson has made a habit of it, experiencing the heartbreak of two failing relationships before hitting upon what he believes to be a formula for success. Glenda fell into an affair without intending to do so and later discovered that it brought a new spark to her marriage. We don''t know how their experiences will end, and we don''t recommend their strategies for anyone else.
We do think it might be helpful, though, to see the positive side of their secret sex lives. KEEPING IT ALIVE Nelson, who is about forty years old, is a professor in a graduate business program at a state university. He stands six-foot-one, with a lean muscular build that he maintains by working out regularly at the university gym. His medium-length blond hair frames his light-complected face, giving him a youthful yet scholarly appearance. His bright green eyes seem to look right through the person to whom he is speaking, giving one the feeling that Nelson is performing a careful appraisal as he talks. My work puts me in a position to make contact with lots of intelligent young females. My classes are full of them--women in the world of business who think that an MBA will help them advance from middle to upper management overnight. They admire me.
They look up to me. That makes them easy conquests. In some ways, this has made my life very pleasant. In others, it has been the root of a great deal of heartbreak. I''m on my thirdwife at the moment. My first two marriages failed because I got too involved with attractive students who wanted to idolize and mother me all at the same time. Neither of my first two marriages lasted more than five years. I''m hoping this one will be different.
The first time I got married, I was twenty-five and just starting my teaching career while working toward my Ph.D. in finance. Anna was a colleague, also teaching in the business department. She was a couple of years older than I was, but very, very sexy. When she was in front of a class, she wore severe, dark suits and had her hair pulled back into a sexless bun. But at home, she was a tigress. She would dress for me in the laciest, most erotic lingerie I could imagine and would captivate me by stripping slowly while I sat on the bed and watched her, getting more aroused and more excited by the minute.
Our marriage was hot for the first three years. Then it started cooling off. One afternoon I found myself in a motel room with one of my students, killing time between classes with an idle fuck. A week or so later, I went with another. After that it became a regular occurrence. Anna probably suspected it, but she never said anything about it. We were beginning to lose sexual interest in each other. After a little more than four years of marriage, we hardly ever had sex with each other anymore.
I wouldn''t be surprised if she was taking on an occasional student herself. Eventually, I found myself involved in a serious affair. Britney was one of my students. She was a good five years younger than I and single. At first we started seeing each other for recreational sex. Before I knew it, I became emotionally attached to her. When I saw her talking to her male classmates, I actually became jealous. Soon I had myself convinced that I couldn''t live without her.
My divorce from Anna was relatively painless and without rancor since we had lost all interest in each other anyway. After a decent waiting period, Britney and I were married. She was very different from Anna. She was the same person publicly as she wasprivately. Sexy, but in a wholesome sort of way. She wore short skirts that showed off her shapely legs and tight sweaters that accentuated the curves of her ample breasts. Underneath, she wore sensible white cotton undies. Our nights were filled with passionate lovemaking, but somehow it never reached the levels of excitement I had known with Anna.
After about a year and a half, I started taking students to motels again. At first it seemed to put sparks into my marriage. I''d come home following an afternoon rendezvous, my head filled with recollections of the girl I had been with and the things I had been doing with her. When Britney and I went to bed, I would perform some of the same acts on her body, but I''d be thinking of the other woman. For a few more years, this managed to keep our marriage alive. Then, when I met Caroline, my relationship with Britney started to pale hopelessly. Right from the start, Caroline was more than an afternoon fuck to me. To begin with, she was twenty-four, a little more than ten years younger than I, and satisfying her made me feel like a real sexual athlete.
Her sexual experience was pretty limited, so it seemed that almost everything I did was happening to her for the first time. Whenever we went to bed together, I felt I was with a virgin. I fell in love with her almost immediately. But the idea of having two marriages go down the tubes, one after the other, was horrifying to me. I tried to breathe life into my relationship with Britney. I worked hard at turning myself on so that I could perform with her. I just didn''t have it for her anymore, though. She noticed.
At first she was solicitous, asking me repeatedly about my health and suggesting that I see a doctor about my flagging sex drive. Then she became hurt, sensing that she wasn''t exciting my sexual interest anymore. Inevitably, she started questioning me about my activities, accusing me of fooling around. She called it "cheating." Funny, I had never thought of it in terms of that word. I denied the affair for about a year, but I was becoming moreand more enmeshed in it. Caroline was starting to make demands, putting pressure on the relationship. She said she wasn''t going to hang around while I worked things out with my wife.
I had to make a decision. It was either her or my marriage. I chose her. Telling Britney I wanted a divorce was no picnic, as it had been with Anna. She was furious and shattered, both at the same time. She cried for days, sobbing bitterly, even wailing at times. It broke my heart to see her in such pain. I just couldn''t help her, though.
It was over. Soon after our divorce, I married Caroline. A few of my colleagues joked about the fact that I had gone from Anna to Britney to Caroline. They asked whether I planned to work my way through the alphabet. There turned out to be a certain prophecy to that. Caroline is probably better suited to my sexual needs than either of my previous two wives. When I want sex, she is always ready, but she never initiates it and makes no erotic demands on me. She''ll try just about anything I ask her to do, and she''ll let me do anything I want to her sweet, pliant body.
Even when she isn''t in the mood, she''ll let me have what I need, holding me lovingly while I enter her for the relief of my tensions. We''ve been married for almost five years. I have to admit that the same three- or four-year syndrome has set in. A little more than a year ago, I started fooling around again. I told myself that it was only to keep my marriage stimulating, and the truth is that''s all it''s been. I went through three or four different casual partners--before meeting Denise. See, I really do seem to be going through the alphabet. Denise is an absolute sex machine.
I could tell that about her the first time I saw her, sitting in the last row in one of my classes. She kept looking at me and smiling lasciviously, licking her lips with the tip of a pointy pink tongue. After class, she strode up to my desk and said she wanted to discuss something with me in my office. I invited her to walk with me. As we crossed the campus together, she managed to bump her hip against mine a half-dozen times. Each contact sent a little electricthrill through me. She said almost nothing, and I was feeling a little awkward. But the second we got to my office, that changed.
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