(i) Sophie catches Tim out
We’ve been back from France for a week now and Tim and I have become very distant with each other. Out of practice in the bedroom department perhaps. I hadn’t been in the best of health, nothing serious, just feeling under the weather so we haven’t made love since we returned, in fact since before the holiday. I went to bed early with a migraine leaving Tim doing research on plants on his computer, or so I thought, and when I woke up some time later my headache had gone. I was amazed Tim was still up as it was ten past one in the morning and Tim usually is in bed by 22:30. I thought I’d get up and and give him a nice surprise so I put on my nightie, which was see through and quite sexy and seeing the light on in the office, I crept up behind Tim, intending to push my breasts into his neck and turn him on. Ugh! I saw what was on the computer screen. He was watching porn, some kind of orgy with girls having sex and oral sex and, and…. Ugh! I was shocked. Not my Tim. We had a fulfilling sex life, didn’t we? As I’d crept in he was unaware of my presence so I watched quietly for a few minutes. I’d never really looked at porn before and was amazed at how attractive the performers were. How could they do what they were doing?
After a couple of minutes the time had come to make my presence known. “Tim,” was all I could manage. Tim reacted immediately, quickly shutting down the page he’d been watching only for another one to appear behind it with a girl with sperm from several men all over her face and tongue. He closed that too and several more pages of disgusting stuff kept popping up.
“Well you’ve really caught me out haven’t you? I’m seriously embarrassed. I hardly ever look at this stuff, honestly. But I have tonight.”
I said nothing. He shut his computer down and turned round looking sheepish.
“You look gorgeous, my love.”
“Tim, I’m really shocked. I never thought in a million years you’d be into this stuff. I thought we had great sex. Why this? Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“Listen honey, we do have great sex. Real sex. Pornography isn’t real. It’s fake. It’s different. Real sex is about touching, caressing, kissing, loving, intimacy. It’s soft and sensual. What I’ve been looking at is a different side of sex. It’s entirely visual for a start. I don’t expect you to understand as I don’t even understand the fascination myself. Its compulsive watching but I find it disgusting at the same time.”
“Don’t try to make light of this. Those images are awful.”
“I agree with you. Unfortunately though that’s what makes them so addictive.”
“How can disgusting be fascinating?”
“Well I’m not sure really and I do hate myself for watching. Makes me feel like a bit of a pervert?”
“You haven’t answered my question. What is the fascination?”
“Well I suppose there’s two elements to this. Firstly there’s the thought that there are beautiful young women who seem to enjoy such extreme sex. Women who are prepared, for instance, to suck off men in front of a camera, and seemingly enjoy doing it. Then, I suppose there is the fantasy element, imagining oneself enjoying that kind of thing. It is just fantasy though. I’m sure I’d run a mile if I was put into any of the situations I enjoy looking at. I’d be terrified. I remember once being attacked by a girl who was over eager and I found it a real turnoff.”
I was in shock and didn’t say anything.
“I avoid, like the plague, the kind of pornography where the women are degraded or treated violently. I can’t understand how that could be attractive. I like to think the participants are enjoying themselves. That’s the attraction – to watch attractive women enjoying whatever is being done to them.”
“Well it just makes me think you want to do those things to me. I don’t want your cock in my mouth and I certainly don’t want it up my bum. And I couldn’t be in an orgy. You enjoying this has made me feel completely inadequate.”
“I wouldn’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do. If I’m honest I do fantasise about you giving me a blow job but it is only a harmless fantasy. I’m sure I would enjoy it for real but only if you wanted to do it. As for anal sex I don’t see the attraction but apparently some couples do enjoy it, because it’s taboo it turns them on – like affairs. The fact they’re doing something forbidden makes it more exciting.”
“Well I’m not sure if all your excuses make me feel any better. I’m just upset you feel the need to do this. I thought I gave you what you wanted. Now I think I can never do that. You’ll want I don’t know what.”
“Honestly Sophie, you’re making too much of this. Our sex life is perfect. I couldn’t be more happy with it, except there hasn’t been much recently. I hardly ever have the urge to look at pornography – generally it disgusts me. Anyway it’s not that unusual for people to watch it. I know husbands and wives who enjoy looking at it as a turn on before making love.”
“No! I don’t believe you. Who?”
“Well I probably shouldn’t tell you as it’s obviously not something they’d want everyone to know but Jock and Teresa are one couple who do.”
“Noo. Really.”
“Yes. Really. Jock showed a few of us lads a DVD he’d bought and told us then that he’d already watched it with Teresa the previous night. Listen can we go to bed now, please. I know I’ve upset you but I’ve never pretended to be perfect. I’m a normal man and I’ve testosterone coursing through my veins. There are triggers that get men interested, you know, a short skirt, a pair of tight jeans, a revealing cleavage, that sort of thing. They’re not really like the sex we have. Although you obviously are aware that they work or you wouldn’t wear what you’re wearing. Anyway what happened to your migraine?”
“Oh it got better and I wanted to give you a sexy surprise.”
“Well you have so can we forget the pornography and get on with what we do so well together.”
“OK I’ll try to understand. Are you sure I give you enough?”
Tim then grabbed me, pushed the nightdress off my shoulders so it slipped to the floor, kissed me passionately and carried me back to bed. Maybe, I thought, pornography isn’t all bad if it does this to Tim. Afterwards, though, I couldn’t get to sleep thinking about what Tim had been watching, enjoying even. Men! I don’t think I’ll ever understand. I just know I enjoy sex to a point but there are lots of things that would disgust me. And having set my train of thought in that area the rape flooded back into my consciousness. Maybe I thought I should tell Tim now while he’s on the defensive. I woke him gently by kissing his ear.
“Tim I’d like you to wake up please. I’ve something I’ve wanted to tell you for quite a while but for some reason haven’t been able to.”
“Darling I was asleep. Can’t it wait till morning.”
“No I’m sorry. It’s important and now I want to tell you. It’s become a case of I have to tell you.”
So I told him the whole sorry story, as honestly as I could and I had to confess that the reason I hadn’t told him before was because I was worried he might somehow blame me or think I’d was soiled goods. I should have trusted him though, as his reaction was quite the opposite and in fact he was upset that I didn’t know him well enough or trust him enough to know that he would always be on my side. He seemed to understand why I didn’t want to take any action and he never suggested hunting Boris out and getting violent with him. Tim doesn’t believe violence solves anything and I think he’s right.
Anyway the upshot of my telling him is that I feel better having got it off my chest and Tim was sympathetic and understanding. I was thrilled with his reaction, so thrilled I resolved I wasn’t going to be hard on him for watching some smut on the internet. At least it hadn’t been violent porn. If he’d been watching that or child pornography that would have been a completely different ball game. I couldn’t have forgiven that. I’d leave if I thought I was married to a paedophile.
(ii) Sophie shows off
In spite of my resolve to ignore the pornography episode I’d been unsettled since discovering that Tim watched hardcore and together with the rape episode I felt confused about my sexuality. I enjoyed sex but there were disgusting elements to it too.
Anyway I was sitting in the pub bored because Tim was rabbiting on about some stupid new plant his mother was growing for the nursery. I was unhappy about this as I’ve never been bored in Tim’s company before. Just the sound of his voice, the expressions on his face, the movements of his lips would have enthralled me, whatever he was talking about. Well I suppose I shouldn’t expect that magic to last for ever. Our relationship was bound to change as we became more familiar with each other. The initial excitement of falling in love, when you got butterflies in your stomach just anticipating the next meeting, couldn’t last forever. I tried to concentrate on what Tim was saying without success. Tim sensed my lack of interest and was asking me about my day but I told him to continue with his tale and I tried to concentrate on what he was saying but I couldn’t help noticing a chap on a table nearby ogling me. I don’t know if I’m normal but it does give me a nice warm feeling when a man notices me. I gave him a brief smile, so subtle, I hoped, that Tim wouldn’t notice and the ogler would wonder whether or not I’d responded to his stares. I turned back to Tim and nodded and smiled at him to show him I was the dutiful wife paying attention even though I wasn’t really listening. Out of the corner of my eye I could see I was still being appraised and I found it exciting. I knew I had the man’s full attention. I had tight trousers on that were very revealing and I wanted to keep the exchange going so I swivelled round in my chair so the lower half of my body was facing the man and opened my legs subtly even though I was still facing Tim with the rest of me. That gave me a real thrill, perhaps too much so I crossed my legs. However the temptation to carry on with this display was so great that I uncrossed my legs again and placed my hand on the top of my thigh so my thumb was resting right in my crutch and moved it up and down slowly. I was finding it difficult to even pretend to be in conversation with Tim. My focus was completely elsewhere. Fortunately, although frustratingly at the time, another man came and stood between us, blocking our sight lines, and started talking to my admirer. The break brought me to my senses before Tim got wind of what was happening. I knew I shouldn’t stay there waiting for the intruder to move so I got up to go to the ladies, completely ignoring the man I’d been teasing, because that’s all it was. When I returned I told Tim I was tired and wanted to go home. The two men were still there and my admirer had obviously told his companion about what had been happening and both of them leered at me as we made our way past them to the exit. On the way back home in the car I couldn’t help reliving the experience. I couldn’t believe how pleasurable I’d found it and this added to my confusion. I tried to turn my feeling of arousal on to Tim at bedtime but he didn’t seem interested so I felt deflated. What was I? A woman who got her thrills exposing her private parts (admittedly clothed) to strangers, who found this more exciting than doing whatever with her husband? Well, I thought, I am what I am and there’s no point in being ashamed. I must just accept it.
Fortunately that was a one off and I’ve never felt the need to do that again although I still do ind it flattering to get men looking at me and I sometimes smile at them, just to let them know I’m enjoying their attention. But I remain confused about sex.
(iii) Tim leaves early
I’d organised an evening out with a few friends and their partners at Lee Chung’s, a Chinese restaurant in the centre of Newcastle. I was really looking forward to it and I’d taken a lot of trouble dressing up, putting on an outfit that I’d never worn before. I’d hinted that I was hoping for a compliment from Tim by telling him how smart he looked. Admittedly I’d actually chosen his outfit as I wanted my friends to see how attractive he could be. I don’t know whether something had happened at work to put him into a mood or if he was sulking because I’d told him in no uncertain terms that it was his turn not to drink but he didn’t seem very happy and I didn’t receive any compliments about how cool I looked.
Three couples had already arrived by the time we got there and Cherie had texted me to say she and Joe wouldn’t be there until 20:15, a good half an hour away so we sat with the others in the waiting area and ordered a drink. Tim just asked for tap water which embarrassed me as he made a big song and dance about it, how he was driving and how he wouldn’t touch soft drinks because of the amount of sugar and/or sweeteners they contained and how fizzy water was as acidic as some drinks. I had a large glass of the New Zealand sauvignon blanc, my favourite. We girls sat together and started chatting away merrily, nothing of any consequence just girls enjoying themselves. The men were quieter as they didn’t seem to know each other but a couple of them started swapping dirty jokes and that seemed to break the ice. They all seemed to be happy enough apart from Tim who just looked bored. He is such an awkward bugger, a snob I think. If he feels the company is beneath him he just dismisses and ignores them. I find that aspect of his character extremely frustrating. I don’t think he even likes dirty jokes.
Cherie and her partner didn’t make it until nearly nine so all the drinkers were quite boozed by then. The staff obviously wanted to get things moving as we’d per-ordered the banquet and that consists of 12 courses. We took our seats round a large circular table, boy, girl, boy, girl but not next to our partners and the food started to arrive. I was sat between Mike, Sarah’s partner and Joe, a lad I hadn’t met before. He was partner to Cherie and it was his fault we were so late eating. Apparently there’d been an accident on the M6 between Stafford, where he worked, and Junction 15 and it had been a nightmare getting to the restaurant. They both seemed nice lads, perhaps a bit full of themselves, but pleasant company and I was having a nice time. Tim was placed between Sarah and Cherie and seemed to be enjoying himself at last. I think he found them both attractive. Sometimes this would have made me jealous but I felt so distant from Tim at then I almost hoped he’d get off with one of them.
The food was fantastic and kept coming and kept coming. We weren’t able to finish every course and I knew how upset Tim would be for he can’t bear wasted food. I drank rather a lot of wine and I suppose became rather loud and over excited. In contrast I noticed that Tim was looking fed up again. Both his female dinner companions had turned away from him and were talking to people on their other sides leaving him on his own. As soon as we’d just finished the last course and were expecting our china tea Tim said he wanted to go home. I ignored him. So he got up and came round to me so he wasn’t shouting across the table. When I told him:
“I’m not ready yet. Can’t you see I’m enjoying myself? I’ll come after we’ve had our tea.”
He said, “Look I’ve a busy day tomorrow. It’s 23:30 and if you won’t come now I’ll go by myself and you can get a taxi home when you’re ready.”
I was furious and embarrassed to have this confrontation in front of everybody but I dragged myself away as I didn’t want to make more of a scene. Tim said goodbye to everyone, shaking the hands of all the men and kissing all the women saying someone had to be the first to go and he had a busy day the next day. I smiled wanly and left trying to look as if nothing was wrong but I’m sure everybody sensed how cross we were with each other.
We had a furious row in the car going home. I gave him hell, telling him amongst other things what a spoilsport he was. He shut me up good and proper with his reply. He said he’d been bored, didn’t have anything in common with anyone there, even insinuated he thought my friends were superficial. Next morning I don’t remember seeing Tim at all. I had a crashing headache and stayed in bed until the phone woke me at about 11:30, somebody about car insurance. I was annoyed with myself as I should have been at the nursery. The accountant was due to come in and I really needed to see him and Tim will have even more reason to think I’m a useless piece of shit.