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Closing my eyes, I started to imagine my husband’s hands on my pussy. But the fact that he was sleeping beside me, that he’d turned me down… It left me cold.

So I began to imagine someone else’s hand playing with my pussy. A man who, if I climbed into bed naked beside him, would wake up. He would wake up, lower his head over my chest and lick my nipples with his tongue. He would lick and suck, pull at them with his teeth….

My clit flinched in response to the image playing out in my mind. I moved my finger more quickly over my sweet spot, then dipped it into the soft folds. I was wet.

I used two fingers to play with my pussy now, but in my mind it was a tongue. A wet and hungry tongue that couldn’t get enough of me.

The tongue belonged to the man with the hazel eyes. And he was merciless with it. He circled it around my
clit, over and over and over. Oh, God, I needed this. And he needed it, too, this lover of mine. He was young and virile and would fuck me all night long…eat my pussy all night long, if he knew I wanted that.

I spread my legs wider and arched my hips upward, giving him more of me. He buried his fingers inside of me and drew my engorged clitoris into his mouth and suckled me so damn sweetly….

An orgasm shuddered through my entire body. I arched my back, pushed my fingers deep into my pussy as I rode the wave. The pleasure was so intense and overdue that I couldn’t suppress my moan. I let myself enjoy every last bit of my orgasm.

As it subsided, I glanced to my right again. Robert’s back was still to me. He was still asleep, unaware that I’d brought myself to climax.

And for just a moment, I wished the man with the hazel eyes was beside me in this bed. That I could climb on him right now and slide onto a hard penis. One that could stay hard for a very long time.

Just as quickly as I thought it, I pushed the idea away. Guilt ate at me immediately. It wasn’t the first time I had fantasized about him—but I hoped it would be the last.

It was wrong, I knew. Wrong to have such an explicit fantasy about someone other than Robert.

I got up and went to the bathroom, where I started the shower. I stayed in there for a good long time, letting the cool water splash over my body.

Letting the memory of my fantasy wash away, like the soapsuds disappearing down the drain.

All the next week, Robert was preoccupied by business. There was some complication with a company out of Germany that Kolstad Systems wanted to buy—a software firm with some sort of graphics technology that would aid in the computer systems Robert’s company created. The German owner was suddenly stalling, and Robert believed he was trying to solicit other bids. If this acquisition didn’t go through as planned, Robert feared that Kolstad Systems’ stock would fall.

With all of this weighing on his mind, he wasn’t interested in sex—not in the least. But I was able to coax him to erection one morning with a blow job. Excited that he was hard—and without the aid of Viagra, at that—I had straddled him, then moved slowly and steadily over his penis until I made him come.

I
hadn’t come, but that didn’t matter. My husband’s sperm was inside me, and I was elated.

“What are you doing?” Robert had asked when he came out of the bathroom and saw me lying on my back on the bed, my legs bent at the knee. What he couldn’t see was the pillow beneath my hips, positioned to angle my pelvis on a downward slope—something I hoped would give Robert’s sperm the advantage of gravity.

“I read somewhere that lying on your back for thirty minutes increases the chance of conception,” I told him. “I’ve got fifteen minutes to go.”

“Oh.” He raised his eyebrows. “All right. I’ll be downstairs, having breakfast.”

“If I don’t see you, I hope all goes well at the office.”

When I was sure Robert was downstairs, I closed my eyes and began to stroke my clit. A couple minutes later, my body was shuddering with an orgasm.

What I didn’t tell Robert was something else I’d read—that a woman’s orgasm also aided her chances of conceiving.

I didn’t know if that was true, but I wanted to give myself every advantage in getting pregnant.

Nothing else had worked thus far.

I didn’t typically masturbate, yet I did twice more that week. Both times when Robert wasn’t home. My body had needed release—release I wasn’t getting from my husband. And as I touched my pussy I found myself thinking about the man with the hazel eyes, not Robert. Each fantasy was becoming longer and more vivid.

On Thursday morning, as another earth-shattering
orgasm ripped through my body, I gazed at Robert’s side of the bed. It was empty. And I realized why I was consumed with this phantom lover: I was lonely.

Or was there more to it than that?

Even though Robert had retired from his position as CEO of Kolstad Systems, he was still involved in the company’s operations as a board member. He had been in the office every day this week, dealing with one problem after another regarding this German acquisition.

His absence reminded me of the early days of our marriage, after we’d returned from our honeymoon and Robert had gone back to work. I’d had fantasies of the wonderful life I would share with my distinguished and successful and charming husband. But it hadn’t quite played out the way I had dreamed.

After Robert proposed, I’d quit my job as a waitress, so I wasn’t working when we got married. He, of course, had his business to run. Robert would be at the office sometimes twelve or fourteen hours a day. Even longer on some occasions. I had missed him terribly, and didn’t like being in my new, oversize home with the housekeeper as my only company. Especially when he went out of town.

I’d occasionally accompanied Robert on his longer business trips to Europe. He promised we’d steal some romantic time to see the sights when his work was done. But on more occasions than not, I would sit alone in my hotel room in London or Paris, longing for my husband’s touch, but having to settle for a glass of wine as I watched a movie in our lavish suite.

Convincing Robert to fund my own business venture
had been not only the fruition of a dream, but a godsend in terms of my mental sanity. I needed something constructive to do—much more than shopping and lunching with other wealthy men’s wives.

Before Robert and I married, he’d promised to make my dream of opening a floral shop a reality. Ask any of my friends from childhood and they’ll tell you how I would always pick dandelions and wildflowers and arrange them in a bouquet. If they had a bad day, I would make them something special. Ditto if they got a good mark on a test. My teachers probably got bored with all the homemade bouquets I brought in for them. And I got in trouble more than once for picking tulips and roses from a neighbor’s garden.

Meeting and marrying Robert had enabled me to open Distinct Creations, a shop in downtown Cornelius, just north of Charlotte.

We had a beautiful house, luxury cars, lots of money in the bank. We’d traveled on yachts, and to exotic and exclusive places all over the world.

And yet something was missing.

I hadn’t given a second thought to what it would mean to marry a considerably older and powerful man, or that anything would ever go wrong. Yet the fact that he’d been married and divorced twice was testament to the fact that money and security didn’t guarantee a lasting marriage.

No matter what happened, I would always be grateful to Robert for the life he had given me. But I couldn’t deny the reality that we didn’t seem to be on the same
page anymore. There were times I wondered if we were even in the same book.

It wasn’t about his age. I loved my husband the day I married him, and I still loved him now. And yet there had to be some reason I was so vividly making love to a stranger in my mind.

Maybe it was because the passion with Robert had undeniably faded.

I’d married him for better or for worse. I’d known that “worse” would be the age issue—and I had never expected that we would be able to fuck like bunnies. That kind of passion hadn’t mattered to me then, and it didn’t now.

It was the intimacy I craved most.

I almost wouldn’t mind if Robert chewed guys out for staring at me, if he followed up that proprietary attitude with some genuine attention. Some romance and affection.

Something that showed he viewed me as more than a possession.

I wanted Robert to hold me and kiss me, even if he couldn’t make love to me. I wanted him to assure me that he wanted a baby as much as I did, even if it meant adopting. He never said those words, and there were times I got the feeling that he didn’t care at all if we had one.

It was one of the things that made me wonder if we were on the same page—and with that thought came the question as to whether or not there would be a happily ever after for us, after all.

Don’t think it, Elsie,
I said to myself as I stared at the
ceiling.
You did not get married to get divorced. You married Robert because he was the first man who made you feel that he could give you the emotional stability you needed.

He wasn’t a man interested only in hot sex. I’d had hot sex with the younger men I’d dated, but had always felt cold in those relationships. Probably because sex was the first thing—and seemingly most important thing—they wanted from me. Being seen as desirable should have made me feel confident, but instead it brought out my insecurity.

Because it reminded me of my childhood with my mother.

My mom had treated sex like a sport, breaking my father’s heart over and over again as she engaged in meaningless rendezvous with man after man. As a young child, I didn’t understand what was going on. I would overhear heated arguments between my parents and know that something was wrong. And there were days I would come home from school to find my mother gone, and my dad crying. Even the bouquets I made for him didn’t help to cheer him up.

As I got older I understood what caused most of their marital conflicts. In the bits I overheard, my mother always claimed the other men meant nothing to her, that for her sex didn’t mean love.

I don’t know why my father stayed with her. Much later, I began to suspect there was some emotional issue about my mother he understood that I did not. But I always felt for him, was brokenhearted for him.

I was fourteen when my father asked one day how I would feel about going with him to Texas for a long
visit, just me and him. He had a sister there. I had been elated by the idea. It was a chance to get away, escape my parents’ arguments for a while.

Two days later, my mother hurriedly made me pack some things while my dad was at work. She ushered me into the cab of a Mack truck between her and some guy I didn’t know, and suddenly we were off to God only knew where.

The trucker, as it turned out, was my mother’s boyfriend. He took us to Philadelphia, where we moved into his small apartment. They fought, too, but I heard them screwing every night in the bedroom next to me.

I was devastated at the way I’d been uprooted. And knew I would never be able to forgive my mother for leaving my father behind.

I had always known that I didn’t want sex to be the first priority in any relationship of mine, no doubt because of my mother, and that’s why I’d grown wary of men my own age. Robert was older, far more mature than any of the men I had dated, and genuinely seemed to want to make an emotional connection with me first, instead of a sexual one.

It hadn’t taken me long to realize I could have emotional security with him—something I desperately wanted after my parents’ fucked-up marriage….

My bedside phone rang, startling me from my thoughts. I rolled over to my night table and plucked the cordless handset off its base. “Hello?”

“Morning, Elsie. I hope it’s not too early to call.”

“Sharon.” My spirits lifted. Her call was the distraction I needed. “No, it’s not too early. How are you?”

“So-so. I’ve been mostly up. I really have. But last night I was way down.”

“Oh, sweetie.”

“It gets to me sometimes, being in this big empty house.”

“Of course it does.”

“Maybe I need to get out and volunteer. Do something so that I’m not home alone so much.”

“You know your doctor said you’ll have to take it easy for this pregnancy. You don’t want anything to jeopardize carrying your baby to term.”

Two months ago, Sharon’s husband had been tragically killed in a plane crash on his way back from a business trip. As if that wasn’t devastating enough, Sharon had just learned she was pregnant. She’d been able to share the thrilling news with Warren over the phone, and had been looking forward to celebrating with him upon his return. Only his company’s private plane had gone down shortly after takeoff in Virginia, killing all on board, including three members of the firm’s executive team.

“I know…and I want this baby more than anything. Warren and I both did. I keep trying to look on the bright side. I’m financially set and I don’t have to travel to a job every day, which means I can take it nice and easy and make sure to carry this baby to term. I’ll be able to hire a nanny, which will be great—as much for the company as for the help. But the truth is…the truth is I keep thinking about what a wonderful father he
would have been, and how much he wanted this baby. I miss him so much, Elsie. I can’t believe I’m finally pregnant and he’s not here…”

Sharon was one of my closest friends, and she sounded as if she was about to fall apart. “You want me to swing by your place on my way to work?”

“No. No, I’ll be fine. But I was thinking that I wouldn’t mind getting away this weekend. If Robert can spare you, will you go to South Carolina with me? We could drive to Charleston, or Myrtle Beach. Stay from Friday to Sunday. It’s not quite bikini weather yet, but I might put one on anyway—before my stomach gets too big.” Sharon laughed, but the sound morphed into a whimper.

“Shh,” I soothed. It broke my heart what she was going through. She had mentioned being financially set, but all the money in the world couldn’t ease a loss like this. “Maybe I should stop by.”

“No…you have to go to work. I just want you to give me something to look forward to. But if you can’t because of the shop, I’ll understand.”

“I’d love to go away,” I told her. “I can get Spike to run things for a couple of days.” Spike was my righthand man at the store, and I didn’t anticipate any problems with him heading up operations for Friday and Saturday. My shop was closed on Sundays. The only issue would be Robert, and whether or not he would have a problem with me going away.

That was another thing that bothered me about my husband on occasion: as much as he had his own life and traveled a lot on his own, he didn’t like me to travel
without him. He didn’t outright tell me I couldn’t go somewhere, but when I returned he would complain incessantly about how much he’d missed me, how the house hadn’t been the same without me, how there was an event in Charlotte he would have liked to have taken me to—if only I’d been home. It used to drive me crazy.

I learned to seek Robert’s approval first, and not just tell him I was planning to go somewhere with a friend. More times than not he would find some reason to object to my plans. And more times than not, I ended up staying home because I didn’t want to disappoint him.

But this weekend Sharon wasn’t the only one who could use some time away.

“If you can, that’d be great,” she said, sounding better already. “I need a change of scenery, you know?”

“Of course you do. Robert’s been in the office all week, but I’ll run it by him tonight. I know a great place in Charleston we can stay, this quaint bed-and-breakfast where he and I stayed the last time we were there.”

“I’ll wait to hear back from you.”

As I hung up, I mentally prepared myself for broaching the subject with Robert. I’d take him to the club tonight, where we would have a nice dinner and he could unwind. If I could get him to relax and be happy, then he’d be more likely to say yes to me going away.

I climbed out of bed and headed for the shower, a niggling thought bothering me.

That I was Robert’s wife, not his child—and I shouldn’t have to get his permission to take a short trip with a friend.