Executive Platinum Ch. 18

"You too?" she said to Gloria.

"I've certainly," she paused, obviously looking for a word, "expanded my visions since you and I worked together and since meeting Jim," she answered. Shirley didn't say anything, and Gloria couldn't let the quiet of nothing being said go unexplained. "I was married to one man for almost 20 years," she continued, "and then I found out he was having affairs with multiple women. It was messy, I was heartbroken, but eventually I got over it. Just like what Jim said about Debs, I guess I'd bought into the myth, the whole "til death do us part" thing. And then I met Jim, and he's... opened my eyes. At first it was just with him, but, well, we've had some experiences."

"With others?"

"With some friends."

"And you're still together?"

"It would seem that way," I said, pointedly sliding my hand onto Gloria's leg. "What about you?" I queried, now that we'd exposed our private selves to an inquiring voice. Even if she was physically exposed and naked in a sauna with us, psychological exposure was much more revealing.

"Pretty much monogamous for us," she said.

"You're married? How long?"

"28 years this June."

I couldn't let it go, once again analyzing words and clues for what she really meant. "Pretty much?" I repeated.

Her eyes locked onto mine, not instantly replying; her look saying I'd hit a nerve. "You're pretty good at that, aren't you?"

"We say words for a purpose, and often we say things that people will hear differently than what is said. All you have to do is examine the words and ask specifically what they mean."

She nodded and I could tell, hesitated. "I've never told anyone." She stopped, thinking. Suddenly a whooshing sound was heard and an influx of steam began to enter the room. The mud on our bodies had dried quite rapidly, cracking afterward with any movement of our bodies beneath. As the steam entered the room, the mud didn't instantly begin to appreciably soften, but within second the surface was becoming slippery again.

"Told anyone what?" Gloria asked.

Shirley nodded, acknowledging she'd heard the question. "I once had an affair." I looked over at Gloria, and she looked as if she was going to say something, but when I gently shook my head "no," she didn't. All we needed to do was to wait; Shirley was going to tell us on her own time.

"I understand exactly what you mean when you say sex and love are different," she said, nodding her head in remembrance. "Years ago, at the company before this one... My boss Jay and I did a lot of business travel together, and, well... we had an affair. He was married, I was married, and for a while, every other week we were traveling. Before we started having an affair, we'd try to not be gone overnight; we'd try for an early morning flight and return late the same day. Then one time we had a late meeting and had to stay over to come back the following morning... and well, that night we seduced each other. To be honest, I guess it was me seducing him more than him seducing me, but he was more than willing to respond to me. My husband Frank and I had been clashing on just about everything for a while. Looking back, it was more that I was frustrated sexually, and he wasn't doing it for me. The more frustrated about sex I got, the more I picked on him about everything else, which of course was a never ending spiral.

"After that first time, we got where we were purposely not booking return flights until the following day, and then we got where we were always going the day before the meetings so we would have two nights together. Of course we made the excuse that we had to get there for an early morning meeting, but in reality it was so we had more time in bed together. I don't even know how old he was. Mid-40's, maybe early 50's, at the time? I was early 20's," she stopped, thinking. "Actually, I was 25. 24 and 25, it went on for over a year. The trouble was, the more time I spent with him, the less I spent with my husband. And then one day one of my friends at work clued me in that everyone knew I was sleeping with my boss. I was horrified, I thought we'd been so discrete, but I guess you really can't hide that kind of thing for long. That everyone knew made me do a lot of soul searching, and I realized I really did love my husband. It was just good sex between Jay and me, but I loved my husband. So I broke it off. I just told him I didn't love him. I told him the sex was fantastic, but I needed more than that. It wasn't long after that when this job came along, and I took it. Best thing I ever did, forcing the separation. The trouble with Jay being right there after I broke off with him was that I constantly saw him, constantly remembered hours together, and I knew he was remembering too.

"But, I was back exclusively with my husband, and realized that whenever we were making love, he never quite satisfied me, never quite touched me, the same way that, Jay did. With my husband, occasionally he'd get me off, but Jay always did. And then one day I just told Frank he needed to do something for me, and he willingly did. I gradually realized that Frank wasn't doing things that I needed, not because he didn't want to, but because he didn't know he needed to. It turned out he just didn't know how to touch me right, but all I had to do was ask, and show him, and he did. The more I instructed him on what I needed, the better he got. I just never told him they were things I'd learned from my affair with an older man, and he never asked. Now - I can't imagine being with anyone else." She glanced over. "So now you know my deepest darkest secret." I couldn't help but smile inwardly at her story confirming what I already knew and I've been saying since my long ago affair with Jenny; sex is an instinct but to have good sex we need to be taught.

"And you know ours," Gloria responded.

"Does it bother you that Jim is sometimes with other women?" Shirley asked. Gloria looked at me, and I just shrugged my shoulders, indicating she could answer as she wished; the question was directed at her, not me.

"Truthfully?" I could tell she was now choosing her words more carefully, apparently Shirley noticed too. "When I found out my husband was having an affair, I wanted to murder him. And then when I found he'd been having multiple affairs, with multiple women for years, I was devastated. In my mind it wasn't that he'd done something wrong, it was that I had done something wrong, there must have been something wrong with me. I felt bad about me, and no matter what happened, anywhere, anytime, about anything, it just confirmed that I was a bad person. I started eating, the more I ate the fatter I got, the fatter I got the worse I felt, and the worse I felt the more I ate. I was spiraling down until one of my friends at work got me to start working out and getting back in shape, and then my daughter started encouraging me to act my age and act as if I was still alive. And then when I started dating again, I wasn't with anyone until Jim - and I guess it was just like what he says about Debs, he opened my mind and I found I had thoughts and ideas and liked things that until then I had thought were... bad."

Shirley reached up and rubbed the mud on her arm which was again slick, just as I'd noticed that the mud on my body was getting slick from the added steam in the room, she had also. "Bad? What do you mean, bad?"

"Like Jim was saying, the old double standard. Good Girls Don't. Sex is only in marriage. Sex is only monogamous. Sex is between a male and a female... things that I'd always 'known' were bad."

"And now you know they aren't?" Gloria just nodded. The sudden kicking on of the overhead shower told us it must be time to move on. "Who's first?" I asked. Neither of them jumped at it, so I stood up and began to rinse. The mud washed away quite easily and I could tell my skin was quite soft and smooth afterward, something I just normally don't pay attention to. I took the hand wand and rinsed my feet and legs, taking time to rinse the dirt from my seat before moving out of the way. The advantage of being first was that I then got to wait, watching Gloria and Shirley shower, turning under the water, gloriously naked before my eyes, before we all stepped outside. The robes we'd left earlier were directly across the hall, we donned them before heading back towards the receptionist counter.

Gloria and Shirley took their keys and headed to the women's changing room, I was back and waiting for several minutes before the two of them joined me. "You two like to meet for dinner in a while?" Shirley asked as we stepped out towards the elevators and rooms. I glanced at my watch which I'd left in my locker while in the spa, surprised we'd actually been there almost two full hours.

"What do you think?" I asked Gloria, "Go back, change clothes ... shall we meet at, say - 8:30?"

"Sounds good to me."

"Got someplace in mind?"

"I do. I was going to go over to the Marriott on the bay to Roy's Restaurant; it's one of Frank and my favorites. It's outdoors, overlooking the marina and waterfront."

I'd never been there, but presumed it was business/evening casual, and it was. I'd brought along a shirt and slacks, Gloria had a dress that showed off her figure quite nicely. Even though outdoors and near the water the weather was exceedingly pleasant and a space heater near the table was on so it didn't get too cool.

"You almost made me laugh earlier," I said as we were sipping the rest of our drinks after dinner, just enjoying small talk. I'd ordered a glass of Port, something I seldom do, just because it caught my eye, but the girls were still nursing their glasses of wine.

"Why's that?" Shirley responded, understanding the statement had been directed at her. Like Gloria, she'd chosen a dress that was discretely professional but form fitting enough that her magnificent bosom was highlighted. Seeing Shirley in front of me, across the table, reminded me of so many other business dinners I'd been at in the past where a gorgeous client, or the wife of a client, had been with us. I'm a heterosexual male, and when I meet a pretty woman, I'm sorry, but there is a sexual evaluation that I unconsciously go through, starting with recognition of her beauty or lack of, right down through "I wonder what she's like in bed?" In all those years of sitting at dinner tables with beautiful women, never had I ever been with one that I'd been sitting with, nude, in a spa, just a short time before. This time, recognizing that she had a gorgeous bosom, I didn't need to wonder what her naked breasts looked like, I already knew she had larger areolae and nipples like my Debs had. This time, observing her attractive bottom as I'd followed her to the table, I'd already known for sure that it really was quite luscious. Now, watching her speaking to me, I recognized that instead of being distracted by such thoughts, they were easily dismissed as I already knew the answers. Having already been naked with her, my libidinous thoughts were suppressed; I was actually able to talk without wondering what she was like naked.

I'd discretely looked around before I'd started the statement; nobody was currently seated near us so I didn't need to worry about being overheard as I continued. "When you were talking about after your affair, when you showed your husband how to please you? Once you told him what you needed, he was happy to do it?"

"Uh-huh..." she acknowledged, obviously wondering where I was going.

"It's exactly what I told my wife years ago, and more recently, Gloria. Debs not only taught sex ed to school kids, and college kids, but often ended up teaching their parents too. It's one of those things she couldn't say to the kids, but to the parents or college age she would tell them that they needed to play show and tell with their spouses. Good sex doesn't just happen, it's taught. We have this myth about virgins getting married and having sex for the first time; fireworks go off, continents rock with earthquakes, it's magical and phenomenal. That's the myth; the reality is that when virgins get married it is probably going to be a disaster, sexually, at first. If at least one of them has some experience, they'll get along pleasing each other sexually much faster than if neither has ever done anything. In my opinion, every virgin out there ought to have a week's long sexual training session with an older lover before they give themselves to a spouse that hasn't got any more clue about how to satisfy him or her than they have to satisfy you. Virgins aren't qualified to get married."

"Interesting theory," Shirley said after thinking for a moment. "Is that experience talking?"

I nodded, and gave her the abridged version of my teenage affair with Jenny.

"And these lessons you taught to your wife," she looked over at Gloria, "and I presume Gloria?"

"Actually with several women over the years."

"Really?" she looked surprised. "Did your wife know?"

I nodded. "Most of the time, she set it up. We'd been married for a couple of years, totally monogamous, when she had a girlfriend that was totally frustrated just like you were saying. My wife had started out practically a virgin, well into all the "myth' of sex and marriage, and it had taken some doing but I'd finally broken her out of that mindset. Once she realized that sex was fun and normal and desirable, she was almost insatiable. Once she realized we didn't have to wait to go to bed at night, or that we didn't have to hold back from sex just because she was on her period, or that because someone was visiting and in an adjacent room we couldn't have sex, or even just that if she was feeling horny, it was OK to ask me to help her out or to just masturbate on her own - we had a fantastic sex life. She was listening and commiserating to her girlfriend who was totally frustrated with her marriage and found out she'd been that "wedding day virgin." She had no experience and her husband had practically no experience at all either. Her friend had confessed she was thinking about asking for a divorce before Debs really started to pay attention and asking questions, and that's when she found out her friend had never had an orgasm. And, well - we helped her with that. Debs went and spent the weekend with her husband while she spent the weekend with me. Together we taught them what they needed to get going, and it saved their marriage. I guess it also opened up ours."

"So you were swingers?"

I shook my head, no. "I don't know, like I said earlier, I don't think of it like that, but yeah - I guess so. With that couple, we played together for years, but it was never that we were 'swinging' in my mind; it was more that we were a "double couple", we were a foursome. We did a lot of things together including sharing sexually." I thought about it, was I explaining this right? Was it more than just semantics? "I guess I'm dedicated to the woman I'm with, but sometimes that has included others and that's ok with me. Swinging I see as all about the sex. You're having sex with others for the excitement of it, for the sex itself; no commitment, no relationship. I think of myself as needing relationships, at least a beginning of one, before sex enhances that relationship. Even with Gloria, just talking together on a plane for a few hours at least started a relationship, although it was - what? 36 hours later?" I said with a smile, glancing at her before continuing, "Before we actually had sex, or at least, before we had intercourse." Images of that first day together, masturbating together, flashed through my mind.

"I was coming to San Diego to have an affair with a well to do executive who worked in La Jolla," Gloria spoke up. "We'd been conversing on-line for months; I thought he was a wonderful guy, but for some reason I had my doubts. I should have listened to my doubts; he turned out to be a fraud. I met Jim on the plane, and he gave me his business card and told me to call if it didn't work out and I needed a place to stay. And of course I did. I ended up spending the weekend at his home, where..." she paused, I could tell she was thinking of what to say. How would she describe our first liaison? "I guess we sort of seduced each other. He was exactly what I needed at that time, and most of the time exactly what I need now, too." She giggled, a wry smile on her face.

"What's so funny?" Shirley asked.

"My ideas of what I want now have changed a bit since then. I've gradually, with Jim's help, discovered I've got a few kinks in my mind. I guess we all do, don't we?"

"Like what?" Shirley probed, taking another sip from her wine. "You know, I asked you back in the spa if it bothered you that Jim was sometimes with other women? You never answered."

Gloria laughed, "I didn't?" Shirley shook her head know. "Ok, so this is the "we tell you everything" discussion? How about you first?" I smiled; her answer exactly as I was thinking. Shirley took a sip of her wine and glanced around.

"I've said it before," I spoke up, taking the edge off the 'you tell us yours and we'll tell you ours' turn of the conversation, "our greatest sex organ is our mind. I saw an extraordinary BBC documentary a while back about a woman that couldn't have an orgasm and another that could orgasm just by thinking about it. The first woman had some physical problems from an accident or something to where her nerves between her clitoris and vagina to her brain were short circuited; the physical stimulus signals just weren't getting to her brain. The second woman had such strong sexual control she really could orgasm just from thinking about it. They didn't believe her at first, but they hooked her up and recorded her brain waves, and sure enough, she really could orgasm just by thinking about it. Once they proved it really was happening, they were able to discern in her brain where the orgasm was originating from. Doing experiments, they were able to find that they could insert electrodes into her brain to stimulate what they thought was the right spot and induced orgasms with an electronic controller. They then tried to combine her ability with the other woman's problem. They put electrodes into the other woman's brain, and she experienced an orgasm for the first time. They let her keep it for the weekend before they had to remove it, but she and her husband had practically non-stop sex all weekend long. But then when they took the electrical implants away, she again couldn't achieve orgasm. So there is proof that sexual arousal and orgasms actually start in our brain, but what triggers that response - who knows? And we know that some women get orgasm from vaginal stimulation, most get it from clitoral stimulation," a thought popped into my mind, "some even from just nipple stimulation." I glanced at Gloria, thinking I was discrete, but saw Shirley's head turn toward her with my peripheral vision, shifting in her chair so she leaned forward slightly as she did. I looked over at Shirley; somehow I knew she understood that I'd just implied that Gloria had achieved orgasm through playing with her nipples. She really was good at picking up subtleties, but then so was I.

"Interesting, but that's exactly right. I found that not only was Frank missing the mark with me, but I wasn't exactly doing it for him either." She paused, I could tell she was debating whether she wanted to say something or not, and then decided to continue. "I've never actually told anyone else this before either... I, uhm, actually thought my lover Jay was kinky when he wanted to do it the first time." Shirley's head turned to look at both Gloria and me before continuing. I could see the light switch turn on; she'd been contemplating what she was and wasn't going to tell us and suddenly there was a 'what the hell! Go for it!' look that said she was going to talk. "What is it about you two? I just spent virtually the entire evening hanging around naked in the spa with you and now you've got me about to confess my darkest secrets?" She shrugged her shoulder, and continued.