Therapy

Jack bobbed his head in agreement.

"Did you tell Jack about this?" Marlene asked.

"Yes, and he was really happy. I never saw him so horny. It was the craziest thing. I started texting my old boyfriend, talking to him on Facebook. It was clear something was going to happen. So I go to the reunion. We agreed that Jack would stay home and I'd fill him in as events unfolded. I go to the reunion, but I get a call from Jack. He got cold feet and chickened out."

Chickened out, Jack thought. That didn't sound exactly noble.

"And how did you feel?" Marlene asked.

"I was angry. I mean, for years my husband has pestered me with this, since our honeymoon basically, and now the moment arrived and he wanted me to stop. But I did stop. I had a good time. It was difficult but my ex in reality was a little less smooth in person than he was when we chatted online, and so I felt no harm, no foul. But inside I was disappointed. I would have done it. I'd bought lingerie, I had a hotel room planned if he didn't have a better idea. My mind was ready."

"How many sex partners have you had Brenda?" It seemed an odd question from Marlene.

Brenda looked up, "I don't know, five, no six. Wait. Seven. I forgot about last week."

Marlene nodded, almost as if in approval, which struck Jack as odd. "Why would you ask that?"

Marlene put her pencil to her chin and tapped. "Well, couples have affairs for many reasons. Some people want to escape their relationship, some need an emotional boost. Some are unhappy. Some just want a sexual adventure. Sometimes a person, especially a woman but it can be both, who hasn't had many sexual partners desperately want to experience what they thing they may have missed."

Brenda said, "Well, I can't say I missed anything. It's just all of Jack's talk got me in that mindset. I was ready for it, you know? I wanted it. It feels good to be wanted by another man."

Marlene asked, "And then Jack put the brakes on it."

"It was angry. I was upset. I felt cheated."

"Jack," he was surprised Marlene addressed him, "can you explain your feelings, why you did this?"

"Why I wanted her to have sex?"

"Why you stopped her," Marlene scribbled in her notebook.

"I guess I just, you know," chickened-out he thought, "got cold feet. It was incredibly stressful. The fantasy was one thing, but when the reality hit me I balked. Maybe he'd give her a disease. Maybe she'd get pregnant. All these horrible thoughts suddenly came in my head. What if she wanted to leave me?"

"I would never leave you," Brenda said and she reached out her hand again and Jack took it. They both gave each other puppy dog eyes and Brenda directed a kiss at him.

"Thank you honey," Jack answered.

Marlene smiled at them both. "Okay, so the reunion was a dud," and everybody laughed as she said that, "what else?"

"Okay, so maybe two months later he starts it again. After all that, he asks me if I still want to see my ex-boyfriend, maybe something could happen, he changed his mind and now I could do this, all of it. At first I'm skeptical, but I sent out feelers to my ex, and he seems positive, and Jack loves it. He's reading our texts and notes back and forth. He's listening in on my phone calls to my ex. He seems really, really excited, really positive. My ex is busy, he's got a good job and he travels a lot, but he says he can meet me when he gets a break in a few months. That was fine with me, I was in no rush, and we were all having fun. I even started, um," Brenda looked uncomfortable as she said it, "like getting naked for him on Skype, having kind of a cyber-sex relationship."

Jack was rock hard as she described it.

"Did your ex know Jack was aware of your activity?"

"No, I didn't want to tell him."

"I wished you did. I felt like a chump," Jack said.

"What do you mean?" Marlene asked.

"Okay," Jack continued the story, "The time came for them to meet, but I couldn't shake it from my head that this guy thought he was getting one over on me, that he would have sex with my wife thinking it was behind my back. It bothered me, so I put the kibosh on the whole thing."

Brenda chimed in, "At the last minute, AGAIN."

Marlene nodded, "I notice the pattern now."

"Yep," Jack smirked.

"So fast forward. There's this co-worker I have. His name is Mark. Well, we get to know each other," Brenda paused, taking a deep breath, "Mark was married, but he got a divorce earlier this year. I always have been attracted to him, but not in a crazy way. He's just a great guy, confident, funny, he's charismatic. People in general like to be around him. How can I explain this," Brenda held her hands in her lap, stretching her fingers back and forth, "I fell for him. I think when he got divorced he changed in my eyes. Suddenly he was available, and maybe I put out signals without meaning to."

Jack's mouth was in a tight line as he listened to the air pass through his nose and he paced his breathing. He'd heard this before, but his heart still beat fast remembering it. It was even odder hearing Brenda lay it all out for Marlene to hear.

"One day I come home after working late with Mark. I meet Jack, and I'm ready. I'm so ready. I suppose I manipulated Jack, but I bring him into the bedroom and I sit him down and I decide I'm going to give him oral sex," she made a face and stumbled as she said oral sex. "I get him excited, and he's on the bed moaning,"

"I still remember it. It was good." Jack nodded as if to emphasize it.

"And so I tell Jack that maybe his fantasy has become our fantasy, and I'm stroking him, trying to get him thinking with his dick, and I tell him about how there's this guy at work, Mark. And I'm working him hard, and I ask him right before he, you know, cums, if he's ready to take another chance, and Jack is all for it."

Marlene gave her a quizzical look, "How do you feel about that?"

"I wanted to so badly. I guess I justified it by thinking it's what he really wanted."

Jack sighed, "She's right. I wanted it. I'm not even sure she had to go to those lengths. She probably coulda just asked me over a pizza."

Marlene smirked at him. Jack supposed it was because she appreciated his sense of humor, not his fantasy life.

Brenda continued, "Okay, so we had fun with it. A lot of fun with it. I was still looking for an angle with Mark. And then the business trip came up last week."

"You didn't do anything with Mark beforehand?" Marlene asked?

"No not really. We do work together with other people. But we'd get lunch together, that sort of thing. I couldn't really think of a way to take the first step."

"How did you take the first step?"

Brenda thought for a moment, "Oh, you mean on our business trip?" Marlene nodded.

"Well, I booked a room right next to his. That first evening we had dinner with the client. There were four of us and two from their company. Afterward dinner we were walking back and I asked him if he wanted to get a drink. It was the easiest thing in the world. I asked him if he wanted to come into my room, and he did. "

Jack thought he'd have blue balls by the time this session ended.

"He came in, we kissed, we got naked, you know.."

Jack had wondered how it happened. For years he dreamed it, but when it finally happened he was excited and nervous, yet angry. "Keep in mind I'd asked her not to do it."

Marlene looked at Brenda, "Can you tell us how you felt about that?"

"I was insanely frustrated," Brenda said. "You can't keep dangling a ball in front of a cat and not expect it to take a swipe. Imagine thinking you're going to get a great Christmas present and you don't, no matter how much Santa promises? My sex life was becoming something he could use to control me, to yank my chain, to lift me up and send me crashing back down. And so here I was. I had years of him egging me on, and it was now within my grasp. I didn't feel like I was doing anything horrible. I even wondered if I was doing him a favor, pushing him into the pool he kept telling me he wanted to swim in. It wasn't even behind his back. When I left for the trip, I was excited, on cloud nine, and then I got the messages from him, the same old pathetic excuses, the whining. He's the one who wanted it in the first place, who trained me to like it!"

There was a pause and Brenda was on the verge of tears again, clearly emotional. Jack felt compelled to speak. "You know, it breaks my heart to hear this. I never thought of it like this. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too," Brenda again dabbed her eyes.

"I just don't know what to do. I want us to be happy, but I'm not happy with his back and forth. It's not fair."

"Marlene?" Jack asked, "Can I ask you a strange question?"

"You can ask me anything, in this situation it's usually good to talk freely, not hold anything back!" Her smile was back.

I'm guessing you've heard it all sitting in that chair."

Marlene just nodded her head with that big happy smile.

"Am I, like, my situation, am I normal?"

"Yes, I'd say you're normal," she grinned.

Jack felt relief at the answer, but he needed to have this conversation, to probe further. "I mean, I love my wife, I really do. I know I'm playing with fire. But I can't help it. These feelings I have, about her and other guys. It's overwhelming. It's like I feel like I'm gay or something, but I'm not gay, I have this condition."

"Well a lot of men have gay feelings maybe a lot more than most people realize." She looked at him, a look of 'and maybe you too' which made Jack uncomfortable.

Marlene looked at him, her eyes probing, "Why don't you tell us about it? How do you think it started, these cuckold feelings?"

Cuckold. That word seemed so creepy. Jack winced inside as she said it, even if he knew she accurately described it. He'd been on the internet, getting off for years on this type of porn. He remembered how it all began.

"When I was young, maybe 15 or 16, I was absolutely in love with this girl, Amy. She was from the next town over, went to our rivalry high school. She seemed mysterious. She was prettier than any other girl I usually talked with at my own school. I met her at a football game through some mutual friends. Well, I thought about her a lot, and finally worked up the courage to call her, and was incredibly happy when she agreed to hang out. In our town a bunch of us would hang out behind this old shopping center. So the first time she came over we just sat and talked off to the side. We really hit it off. Just a couple of bored teenagers. I really wanted to do more with her, but I guess I was immature, and never made the first move. Her brother even asked me if I wanted to be her boyfriend. I told him yes, but still, I didn't even know how to proceed. I was penniless. I couldn't take her on proper dates. We weren't old enough for cars. I didn't even have my own room at home.

Okay, so to cut to the chase, I think maybe she grew bored with me. I held her hand a few times, we kissed a little bit, but after a couple weeks, there just wasn't much there. She stops coming, and I stop calling her when she doesn't return my calls.

Later on I go to college, and I'm back after my freshman year. I'm maybe 18 or 19 and I decide to look up Amy that summer. What do you know, she wants to hang out! Great! I thought maybe we could start a little fling until I had to leave for school.

I had this friend, Jason. We were almost best friends. Amy and I went to is apartment a few times to get away from my parents' place. Anyway, I could see he liked Amy. He started flirting with her in that way guys do, trying to impress her, making little cutting remarks about other people that made her laugh. It bothered me a little bit but I ignored it. Anyway, one day Amy and I are supposed to meet like usual, and we agree to meet up at Jason's place, but I'm a little late and tell her to start the party without me because my mom wanted me to get some groceries. It was the only way I could get the car for the weekend." Jack could remember it like it happened yesterday.

"So I go to Jason's place. He lived in this apartment complex in this sort of half basement unit that had these windows way high up on the wall that looked out pretty much at people's feet walking by. I can't explain it, but I get this bad feeling that tells me I should take a peek in the windows before I ring the buzzer. Well, I look in the living room and I see nothing, but I can see the lights on in the kitchen, the TV's on.

I walk around to the back of the apartment which ran parallel to a fence, and I just knew I'd see something, and I looked into the back window. Oh, my God. I see Amy and Jason on the bed. I have to get my head right up against the glass, but I'm hoping and praying they aren't paying attention to their surroundings because I'm sure they could have seen me if they looked. So they are making out and I just sort of watch because her shirt is off and I'm seeing her breasts, the same breasts I touched and felt not 24 hours before. And the strange thing is that it felt amazing. I was jealous, I was angry, but I couldn't help but watch.

One thing leads to another, and his dick comes out, and it's huge by my standards. It's like, 8 inches long I'm guessing. I had no idea. It was way bigger than me, and I'm like maybe 6 inches if I'm lucky.

She's stroking it and she gives him a quick blowjob, I couldn't believe it, and then she starts taking her jeans off, her panties off, she's naked and he's falling over her as he's pulling his pants down. He gets up and goes to his dresser or shelf or something, and he pulls a condom out. I can't believe I'm watching as he bites the foil with his teeth a little bit and tears it open. Amy is just watching, as mesmerized as me. She leans back as he comes over, rolling the condom onto his dick, and he starts kissing her a little bit, and then he gets on top of her and they start working his monster dick into her, and she's just kind of looking up as it's getting fed into her. I couldn't even fathom how she fit it all inside her, she was kind of a skinny girl.

I'm watching my best friend boink my girlfriend, and honestly, I felt myself through my pants and I came before he did, and when I did, suddenly I felt vile and ashamed. I intending to ring the doorbell and put a stop to it, but something held me back. I figured I'd give them a few minutes. Why? I don't know. Well, actually I do know."

Jack had never told this story to anybody but his wife, and even then he'd held out one last little secret about that night.

"I wait maybe 3 minutes and I hit the buzzer. Of course, he doesn't buzz me in, but I'm not surprised, I figured they are scrambling. After maybe 20 or 30 seconds I ring again, and this time the buzzer rings back and I can open the door and go down the stairs to his apartment. I remember how musty that hallway smelled. Weird. So I knock on the door and Amy answers the door, and she's like, 'oh, you're here' and she kisses me, and I kiss her back, full on the lips, which is kind of disgusting when you think about it. She loves it, she starts making out with me. Meanwhile, my best buddy traitorous Jason comes out of his bedroom and tells me he's gotta take a shower. I'm thinking it's Amy that needs the shower. And I'm getting aroused again, so I think, hey, why not have sex with Amy?!

Amy wants none of it, tells me to wait until we are alone, and goes to the kitchen. I tell her I need to use the restroom and I go into Jason's room and I look for it," Jack swallowed hard, "I look for the rubber, and I find it in the trash can and I can see it's used if you know what I mean."

Brenda, shocked, said "You never told me this. You mean, it was full of his sperm?"

"Well it wasn't full of.." Jack couldn't think of a witty answer, "Yes, it was. So I took it. I stole it, I palmed it in the pocket of a hoodie I had on. It sort of sloshed around in there inside the rubber."

"Oh, this is fucked up," Brenda looked at Marlene, "Sorry, never heard this story!" and she put her hands in shock.

"I go back out and I have the worst, most evil thoughts in my head. I tell Amy I'm really horny, which I was, and I pretty much demand we fuck. She's got these wide eyes, and as she considers it, I tap on the door where Jason is taking a shower and I yell out that I'm gonna fuck Amy in his room and he better give us privacy. Jason just yells out for me to go for it, and I can see Amy just put her hand to her mouth like maybe she finds it funny or shocking or whatever, but I take her by the hand and she just sort of follows behind like a puppy dog being dragged in.

I start making out and she's like, let's make this quick. So right in front of her I go to Jason's stash and pull out a fresh one. I'm wondering if this is messing with her head, how I know this, but she doesn't say anything. I roll it on. I'm really hard at this point, which would be hard normally, but after everything that happened, my dick was alive. I ask Amy to get on all fours, I want to fuck her doggy style, and I do. It's great. Oh yeah, I forgot to say, I palmed Jason's used rubber. That's sort of why I wanted her to get on all fours. I didn't want her paying attention to me too much. As I'm fucking her, I'm breaking open Jason's rubber.."

"Oh my God," Brenda exclaimed.

"I fuck her hard and I'm 19 so I've got all kinds of mental sex powers and I get myself to cum in like, 30 seconds. So when I pull out, I take his condom and press it up close to her as and squeeze out his sperm onto her, you know, my dick and her pussy and I'm going, 'Oh shit it broke,' and I pull off mine and just have both in one hand like it's a mess, and it was."

"You are evil," Brenda said.

"I just couldn't believe she cheated on me. I felt she deserved it, this was my revenge. Hell, I knew she probably wouldn't get pregnant and she didn't. But I just had to do something."

Marlene spoke, "That's very passive-aggressive behavior, very manipulative." She looked at him with something approximating disrespect and Jack felt his heart drop.

"Look," Jack grabbed the armrests again and steadied his breathing. "I had to tell somebody. I think it's important to get it off my chest, and I think it's important in understanding why I act the way I do, the way I have."

"Of course," Marlene seemingly unmoved, "You may have felt a tremendous amount of guilt. What you did was very wrong."

"I did. I think I sexualized that whole experience. I sexualized the anger I felt, the peeping, and the revenge."

"The guilt," Marlene added.

"I can't tell you how many times I've wondered how I can get rid of these feelings. It's true. But I can't help it. To be honest, I'll probably bring it up again."

"The feelings of guilt over what you did?" Marlene asked.

"No, the feeling, the thrill I get thinking of my wife with another guy. It's sick. I feel twisted."

Brenda said, "If you keep up with this, I don't know, I don't want to leave you, but I can't live like this."

"Can I make a recommendation?" Marlene didn't even seem to wait for an answer, she stood up and looked at the clock, "our hour is almost up and I have another appointment later this evening.."

"Wow, you are busy," Brenda said.

"Busy but happy," and Marlene smiled again. Always that warm motherly smile. Jack was comforted by it and was curious as to what she was going to recommend. "I have the number for somebody, another therapist, a doctor actually who works more closely with situations like this," she wrote a name and phone number and handed the sheet of paper over to Brenda, "He runs a health center that is very interesting, it's a little different than a standard sex therapist."

"A sex therapist?" Jack blurted. Brenda just looked shocked.

"Yes, a sex therapist," Marlene answered, "He specializes in people with alternative lifestyles, non-monogamous couples. I want you to arrange an appointment with him."