While She was Away

I love my wife. I really do. So please read this with a grain of salt.

My name is Gary, Gary Markus Jenning. My beautiful wife Marsha is an archeologist and makes a lot of money. It allows me to do what I want. I don't want to be a free loader, so I do work as a waiter a couple nights a week at a really nice restaurant. But mostly I play golf and take care of the house. I do all the cooking and cleaning and lawn work, allowing her to work her very odd hours. She does a lot of public speaking (at $20,000 an appearance, by the way), and has to travel a lot. She works for a local university and local museum. We live in Chicago, so it is a cultural hotspot.

In addition, excavating crews often find things that need verifying, and other museums that lay claim to those finds will steal her away at a huge consulting fee to be on site when they excavate. These trips usually last a week or two, and she makes it up to me with kinky sex when she comes home. She is a health nut and in great shape, so I've never been tempted to look at other women when she was away, but we have a pretty active sex life when she is home, so to suddenly go cold turkey for a couple weeks is rough some times.

I have no family in the area, but she does. My in-laws are nice, but I often feel like I'm competing for Marsha's attention when they are around. Her parents are very nervous about her traveling to third world countries, and I often think she spends more time on the phone with them when she is away, than with me. She got her doctorate pretty young at 25, and is now only 29, so they still see her as their baby. They pressure her to start having kids, but she always tells them that it isn't time yet.

Amy, Marsha's younger sister by 4 years, is also high maintenance. She isn't married yet and hasn't had a solid boyfriend for over 3 years now. Much like her sister, she is very attractive, but I've always found her to be a bit bitchy. She was very picky growing up, and now she seems more desperate, which is worse because she tries to date losers who are only after one thing.

Her two younger brothers have each graduated from college, but they still live at home. Marsha and I talk a lot about how her parents need to kick them out of the house. Amy had finally gotten her own place a year or so ago, but the boys were still at home. Watching how that family operates makes me happy that I stole Marsha away, but I also have to bite my tongue whenever I am over there. Of course, they feel free to criticize how we run our life. "A stay at home husband is terrible." "You two should have three kids by now." "Spending that much time apart is bad for your marriage."

I do have to agree with that sentiment, however. While I was never really tempted to look at other women, I was often tempted to look for sex in other places.

* * *

"I'm sorry, honey, but this is a really big dig, and I am going to have to be here for another couple weeks. I'm really sorry. I promise to make it up to you when I get home. But right now . . . oh, hold on, my mother is on call waiting. I'll call you back. Love, ya. Bye."

I stared at the phone for a few seconds, trying to let what my wife just told me sink in. "Another couple weeks," could mean anything. She had already been away for almost three weeks, so now I was looking at about a month without her. The temptation to look for sex was too strong now.

But where do you go? I saw a special on MSNBC once about high priced call girls who screen their clients. But they were extremely expensive and not the right thing for a quickie. There are plenty of billboards in Chicago for call girl services and VIP lounges, but I didn't think they would be able to advertise as openly as they do if actual sex was taking place. I always guessed that it was just phone sex or a private strip show. That would just make me hornier.

Then I remembered all the links for adult dating services. The women were always posing naked in those ads, and it was obvious it was a dating service that specialized in hookups. I doubted the women in the adds that claim to be in the Chicago area are the actual women that I would find if I looked, but I thought it was worth a shot.

I went to a couple porn sites and hit refresh enough times for one of the familiar banner ads to pop up. I followed the links and got a free search of women in my area. Sure enough, they weren't the supper models the ad had promised, but they were pretty enough for what I needed.

With my credit card on my desk and the account creation screen in front of me I paused. What were my real intentions? Would this be a one time thing? Marsha would have other 2-3 week trips. Would I stay in contact with this girl I was going to find, or would I just keep my account open and find a different girl each time. I sat there for 30 minutes, and looking back on it, if Marsha had called back like she said she would, I probably would have scrapped the idea. But she didn't.

I had to sign up for a month, so I did. Most of the other user names I saw had their birth year included, so I made my name Mark80. I identified myself as a recent widower. My wedding ring never came off, and there would be a clear tan line there that would be obvious to anyone. I was lonely and I missed my dead wife. I am not looking for a serious relationship right now, but would like female companionship.

I figured that would catch the interest of a few women. I then looked at several of the profiles for women near by. They all had pictures of themselves, in lingerie or bikinis with their heads cropped off. I looked at a few of the guy pictures as well and saw similar fare. I decided I might as well join the group. I stripped down to my boxer briefs, spent a few moments fantasizing on the original porn site I was at to make my bulge look as big as possible, and then took a few headless shots.

With all my free time I work out a lot and I thought I looked pretty good. However, I noticed that in all the pictures I was still wearing my wedding ring so I took a few more, picked the best one, and posted it to my profile.

The site allowed you to give several of the girls 'a thumbs up' and leave them a note. You couldn't get an email address until they returned the note, much like Facebook. After I was all done with everything and turned off my computer, I took a long cold shower and went to bed.

* * *

The next day I had two responses already. One stated that she appreciated my appraisal of her figure and said I looked hot, but she was working on another relationship right now and didn't think now was a good time.

The other response was more positive. Her user name was Jill84. She said I looked hot and wouldn't mind getting together for dinner and more. She asked if I wanted to share more detailed pictures of each other, but I declined. I had seen too many horror stories of teens passing naked pics of each other via email and then having them posted all over. I would stick with the headless pictures for now and suggested she did the same.

She seemed to appreciate this, and suggest that we meet already that weekend. Now was my chance to back out, but the more I looked at her pic online, the more I wanted to meet her in person. She had a similar build to my wife with slightly wider hips and larger breasts, probably 36-28-36 with C cups. She had a few freckles, which I thought were cute, and no stretch marks that I could see.

The site recommended a way to handle the first date. Make a reservation in a hotel, and spend the first night there. That way if things go badly, no one has the other person's address. I made reservations at a nice restaurant in the lobby of downtown hotel and got a suite reserved. It was pricey, but I would pay in cash, so Marsha wouldn't see it. If she asked about the cash withdrawal, which she probably wouldn't, I would just tell her that I went to a casino a couple nights and lost.

The days to the weekend passed slowly, and Marsha only called me once during that time. We talked briefly, but she seemed concerned about how I was holding on. I let the excitement for the weekend show in my voice to help prove to her that I was doing okay, and that seemed to help. She hesitated at the end of the call, but didn't say any more and hung up.

I wondered how open my wife would be to letting me get laid on the side while she was gone. She told me she would pay me back when she got home, and while we had talked about threesomes and open marriages, she never seemed in favor of it, so I didn't push it. She might make an acceptation for me when she was gone for this long, but I wasn't going to ask now.

Friday night finally came. We were to meet each other in the lobby of the hotel, which doubled as the waiting area for the restaurant. We hadn't given head shots of each other yet, and we both agreed it would be more fun to try to pick each other out of a crowd. When I entered the lobby and saw how many people were there, I regretted not having us wear Jill84 and Mark80 name tags.

It was a nice restaurant and there were several beautiful women there who could have been her, but they all looked like they were with someone else. One woman sitting alone drew my attention, but she looked a little heavier than Jill's picture, and maybe a few years older. Also, she wasn't looking around like I would think Jill would be doing. I was about to go up to her when I heard a call from my left.

"Gary?" I turned to see Amy getting up from a chair and walking over to me. She wore an amazing formfitting red dress, gathered across her waist and stretching over her shoulder with a large key hole between her breasts. I saw no bra lines and almost whistled in appreciation. If only she was my date. I almost slapped myself at the thought, though. It was bad enough I was cheating on my wife, but to do so with her sister would be worse.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. I was also dressed nice with khakis and a button down silk shirt that was narrow enough to show off my muscled torso.

"I'm meeting a client here tonight for dinner. They flew in from New York today and they have a room upstairs. They should be down any minute."

"Man or woman?" she asked, looking me up and down.

"Terry Keller," I replied. "We've only exchanged emails. I don't know."

"But aren't you a waiter?" she asked.

"We do catering too," I thought quickly, "and I've been helping out. A firm from New York is going to have a conference here in Chicago next month and they have a bunch of meetings tomorrow. My boss knew Marsha was gone and I was free, so he suggested I take them out to diner." I paused, hoping the flimsy story would hold up. While she contemplated it, I turned it back on her. "What about you? What brings you to this fine restaurant?"

I saw her eyes roaming to the door as I spoke and she pulled them back to mine. "A date. My friends set me up again. I haven't met the guy before, so this should be interesting."

"So you don't know what he looks like?" I asked. She shook her head. "Could be me?" I grinned at her.

She laughed. "Not unless your name is Mark," she replied.

I froze. "My middle name is Markus," I said slowly. "And I think yours is Gillian."

I thought Amy was going to faint from the look of shock on her face. Her hand went up to her open mouth, and I grabbed her other arm to keep her steady. The shock was no harder for me to deal with, but I managed to keep my balance.

"Please don't tell Marsha!" we both said at once. We chuckled despite the situation at the shared realization that our secret would be safe. Neither of us wanted to admit doing this.

"I need to sit down," she finally said. I eased her into a chair wondering what else I could do. The "Bing" of the hotel elevator drew my eyes away and I saw the front desk.

"I made a reservation here tonight," I said slowly. "I think I might still be able to cancel it."

Amy couldn't speak, but nodded. I made my way over to the desk, ended up paying a slight cancelation fee, but was able to get rid of the reservation. I returned to find her with her head in her hands and sobbing. I knelt down before her. "Amy. It's okay. Everything's going to be okay. No one has to know. I promise I won't tell a soul."

"It's not that," she said between tears, sniffing loudly. "My life is a wreck and it doesn't matter what I do, I can't fix it."

"You're life isn't a wreck. You are a young, beautiful woman with your life ahead of you. Don't think this is an omen or anything. You will meet the right guy."

"That's easy for you to say," she replied, wiping tears from her eyes as she fished a tissue out of her purse. "But nothing has ever worked for me."

I felt for her then, more than I had in the past. Yes, I thought she had her bitchy moments, but what woman hadn't. I had been through a hellish series of girlfriends before I had met Marsha, so I knew what she was talking about.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

She looked up at me as if seeing me for the first time. We had never talked about anything. If I answered the phone at home, I rarely even got a "How's it going?" before they asked to speak to Marsha. They all saw me as an underachieving sports nut that happened to be married to their daughter, whose sole function was to keep the house from burning down while she was off on her trips.

"I don't know," she said after a few moments.

"Mark, Party of 2!" The host called from the entry to the dining room.

"It helps to talk about it," I said. "Plus this place has great sea food and their martini list is exceptional."

"You still want to have dinner?" She asked.

"Well, we need to eat, and I was obviously prepared to pay for dinner already, and I just saved a ton of money on a hotel reservation."

She laughed. "Okay. Martinis sound good." She sniffed up the rest of her sobs and put on a better face. I helped her up, and couldn't help admiring her form under the red dress. "Stop that," she scolded quietly.

"Stop what?"

"Don't look at me like that!"

"Why did you wear that dress?" I dared.

"Because," she started, but then paused. "Because . . ."

"Because you wanted to be looked at," I said. "I'm only giving you a compliment."

She smiled at me but didn't say anything more as we were greeted by the host and shown to our table. We sat down, and when asked if we wanted anything to drink, I ordered a chocolate martini for Amy and a beer for myself. She gave me a more genuine smile after that and I returned it.

"Allow me to explain myself," I started.

Amy shook her head. "You don't need to. My sister leaves you alone for weeks at a time. She has confided in me that she is scared you are going to start cheating on her, and that she would have a hard time blaming you if you did. If this is the first time you've ever done anything like this, it would come as a surprise to Marsha."

"It is the first time," I confirmed.

"Then you should talk to her about it," Amy said. "Tell her how hard it is for you to be away from her that long. My guess is that she will make a better effort to go on short trips or she will give you a freebie every once in a while."

It was sound council, and she was probably right. Our drinks came and with neither of us having opened our menus yet, I just ordered some appetizers. I suddenly wasn't that hungry and I guessed she wasn't either.

"Plus," Amy continued, "you aren't really cheating on her. Women view sex as a sign of love and devotion. Finding a woman on our site is only for companionship and sex. You aren't looking for 'love' somewhere else. Plus the site is completely anonymous, so you don't risk anything. Like I said, talk to Marsha about it. She may even suggest something like this."

I took a long drink from my Sam Adams and nodded in defeat.

"But I do need to explain myself," Amy continued, sipping at her drink as well.

"What for?"

"Because we are looking for different things," she said. "I'm looking for a relationship, and you probably think that is a terrible thing to do on a site like the one we met on. But I've tried all the other sites. They don't work either. When I enter my 'Key Personality Traits' they keep pairing me with guys that are losers. Does that make me a loser?"

I shook my head.

"I went on a few dates from that site and they were awful. The guys can't hold a decent conversation and they couldn't keep their eyes above my chest. They only wanted one thing, and when I didn't give it to them, they didn't call back."

"If you don't want men looking for sex, then why use our site?"

"Because that is the only way I am going to find guys like you."

I sat up a bit in my chair and gave her a strange look. "Explain that."

"The guy I am looking for has no problem attracting women. He doesn't need a dating site. You don't need a dating site. But if their woman cheats on them or dies or they break up, then they will be too emotionally invested in the old relationship to be looking to start a new one, but they will still need female companionship."

It made sense in a warped way. I loved Marsha too much to go to a prostitute or use a call girl. I wanted an every day woman who was lonely like me to fulfill a need. If I really was a widower, then I would be the kind of man that Amy was looking for. Someone who knew how to be in a steady relationship, someone who was not scared of commitment, and someone who wasn't looking for any of that right now. They just needed a hug.

"Have you done this before?" I dared to ask.

We were being honest so Amy nodded her head. "Once, or twice. Well, twice with the same guy. He had just broken up with his girlfriend of five years. He was crawling up the wall sexually, much like you must be, but he wasn't looking for something dirty. He needed a shoulder to cry on. That was me."

She took another sip as she decided whether or not to continue the story. She did. "We ate dinner, got a hotel room, and made some of the most passionate love I could imagine. He had so much to give to a woman, and no woman to give it too. I listened to his struggles, he listened to mine, and we made a connection. We met up the following weekend as well, for more of the same, but he called me up shortly after that saying that his girlfriend and him were trying to get back together. It was a brief but very enriching experience."

Our food came and we continued to talk about relationships. Amy really opened up to me, and my opinion of her was drastically changing. She wasn't a bitch as much as she was just angry with men and the world, and from what she told me, she had every right to be angry. But if you were nice to her, she opened up and was as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside.

After her third martini, I could tell that she was going to need help getting home. She had taken her car to the hotel, and when I offered to drive her home, she refused at first. However, after rising from the table and trying to balance on her heels, she changed her mind.

I knew where her apartment was, and walked her all the way to her door. She opened it, stepped inside, paused, and then turned around. With her heels, she was almost my height as she looked into my eyes. "Thank you for a wonderful evening, Gary. It may not have ended the way you wanted -- or I wanted -- but I enjoyed it."

"You're welcome," I said. On instinct I leaned in to kiss her goodnight. On instinct she responded in kind. I had been only with Marsha for so long that it didn't cross my mind to aim for her cheek, and our lips met gently.

Sparks flowed down my body, as I guessed they did hers, because neither of us moved as we held the kiss. I moved closer to her, and she did likewise. Soon her hands were on my waist, not sure if they should push away, or curl around my back to draw me in.