Nice Couples Do (7 page)

The message in the fifties, when I was a teenager, was that while men do need variation in their sexual encounters, that’s what prostitutes and “other women” are for. Foreplay was not enjoyable in and of itself. It was a means to an end, a way to excite one or both partners so intercourse would not be too odious. Wives were supposed to be vessels, repositories for the seed of their husbands, and content with the missionary position. Many men never saw their wives naked. Lovemaking took place with all the lights off and with the wife’s nightclothes still on. Then the men went out and had fun elsewhere.

At least men were taught that sex was fun!

Now, fortunately, it is more commonly understood that women have sexual needs and desires, too. They have erotic fantasies and their own type of wet dreams. They masturbate and have enjoyable orgasms. Women can and should enjoy sex, too, in all its infinite varieties. Sex is to be shared, enjoyed mutually by both partners. Sex is fun for both participants. Hooray for enlightenment!

It’s all right to want whatever you want and that includes games that are out of the sexual mainstream. Once you accept that what you want is all right, you have to communicate these new ideas with your partner.

Sexual creativity is a most important ingredient in a long-term, full-time relationship. I used to think that the perfect sexual partner was someone with infinite creativity. I hoped that there was someone out there who could enjoy the same pleasures that I enjoy. I also foolishly thought that he would be able to divine what I wished and do it just right. I never considered how he would know all this; I just knew that, when I found him, he would.

I was wrong. The perfect partner is one with whom you can communicate. One to whom you can suggest activities that you might like to try. One who can say, “That sounds interesting,” or “I don’t think I’d enjoy that,” with equal equanimity. One who can suggest things to you and will accept your response, whatever it may be.

A perfect new sexual experience, the first time with someone who really turns you on, is the basis of many sexual fantasies. In the next two stories, you’ll see how two quite different couples reacted to that initial delicious awkwardness. Maybe you’d enjoy marking one of these.

PEGGY AND GARY’S STORY

Gary lay stretched out on the bed, a copy of the newspaper propped on his heavy thighs. Contentedly, he turned to the last page and spent several leisurely minutes reading about his high school lacrosse team’s latest victory. Nostalgically, he thought about the days before his waistline thickened and his hair thinned. He remembered the “big game,” in which he had actually played only two minutes but which, over the years, had become his greatest triumph.

With a dreamy look on his face, he put his newspaper aside and glanced at Peggy, his wife of almost twenty years, as she lay beside him. He smiled at the way she lay, almost prone, with her head on her scrunched pillow. Every few moments, she absently pushed her glasses back up to the bridge of her nose. He looked at the cover of the paperback novel she was reading.

“Why do the covers of all the books you read look the same?”

Absently, Peggy looked up. “Were you talking to me?” she asked.

“I was just wondering about the covers on those novels you read. They all look alike.”

Peggy looked at the cover of her book. It showed the handsome, virile hero bent over the lush body of the heroine. He was shirtless, showing off his rippling chest and shoulder muscles. She wore a gown, cut low enough to leave little of her full breasts to the imagination. Her red hair was spread over her shoulders in deep, thick waves. The lovers gazed into each other’s eyes, oblivious to the rest of the world.

Peggy looked at the cover illustration and giggled. “I guess they all do look alike.”

“Why?” When Peggy looked puzzled, Gary continued. “Why do you read the same book over and over? Granted, the characters have different names and the setting is different, but the story is always the same. I’ve always wondered. What’s the real appeal?”

“Romance, I guess,” Peggy answered after a bit of thought. “I suppose I read them because there’s always romance. My favorite part is when the hero finally makes love to the heroine for the first time. He holds her and kisses her and drives her wild with passion. She usually wants to resist him for some reason, but she finds herself unable to. His expert lovemaking ultimately wins her over.”

She rolled partway over and propped herself on one elbow. “Like the scene I just read.” She turned back a few pages and handed the book to Gary. “Read from here,” she said, and pointed to a paragraph.

Five minutes later, Gary handed the book back. Reading that scene had turned him on more than he would have imagined. “I see what you mean. It’s very erotic, like an orgasm in print.”

He wanted to be the man in the story. He wanted to be able to reduce a woman to a quivering mass of desire. He wondered whether he could do that to Peggy or whether he even dared to try. The idea was too tempting to ignore.

“We could make love like that,” he said softly.

Peggy thought about her recent lovemaking with Gary. It was comfortable, but predictable. She would love it if he could behave like one of the heroes of the novels she loved so much. But the whole idea was ridiculous.

“Real people don’t make love like that,” she said.

Gary reached over and took the book from Peggy’s hand. Without a word, he put it on his bed table. He turned back to Peggy and ran his fingers over her forehead, then took off her glasses, folded them, and placed them on her bedstand.

In the story, the hero and the heroine had just married, over the heroine’s objections. “I’m going to make love to you, since this is our wedding night.” That was the first line in the scene and Gary tried to say it as the hero would have.

He swallowed hard and held his breath. What would Peggy do? After a moment’s hesitation, Peggy pulled her knees up slightly and backed away toward her side of the bed. “But it’s early yet. Maybe you’d prefer a glass of wine. I could get one for you.” Gary’s heart pounded. Peggy had just repeated the heroine’s line.

“I promise I won’t hurt you,” Gary continued. He slid out of his side of the bed and took off the top of his pajamas. He stood for a moment, wearing only the pajama pants.

As Peggy looked at him, she saw the same nice guy she had been sleeping next to for twenty years. He was a bit paunchy and his hairline had receded so far that he was soon going to have to admit that he was bald. She noticed also that he had broad shoulders, long arms, and beautiful hands.

In another part of her mind, however, he was Bret, the hero of the novel. He was about to ravish the teenage girl he had just forced to marry him. Peggy worried that, as much as she wanted to become Leona, the heroine, she couldn’t become a sweet, beautiful, sexually ignorant girl. Gary would laugh.

As she looked at his face, though, she saw the languid look that she had always read about, the look that made his eyes say, I want to seduce you.

“I’m afraid,” she said, as she thought Leona would have.

Gary climbed back onto the bed. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “You will want it as much as I do. Just relax and let me love you.”

Gary touched Peggy’s face with the tips of his fingers. As his wife gazed at him, he stroked her chin and cheeks. He softly touched her eyelids and she closed her eyes.

“You really are beautiful,” he said. There was such sincerity in his voice that Peggy didn’t know whether it was Bret talking to Leona or Gary talking to his wife. She didn’t want to know. She just wanted to enjoy.

She felt Gary place tiny kisses on her temple and then his lips wandered over her face. The moment was wonderful, but Peggy felt a hunger to have Gary’s lips on her mouth. She reached for the back of his head to press his mouth against hers.

“Leona,” he said, “you’re very forward.” He was gently reminding her that, in the scene, Leona had been totally passive, frightened of lovemaking until Bret was actually inside of her. Peggy dropped her hand.

Gary continued to kiss her face. He enjoyed denying her the kiss she obviously wanted. He kissed her ear and ran the tip of his tongue around the outside. As he heard Peggy purr, he moved to her neck. He placed a line of light kisses down the side of her neck to where her neck met her shoulder. As he nibbled at that tender spot, he felt her reach her body toward him.

Gently, he reached for the back of her hair and pulled her away. He saw the pleasure on her face as he bent to touch his lips to hers. To his delight, she didn’t open her mouth immediately but kept her lips together as the girl in the story had. He kissed her closed mouth and then ran the tip of his tongue over her lips. Gradually, her lips parted just enough for him to slip his tongue inside.

It was heavenly. Somehow it was like Bret kissing Leona. Gary enjoyed Peggy’s kiss as he hadn’t in many years. They kissed for a long time, exploring each other’s mouths for the “first time.”

Gary’s hands kneaded Peggy’s lower back. He cupped her buttocks and pressed her belly against his erection so she could feel the heat of his excitement.

They separated just enough for him to slide his hand onto her breasts. She stiffened as Leona would have, but he said, “It’s all right, darling, just relax.” Through her nightgown, he kneaded her flesh and rubbed his palm across her swollen nipple. She was trying to react like an innocent, but her body responded like a woman.

After minutes of just playing with her breast, he said, “Doesn’t that feel good?”

“Oh, yes,” she said hesitantly, “it feels wonderful.”

“There are more pleasures,” he said as he continued to play out the scene.

Peggy opened her eyes and looked at him. She used body language to convey the fright that Leona would have felt in bed with her handsome new husband. She shuddered, then said, “I’m still frightened.”

“Trust me.”

Her lips curved in a tiny “I’ll be brave” smile and she closed her eyes.

Gary pulled his wife’s nightgown off over her head and tossed it on the floor. Then he bent over and touched Peggy’s nipple with his tongue. He felt her pull back, but one arm held her tightly. His lips encircled her breast’s erect peak and he started to suck. When he squeezed her other nipple in a rhythm that matched his sucking, she moaned.

Hesitantly, Peggy reached up and ran the palms of her hands over the backs of Gary’s shoulders. She felt the length of his body against her and his sucking made her wet with need, but still she continued to control herself and behave as Leona would have.

Gary stopped squeezing and sucking, slid his hand down her belly, and slipped his fingers between her legs. She couldn’t stop her hips from moving or her back from arching as she reached for him. His hard penis against her thigh told her that he was as excited as she was, but they both were still playing out the scene.

He played with the soaked flesh between her legs until neither of them could resist any longer. He climbed on top and, with one motion, pressed his hard cock inside. He thrust in and out and watched the pleasure on his wife’s face. Her eyes were tightly shut and her head thrashed from side to side.

He pounded into her and climaxed with a groan.

They lay together for a long time as their breathing returned to normal.

“You know,” Peggy said, her grin lighting her face, “that should have been silly. But it was wonderful, I was Leona and you were Bret. I can’t really explain it.”

“It was wonderful, wasn’t it?” Gary said, feeling a little silly, too.

“It was strange,” Peggy continued. “I almost felt the delicious anticipation of a woman’s first experience. I guess I was too young and too hungry to enjoy it this way the first time we made love.”

“It seems that we can enjoy all kinds of things in ways we never suspected,” Gary said. “I have a few ideas of my own.”

PHIL’S STORY

It had been a summer that everyone would remember, especially Phil. Most people would remember the relentless heat that turned New York into an oven. There were endless days with temperatures over ninety and sky-high humidity. Late-afternoon thunderstorms provided no relief.

Though it had been twenty years earlier, Phil would remember that summer forever, not for the heat but because of Mrs. Johnstone. Through the ensuing years, whenever the weather turned hot and humid, he would be transported back to the summer when he was twenty and a junior at college, and his cock would harden.

School let out the last week of May that summer and there was little for him to do. He worked three days a week in the stockroom of the local appliance store, moving heavy boxes containing luxurious air conditioners his family couldn’t afford. Once or twice a week, he went to the local movie or borrowed a friend’s car and took a girl for a drive away from the heat of the city. In the cool of the suburbs, they would sit in the car and make out. Sometimes he would “hit a home run” and get to put his excited cock inside of the girl, but, most often, he would end the evening frustrated. The rest of the days he hung out on the stoop with his friends. They drank cold beer and prayed for an end to the stifling temperatures. Late one afternoon in mid-July, Mrs. Johnstone, Phil’s upstairs neighbor, staggered home carrying three heavy bundles from the local grocery store and two cans of paint.

Mrs. Johnstone was a nice lady whom everyone in the neighborhood liked. She was forty-five, with a few gray streaks already in her hair and deep smile lines around her mouth. She had lived alone in her third-floor apartment since her husband died.

Phil watched her put her packages down and fumble in her pocketbook for her key, so Phil offered to help with the packages.

“Thank you so much, Phil,” Mrs. Johnstone said. “You’re such a nice, polite young man.”

When they got to her door, Mrs. Johnstone invited Phil in for some cold milk and a slice of freshly baked chocolate cake. “You know, Phil,” Mrs. Johnstone said as they ate, “I’m planning to paint the apartment next week. I wonder whether you’d be interested in helping me. You could move furniture, paint, and help me clean up. I’d pay you, of course.”