Wives with Benefits: Volume Two (5 page)

Chances were, she’d have to sleep with the guy more than once. We could do all the scientific ovulation tests we liked, but chances would increase if attempts at conception happened more than once. Lisa was concerned that sleeping with another man more than once would be difficult to hide from me. I’d know where she was — if not the first time, then the second, the third.

My rational self said it didn’t matter. I’d have to know it was happening at some point anyway. I just had to deal with the hardship. Her sleeping with someone else wouldn’t mean she no longer loved me. I knew she’d only be doing it to have children. And if we had the money, we’d be using donor sperm anyway.

My inner self was quietly keen on feeling how it would be to be cheated on in this way.

We put a profile together on an adult dating site. We were clear from the outset what was happening, what we wanted. We weren’t going to dupe someone. At the same time, we made it clear we were not looking for a donor to be involved in the child’s upbringing. I had a few stiff drinks as Lisa’s profile went live. The only other thing we really talked about was the idea that the man she was looking for ought, if possible, to look like me. That would make everything more easy all round.

After that, the process was in Lisa’s hands. I wasn’t supposed to know anything about how it was progressing. She would tell me only when she became pregnant, or if it did not seem to be working. She took up some evening classes, made her gym visits more frequent, started going out more regularly with her friends — all so that when she did have a date, she could slip me a white lie about keeping one or other regular commitment, and I would be none the wiser.

At the same time, she cut back on her alcohol with the simple explanation to her friends that we were trying for a baby.

For my part, I aided her by starting to work fairly late into the evening at the office every night, unless she told me ahead of time that she’d be home for supper. On the surface, I was able to strike a cool, neutral pose, as though I really wasn’t thinking about any of this any more. Underneath, though, naturally I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I came to like the strange buzz from knowing it was really going to happen. Initially I even told myself it was simply part of the excitement from knowing we were about to become parents for the first time. Yet in quiet moments, I thought about Lisa sifting through profiles of other men, perhaps messaging a few of them, chatting about the prospect of sleeping with one. I thought of Lisa arranging a date, secretly slipping away to meet a man in a bar somewhere, perhaps booking a hotel room in case he turned out to be suitable.

I thought about my beautiful dark-haired temptress taking another man to bed — and enjoying her first taste of strange in a decade. Lisa being unfaithful, with my underlying consent, so that we could start a family. Lisa, enjoying the experience way more than she should.

Lisa coming back to me after sex with another man.

Lisa lying in bed with me, quietly satisfied after being filled by someone else. Lisa kissing me on the cheek after getting home from what I believed to be a night class, or a night out with the girls, and in reality she would be full of another man’s come, hoping that it would be working miracles inside her.

Those thoughts made my little ongoing buzz surge into all-out excitement. They made me so hard, I had to worry about hiding my erection for the first time since adolescence. It was clear to me why I couldn’t stop thinking about it, why I felt such a thrill.

I wanted Lisa to sleep with another man. I wanted her to experience the pleasure of a new sexual partner — the flirting, the giggling, the sighing, the moaning as another man worshipped her, showing her just how gorgeous she was, since her husband was duty-bound to compliment her, which reduced his compliments’ power.

I wanted my Lisa to be a naughty, dirty, unfaithful sex goddess.

So. While I was supposed to forget about the whole “dating” thing, the whole conception thing, in reality I didn’t. I didn’t even try to forget. I monitored every tiny detail I could for clues as to how Lisa was getting on. She’d get home from her job as a publicist for a small theatre in Hackney, and she’d make me believe she was doing a little work while I made supper. I’d know from her little half-hidden smiles, the flashes in her eyes and the soft pink blush on her cheeks that the ‘work’ she was engaged in was really to do with that dating site.

She’d giggle or sigh or react in some other way every now and then, and I’d bang and crash about in the kitchen to make it appear that I hadn’t heard her involuntary vocal response to something some other guy had told her in an email or a message, or whatever.

I watched how my wife started dressing a little more like a single woman, how she bought some new perfume — how she bought some new lingerie, as though she could hide that from me. It caused little pangs inside me, that she would buy sexy new underwear for dates with other men, and not for her husband. And I won’t say I didn’t experience fear — fear that somehow, Lisa was forging a relationship with a new man, that when she slept with him she might choose him over me. He would be the father of her child, after all, biologically.

I just had to trust in our relationship, trust in our love.

While this was all happening, my near constant arousal and Lisa’s undoubted excitement about dating translated into vastly improved sex between the both of us. Secretly chatting with interested men online got her juices going, and knowing that she was secretly chatting with interested men online got my juices going.

She didn’t comment about why our sex lives suddenly improved. But then, I guess I didn’t either — I was acting with Academy Award-winning prowess like the unaware husband, just happy for whatever time he could get between his wife’s thighs.

It wasn’t so hard to read her. My ability to act as though I had no idea anything was going on reassured her, so she relaxed and made less effort to hide things from me. I could tell when her first date was coming up from her body language. She was thrilled about it.

So there I was, parked across the road from our little terraced house in South London, watching her slip out of the front door looking like a million dollars, open the gate then step nervously forward in her high-heeled shoes. She’d catch a cab from the main road, be away to some bar on the South Bank, or near the City, or in the West End, in no time at all.

I didn’t get out of the car, not until she disappeared from view, at any rate. I didn’t call out to her, I didn’t stop her from going. I waited. Then she was gone, and I emerged, shaking like a leaf in a summer breeze, crossed over the road and ducked into our house.

The house smelled of her new perfume, unfamiliar. Sexy. Oh, it could have been symptomatic of her going out for the evening with her friends, but on this particular night I knew that it wasn’t. She was on a date. Upstairs it was clear she’d spent time getting ready, putting on her make-up. Her new racy black lace lingerie was gone. The air in our en suite bathroom was warm and damp from her recent shower. The laundry basket held her clothes from her day in the office — and nine times out of ten, she didn’t change into something new to attend evening classes, or go to the gym, or even go out for drinks with her friends.

Her panties from that afternoon were damp and musky with her own arousal. She’d been thinking about this upcoming date all day.

I should have been horrified at finding out it was happening that night. I should probably have been angry that it had come to this, that my beautiful wife, my faithful and sweet-natured soulmate was going to be polluted by some stranger I didn’t even know. Only, I didn’t feel like that.

The nerves were still there, the fear that I would lose her. But the joy at knowing it was really happening overwhelmed those black thoughts. There was trepidation at how she would be when she finally came home to me that night. If her date went badly. If the man did not live up to her expectations. If it turned out that I wasn’t actually able to handle her seeing someone else, that my arousal had been false. Or worst of all, if she had such an incredible time that she felt sad to come home to me.

What could I do except wait? Watching the clock ticking by seemed so bittersweet, with every subsequent tick seeming to increase the chances that her date was going well, that she would go back to a hotel room with her new friend — that she was enjoying herself, that her bond with my rival was growing stronger.

Ten o’clock.

Eleven o’clock.

Twelve o’clock.

It was out of the realms of possibility that she could have gone to the gym, or that she had attended her evening classes. She could come home and tell me that one of her friends had a birthday, that they’d all dressed up and made a long night of it.

I’d know, though.

One o’clock. Her date had to have been a success. Was my Lisa now defiled? Oh, how I hoped so. Sleep wasn’t coming, wasn’t even close. I lay on the bed watching late night movies, and didn’t take in anything that was going on.

I waited, and I waited.

Finally, my mobile buzzed into life on my bedside table. A text message, from Lisa.

>Sorry — lost track of time! Fiona’s birthday, so we were all partying a little too much! On my way home. Hope you’re asleep!!! xxx

And there it was, the little white lie to save my feelings.

Oh, of course she’d hope I was asleep. If we weren’t under this pretense that she was continuing her normal life, that she wasn’t actually dating now, sleeping with someone else.

I thought about pretending to be asleep when she got home. I could pretend that she woke me coming in. Tell her how much I missed her that evening, how I hoped she had a good time with her friends. Perhaps she would be interested in a little light kissing, some touching. Perhaps she would be too tired for much else.

Only, I needed more than that. I was craving her, body and soul.

I went downstairs, fixed up a late bowl of cereal to eat in front of the TV in the living room. I’d be here when she got in, I’d tell her I couldn’t sleep. Ask how her evening went. Tell her how much I needed her right now. But then… would I tell her what I was really feeling?

I was on the edge of my seat, not knowing one way or the other what I was going to do.

Outside, I could hear the clatter of a diesel engine — the taxi pulling up at our address. The bang of the door as she exited the vehicle. The vehicle pulling away. The scrabble of her key in the lock of our front door.

And there she was. Jesus. She looked more desirable than ever before. The pretty innocent, fresh from a night out. The blush in her cheeks, the slight dampening of perspiration in her hairline testament to something else happening.

Oh God, my wife had slept with another man.

I was hard as a rock, almost instantly. My heart was leaping up and down — I was overjoyed. There was no small measure of relief that I was responding to her like this.

“You’re still up,” she said, genuinely surprised.

“Uh-huh,” I said, leaping up to my feet to approach her.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

“Nope.”

A few feet away from her in the close confines of our hallway, I could smell her perfume, the earthiness of perspiration — and something else. Sex. It made me shiver. Oh Jesus, Oh Jesus. It had really happened. My heart did a little pirouette inside my chest.

The brightness in Lisa’s face at seeing me again faltered as I approached, her brow furrowed with sudden doubt, she took a step back toward the door. “I should… I should take a shower,” she said. “Dancing with the girls… you know… it got a little sweaty.”

I didn’t give way. She looked frightened.

I leaned in for a kiss. There was a flicker of shock in her eyes, before she suddenly seemed to realize there was nothing else she could do but kiss me. She tilted her head, presented her soft lips for me. Sighing quietly as we touched, and as I sucked gently on her bottom lip, the tension melted away from her shoulders — she was either reminded of my unconditional love for her, or that even if I did find out what she had done that night, it was all done with my ultimate approval.

I breathed deeply, enjoying the sweetness and the soft warmth of her lips — and the strange scent about her, the tang of another man. His cologne, his sweat, his body.

“I know where you’ve been,” I said simply. What better could I give her than the truth?

“You know?” those deep brown eyes peered up at me, questions in her dark pupils, surprise at my discovery of her first ever adulterous date, fear at how I felt about her.

“Who was he?”

Surprise in her eyes turned to shock.

“Are you angry at me?” she said quietly, stroking a few strands of hair out of her face, behind her ear.

God her breasts looked amazing in that dress. Their roundness, only just held by her lacy bra. A slight sheen of perspiration on her upper chest, perhaps.

“Of course not,” I said, giving her a broad smile.

She returned a weaker, cautious smile, offering gratitude for my presumed understanding. “When did you find out?” she asked.

“I knew it was happening,” I said. “You’ve been… preoccupied… for a while.”

She nodded, seeming apologetic, meek. She stroked my arm, looking into my eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you didn’t want to know…”