The note was short but piqued my curiosity to a degree that I could think of little else as I showered and dressed. It was taped to the bathroom mirror and read only, “ Happy Birthday. Enjoy your new toy.”

When I found the note, I looked around but found no “toy,” so I returned to the bedroom and stood watching her as she slept. She was lying on her stomach and had already stretched her arm out onto my vacant side of the bed, just as she always did when I wasn’t beside her. The sheet left her nude upper half exposed, causing me to think back to the night before. She hadn’t been naked then—never slept that way, and she hadn’t been in the mood for sex. Of course, it had been late evening by the time we’d arrived at the resort and checked in to our bungalow. We enjoyed a leisurely walk on the beach after supper and then, exhausted from the flight, we’d gone straight to bed. But now there was the note and her nakedness. Neither was like her. And I would know; I’d been married to her for more of my life than not. What toy?

Barbara deserved better than me. She was a special person, so loving, so giving, and so kind to all she met. Her cup of friends overflowed, while her list of enemies remained infinitely empty. But in recent years, I had lost some degree of appreciation for those qualities. I could dwell only on what she was not.

My wife was not a sexual creature, or at least not a “sexy” one. She enjoyed sex though—at the proper time—in the proper place—in the proper fashion. My needs went beyond that. I needed ... something. I wasn’t sure exactly what. I felt of “it” much like a famous psychologist once said of schizophrenia “It is so diverse in its manifestation that I can neither define nor describe it, but I do recognize it when I see it.”

When I returned from having my morning coffee in the open-air café off of the hotel’s lobby, Barb was in the bathroom. She heard me come in and called out, “I’m almost ready.” We had made plans to hit the beach early.

A few minutes later, she emerged from the bathroom wearing a small bikini. That was a first for her, and my surprise didn’t escape her notice. “You like?”

“Uh ... well yes. I do.” Could that be the toy?

She just smiled and then gathered her beach bag and our towels. “Then let’s go.”

Visitors to the Dominican Republic are mostly European, so the beaches there are tops-optional; a fact that I hadn’t realized until we’d made the two hundred yard trek and were searching for a place to squat. Several of the ladies had chosen to take advantage of that option. Barb spotted a couple of empty chairs that were centrally located in the midst of several of those. She knew I wasn’t fond of just sitting idly in the sun for extended periods, so she leaned close and whispered, “this spot should keep you from getting bored.”

I sat down and opened my mystery novel, hoping that no one would be able to tell through my sunglasses that my eyes were bouncing everywhere but towards the written words. Barb had been busy flattening her chair and spreading a towel over it. But she had no sooner lain down than I saw her reach back and unhook her bikini top. She was laying face down, but still.

After about thirty minutes of turning pages, and without so much as glancing toward them, I finally told Barb I was going to walk over to the beachside cabaña for a bottle of water. “Do you want anything?”

“Yes, I want you to sit back down and relax. I’ll go. It’s your birthday, remember?”

I chuckled “Okay,” deciding to play along. But then my shy little Barb did something I never thought I would see in a million years. She got to her feet and stretched mightily before reaching down to retrieve her bikini top. Then she put it on, reaching inside the fabric to adjust the fit. “Back in a bit.” She said and began weaving her way through and around the other sunbathers. I was left sitting there not knowing what to think—how to react. I was totally blown away.

By the time she returned with the bottles of water, I was just starting to regain my composure. That didn’t last long. Barb readjusted one end of her chair into a half-sitting, half-laying position. And then I watch in amazement as she unhooked her bikini top again, folded it, and placed it in the beach bag. She sat down and laid back, her arms at her sides, and let out a deep breath that she must have been holding for a long time, “So, are you enjoying your birthday so far?”

She wasn’t looking at me, but rather out toward the ocean. I couldn’t be sure, but I was fairly certain that, under her sunglasses, her eyes were closed. She was smiling. First the bikini—in public—and now this. Could this be the toy?

“You have no idea.” I answered in a low reverent tone. Her smile grew wider.

Barb was no model. She was an ordinary woman physically. Her medium breasts sagged from age, but not uncommonly so. She sported the extra pounds of two childbirths and a career that left her little time for luxuries such as regular visits to a gym. Such things had never been high on her list of priorities.

Weeks before leaving on this vacation though, she had announced, quite out of the blue, that she’d run across a new diet she was going to try. I didn’t think much of it at the time, just as I didn’t when she began making regular trips to a tanning salon and health club. I naturally assumed it was her way of preparing for the trip. Could she have had motives other than those any woman would have before taking a trip to the beach and wanting to look good in a swimsuit? Regardless, her hard work had begun to show. She looked better than she had in years—many years.

I had suggested a trip to our favorite ski resort in southern Colorado. The Dominican Republic had been Barb’s idea. The more I thought about it now, the more details I remembered that I had thought nothing of before. I became convinced that she had already researched it before bringing it up to me. She’d obviously bought the bikini before the trip, and she would have known of the tops-optional status of the beaches. Had she been planning to sunbathe topless for me for my birthday? Did she know how much her boldness would excite me? I couldn’t imagine that she did, but there she was, lying topless in the chair next to me.

The other women around us vanished from my consciousness. My world existed of only Barb, her tanned breasts exposed to passersby, her never fading smile, and the echo of her last words, “Are you enjoying your birthday so far?”

It was early afternoon when we went for a swim in the ocean. She remained topless all the while. Afterward, she donned her bikini top and we had sandwiches at one of the beachside cabañas before returning to our bungalow. Once inside, I immediately grabbed her and kissed her deeply and passionately. When I withdrew, I held her at arms length and started to tell her how erotic I’d found her boldness. Her fingers on my lips stopped me before I got the first words out. She peered deep into my soul and then smiled knowingly. “shhhhh.” She whispered. And then her mood lightened. “Let’s have a drink on the patio.”

We sipped our drinks in silence for several minutes before she asked, “So what would you like to do now?”

I chuckled and then showed her a devilish grin. “Do you have to ask?”

“Oooooo” She purred and then stood up and gestured me inside. I went straight to the bed and plopped down on it, leaving it to her to shut the door and close the curtains. She didn’t bother. Instead, she just stepped inside and began slowly removing her bikini. The sight excited me greatly. There was a constant stream of couples passing on the path between the bungalows on their way to and from the beach. The thin netting which provided the only obstruction to their view into our room was virtually transparent and flapping open in the breeze.

There was no hiding my readiness to have her, and upon seeing it, she began frantically tugging at my shorts. She was on me quickly, working herself down onto my rigid cock. “Oh yes!” she practically yelled as she engulfed me. “God yes!”

Again, I was amazed. She’d never been vocal during sex before, save for periodic low guttural moans. Had she left the patio door open with the premeditated intent of announcing to the passersby that we were having sex and that she was enjoying it immensely? The effect on me was incredible. I had no sooner reached up to fondle her swinging breasts than I began shooting my seed into her with a force and intensity that was foreign to me. When she felt it, she called out, “Oh yes, give it to me, baby. I want it.”

I had already begun to shrivel inside her when she was overtaken by spasms of an orgasm so powerful; I could only watch in awe. She began to calm, falling upon me and hugging me tightly. I began stroking her hair, and after several minutes asked “Can I just say--”

“No. Please. Just enjoy it.”

Sounds from the other side of the wall woke me, male voices, and doors opening and closing. I got up and mixed myself a drink, pulled on my shorts, and stepped out onto the patio. Looking back, I could see her lying naked on the bed and realized just how clear a view anyone passing might have had. She was beautiful in her tanned nakedness—and sexy. A twitch in my groin resulted.

The patio door of the adjoining bungalow was open and I could hear the voices clearer now. They sounded young. Minutes later, another young man, perhaps in his mid-twenties, walked up to the short wall of their patio and called inside “You guys ready yet?”

“Two minutes.” Came the reply from inside.

Then he looked at me. “How’s the water?”

“Great.” I replied. “The coral is tough on the feet though.”

“Yeah, we heard. I brought slippers.”

“I wish I had.” I confessed.

He stepped closer and extended his hand. “Chuck.”

“Steve.” I said, shaking his hand. “Glad to meet you.” But he wasn’t paying attention. He was looking past me to what lay beyond the transparent netting of our patio door. And then he forced his eyes back to me. “Uh ... yeah, you too.” Embarrassed, he vaulted himself over the short wall onto the next patio and called inside as he disappeared through the open door, “Hurry up, you guys. It’s going to start getting dark in a couple of hours.”

I was just sitting there, sipping on my second drink and reflecting on the events of the day. “I heard voices. Who were you talking to?”

Being yanked back into the present so abruptly startled me. She was wearing the short terrycloth robe provided by the hotel, and nothing else. “Uh, some guys—boys—they moved in next door. They’re probably already at the beach by now.”

She chuckled, “And enjoying the views, no doubt.” She looked over her shoulder into the room and then back to me. Her expression left no doubt that she was aware of the view they may have had of her as well. Her face turned a beautiful shade of crimson.

I just grinned and shrugged slightly. “Want a drink?”

Just as the sun was getting low in the sky, we headed for the beach again. This time, Barb tied a loose wrap around her waist to cover her bikini bottoms. I watched, amazed again when she left her bikini top draped over the back of the chair and donned only a light shirt, tying it the front—and leaving the buttons unattended. When she saw my expression, she smiled and said in a sexy voice that I’d never heard from her, “Oooooo, if I’m reading that look right, this might be a short walk.”