Chapter 8

We lingered over the melon and iced tea. Our conversation ranged from the earlier shopping trip, to what she thought of her new job and boss, to what I thought I was going to do with myself when she started working in a few days.

We hadn't talked about sleeping arrangements and I felt she needed to decide if I joined her in her bed, again. As badly as I wanted to sleep with her, I needed to love her enough to let her choose.

It didn't take long and we had the kitchen all ship shape, and started up the stairs. At the top Beth Ann looked at me over her shoulder and kind of twitched her head towards her room, inviting me for another night.

I got warm all over and decided to camp it up just a bit. Joining her at the top step I offered my arm for the walk down the hall. Placing her arm through mine, she batted her eye lashes a bit - into the game, now – and pretended to be a southern belle being escorted to the cotton farmers' cotillion.

Dropping her off at her door, I hurried to my room and washed up, then decided to take a shower in case there was any lingering chlorine odor left from the hot tub. I couldn't smell any but women are far more likely to pick up on that than men, so better safe than sorry, especially in bed with a beautiful, sexy woman.

Clean, dry and presentable, I spritzed just a hint of Old Spice on my neck and chest, and then joined Beth Ann. She was still in her bathroom, with the door a little more than half open, which was a clear invitation to enter, so I announced myself and walked in to find her in a towel, drying her hair. She'd had the same idea to shower off and we'd finished at about the same time.

While she wiped her hair, face and neck with one towel, I entertained myself, dreaming about what she had hidden beneath the other one. Fantasizing about her boobs, bush and butt, had me hard all over again but I didn't try very hard to hide it from Beth Ann. She had seen all of me, and I do mean ALL of me, so there wasn't much reason for modesty, anymore.

When I realized she not only caught me looking but could also plainly see the outline of my erection through my sleeping shorts, I felt slightly embarrassed but wanted to push the limits and see how far I could go.

Thinking quick, I stepped behind Beth Ann, took the towel out of her hand and started to dry her hair for her. That got me closer and allowed more intimate contact. I told her how pretty she looked and was rewarded with another traffic stopping smile. It made me flush and squirm just a little. I think I could have gotten away with French kissing her right then but chickened out.

With her hair sufficiently dry, I took her brush from the vanity and gently brushed her silky, black hair. It is such an erotic treat when a man properly grooms a woman and I knew from personal experience that it frequently earns a sexy reward. That was my plan. I wanted Beth Ann aroused, needy and grateful all at once. I asked her something, a leading question, about Brian's father and she seemed happy to oblige.

We talked about the time before Brian was born and where they'd lived and non-consequential things until I led the conversation to their marriage. Beth Ann seemed to not hold anything back.

"Bruce was an enigma from the start. He was neither tall, nor handsome, but had a presence about him that attracted me from the beginning. He worked in the bank. It was my first job right out of college and I bumped into him during orientation. He was coming out of a meeting suite, I was thinking more about my notes than where I was going and we collided in the hall.

"His look and his position in the bank were a bit of a turn on, so I said "yes," when about a week later he asked me to lunch. We were very comfortable together but he always withheld a bit of himself, making him seem far more mysterious than he was. I can tell you that if you ever want to attract a woman, just act a little mysterious or a little dangerous and they'll be lusting for you in no time.

"That's what happened to me. Bruce took me to the museum and a concert and then he asked if I'd go with him to Minneapolis for a romantic weekend away. I knew we would be sharing a room and that meant we'd be sharing a bed and he'd be sharing my body. The idea of going off with a man on a weekend getaway was so exciting that I agreed before I realized I'd just promised him my virginity.

"That scared me but I wasn't willing to risk our relationship by backing out, so we finished work early on Friday, drove to South Minneapolis, near the airport and checked into a nice hotel.

When we go to our room, Bruce threw our bags on the sofa and then grabbed me. He just about crushed me in a bear hug. I think he thought that passed for foreplay. His hands were everywhere and it was like he was out of control.

"He kept pawing my breasts through my blouse until I was afraid he would ruin it. To save it I broke the embrace and took it off. Seeing me undressing seemed to set him off and he stripped so fast I never got a good look at him before he had me on my back. He was so aroused; he just tore my panties off and hurt me before I could warn him I was a virgin.

"Almost before I knew what we were doing, he was finished and he left his mess all over me. I have always wondered if he'd had so very little experience he didn't know how to properly be with a woman, or if he was just that self-centered. He pulled out of me and without even a kiss, cleaned up and turned on the TV to watch a golf match.

"I was crushed. I was in pain and I was baffled by his behavior. Everything I'd ever read said that sex was supposed to be warm and wet and gentle. With Bruce it was hard, hurtful, dry and messy. I really couldn't see what all the fuss was about but I did think I understood why Mother had been so reluctant to talk about it.

"After dinner we went to a movie but Bruce was anxious to get back to the hotel for another round of sex. I was too sore but he didn't give me a chance to tell him that. He just pushed me down, pulled my panty hose off and shoved himself in dry. If anything, it hurt even worse than the first time but he seemed to love it. Once again he was done before I could begin to enjoy anything and this time he rolled off me and in seconds, started to snore. He snored all night and in the morning he wasn't any more loving, just in a hurry to check out and head home.

"Once he got what he wanted I wasn't important anymore. That would have been the end of us if I hadn't discovered I was pregnant with you when I missed my period the next week. Bruce was furious but the bank wouldn't have liked him knocking up an employee and leaving her hung out to dry, so we had a nice little wedding a month later and we pretty much tip toed around one another until you came along.

"After I delivered you, we discovered I couldn't have any more children, so it was good we'd had a boy. Whatever was missing in our relationship took even more of a backseat once you were born. Bruce really never wanted a wife but he desperately wanted a son and I thought things would get better between us after your birth but we just had no spark. We weren't comfortable together and to avoid being alone together we got really good at setting up circumstances so we didn't spend much time alone, if any.

"Bruce lost interest in you before you turned one but we struggled along, year after year, pretending because we thought you wouldn't notice that your parents barely talked and never touched. He was gone so much, it was like I raised you alone and I prayed you would be happy without a father to play with, talk to, or learn from.

"Eventually he started to run around behind my back. That went on until he got the next one pregnant and had to divorce me to marry her, to avoid trouble with the bank. The bank was great to me. I needed to move away from Bruce and the bank made it incredibly easy. They double matched my 401K, extended my health insurance plan for forty-eight extra months and gave me twelve months full salary to help us get started here. I get why they'd do that. They were afraid it would reflect badly on them if we went through an ugly, public divorce, so paying me was a far better solution.

"I guess I'm just not very sexy," she said in the saddest voice. He faraway look broke my heart and I knew she was crazy to think that because sexy should be her middle name. Wanting to comfort her, I hugged her from behind and accidentally bumped my erect penis against her back. I apologized as if that were really no big thing and continued brushing her hair.

"For a long time I thought it was me. I thought that if I acted sexier he would love me more. I bought books on how to turn on a man and tried some of the things they suggested but Bruce rarely even noticed. I tried push up bras, sexy underwear, candlelight dinners and an X rated movie but he was just not interested.

"I even tried to ... touch myself in front of him, thinking it would get him in the mood. I was mortified trying to act sexy to excite my husband." She was near tears and I gently comforted her. "Even though I was willing to try something so foreign to me, he wouldn't even acknowledge it. I only did that one time and he laughed at me. It hurt me so bad; I never tried to entice him again. We could have been good together. I'm not a dog, he shouldn't have kicked me like that."

I brushed her hair silently for quiet little while and then Beth Ann looked at me in the mirror and asked, "Brian, I want to change the subject. When Rebecca asked you for a sperm sample, did you immediately know what that meant and what you would have to do to give it to her, or did you figure it out in stages, like me?"

Swallowing to buy some time to think about my answer, I said, "Nah. I knew. I wanted to pretend I didn't and hoped she would talk herself out of asking me to ... take matters into my own hands, but I knew." Beth Ann smoothly switched topics and I thought that having just shared with me the humiliation of trying to masturbate for her husband in a desperate attempt to save her marriage, changing the topic made a lot of sense, so I went along.

She contemplated my answer for a little while then asked, "Please don't be embarrassed, or shy about this but do you have to do that a lot – take care of yourself that way? I know everybody has to once in a while, but I have never trusted someone enough to talk about this and we seem able to talk about anything, I hope we can talk plainly about sex.

"You don't have any relationship with your father and my daddy isn't here to give you "the talk," so it's just going to be you and me, and I have to put my squeamishness to talk with you about sexual things aside, and do better than my mother did with me." Nervousness showed all over face, betraying her confident words.

Measuring my words, carefully I said, "I am embarrassed talking about sex generally but not with you. Even if I am, you're right, we have something so much better than any of my friends ever had with their parents. So go ahead and ask whatever and I'll try to be as honest as I can manage." My heart was beating pretty fast as I contemplated what we were about to discuss and I knew if I handled it right, we'd move our relationship way ahead, which I desperately wanted.

"I've never had "the talk." Your grandmother was far too shy to share even the slightest bit of motherly wisdom when it came to sex. Some days I wondered how in the world I ever came to be born. Mother was that backward about it.

"Just before we got married, Mother took me aside and asked me if I knew what to expect on my wedding night. She was so uptight, I couldn't bring myself to torture her, so I said that the health education nurses at school had given us girls plenty of information and I felt confident that it was enough to get through my honeymoon.

"That thrilled Mother. She hugged me and told me how happy she was that we'd had this important conversation and just about ran out of my room. That was the only discussion of sex I have ever had, with anyone, ever.

"So, do you have to take care of yourself very often?"

"Um ... pretty much, yeah. I'm a guy, after all. It's what we do."

"Does that mean every day, a couple times a week, or more? As far as I know Bruce never seemed to be aroused except about three times the whole time we were together. He certainly never had much of a sex drive but you seem to be interested a lot, which seems much more normal to me. How often do you have to get relief?"