Short stories NOLA 2016

Better sex than never...

A short story

by Miia Hämäläinen

Written in and inspired by

New Orleans

2016

Joe and Steve

When Joe was 18 he was playing basketball with his friends next to a football field. Their ball got away and a tall guy from the football game brought it back. He had braces but he smiled widely all the time. His dark brown hair was short and sweaty. After he gave the ball back to Joe, he stayed there for a minute, fixed his hair back and watched the guys play. Joe doesn’t remember this but Steve thinks about that day every now and then. He didn't fall for Joe that day. Hee liked one of his friends more.

Joe and Steve, they are miserable while sharing the bed and desperate to have better sex. Their kind of adventurous, hot and deep togetherness.

They often sit on the portch on rainy Saturday nights, have a glass or two of cheap wine and talk. They can spend hours just throwing words around and playing with their imagination. It's almost sad how little they talk about sex in their marriage. They have tried to have just Sex Talk nights but after the first glasses of wine they usually end up having a quicky and forget to talk about their real needs. The next day things aren't fixed and life is “just normal.” All the problems are still there, just masked away by that one hot night.

Fran

Fran is an office worker, 49 years of age. He is 6 years older than Juny. They have been married for 20 years. Fran is what you call a small boss in a white collar T-shirt. He tries to keep it clear that he is not to be messed with but since he drives an old Subaru and speaks of himself as a “family car man” he often gets laughed at by his peers who bought the largest American model rather than a car that can be described as “a cozy doghouse”.

Fran likes to look at ladies but respects them deeply. He's almost a feminist at heart but gets into trouble especially with the other sex. One incident involved a handicapped woman in a wheelchair, a joke that went miss heard and an automatic toilet door opener on a train. On that eventful day, Fran was on a train, traveling back home after being away for a fishing weekend with his old friends from college. He saw and elderly lady in a wheelchair trying to push her way into the train's toilet but she was clearly having trouble with the automatic door. She seemed to be in quite a lot of pain already and Fran, the gentleman he is, rushed over to help. He got her in and got all the blessings and thankful wishes she had to offer before her mind was on something more urgent.

Fran felt really good about himself and wanted to send his wife a text about the good day he was having. Even the train was still on time. Unable to find good reception for his cellphone he hung around the toilet doors for a while and waved his cell in the air. Someone passed him on his way back from the restaurant carriage, pushed the Open button on the door and disappeared into the next car yelling happily:”It opens That way... You're welcome.” The doors started opening because the lady hadn't had time to think about locking them while she was hurrying to get off the wheelchair and onto the toilet.

So there she was, pushing out the bad chili she had had earlier that day, doors opening and Fran pointing his cellphone at her like he was going to shoot a video of the whole thing. Fran's face had a reddish, panicky, “let me crawl under a rock” glazing on it but it didn't save him from all the yelling, spitting, and swearing he was about to get. It didn't help that he tried to close the doors forcefully. It just stopped them wide open instead of reversing the movement. Eventually it took 3 ladies holding their coats up in front of the wheelchair lady so that she could finish her business and get dressed in peace, 2 conductors to interrogate and demand that they can check Fran's phone for toilet videos, a fine of 80 dollars for breaking the toilet door and 20 dollars for the beer he had to drink in the restaurant carriage to forget about the whole day. Eventually, he never wrote his wife a text about any of this or even spoke of it.

Better fuck next time...

Ned never looks at porn on an office computer but does it once on his work cell with a bad outcome.

He's basically pushed to do so by his mates every Friday. They either think of it as a sport or then they just like to see him go all red and giggly. It takes its time but after a while he gets curious of all the talk about a soft porn site called “super girls from mars”. So he checks it out in the men' s room one tired Friday afternoon.

Later the same day Ned opens his cell phone in a video meeting with their headquarters and everyone hears the porn site pop up. At first, his face turns pale as a ghost but the sweating hits in as he looses his voice and resembles a horny primate's ass as his mouth keeps flapping but the whole face is a red mess of bloated panic. His boss tells him to go take a cold shower and that he will see him in his office Monday morning at 0600. Little does Ned realize that the whole thing is hilarious to everyone else and that he's boss never shows up to work before 9 am. As Ned rushes out of the meeting he drops his suitcase and laptop and someone shouts “be careful... don't want more porn falling out, now do we...” He knocks over at least 3 coffee cups as he dives out of the room.

Ned has a coworker lady, Sally, at work who usually plays the weak woman role. She has had a major crush on him for a year now. Usually, she plays along with the other guys and pushes along with them to get his attention. But Ned doesn't see this and actually feels like he should protect the poor woman from the mean jokes of her coworkers. This, on the other hand, makes Sally think that he might be brewing up some sorts of warm feelings towards her.

As Ned rushes out the meeting she chooses her steps quickly so that they bump into each other in the corridor.

“What a lucky strike.” Sally thinks to herself and plays the “oh, I'm going to fall, help me” card. She grabs Ned's arm gently, starts to fall and twists her ankle so that it looks like she broke it. It's a trick she's been using since she accidentally twisted it for real and broke half of her ligaments on it in college. It never fails these days and it doesn't even hurt.

“Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry. Are you alright?!” Ned's half panicked face seems to find more and more reasons to just stay chimpanzee-red.

“Oh no, oh no. It hurts. Please, help me to my seat...” Sally uses her soft and wounded voice. She is going to get her foot into Ned's door today.

Ned helps Sally to a chair and automatically starts massaging her hurt ankle.

“Does this help? Do you need ice?”

“Oh yes... that feels wonderful but it does hurt a bit, still. Can you be a dear and drive me home today? I really can't walk with this foot...” Sally wants Ned to see where she lives so he won't have any excuse in the future to not come to her aid if she happened to need him again. Another little trick she has learned in her life. It would be even better if she could make him mark her house on to his navigator. That way it would stay in his car's memory and slowly annoy the hell out of his wife's subconscious.

Sally takes night classes in psychology at the library. She often tries out some of the weird stuff she hears about in class but instead of repeating the test 10 times she usually just does it once and hopes to get what she wanted at that specific time in life... Yes. She is a nutcase.

That night Ned has no interest in sex or any kind of porn, but his wife had planned a hot night. She is not at all happy with his excuse of having a headache and a sore back. This has happened before, so she begins to fear that he's becoming impotent or has a lover at work. Maybe it's both? No way could it be that he just wasn't into her anymore. She has slowly started to see more signs of betrayal and she painted devils on the walls as she's wondered about that weekend in Montana that he never talks about but his friend keep asking him to re-do.

“I bet they had a hooker up there,” She mumbles to herself as she irons his white collar T-shirts. “...Neddie wouldn't do that to me. He's too good for a hooker. He wants Me! He has to want me! Aah, bloody iron!” She burns her ring finger and has to use a band-aid for two days. It's the longest she's ever gone without her rings she has with Ned.

Juny

Juny is a UPS postal worker and she likes to ride her bicycle to work. She's not too feminine but knows her good looks lay in her hourglass figure and long, wavy, brown hair. She keeps her hair open or in a ponytail. She has good legs and never shies from wearing shorts but one day she tries a tan-in-a-can for the first time and men start to whistle at her on the street. She starts to glance at herself as she passes shop windows and she begins to notice small things she wishes to change about herself. Juny is waking up and she's not even well into her 30's yet.

She wants to go crazy and live the life that she had dreamed of after she left college. So she thinks about getting her nipples pierced or getting a small dragon tattoo on her wrist. She recently watched a movie where a woman had lots and lots of tattoos on her body and she looked stunning. Well, she was in her 20's. So maybe the little pet on her wrist would work better for her mature figure.

She drives to the neighboring city and finds a tattoo parlor that she likes but while waiting in line for consulting she hears someone getting his dick pierced, she runs out of the parlor and almost vomits on the street. “Too much, too soon... Maybe next year.” She thinks and wobbles to her car.

Madly in need for a big change, she decides to get a Brazilian wax. It is a terrifying and horrible procedure but she hangs in there. Nearly passing out by the time it's over, she feels lucky she took a painkiller before she went. Juny even thought about getting her butt hole whitened when she was waiting for her waxing to begin, but it was not an option on the wall and she was too shy to ask so it never happened. After the massacre in her private garden, she can't even ride her bike home but has to walk. She can't have sex that night and his husband starts to think she might be getting her menopause or period or just needs time to herself so he stops coming on to her for the rest of the week. Her husband is so used to Juny's irregular cycles that he's learned to keep his mouth shut for the whole week when Juny's not feeling well.

Some weird sex night

Mary had her period but she wanted to have sex. Some kind of a female thing. Who knows when the right time is or isn't or was or whatever... Frank hesitates but Mary tells him it would be a great night to try having butt sex. She would take a hot shower, get all cleaned up and he would just use that new glide gel they have and a condom.

Frank was instantly OK with this and by the time he had her all warmed up and pushed himself into it didn't feel that bad. He went on slowly for a while and thought to himself:

“This isn't that much different... hmm, gosh it's tight at first!”... as he opened his eyes he saw Mary's face in the mirror. She was biting on a wooden spoon she had brought from the kitchen and had hidden under the pillow earlier in the day.

“Honey? You OK?” He asked.

“Mmm... Yes. I was just being extra sure. Can we take a break?”

“Sure. Yes. Of course.”

He pulled out and at the same time her pussy leaked a ton of blood out, or so it seemed in the dim lighting.

“Oh god, honey! It looks like you've been stabbed! Aaagh... I can't go on! It's horrible back here!”

“What do you mean it's horrible Back There?!” Mary turned her head and looked angry. She was putting out on a very difficult time in her life and she got rejected. She turned around and sat in the puddle of blood. It wasn't that big of a deal. It was just very fresh.

“We're done here anyway. I'm taking a shower... and this is stupid! I feel like I have to poop all the time. They don't tell this on the website!” She yelled and ran to the bathroom.

“What website?” Frank sat there with a raspberry scented condom hanging from his dick. It was her favorite berry.

Keep 'em drapes drawn

Harry and June lived together for 15 or so years before they started talking about kinky sex. Harry started it, one night on the terrace where they liked to sit after dinner and shared a cigarette. June didn't smoke but she had always liked to hold her husband's fag for a while and let its scent stick to her fingertips and burn her a bit before she put it out. Harry never thought anything of it but that night he had a bit more bourbon than usual and he asked:

”Would you enjoy holding my dick while I wash my teeth tonight? ...you know, in your mouth and on all fours?” Harry waited for June's answer with a tinkle in his pants. He felt like Tarzan for some reason. Which is funny 'cause Tarzan probably never washed his teeth. At least not with a toothbrush. Harry froze a bit since June didn't answer right away as he had though in his slightly drunk mind. His joke for the evening was turning into a bad moment but then June replied:

”Sure. Why not.”

That night, before bedtime, they both felt tense and ticklish. They did all their usual stuff, put the dirty shirts and pants in the wash, had a shower, dried and brushed their hair. But when it came time to finish it off with the new ceremonial brushing of the teeth Fran hesitated, as usual.

”You don't have to do this you know,” he said and put one hand over the knot on his bathrobe.

”Honey, I said I want to do it. It's OK.” June smiled and got down on all fours in front of Harry as he started brushing his teeth. They tried something new that night that put a young smile on their lips for the next week.

Harry and June had a secret now. They felt that everywhere they went they could just smile at each other because people wouldn't know what perverts they were. Both of them were very turned on by this little secret but it stayed as a one-time thing for about a month.

It was around Halloween time when June brought up the nice memory they shared that one Friday night. Harry felt the excitement fill his pants as he hoped that June would hurry along already and say she wanted a rerun. But June went on and on about some furniture warehouse she had found after searching for months (as she said) and she wanted Harry to pay for a set of leather chairs, a bedpost, and a plant stand.

“Honey, we have all those already...” but June interrupted him and told him to sell the old ones and clear out the study 'cause they were going to do some renovation.

Harry did what the little wife had asked and wondered if she was just menstruating with a twist of menopause. Those old leather chairs looked like crap anyhow and they had never had a bedpost before. Maybe she would like him to tie her up or maybe she just wanted it to bang against the wall as they did their dirty thing. Harry felt very masculine and decided to think about sex more often, it seemed to clear his mind of all the clutter and unnecessary things he thought about throughout the day... But the flower-stand or whatever. What the hell was that for? She wasn't going to go nuts with orchids or something like that, was she?

The new stuff arrived in four weeks. Harry knew they were hand made and expensive but when the guy delivering them told him that all their measurements had been checked three times and he wished them a very groovy first banging, he didn't really know what to think. June thanked the guy and tipped him with a cold smile. She had been acting a bit weird all day. She had more makeup on than usual and she wore high heels even though she usually hangs around the house in flip-flops.

They carried the boxes up to the study reasonably quick. Harry wanted to take a breather and have some lemonade before they would start opening them but June insisted that at least the bedpost would be screwed on before they do anything else.

As Harry opened the box with the bedpost, it finally clicked. He had never been too bright when it comes to sex or other mechanical things but he sure knew when he saw a pillory being attached to the foot of their bed. June looked like she was in heaven. Her eyes glowed and her hands moved fast. She didn't make any mistakes with the attachments and bolts although she usually complains about headaches and sore fingers when she has to do anything more than hold the tools.

“There.” June looked pleased and horny. “We can try it out after we get washed.”

“Who is this woman?” Harry thought. Then he stared at her slightly sweaty, curvy body as she took her clothes off and walked to the bathroom.

”Oh, you are mine, bitch.”

Fastest sex on the block

Clara found a tip online for couples hoping to spice up their intimate lives. It was a “Seven days to better sex” program and she was giggling like a little girl when she read it. Seven days (and seven nights) of sexy tasks that they would be doing around the house and during the day. Day one was just a boring “have sex”. It had a bonus sector: “enjoy warming up to it in a very slow and sensuous way” but Clara wanted more for herself. She was not going to show Fred the original list of sex tasks for the week. Instead, she added a few things and printed out her version of the program, left it on the bed so that Fred would find it when he came back from work and added some extra romance by moving a big mirror and candles to their bedroom from the guest bedroom.

She called Fred at work and asked if he would bring flowers when he came home. He asked what kind, she replied:

“The kind you got me on our first date”.

“...”

Guessing from the silence he didn't remember.

“White roses, honey. Five and a half stems if you want to be precise. Remember? One got twisted because you shut the car door too soon...”

“Oh, yes. How... forget.” Fred mumbled so slowly that it was clear he was typing something more important than his wife's choice in flowers.

“Honey, I gotta go. I'll see you later and I'll bring you 10 roses this time, OK?”

“OK, hon'.” Clara smiled. This was going to be a good week. Even the weather was on her side. It was going to rain all week so he wouldn't have any excuses to take off for the weekend.

Day 1

“Have sex with prolonged foreplay.”

Fred got home late. He brought the roses. They weren't completely white. They had blue glitter on the tips of the pedals.

“Where did you get these?” Juny asked expecting to hear something like “behind the neighbors dumpster...”.

“Oh, they were on sale. Somebody had called off a funeral and I got them half prize! Can you believe that, hah! I'm pretty lucky sometimes, ain't I?”

“...what?!” Her eyes said more than a punch in the stomach.

“...but honey you only said to bring flowers. You didn't say it was supposed to be special or anything...? Did you?” He was still expecting to laugh this off.

“Ehh...” He was so wrong.

Clara slapped the roses on the counter top and filled a vase with hot water.

“Well, at least, they aren't fake like last time.”

The night didn't have the best beginning and Clara wasn't sure if it was a good idea to try and go ahead with the sex part. Maybe it wasn't even a good night to discuss the program at all. Besides, she lost most of her horny feelings after she saw those stupid flowers.

Clara sneaked upstairs before Fred finished his supper and hid the program. Oh, they were going to have sex alright, but just sex. Nothing special and without any pressure from the program.

“Fuck, who the hell calls off a funeral and then He's stupid enough to buy the roses that were supposed to go around some dead dude who probably loved hockey or some other gay thing with glitters… aargh.” Clara felt bad for the dead person but even worse for her libido.

She stuffed the candles in a drawer, glanced at her butt while passing the extra mirror by the door, messed up her hair a bit and went back downstairs.

Day 2

“Have sex with a gliding effect.”

Clara gets plastic sheets from Amazon for the bed and floor. The web page promised to send them in unmarked and discreet boxes, but when she went to pick them up at work she noticed some of her coworkers smiling and turning away as she passed them. The boxes were discreet and boringly ordinary alright but someone had slapped giant red stickers on them before they left the warehouse. “For your kinky sexual fantasies” stood out from the mail shelve like a burning pinata at a kids' fare.

The night wasn't too shabby either. The glide tube lost it's cork before they even got started. They got some olive oil and coconut oil from the kitchen just in case. The bedroom looked more like a scene from Dexter than a hot night at a private residence. They had taped the sheets to the wall to make sure they don't glide away from them or cause an accident. The coverings on the floor had even more tape and heavy objects on their corners. The oiling up didn't work as well as in the picture of ancient Greece that came with the instructions. They had constantly either too much or too little glide. Most of the gliding effect seemed to happen on the floor and under Fred's feet. As most of the unhappy “ouch, stop that” happened near or around Clara's lady bits.

Eventually, Fred got a rash from the glide on his dick and Juny got carpet burns downstairs where they went later. First to cool off and later ended up trying to have sex in the hallway. The mirror was a nice touch but the lighting was horrible.

Day 3

“Have sex with a surprise choice in erotic areas.”

Fred is too puzzled to get aroused from anywhere else than his dick or ears. He keeps turning around and giggling when Juny comes at him with a tickling feather. Unluckily Clara is just coming on with a cold so she keeps sneezing and blowing her nose. The night is a disaster... They turn the lights off at 8.30pm. Fred falls asleep wondering what the hell is going on with this week.

Day 4

“Have sex after a hot day of sending text messages to each other.”

The text message part went great and promises were thrown in both directions. Only one message went to the wrong place but it wasn't too bad. Fred sent a text to his mom saying that “he would like to bake some hot buns tonight... really stuff them in his mouth and eat them.” His mother answers with an “I love you too” and sends him their old family recipe for homemade bread.

Sex that night does feel more sensual and deep, but Clara is feeling weak and sick so they keep it short and simple. Fred even makes jokes later about doing this more often “you know... ordering sex like I would order a pizza... with only my favorite toppings...”

Day 5

“Have sex in or in an unusual place.”

They try the car but the garage is not sexy enough. Neither one of them wants to go for a ride and Juny is still a bit under the weather and has a sore throat. So they try the kitchen table. To start the night off Clara takes an extra dose of cough medicine and half a glass of wine. The combo is too strong and she passes out in the middle of warm up. The night ends there. Fred carries her to bed and wanks off in the bathroom. For some reason, he's been feeling more and more aroused these days.

Day 6

“Have sex with a new position.”

They get a Sky book of bondage art. The knots don't seem too hard but Fred takes forever to get the first two on and Clara calls it off.

“This is taking too long! I can't feel my wrists. Just make a swing already...” Fred is not happy with her tone and makes a swing alright, but lifts it so high that Clara needs help getting in and out. She sure gets the ride of her life and at the end of it all, they agree on safety words.

They are not sure if they should talk about it or not. That night they do not kiss before bed and Clara feels the week should just end already.

Day 7

“Have sex in the morning.”

At six, the neighbor's cat screams behind their bedroom window again. That bloody cat has been at it since they had their glide show earlier this week. It loved it or then it hated them, can't really say but since then the cat has been coming back in the mornings and sings or screams at Fred. The good part is that the cat stopped pooping on their lawn.

“Too fucking tired to fuck... it's fucking Sunday for fucks sake.” Clara rolled the pillow around her head and sighs noisily.

“You said fuck more than once! We get to fuck now!”

“Oh fudge, I forgot that rule...”

When the “seven days to better sex” is finally over Clara takes a long look in the mirror on Monday morning. She sees a tired and beat up lady with rope burns on her wrists and carpet burns on her knees. She turns and twirls in front of the mirror, checking the slap marks on her bum and thighs. There's even a red line across her back where she tried the belt on herself. She just wanted to know how it felt before she was going to ask Fred to beat her with it. It didn't feel too good. She hit a nerve or something so she just kept quiet for now. She told him that she fell over on the treadmill at her gym.

“I guess I could do worse...” she sighs and goes down stairs for breakfast. The smell of fresh coffee makes her smile half way down the stairs.

Online dating

Ben takes a late lunch and sneaks to the nearby diner to Google around different online dating services. He's not looking for excitement from a new person but actually for a free dating service that he and June could use and get reacquainted with each other. He saw an article about this on Facebook and felt it would be just the thing to brighten up their marriage.

As luck would have it, Sara is in the same diner and walks slowly behind Ben to say hello. She is desperate to get a chance to spend some alone time with him. Away from prying eyes and ears. She still has a crush on him so she is super happy to notice that he's surfing around on dating pages. Sara walks past him and doesn't say a word just yet. She hides in the toilet for a minute to catch her breath, checks her hair and makeup, pushes her boobs up a bit and goes back out. Her curvy figure gets noticed by every trucker in the house but Ben keeps fiddling with his phone and his sweaty forehead is starting to look like he's either going to come under the table or he's scoring 60 000 points on Candy Crush.

“Oh, goodie. He's still there. Now to make my move...” Sara's mind works fast when it's tightening around a man. Her two late husbands would know. They didn't die because she was too needy. They died of old age and a car crash, but it all left poor Sally a bit loony. She's unable to remarry or even date normally because she blames herself for all the misfortune in her life and the death of her husbands. But with Ben, it's something different. She feels free of all burdens and this excites her. She's hooked on some kind of a pheromone or whatever and she's desperate for an eye contact or just a random scent of Ben's aftershave in the lift. Ben doesn't really even wear aftershave. It's just something his wife adds to his shirt collars on hot days so he won't stink like a dead zebra by five a clock.

Sara walks over to Ben's booth and says hello. Ben is just trying to take a secret selfie and gets so startled that he drops his phone.

“Oh, hi. Sorry. I dropped my... a... g-hmm... this a... Oh, won't you sit down.” Ben's gone all red in the face and keeps kicking his phone.

“I'll get it for you.” Sara fishes his phone from under the table, quickly checks the name of the site his on, gets up slowly so her boobs nearly fall out and gives Ben's phone back to him.

“Those little phones can be so slippery, can't they?” Sara puts her best face on and sits down. “Have you had your coffee yet?”

“N-no... yes. G-hm... let's have a cup shall we. I'm buying.” Ben is hopeless when it comes to his sausage fingers and the over sensitive touch screen on his phone. He should be using one of those pointer pencils but he thinks it's too high tech.

“Do you like walking?” Sara starts her profiling with easy questions and basic nonsense. She starts to make mental notes of every twitch on Ben's face as she puts words on the table. She talks about old meetings, hobbies, animals, travels, weather, sports, and cars. Ben is quite interested in this verbal side he's seeing for the first time. He has no idea it's all a game to figure out his interests and dislikes so Sara can make more moves on him later and start to prove to him that she is the woman of his life, not that other one.

Ben loves talking about race cars and nature but politics and work, even the weather get him to mostly shut up and his eyes find interests outside. Sara wonders about this and before they get up and leave she asks him one more thing. The only question about his marriage.

“Do you go on long walks with your wife. I love walking in the woods and hills...” She gently touches the table for support as her voice fails a bit in the end. A tear forms in the side of her eye.

“Sara? Are you alright?” Ben notices the change but misses the motive.

“Yes, I'm alright. I'm just so vulnerable right now... I get so lonely sometimes. You know how it is...”

“...um. Yes?”

Sara smiles on the side of her face that Ben doesn't see and takes a wobbly step away from him.

“Now wait, wait, wait. I better help you to your car.” Ben's gentleman mode kicks in and he sees a chance to be a good man. When actually it's Sara whose seeing him to her car and acing the last minutes of the game.

As they slowly walk to the car Sara is quiet and jumpy from the traffic. Ben gets to help her in more ways than just holding her arm and she plays him like an old boxing sack, with force.

“Bennie?” Sara uses the softest, velvety voice she has. (Left hook.)

“Could you do something for little old me?” (Right hook.)

“Could you help me remember how it feels to have a true friend again?” (Low blow in the guts.)

“I don't mean anything naughty. Just a walk in the park. Just a walk, Bennie?” (Fingers in the eyes.)

Any normal guy would see it coming. The first walk turns into an excuse to text a “Thank you”. That turns into a “Did you sleep well?” e-mail. This, in turn, leads to more and more texting and talking and getting to know each other and eventually, before you know it, you're close enough to touch. Just so lightly at first but it's still inappropriate for a married man.

“I... I guess I have time tomorrow?” (K.O.)

Sara was hoping to sink her hooks into him tonight but the promise of tomorrow and her messed up make-up should make him keep his word. And since talking about this at home would definitely raise some suspicion and make him call it off, she was sure he would be gentleman enough to keep this to himself.

“Alright, Bennie. Tomorrow. At lunch?” Sara wanted the first date to be in the middle of a work day so he would basically have nothing to tell about or hide from his wife. He just had a normal day at the office and if she did happen to ask he could say that he went for a walk in the park and had a sandwich.

“Yes. I'll come by your office at noon.”

Ben helped Sara into her car and walked to his. He had no idea what he had just stepped into but she did. She knew exactly what she wanted and how she was going to get it.

He simply walked into Juny's life

Juny went to a military college in her youth. She knew more about weapons and men's physique than Fran would ever want to know... Juny had a past and she kept most of it to herself, like Dan.

Daniel was one of her old sweethearts. He was an ex-marine now and worked at an auto-repair shop near the gym that Juny liked to use. Dan kept an eye on Juny's schedule and on Valentine's day he walked through the gym's doors and signed in.

“Daniel Toures,” He said to the lady in the front. Juny was just coming in and seeing him made her stop where she stood.

“Danny?”

Dan turned around and smiled. He had a big scar on his brow from the time he had served in Afghanistan, but to Juny, it just made him look more adventurous.

“Hi, Juny. You look good. Is this your gym too?”

“Y-yes. I come here every week. I haven't seen you here before.”

“Nope. Just joined.” Juny couldn't stop herself from smiling.

The lady at the counter was getting bored at their flirting and started filling in Dan's form for him.

“Hey, should we... I mean, could you or can you... oh gosh. If you have time after your workout, join me for a smoothie in the sports bar?” Juny's face was turning red and she could hear her heart pounding like a scared rabbit in a hollow tree. She had no control over her actions. It was like she was diving into deep water and she loved the darkness and coolness down there.

“Sure. I'm in no hurry to go anywhere. I mean, I don't have a Valentine's day thing or anything...”

“Oh... oh gosh. It's that day again...” The times she spent dating Dan rushed into her head again. All the kisses, hugs, and warm thoughts filled her heart and mind. For a moment she just stood there, staring at Dan and secretly checking his body with her peripheral vision. Her eyes were wide as plates and she forgot her mouth open.

Dan was in good shape. He could squat a family car with those wheels and probably benched more than 200 kilos.

Juny felt her lady bits scream with delight.

“Yeah... Valentine's day. I never did learn to remember it.” Juny mumbled and flashed her key card in the reader.

“I'll see you in about an hour, hour and a half?”

“Let's just say 90 minutes,” Dan replied and smiled. As Juny turned and walked away she could feel his eyes on her ass. It felt nice and warm. She couldn't wait for the Pilates class to be over.

The new dating game

Juny and Fran find old school excitement in their relationship again by using a dating site. They love sending each other hot emails, writing about their feelings for each other and pictures they take in a shady lighting of their bodies. They also boost up their love life by joining a public website where they post pictures of their erotic moments while keeping their true identities a secret. Their sex life doesn't turn into a “bang my brains out every night” but it does turn into a more private and more humorous time that they both feel in a much deeper way than before.

Still, under all that fluff and soft whispers, they both keep “lovers”. Just friends, yes, but more than friends. Juny has her old boyfriend who now goes to her gym and as it happens, he goes there every day that Juny trains. She didn't even think anything of it at first. In fact, she loved to see him there. It was so convenient for Juny. She gets aroused and turned on by the sight of her old boyfriend and she can take that passion back home and use it on her husband. She doesn't want to change her new routine in any way.

Fran, on the other hand, had his project, being friends with Sally. Poor little Sally. All alone with no friends, nobody to talk to on her walks down to the beach. And she is incredibly full of life when Fran gets to know the true Sally. Well thank goodness Fran found her... and Fran, being the gentleman he is, never in his thought of thoughts does he even suspect that Sally could have the ability to use him for her enjoyment in any anyway. No, never would Sally become the other woman, right? But surely there was something about her. Somehow she kept growing on him. She kept turning into this perfect female. Fran even noticed that he sometimes wondered that if he wasn't as happy with Juny as he was, he would leave her for this amazing woman, Sally. Even her name felt so good these days... Fran feels lucky that every night he goes home and sits on the sofa, his wife comes over and rubs his feet for a while, then she lures him up the stairs and they play in the bedroom for a while. He can't believe how lucky he is.

“What a catch...”

Eventually, they get so used to having these private friends that they start talking about them at home. Accidentally at first.

“So I took a long lunch again today and went for a walk in the park. Sally said it's a great place to have a sandwich, over there by the duck pond. I don't know why it's even called a duck pond. There aren't any ducks there. Just swans and those miniature storks. What are those birds anyway? Do you know?” When Fran talked about another woman and smiled like his mind was filled with warm feelings Juny stopped chewing her omelet and couldn't swallow.

“Oh, my god. I was right. He's having an affair?” Juny thought. Her mind was blacking out. She was silent, too silent and for too long. Fran kept waiting and didn't look at her. He felt the tension in the air.

“Mmm... I'm not sure about those miniature birds but I've seen ducks there too.” Juny answered with a bored, cold sound in her voice. Later she felt bad about what she said afterward.

“I'm gonna try something new today at the gym so I'll be back a lot later. It's a CrossFit thing so I'll probably take a shower over there.” In Juny's mind, this sounded like she was going to fool around with Dan and wash off the evidence after she was done. In a way, she had been thinking about it since she saw him, but it must have just been the past haunting her... But now, after saying out loud that she'll be late, it sounded like a plan. Dan did live close to the gym and they could go over to his place after the workout and...

“Ooh gosh.” Juny put her fork down and quickly looked at Fran. He was drinking his morning coffee and staring out the window. Just like he always does after he knows he's done or said something stupid. Fran turned to look at her and tilted his head very slightly.

“I just remembered that I have to pack my gym bag. It doesn't have a towel in it.” Juny got up and put her dishes on the counter.

“Just leave your dishes here too. I'll clean up before I leave.” Juny hoped that by acting like a super wife for a while she could shed the feeling of almost letting her mind wander too far.

Could we try it once?

While watching a movie one night a thought gets thrown in the air to date freely for a while. Fran gently massages Juny's feet and takes a small sip of red wine to relax his throat muscles. It was one of those nights when both of them were tired and had a bit too much wine so sex flew out the window right after dinner was done. Fran starts the game in a peculiar way.

“We would rock at that dating game...”

Juny takes a second to understand what game and which team although she did start the whole topic by addressing the issue as it was happening in the movie. They are both quite intrigued about the idea at first and play along with all their imagination.

“So we would live together but spend our lives freely?” Juny asked.

“Well, g-hmm... what I mean. and if I understand this movie right, we don't have to run around and surely it would be wiser to keep a low profile, but I've heard of couples who have an open relationship... and are happy.” Fran felt a bit sick in his stomach and was wondering if it was the cheap wine or the topic of the discussion. He had another sip and didn't let go of Juny's feet. He didn't want to distance himself from her while they were talking about something this new and wild... and crazy.

“Jesus Christ, I hope Juny doesn't read into this in any way... any wrong way.” Fran's mind was doing hoops and burbees as he waited for the topic to change, but Juny seemed to like this mind game and kept talking about seeing others.

“So-oo, how would we make sure that we would still stay happily together? How do, I mean, how could we keep jealousy out of the picture? And do you think it would actually add better sex to our marriage as a couple having sex with each other? Or would it just move our sex lives outside our house and home and turn us into -hmm- siblings?” Juny kept thinking out loud and clearly had more questions bubbling inside her but kept her mouth shut for now so she wouldn't seem like she had been thinking about this for weeks.

“Want more wine, honey?” Fran didn't know what else to say.

“Oh yes. You found a good one this time!”

Juny was feeling very cheerful. She seemed to enjoy the movie even more now that they were talking about it and not really watching it.

Fran wondered about Juny's remark about the wine. It had a giant red sticker on it that said: “ON SALE”. He had always loved her humor and easy going lifestyle. Maybe this was just one of her jokes or then he was very lucky to have a wife that enjoys wines that are under 5 dollars.

Two glasses later and while surfing the weather channel Fran stumbles back to the idea of having lovers. He can't understand how he came back to that topic. It's like he was programmed to do so? He did realize that he was spending almost all of his lunches with Sally these days but she was just a friend to him. She was fragile and lonely in a good -safe- way. Not in a dangerous, wife dumping way.

Juny didn't mind hopping back to the idea of having lovers. Actually, she was so drunk by now that she completely missed the part of actually having lovers but just talking about other people who go to swinger parties and find people online.

“Oh, I think we could make it work. I mean, we have a strong relationship and we know what we want. I will not say no if you want to dance with another woman... or kiss her boobs. But not on the mouth! No, that's my territory. Yes to boobs. No to lips. And no to licking her pussy. I don't want any weird pussy lips kissing my lips... or pussy...” Juny was starting to ramble and kept waving her arms as she spoke. A certain sign that the night was nearly over.

Fran helps her upstairs and gets her undressed. Juny is still quite awake and finds everything ticklish and funny. Especially when Fran wants to brush his teeth and Juny keeps groping his ass and talking dirty about being super needy and horny when he comes back from one of his imaginary dates and has to have sex with her even though “he's just been greasing his pole in some random lady's RV.”

Fran gets pretty upset about the language Juny throws at him and for the first time in their marriage, he yells at her, calls her a bitch and goes downstairs to sit on the sofa in the darkness. He can't make clear of his own thoughts. Why did Juny's words hurt so much? Why did he lose his sense of humor all of a sudden? What triggered him off?

“Oh gosh, I wonder if Juny will let me get into bed with her?”

Juny was a bit startled by Fran's behavior but she though he just went downstairs to get her a glass of water. She was really thirsty so she sneaked downstairs too and got a water bottle from the fridge.

“Honey. I'm sorry I yelled at you. Can I come up to bed?” Fran's voice sounded truly sorry and tired. Juny peeked into the living room and said:

“Sure honey. I'm not mad. Just thirsty.” Juny sat down next to Fran.

They spend another 15 minutes hugging and thinking out loud about a possibility of a foursome but hate the idea simply because it involves being too close to the other person fucking your spouse. They agree that a foursome might be fun, but with 3 complete strangers, good looking strangers. They both would have their own foursome. Who you never ever have to see again. Or maybe only rarely, very rarely. And even then it would be just for sex and nothing else. No text messages at nights or at work, no sharing your life's mysteries, no nothing...

“I think it's just too much work. Private foursomes... puuhhh, why not just have a fling with someONE.” Juny sounded tired and she dropped her water.

She falls asleep in Fran's lap and he stays with her for a while. Her soft hair feels warm in his fingers and he gently squeezes her hair in a bundle with his hand. It feels nice. Holding her by her hair. Mr. Poak-alot wakes up in his pants and starts pushing Juny in her armpit.

“Mmm, warm and tight...” Fran closes his eyes and fantasizes about having sex with two women at the same time. Mmm, Juny and... Sally? Fran opens his eyes as fast as he can.

“What...” He's breathing is faster and he feels like he should run away but Mr. Poak-alot is still there, listening to his thoughts and Juny hasn't moved. Fran squeezes Juny's hair again and lets his imagination fly, just a bit and just this time.

I dream of Sally

“Hello, ladies.” Fran decides that's all he'll say. That's all he needs to say in this fantasy. The ladies will be on autopilot and they will do whatever he wants. Basically, they will do what he saw the two Jamaican women doing on a videotape that he found under his roommate's bed in college.

They will take a shower together and he will watch them. Then they will wash him and they will all go on a run on the beach... The movie was 32 minutes long and that was exactly how long Fran's act of lovemaking took when he was in college.

Fran opened another beer and got comfortable. He put a pillow behind his back and closed his eyes. He felt strong and masculine. Nothing could ruin this daydream and no-one would ever know about this. It was the perfect way to cheat on his wife. Juny was in the dream so he wasn't even really cheating on her. And actually, it was Juny who was doing the fondling and sucking so she was the one who should be feeling bad not him.

“Ohh-mmm, why didn't I think of this years ago?”

Fran smiled at his own wits and loosened his belt. The beer was making his drowsy and tired. It didn't use to make him so tired. Maybe he was getting old or then the beer companies were doing something different. He remembered seeing a documentary about a beer brewery and how the hops were gathered and washed. They actually sold some of those fancy local beers near here, now. He wondered if he should try some of those small brewery beers rather than the big brands. Maybe that way he could find a beer that doesn't make him so tired and lazy.

“Oh gosh, I'm so tired...”

Fran opened his eyes and looked at his watch. It was 17:05. Juny would be home soon. His cold drink had turned into a lukewarm and watery beverage in his hand. It was OK to drink, but the enjoyment was gone. So were the ladies in his mind.

Fran finds a new language

It's a boring day at the office. Fran doesn't have access to any of his normal databases and the internet isn't working. He goes and gets a cup of coffee and walks to an empty meeting room. Finally, a day when he can just read a science magazine and have a cup of coffee, all alone. He even finds himself smiling because Sally isn't in today. He is fully free of all his normal protocols. He feels comfortable and strong. He even thinks about leaving work early today and going to Juny's gym and checking that out.

The science magazine was mostly about the latest Mars landing but it had a short article about intermitten fasting, IF, and surviving in the wilderness while mostly sleeping or staying on the move. Fran read the article twice. The first time he thought it was an interesting view on food and how we use it as a fuel, but on the other go, he wanted to try it himself. Although he wasn't going on a long trip in the Amazon forest and he didn't need a new diet to lose weight, Fran saw a chance to change his daily routines. Instead of waking up early to have his breakfast and first coffee and eventually be starving by lunch time, he could wake up early to drink water and coffee. Then just keep fasting 'til lunch time and eat more freely. Plus really stuff his face.

He wondered if it would be easy for him to stop eating after 8 hours and fast 'til the next morning. He knew he wanted to try it more than a paleo diet or Atkins or anything else that Juny had tried this year. He hated the idea of checking every single thing at the store so he wouldn't be eating something that wasn't vegan enough or paleo enough or non-dairy or gluten free or whatever. Fran felt like he found the rabbit in the magicians hat and pulled it out without anyone noticing. He got so excited that he told his boss he was taking the rest of the day off. His boss didn't mind. Fran had put in more extra hours this year than any of his peers.

Fran drove home and had a glass of water. It tasted dull so he added some lemon to it. Much better. He filled 2 big jugs with lemon water and left them on the counter. He would start drinking more and see how it felt. No stress and no calorie counting.

Fran packed a small gym bag and changed his clothes. He ate a small apple in front of the mirror and thought about Juny's happy face when she would see him at her gym today. He hoped she would be thrilled to see him and that they would actually turn this whole gym thing into a new way to date as a couple. He felt he had it all figured out now. The perfect life was right there for the taking and he had it by the balls before he was even 50.

Fran drove to the gym. He wanted to warm up and try some of those Crossfit moves he had done in his youth. He was much leaner then. Leaner and stronger and more athletic. Juny had fallen in love with him at a Crossfit competition. Or so she always told him. He finished second in that competition when they met but Juny didn't remember who won. She still kept Fran's old picture in her wallet. In the picture, he was standing under a tree with the little trophy in his pants. You had to know that it was his trophy 'cause basically, it just looked like he had the biggest and weirdest dick in the world. His face was all sweaty and tired and he didn't have a shirt on. In some ways it was the best picture there was of him. Not even their wedding picture made him look that good.

Fran walked into the gym and felt the cool air of the AC hit his face. Instant nipple hard-on.

“Jenny?” Fran knew the lady at the gym's info desk.

“Yes... Fran? Wow! Fran! I haven't seen you in years. How are you?” Jenny seemed totally honest in her excitement to see him again. They talked for a while and she gave Fran 50% off the normal prices. Fran bought a full month and 5 tickets to the tanning spa. Fran felt like his day just couldn't get any better.

The locker rooms were big and clean. Soft music played in the background and Fran left his stuff in an electric locker. Everything smelled nice and clean. Fran stopped for a while in front of the mirror. He was still feeling pumped. Super happy with his new found life. He was going to be bigger, better and younger in a week or two. All he had to do was to let it come...

He walked out to the weight room and the smell of sweat, body sprays and rust, the overwhelming howling of Rammstein from every wall and the sight of young and old bodybuilders of all sizes with tattoos and mohawks made him wonder about Jenny's words:

“Enjoy. I know you'll feel right at home with us.”

What did she mean by that? Was this what she thought he was all about? Bodybuilding in the hardcore mode? How did Juny fit in here? Did she have friends? Why didn't she ever talk about this place? Sometimes she came home and didn't even need to take a shower... could she have other men's sweat on her? And what the hell happens in the Stretching room? It was locked and had Valentine's cards on it but it was mid summer?!

Fran took a sip from his pre workout and decided to just shut up, get warmed up, surprise Juny and do a personal record in dead lift.

“Fuck everyone. I'm a fucking animal.” He whispered to himself and let his thoughts flow back to college and the warm nights he spent running track and dreaming about a career in the fire department or army. What ever happened to his dreams? Did they change or did he change?

Fran warmed up and started lifting. He was stacking 45's just like in his youth and he didn't even notice the music and the yells on the back round that came from people who were training with personal trainers. The life around him turned into a distant murmur.

Fran kept one eye on the doors and eventually he saw Juny walk in. He smiled. She didn't recognize him. He was too far away and he had an old hat on. Juny flashed her card in the reader and talked with Jenny for a while. Jenny didn't know they were married.

“Perfect...” He thought.

A man walked in and said hi to Juny. Some tall guy. Really buff and clearly knew Juny well.

“What the hell...?”

They talked for a while and it looked like they agreed to do something after an hour.

Fran dropped his iron and sat down. Half or his mind kept living in the past and ordering him to just keep working out and focusing on his lifts, the other side of his mind was stunned like a bird that just hit the window. He couldn't think.

Fran looked at his hands. It felt like life was draining out of them. He felt weak and sorry for himself.

“No... I'm fine. She's fine. We're fine.” Fran got up and grabbed the weights. He had been doing longer sets of 8-10 reps. But this set was the hardest. Suddenly he felt like crying and he only got 4 good lifts ripped out of him. He had to stop. He put the weights away and thought about going in the changing room to collapse but he didn't want to confront the tall guy. What if he was actually really cool and bro like? What if he would end up liking him? Where the hell were all these mixed emotions coming from? Fran walked to the changing room, he didn't see the tall guy so he took his clothes off and took a shower. The gym had saunas so he decided to try to relax and collect his thoughts for a while. It was a nice surprise to notice that the saunas had one-way windows looking into the gym area.

Fran sat next to the window that gave him a clear view of Juny's cardio area. He sat and watched his wife's butt go up and down for fifteen minutes. Like always, it helped with everything. Juny was like a really good beer commercial when she walked or ran or whatever. Fran just wanted to stare at her silently and smile.

Juny finished her warm up and walked to the TRX-training room. Fran forgot that she had the group workout today.

“He better not be in there...” And the tall guy wasn't. He just walked by and headed over to Jenny's. He talked with her for a while, they laughed and seemed to have a very good time.

“A player, hah... he's no match for me. Juny's safe. We're safe...”

Juny's old Vespa

“Honey, are you ever going to take that old Vespa of yours for a ride? ..you know we could just sell it?” Fran lifted the Christmas tree box of the old bike and dusted off the seat. It didn't smell like it was leaking oil or that it had any problems with mold or mice.

Juny walked up to the doorway and took a sip from her coffee cup.

“I don't want to sell it just yet. I mean, I'm going to ride it again. It's just so close to the accident. I'm not ready yet. Soon... m-maybe next year?” Juny closed her eyes and took her serious face, then smiled.

“Yes. I promise I'll be riding it by next summer or then you can sell it and use the money for whatever you want.” She turned around on her heels and disappeared back into the kitchen.

“Fine. Whatever.” Fran dropped the box back on the bike and kept looking for what he had come in for. His old camera: Samsung WB35F Black. The first one he ever got for himself and didn't really use. He was supposed to take a bunch of pictures and videos on their trip to the Gran Canyon some years ago, but just like Juny forgot her hiking shoes, he forgot to bring the camera. So basically, they just walked around, looked at things and bought a postcard saying “Wish you were here!” They declared the trip over when Juny couldn't walk in her high heels anymore. The little shop behind their motel sold flip-flops but Juny never wears those in public so she was stuck with her choice of tall and sexy.

The same year Juny had her accident with the scooter. She was making a left turn and didn't pay attention to the traffic. She hit a street car and nearly busted her left knee. The doctor said that she had been very lucky. Her helmet had cracked and the street car had sucked half of her scooter's front wheel under it. Sometimes Fran remembers the accident when they have sex. The scars on Juny's knee are small and faded but Fran had the biggest scare of his life. That hour he spent waiting for someone to tell him if she was alright was the longest hour in his life. He couldn't come to the hospital 'cause he was on a work related trip in Texas. Truthfully it was a science fiction convention but he had told Juny that he was at a Security & Technology fair. He felt bad about lying to his wife but he froze on the phone when he finally got to talk to her. He never told her the truth. Just stories after stories about a bogus fair he never went to. Juny was so drugged out on the phone that she wouldn't have ever remembered what he told her. He could have just as well talked about the weather on Mars.

Maybe we should just break up?

Sally starts to sneak the idea into Fran's mind:

“Be more than you are. Star over again and do everything right this time...”

At first, it starts off as a card she gave him for his birthday. She said it was a mistake and actually meant to get him the one with the purple elephant on it but that she got confused while looking for her purse and accidentally picked this one. Fran didn't think anything of it. At least nothing subconscious.

But time flew and other small hints were left behind. An open magazine on Fran's table about celebrities who had recently found new lovers. Happy pictures about people living their new lives and hugging pets. Sally even sneaked into the men's room late one Friday and changed the soaps to match her perfume. She wanted her scent to surround Fran. She even sprayed some of her perfume on Fran's chair so he would be closer to her when he was at work.

Eventually, Fran starts to think about starting over. He thinks about the financial side, the emotional side, his sex life, his Subaru, letting go of Juny... it all hurts at first but the more it's sneaked into his daily life the more it starts to melt into his thought patterns. He thinks about it when he's alone and holding his dick, in the toilet taking a piss. He can't put his finger on it but he feels a lot closer to Sally now. Closer than he's ever felt to Juny. There's just something about that woman that if he didn't have a life with Juny he would definitely jump at the chance to be with Sally.

“Gosh, I would kill for her if she was mine...” Fran stops peeing.

“Kill... no, no not me.” His thoughts are starting to scare him. What if the world around him is trying to tell him something? What if he IS supposed to be with Sally and not with Juny or anyone else? He pauses for a while, feels a could chill on his back, his mind returns to blank and he continues to pee.

Menage à Trois

Juny has one of her bad days. She's deep in her PMS cycle A.K.A. ”The black hole of empty nothingness with a hint of crazy bi-polar bear hugs”. The bear hugs are spent mostly on couch pillows. The bad days would go fully unnoticed and life would float beautifully and gently towards the soft kiss of death if Fran simply understood to stay in a hotel for 48 hours, but no. He wants to share the ups and downs of marriage life... (editors note: IDIOT)

Juny hates her periods. She hates her body for getting cramps and bloated. She thinks she looks like a whale that died of leprosy, last week. Her hair gets oily and fuzzy at the same time and her skin keeps trying to either flake off or just pushes out some sick shit that should have come out in the 80's. Leg hairs: fucking disgusting. Underarms: left side grows like a gorilla and right side doesn't, WTF? Pussy: if she didn't have time to shave it before her periods start, she smells like a dead zebra for the whole week, or so she thinks. Actually, the aroma of dead blood and a sweaty panty liner only poofs out of her clothes if she wears synthetic underwear and sits down too roughly. Even then it mostly floats up her collar and dissipates into the air that no-one uses anyhow.

When Juny menstruates everything Fran does or says is wrong and an insult to humanity as well as proof of his inhuman idiocy when it comes to communicating with women. Not just in verbal form but in silence. Juny cannot understand why Fran can't read the signs of PMS and keeps asking the next week if she really meant what she said the week before. Juny usually answers back with something snappy like:

”...Like what the fuck do you think I meant by it? Don't you remember that I was in pain last week?Do you really want me to relive all that shit I went through? You fucking have those fucking cramps and shit. You go to the toilet every hour, sit on a wet rag at work and bleed like a fucking hurt animal and not die... What the fuck, honey?!... Leave me the fuck alone!”

This month Juny had fewer cramps but more craziness. In her mind, she had the right to take some time off from being a good wife since she was the one with pain and dead blood every month of their married life. Although Juny was not in prime condition she put on her best dress and heels and went out with some of her girlfriends from work. Fran didn't think anything of it since Juny was only going to the local pub for a beer and some darts, but by the time the girls got together the plans changed. It happens that one of them just broke up and wanted to find a quick rebound. Excited about the chance to look around the rest of the girls pretty much decide to go to a night club, get drunk and hunt together. Sounds like a shaky scene from an animal documentary, yes, but an interesting side of the female life. While working as a pack they can both support each other as well as compete for prey even when only one of them is hungry. When alcohol is involved mistakes are more easily accepted and the more alcohol one of the females offers to the other women the more she builds herself an Alpha position and wins the admiring looks from the males (while the others just fondle each other and end up sleeping together on the couch of the recently singled woman).

This was Juny's plan. She was going to drink enough to get wild but stop early so she could have a taste of all the offerings the nightlife had to offer. Little did Juny expect that she would be puking in the toilet by 9 pm. She forgot that she had taken a new painkiller before she left home and that that new painkiller had a side effect when taken with alcohol. She didn't mind it when she bought the pack 'cause she didn't expect to get drunk for a long time. But now, there she was, puking her dinner out with her mascara running on her cheeks. Her soft, curly hair was wet with sweat and tied up on her head.

It took her a half an hour to get her shit together and think of an explanation that she could feed Fran with. For some reason, she felt super guilty for having plans to grab a random guy and just get wild. She never planned to have sex or even kiss anyone. At least not any guys, maybe Skinny, though. She was one of the girls from work. Juny found her interestingly sexy after a beer or two. Sometimes she secretly fantasized about Skinny licking her when she was in bed with Fran. Last Christmas she had looked at her for a long time in their office's Christmas party and Skinny had winked at Juny. But just then Fran walked in to give Juny a ride home. Juny often found herself wondering about what could have happened if she had stayed after all.

“I wonder if Fran would mind having a second woman in bed with us...” Juny whispered to herself hoping that it would give her more strength to get up with some pleasure hormone or whatever her brain might still have left in her. Thinking about Fran helped more. His smile, his warm arms around Juny. She wanted to go home. It took a while to fix her face but the taxi came quickly and she told Fran that she got sick from some bad crayfish she had eaten.

Juny takes a bath

Juny turned the water on in the bathtub and opened her hair. It had been a long day and a horrible week. Fran had been suspiciously quiet all week and only talked about his work meetings or basketball if she wanted to talk with him. Fran doesn't even follow basketball. What was going on?

The water was nice and hot as she stepped in. The nail polish on her toes felt heavy when she leaned back and lifted her toes out of the water. She had a glass of red wine on the side and 3 different rubber ducks. She liked the ducks. They were her memorabilia from Mardi Gras years ago. Juny places the ducks in the water and watched them wobbled and fall over as she rubbed her skin with bathing gloves. She wanted to get the fake tan off. It was getting all blotchy and her skin looked drier every day. She did use a special expensive oil in the mornings, but it just made everything more sticky and she couldn't shake the feeling that she smelled like a coconut all day long.

Fran was downstairs watching TV. Juny could hear him laughing every now and then, but the TV was so loud that it sounded more like he was trying to hide his farts or something.

“Hmm, I'm so tired. How can I be so tired... I must be getting old.” Juny turned on the water again and filled the tub up. The movement of the new water and the heat in the invisible waves woke up her private parts.

Juny took another sip of her wine and looks at one of the ducks. It has horns on it and it smiles with a grin. It was the duck she caught after flashing one of the floats.

“You think I should...?”

The duck just floats there and slowly turns towards her hand.

“OK ducky, but I haven't done this in years...”

Juny starts touching herself and remembers how she used to do this all the time when Fran was out of town, right in the beginning of their relationship. She wonders for a while why she stopped playing with herself, but quickly stops thinking about it and focuses on playing.

The water moves faster and the soap bubbles rush to the sides of the bath when she starts to get closer to her peak. Juny doesn't hope to make this into a long orgasm. Quick and simple is what she prefers tonight.

Suddenly Fran comes into the bathroom.

Juny slows down a bit, locks her eyes on Fran and gives him a look that can only be interpreted as “come here and finish me off”.

Fran moves like a robot. Doesn't speak or ask any stupid questions. He just does what he knows Juny likes. Gently and softly he touches her and helps her back onto the mountain. Juny starts to moan in ways that can only mean she wants to be freed from her golden cage of pleasure. She pushes her pussy on top of the surface so the water can't tone things down. There she can feel everything as well as the chill of the cool air.

Juny vibrates and pulsates with deep delight as she hurdles down the mountain side or orgasm. She screams like a suffocating cat as her agony of loneliness and heart brake push out through the storm of soft, red fire and lightning. Fran looks at his wife and feels her sorrow. He missed her too. That's why he came up here. Originally to just see her.

Fran takes his clothes off and stands by the bathtub. Juny reaches out and grabs him by his dick.

“Come in here, babe. The water is just perfect.”

Juny lives in the moment

Juny reads about “living strongly in the moment” in a women's magazine at her hairdresser's. The article promises that everything would go much smoother and life would taste much sweeter if people would just stop and listen to their deepest thoughts. It wouldn't mean killing the reality of life or starting all over again with a new diet and morning smoothies. It only meant listening more and seeing more of the world around you and noticing how it makes you feel. The article was long and it had movie stars telling their stories about better sex life and inner peace. Juny found it funny how all the ads on the pages were about beating constipation or having better feminine hygiene. It seemed like the editor wanted people to rather eat right and keep clean than have a glass of wine every night and spend hours meditating on a hard pillow. The pictures in the article were all about romantic beaches, sunsets and raw food. It was all very confusing but the basic message was clear:

”Close your eyes and let go.”

Juny tries it out while her hair is being washed and blow dried. She enjoys it immensely and yes, it does feel good to just lay low and listen to the thoughts in her head passing by. It was actually quite painless. Although most of her relaxed muscles came from sitting in a massaging chair and the quietness in her head was from the overwhelming sound of the blow dryer, she still did feel like she got to feel her own inner world a bit better. She could hear her spine and skull crackle here and there, she felt how her left glute was all tight and unhappy as she sat. When she moved her butt a bit she could feel how her whole lower back relaxed and her whole posture stopped cramping. Even her breathing got slower down and became more relaxed. The tight feeling in her right peck slowly melted away and she couldn't help herself, she smiled.

Later that night when Fran got home and they had their dinner and shower together, Juny started hinting to Fran that she wanted to have sex. Fran was all for it. He had just had a great day at the office and a good run around the neighborhood. He even felt like he broke his old record of running 5 miles non-stop. He would have to check in on the computer but first sex...

Juny started focusing on the moment right at the beginning. Unfortunately, she noticed everything.

Fran's skin was very dry and he had pimples on his back. She wondered if they should take another shower after sex and just rub his back with one of those really harsh loofahs. They had the softening bath foam that she sometimes used as a soap. That might work? Her own hair was frizzy and messy after being stuffed in a shower cap.

“Gosh, I need to brush it later. Aagh, I forgot to put that conditioning spray on before I put the shower cap on. Hmm, I wonder if it's ruined...” Juny's head kept pushing thoughts around. Nothing got censured and the flow only got stronger. She couldn't keep her thoughts on sex and kept thinking about other stuff like the sound that the beads made, that they had hanging on their bedpost, as Fran was enjoying his favorite position, missionary. Juny thought about the floats she had seen in the parades last week, the food she had had for lunch at the little cafe on Oak street, her new nail polish and Fran's running shoes that had dog poo on them...

“I should wash them tonight and not tomorrow morning...”

She kept trying to relax and be at peace with her thoughts as Fran flipped her over to bang her from the behind but nothing worked like she had hoped. They kissed passionately but Fran's breath smelled bad. It smelled like old milk and a salmon dinner. She started worrying about her own breath and remembered that they should change their toothbrushes this week. They were more than two months old anyway.

“Hmm, I got the next brushes in the kitchen. I forgot them there on Tuesday...”

Juny's thought patterns were everywhere and anywhere but in sex. Eventually, she did give a thought to it, but just to wonder if Fran ever noticed the difference if her pussy was just washed or 12 hours old?

“Oh gosh, that one time he licked me at the ski cabin and they had been skiing all day...oh yuck. It must have been weird...” Just then Fran looked at Juny's face, noticed the negative grin on her face and stopped fucking her.

“What's wrong honey? Does this hurt?”

“Oh no, honey! I was just thinking about something... else. It's nothing! Keep going, I'm fine.”

“Do you really want sex tonight or was this just some sort of a test?” Fran had a clear doubt in his voice and he pulled half of his dick out.

“NO! No test and keep fucking! Honey honestly, I was just distracted. I had a... a hair in my mouth.”

Fran pushed his dick all the way in and made Juny scream of pain.

“OK. But I'm not going to come anytime soon...”

 Fran and Juny go to a restaurant

Fran is distracted by his own thoughts, he keeps hearing things wrong but he's too deep in his thoughts to give a damn. The waiter offers him a choice between a dog, owl, and rabbit when the kitchen's specialties are actually duck, lamb and pork. Even Juny seems to talk in code and makes even less sense:

“Canada won the toilet... Fran, I'll be blind bat...”

Juny gives Fran a little smile and disappears into the ladies room for a few minutes. She has to loosen her belt, check her hair and pee. It's date night.

The table discussions are from hell this night, Fran is heartless and out of this world. He seems to live in his own little fantasy life, in real life everyone just sees some kind of an avatar of him.

The reason is short and easy: Fran read a book called “Flight plan” by Brian Tracy and the bottom fell off his unhappy life. He saw his life from the outside and hated it.

The night turns more relaxed when the first bottle of wine is opened. One glass and Fran stops thinking about divorce and just wants to quit his job. The stress from Sally being so fucking close all the time is making him sick. How the hell did he get sucked into her life so strongly? It can't be Sally's fault, can it? Could she actually be luring him into a trap of some kind? She did call him last Saturday night at 9 and she did try to get him to come over the week before to help her hang a painting... he couldn't help on either of occasions because he had other stuff he was doing and on both occasions he had had wine with Juny and he's not the kind of guy who has the guts to drive while in any way under the influence. Pussy, you might say, but he hasn't had an accident of any kind in his entire life.

“You want to quit your job?” This is big news. Juny chokes on her bun and takes a hell of a sip of her wine.

“But you're happy where you work? I mean, I thought you were... even the people are so nice. Much nicer than where I work...” Juny seemed so stunned about Fran's sudden need to leave his old job and start from scratch, that Fran had to calm her down with a change of subject. It always works, Juny was somehow wired to follow Fran's lead when they were out.

“Oh look, the couple by the window are touching each other under the table.”

And so they were. Lucky Fran, he had finally seen something that is usually pointed out by Juny. She's the real hawk eye in their relationship when it comes to spotting pointy nipples, see-through pants, big boobs or just sexy tattoos on women's ankles.

Juny stopped thinking, completely, and just stared silently at the window table. She kept her head turned to Fran and moved her right wrist slowly so it would look like she was just arranging her silverware while they spoke.

“Mmm... you're right. They both have their shoes off. He might have a foot fetish.” Juny's heart rate slowed down and she turned back to Fran. She pushed her chest to the table, set her chin on the flat of her hand and smiled again.

“I'm sorry, honey. Please tell me more about your thought about being happier at work?...”

Without thinking first Fran says something he promised never to tell anyone.

“Sally had a baby and left it behind, gave it to adoption when she was just a teenager... O-ooh shit, this was a secret.” Fran stopped. Completely. He couldn't understand what the hell had just happened.

“A what now?... who's Sally? Sally from your work?”

“Is she why you want to leave?”

“By the way, she walked past the house yesterday. I think she was videotaping our house. It didn't look normal to hold the phone like she did. What's with her? Do you know if she's … normal?” Juny was suddenly full of questions. Fran couldn't find a way out so he said:

“Sally is... she is a strong person and a professional photographer.” A lie. Sally had taken the photos at the firm picnic this summer and she knew where the key to the storage room was where they keep the camera but she was no photographer.

“I'm sure she was there, at our house, to pick up something from Frank. He lives at the other end of the street and people get our addresses mixed up all the time.” Another lie. Fran felt his face turn red and took some wine. He would blame the wine and the lack of A/C if Juny got too nosy about his co-worker.

Juny trusts her husband, but she sets up little traps around the house just in case. If anyone comes sneaking around at night or when they aren't home they will have the fright of their lives. She puts old Halloween masks behind dark windows and moves the outside lighting a bit so that when the movement sensors turn the outside lights on, a mask will look straight down at the yard. It's not the perfect way to scare off horny women but it will keep the neighborhood kids off their lawn. The good part is that during the daytime the masks should be quite hard to spot. Those top windows haven't been washed for years.

How well do you know your partner?

“Let's invite some friends over...” Fran looked at Juny and smiled.

“Friends? What friends? I mean, who? Or which ones?”

“What about my old friend John and his wife... Sam, Sarah, Sandra!” Fran laughs.

“Some friends. You can't even remember his wife's name.” Juny squirts soap on the dishes and the farting noise makes her giggle. She tries to hide it at first but she's never been good at hiding her feelings, any of them.

“I'll call them. We can try that new board game we got for our 15^th wedding day... I think it's in the living room. This Friday will be good. Or Saturday. I'll ask them what works best for them...” Fran seemed truly interested and thrilled to get some outside action to their weekend.

“It's still in its original packaging and it's under the bed... Some gift.” Juny turned the water on and clearly stopped listening. Whatever her problem was she didn't want to share it with Fran.

Friday night was good for John and Sandra. They came over by 7 pm. It rained like crazy. They had to leave their car 2 blocks away and run.

“Oh, gosh! You should have called. We could have come get you with umbrellas!” Juny was feeling very friendly and warm. Totally different than what she had been all week. Fran had even been worried that they would have to re-schedule because Juny would just eat them alive and be rude to Fran all night. But whatever her problem was it started to disappear last night right after sex. Maybe she just needed to get laid? They didn't even have a very special night last night, just basic sex for 15 minutes or so and a warm shower.

Fran brought everyone a drink and snacks. They had all eaten before hand so the whole idea was just to get cozy and relax with the board game.

“So what's the game like?” Sandra asked and punched John in the arm to get him to stop fiddling around with his phone.

“I hope it's something like Twister meets Alias!” Sandra seemed a bit too happy for just one sip of wine. Juny smiled and her eyes had a glow to them that John noticed. He found himself hoping that they were at a swingers party, but he kept his mouth shut. He wanted to ogle at Fran's wife secretly first. And oh boy did her butt look good tonight...

Juny pulled Sandra aside and poured her a glass of gin.

“Let's just let the guys figure out how the box is opened without scattering the cards on the floor. We can have some girl talk back here in the kitchen...” Juny pulled Sandra to the kitchen doors and gave Fran a wink. John noticed it but Fran didn't register anything. He was too focused on opening the box that still had its protective plastic over it. It was a couples game with very intimate questions and a wheel of fortune that pretty much only gave out embarrassing and silly tasks for the players to do. It didn't even help if you were winning or getting the questions right, you still had to turn the darn wheel and some of the tasks were pretty sexual... I guess Fran's mother never really read the fine print on the gift she gave her boy 'cause it was more a game for foreplay in a drunken swingers party than a fun board game for four people who had mostly just met.

“I think the guys can get the box opened even if we're in the room?” Sandra felt a bit awkward being in the kitchen and eating a half frozen cheesecake with a woman she had just met.

“Oh, don't worry. I just wanted to get some alone time with you... you know, before we start playing...” Juny had finished her glass of wine and poured herself some gin as well.

“I know that game. I checked it out online. Trust me, it's better to be a bit tipsy and well fed before we start.” Juny smiled and laughed so that the piece of cake almost fell out of her mouth. Sandra laughed too but with a small amount of shyness. She had felt great earlier this evening at home when she had had some wine and a cold beer after she and John had had a quickie after work. But now she was feeling tired and fat. She looked at Juny's clothes and compared her outfit to hers... her choices looked saggy and worn out. Juny looked like she was coming from the Oscars. Sandra felt more fat and emptied her glass with one sip.

“So it's a board game with tiring tasks? Do we need to act them out somehow or is it a drawing game? There's no singing, right? I hate singing. I don't sing...” Sandra took some more cake and decided to let go for tonight.

“What the fuck, who cares. It's just one weekend. I'll get back on the fitness horse by Tuesday...” Sandra mumbled to herself and moved her empty glass closer to Juny. She filled it up again.

“That's the spirit.”

The guys called out for more snacks and Juny and Sandra went back into the living room.

“Game time!” Fran had cleared the floor in front of the sofas with John and the board game was on the dining table.

“Sit down, honey.” Fran pulled the chair for Juny and she sat next to him.

“Now here are the rules. I'll just read them out to you all:

• no biting
• no scratching
• no stealing of other people's cards
• no cheating, unless urged by the game
• and definitely no giving up...

Hmm... that's the weirdest rules I've ever read.” Fran flipped the rules over but it was just the same text in Spanish on the other side. He put the paper away and grabbed the dice.

“OK. Everyone has their little figures and a stack of cards. The point is to get around the board with your mate and finish at the same time. This means that you have to wait for your partner at the finish line. I guess we turn a card every time we throw the dice as well do we turn the wheel. Then we just read the part on the card that matches the board and the wheel... hmm, seems simple enough. Let's start! Juny. You can go first.”

Juny threw a one. She moved her figure to a square that said “DO”. Then she turned the wheel and got a “TWO TIMES / TRUE”. Finally, she turned a card over and read from it.

“If you got DO you must lick your man's nipple as many times as the wheel said...”

“WTF? This is a weird game?” Fran laughed and felt embarrassed but Juny turned to him and insisted that they play along with the game.

“Oh for Heaven's sake. It did not say that on the card?” Fran was a bit hesitant and read Juny's card as well.

“Oh... oh dear. It's a good thing you didn't throw a 2...”

Juny giggled after she had finished her task. John and Sandra held hands under the table and kept kicking each others feet. It was John's turn to throw.

“Oh look, I got a one as well.” John turned the wheel but he got an empty slot. His card said “If you got EMPTY you must say a nice thing about your mate. If you make it intimate enough, you win another turn. “ John decided to not hold back.

“Honey, I love the way your pussy squeezes when I explode into you.”

Fran coughed and wine flew across the table.

“Oh, I'm sorry. You kinda caught me by surprise! Wow, I'd say that was very intimate. You get another turn!” Fran wiped his face and the table. Juny looked shocked but with a big smile on her face.

The game moved on and although most of the questions were about making a compliment about your spouse some of them were pretty randy. At one point Juny had to decide between kissing someone else for an extra turn or her husband for fun. She took her time keeping up the suspense but choked in the end and just licked Fran's lips.

The same question came to Sandra after a while and as it was late in the game she needed the turn to catch up to her husband. Sandra too kept up the suspense and weighed her choices for a while. Then she just got up, walked to Juny and kissed her on the lips. They got applause from the guys as well as a toast from John celebrating his wife for getting another turn and probably ending up as the winning couple of the evening. Sandra's second turn was a good four and the board gave her an “SAY”. The wheel popped out a “TWO TIMES / TRUE” so when she read out the card she got all red in the face.

“If you got an "SAY", look around the table and choose one woman. Tell her how you would kiss her if you were together in bed.”

“Oh gosh... I wish this had been an “LIE” task...” Sandra thought and looked at the only woman in the table. Juny smiled and clearly was expecting something funny or short in words. Sandra felt John's hand on her knee and a small squeeze. John wanted Sandra to make their final move for them.

“I... I would stroke her hair and hold her neck...” Sandra started slowly. Fran took a slow, long sip from his drink and listened carefully. He was actually hoping to get some new ideas on kissing.

“...and then I would gently grab a part of her hair, right at the top of her head and turn her head back... I would kiss her on her neck at first and move higher, letting her face move towards me. I would lick her earlobe and then bite it a bit... and as I would hear her breathing get shallower and faster I would move my other hand down to her pussy and slip one finger inside her as I would kiss her and let my tongue play around in her mouth.” Sandra stopped talking and had some gin. Fran was still holding his glass to his mouth even though it was empty. He had his eyes open but clearly nothing was moving in his head. Juny was still sitting there, smiling, and John gave his wife a small pat on the thigh.

“Well, I guess she nailed that one. This sure is a fascinating game you got here...” John lifted his glass and moved the dice closer to Fran. Fran had finally gotten the glass out of his face and was clearly still thinking about what Sandra had just described.

“Y-yeah... a game... does anyone need a top up? I do. I'll be right back.” Fran got up and rushed to the kitchen. He needed to think and sober up. Or maybe he needed another drink. What was it again... what had they thought about the game in advance... it was a swingers game?

“It's a swingers game?”

Fran was stuck in a loop. He couldn't decide if he wanted in or not. He knew he wouldn't feel bad about banging his friend's wife because he was really good at forgetting stuff like that but he didn't want to share Juny with anyone. Well, at least not with any other man... a woman would be different. Or at least, they are different with their plumbing and stuff. No dicks. That's the main point. No weird dicks in his Juny. Or him.

Juny came into the kitchen.

“Honey? Do you need some help?” She looked relaxed and she was clearly enjoying her night.

Fran looked at her eyes and lips. He didn't want to share her with anyone. He loved her. No matter if he sometimes did imagine her to be someone else, while in bed with her, he still did not want to share Her. His wife, his trophy, his possession.

“No, I'm fine. I think I'll get everyone a cold beer. We need to cool off for a while. The game is getting weird. I think there's something wrong with the cards...”

“Y-yeah... the Cards are to blame... ...I kinda liked the whole girl on girl idea.” Juny laughs into her glass as she sips some wine and goes back to entertain their guests.

Juny starts writing novels

“Send us your fantasies and we'll publish them.” Juny stared at those words and kept thinking about Dan, her old sweetheart. They were supposed to take over the world, Dan and her. They were supposed to have sex on a beach somewhere in Jamaica, ski and make out in a cottage somewhere in Colorado, go hiking and fool around on a rock somewhere in Montana... They had everything planned out and then something just drove them apart. Maybe it was the stress of senior year or the economy or just that she hated the way his shirts smelled after he came back from the garage where he fixed and built custom cars and bikes.

She found Fran later in life. Or maybe Fran found her. It doesn't matter. The point is that she had a life now. Unhappy in some areas but very good in others. She had a loving husband and a bright future. Or at least, she kept telling herself that it was a bright future. She didn't know and lately, she had been feeling anguished and she was anxious to change things, move stuff around and break the old rules. She felt like she was being held back and not let to grow into the person she was becoming. She didn't know who to blame. Maybe Fran or maybe herself. It was HER life, therefore, SHE should be in control of it.

Juny had been writing some of her sexual fantasies into her little, pink notebook that she kept in her backpack. It had a picture of a cute cat on in and the words “poems come from the heart”. No-one ever asked about it when she wrote into it. She guessed the cat scared most of them away. It did look more like something you might find in a 9-year old's school bag. Or on a crazy cat lady. The truth is much more graphic. Juny (unknowingly) makes faces when she writes. She lives through all the emotional states with her face muscles when she writes. She even throws her hair around and pouts like the characters in her short stories.

Once she was sitting alone at a cafe and writing something that had actually happened to her and tears started falling on the paper. She couldn't help it. She didn't feel sad but her eyes wept. The memory was a painful one but a memory that she had long gone left behind her. The waiter got her another cup of coffee on the house. It's not always a bad thing to cry in public...

Juny's novels:

NOLA

1/6/16 – 3/29/16

How's the kid

(Juny writes about her friend. She talks a lot so it's easy to make her into a fictive character.)

People told me that having a kid would change me, becoming a mom would change me... well it hasn't. I am learning, though. New things every week. (I should say every day but our lives aren't that special so ”every week” is close enough to the average.)

Kiddo is learning much more than I am and he sure shows it. The new thing in his life right now is kisses. Mostly aerial kisses. I don't kiss him on the face I just make the sound by his ears and even though it might be closer to an ape style cuddle it's my style and I like it. Well, kiddo is taking it one step further. He kisses me in the hair and face and goes for the mouth every time (I think he's copying his dad.) The ugly truth is that his kisses are mostly super wet and smell like milk. The cute ones (I believe) are the ones he just throws in the air before he takes off on one of his playful adventures to the next room or so.

He did one of those today. I had told him to NOT play with the curtains so he got upset and toddler-talked for a while (I think he was demanding something 'cause he was pointing at the door and had his eyebrows all down like a serious person...) After his moment of utter babbling, as he was already leaving, he turned back, sent me a kiss with an ”I love you” smile attached to it and took off like a lumberjack. He does the cutest big boy walks I know...

There's another thing he does. He hugs. He's always hugged me so it's normal for him. It's a built in thing. But to me, it's been an abnormal thing for years now. I think I stopped using it in my puberty. Well, kiddo loves it. He'll squeeze his face right against my cheek and pull on my neck so hard it feels painful. At the same time, he laughs silently and I can feel his whole body tense up. He's a true full body hugger. Now when I hug I usually just lean closer with my other shoulder to the person in question, do the three taps on the shoulder, pinch my lips together and do the very quiet “hm-h” sound while moving my head in a very subtle nodding motion. The little grunt is usually thought to be a sound that comes out of my lungs because I squeeze the other person so hard but actually it's just a gesture of acceptance or shared remorse. Whatever the situation may be...

These days kiddo has started to hang on to my pants as we meet new people and half the time it feels more like he just wants to pull them down than hide behind me. Well, it sure would take the attention away from him if he did.

Touch me one more time

(Juny went for a walk and remembered how her old friend used to talk about the old oaks near his house. He loved those trees and often remarked about them being older than a hundred years.)

Some trees love touching the earth. They go back. Or... maybe they just have weak branches?

Whatever it is, it's beautiful. The trees that grow on our street are old. Some are a hundred years old. Their branches are long and thick and some of them are bent back to the ground. Squirrels must love these trees. (Lawnmowers must hate them.)

If I were a tree I would love to live long and be protected and cared for in the end. I wouldn't mind having a tree doctor come along every now and then to trim off my dead branches and check that my water and soil are up to standards.

I don't believe that trees have feelings or sense pain the way we do. They're built differently. But I do believe that they are alive and that we are all connected. We need trees and plants to keep the soil from being washed away and to have fresh air to breathe. Trees and plants need animals to eat them and spread their seeds as well as they need us (too) to die and turn to compost.

Have a cookie

(Juny saw an older couple walk into a cafe. They had a young kid with them. It didn't seem impossible that they were his parents. Juny couldn't hear what they talked about or how they talked to the child so she just put words into their movements.)

”Nobody can eat something that big on one go!” I didn't say it but I'm sure the size of my eyes told the story... I didn't grab the giant cookie that was being shoved at my baby. I just waited for it to go away or for kiddo to do his Jedi move... seconds passed and the cookie stayed in the air with soft sounds pouring from its maker to ensure that my baby would go for it and find a new world in sugar. But then, there it was. Some shaking of the head and the Jedi hand move in front of his chest. He didn't want it.

”Thank god for home life!” I heard in my head. But the gestures weren't enough. We would be impolite if we just left the cookie hanging. It was getting all sweaty and moist from all the waving and luring and crumbs were dropping everywhere.

I took the cookie, thanked the man and rolled kiddo to a table in his baby jogger.

I knew the owner was still smiling and waving to us so I offered kiddo the sweet, round thing (it was almost the size of his head!) and broke a piece off if kiddo would just like to hold it... no. He wanted a piece of my salty sausage pie, or whatever. I gave him a piece and he ate it. I loved it too. Gosh, those Dutch people can cook! Nom-nom-nom...

Keep 'em drapes closed

(Something that Juny and Fran tried together... in her mind it's just the beginning. A new world that they will explore together and enjoy greatly.)

John made his move, one night on the terrace where he and his wife, Sandra, liked to sit after dinner and share a quiet moment together.

“Would you enjoy holding my dick while I wash my teeth tonight? ...you know, in your mouth and on all fours?” John's dick moved in his pants and he looked at his wife with a fierce hunger to fuck her brain out right there on the terrace. Sandra didn't answer right away so he thought she might be a bit frightened of his slightly drunk and randy mind. After a short while and a sip of wine later Sandra replied:

”Sure. I would love to... and you could stick your finger deep in my pussy as I brush mine.”

That night, before bedtime, they both felt tense and ticklish. They did all their usual stuff, put the dirty shirts and pants in the wash, had a shower, set their clothes out for the next morning... as it came time to finish it off with the new ceremonial brushing of the teeth John said:

”You don't have to do this you know.” and put one hand over the knot on his bathrobe. His dick did that bounce again.

”Honey, I said I would love to. Take your robe off, now.” Sandra looked determined to get her way. She got down in front of her husband as he started brushing his teeth and they tried something new that put a young smile on their lips for the next two weeks.

The next morning they got up with a new smile on their faces. They had had a hot night with sensual sex that had felt like the first time for a long time... and they had a secret. They felt that everywhere they went they could just smile at each other because people wouldn't know what ”perverts” they were. Both of them were very turned on by this little secret and talked about it every day for the next week or two.

About a month later Sandra found a BDSM page on the internet and read about the wonders and kinky stuff that surrounded the lives of Masters and Slaves. She felt a connection to the art of causing pain and enduring pain. She wanted to try things with her husband and she knew it should happen soon.

“I'll teach him to own me in ways that will pleasure us both. He shall see what a good wife I really can be... oh, he shall want me more than ever.” Sandra felt strong and feminine and she wanted to scream out “I am alive! So fuck me, John!” It's possible she was also experiencing a very strong ovulation.

Sandra ordered a bedpost and ropes online. The package arrived in a week. All John knew was that the bedpost was hand made and expensive. He didn't wonder about it much. It's just a piece of furniture. Sandra looked amazing in her new style of makeup. She wore high heels and a poke-a-dot skirt.

They carried the boxes up to the bedroom and opened them. As John saw the bedpost it finally clicked in his mind. Sandra looked like she was in heaven. Her eyes glowed and her hands moved fast. She didn't make any mistakes with the attachments and bolts and her skin got all pink and lightly sweaty from putting their new love pillory together. When it was all done and the junk from the boxes and plastic wrappers had been kicked out to the hallway, Sandra said:

“There. We can try it out after we get washed.” She took her clothes off slowly but left her heels on. John watched her move across the room and his dick followed her like a heat-seeking missile.

“Oh god, I love her so much.” He thought. Then he looked at her slightly sweaty, curvy body as she leaned over to take her shoes off and John saw the shaved little love tunnel he so liked to ride in. ”Oh, you are mine, bitch. First one out of the shower gets to lick the other one happy...”

I hate you so much

(Something Juny's always been afraid of. Something horrible in her opinion. She hopes it will scare her less if she just writes about it.)

She vomited in her mind every time he talked to her. His text messages made the soft hair on her back scream. He had hurt her so badly she wanted to destroy him. It was hard to look at him anymore. So she looked past him or just imagined some other person standing there. Memories of times past sometimes made her skin feel like it was still summer but her mind kept fighting back. “Destroy the mother fucker. Destroy him and make him feel like dirt.”

She clenched her fists and bit her thong. The taste of blood in her mouth reminded of rusty iron. Dirty iron. Should she just let go and let all her wrath out? Just fucking explode all over him. Slash his tires and kill his plants? Oh yeah. But he didn't have any plants. Not since she had moved in and secretly killed them all. Needles to the stems and roots. That's how it's done right. No marks. Not too fast. Just a slow death. A natural looking death.

She walked away mumbling to herself:

“It's too soon. I need to cool down. If I fight back now he'll just make it look like it was my fault.” Her footsteps made more sound than she remembered. Her clothes scuffled around and her hair got in her face and eyes all the time. She found herself wheezing of anger and wanting to rip her clothes off and shave her head.

“Never again will I let him touch me unless it's his blood that sprays on me as I watch him get sucked into hell! Aaargh!” She was far enough to yell silently but the man walking a dog a few yards behind her must have wondered what she was waving about. He turned around just to be safe. Fifi didn't like women anyhow.

He put the raw eggs into cold water, turned the stove on and waited 'til it started boiling. He set the timer to 8 minutes and read the morning paper while he waited for the coffee to brew. It was a beautiful morning.

“I think we'll have toast with the eggs.” He spoke to himself but looked at the place she usually sits at breakfast. He found himself checking that seat every minute or so. He missed her smile. Where could she be? Usually, when she goes out she says when she'll be back. Maybe she took a longer route on her morning walk?

He checked his cell phone and wondered if it was OK to just call her. He knew she didn't always answer. She hated talking on the phone. She said it made her voice sound stupid.

After breakfast, he went outside and just stood on the porch for a while. The willow swung ever so slowly in the wind. He noticed that one of the truck's tires looked flat. He should fill it later before he left to pick up the new tub. He had decided to give her a present. She loved taking baths but the house didn't have a tub so he got her one. One of those really romantic old school tubs with the lion feet and everything. She was going to love it.

He checked his phone again and noticed a lot was happening in facebook.

“How could he! What a bastard!”

“I hope he burns in hell.”

“Just leave him. He's an ass hole.”

People were commenting on his woman's page and hating him. What the hell? He hadn't done anything wrong? He loved his girl. She knew that.

But little did he know that earlier last night when they had had sex and he had taken a short video of him taking her for a ride that looked more like a rape, he had accidentally uploaded it to her facebook page and clicked Like while he did it. The phone had stayed in bed with them as they snuggled afterwards and they had rolled over it enough times that the mistake of all time had been done. She apparently had noticed the video in the morning and deleted it but the shit had already hit all the fans and kept on pouring.

“Oh fuck. What have I done.”

He dropped his phone.

Just then he saw her walk back to the house. She was too far to tell if she had been crying or if she was angry but, at least, she didn't turn back when she saw him. She just walked in like he wasn't even there.

“Honey, I'm so sorry. It was an accident!” He tried to get her attention but she didn't look like she cared.

“Oh my god honey. You must be a wreck. Please let me help you. It will be OK. It will be OK, right?” He begged her to say something but she just walked in and shut the door behind her. Her eyes said it clearly:

“It's over. Her LIFE is over.”

She had gotten calls from relatives and from work. She answered the one from work. They told her to take some time off.

She walked to the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee, took a gingerbread cookie from the ugly Christmas jar on the fridge and dipped it like it was a normal morning. The jar was a gift from one of the man's aunts and she had already planned to break it one day while cleaning. It was a good plan. Everything would look like an accident and she would actually get cut just slightly so she would be the victim. She would have had his full attention and love and kisses and... she broke down crying. Tears poured down her cheeks and she couldn't breathe right. She tried to have some coffee at some point but the utter impossibility of it made her even more sad and so she kept crying and letting go of all her hate. She didn't notice when he had come closer and put his arms around her. She felt safe and warm. Just like last night when they had had sex. Their kind of sex. As she calmed down she climbed up to hug him and sat on his lap.

“I know it was an accident,” She whispered.

“I just have to start over now... from scratch... actually, it feels kind of liberating.”

He held her in his arms and stroke her hair. It felt wet and had grass in it. She had been rolling around in the wet meadows and her hands were bloody for hitting trees and the ground.

“Let's get you cleaned up honey. You can take a shower now but from tonight on you can take those aromatic baths that you love so much.”

She raised her head in awe and her eyes turned deep blue.

“Babe. I love you, even though it hurts like hell sometimes.”

The Book of life

(A dream Juny had one morning when she just decided to stay in bed and see how it feels to wake up around noon.)

The homeless guy had nothing. Nothing to be proud of. No education, no military career, no beard, no dog, no nothing. He was useless. So I gave him the Book.

The pages are only 2x3 inches big. It's about 1 inch thick and the writing is big. It carries about 5 sentences on a page and the left side is always blank. The pages are very thin. It resembles a bible in many ways but it's not a bible. It's the Book.

I don't know when the homeless guy opened it but I saw him reading it the week after. It had him. The Book does that to you at first. You eat its words and you can't put it down. Remarkably the pages don't run out after you get to the middle and the book just keeps giving and giving. Good advice after another and they all come true. Even the really wild ones like:

“Go stand in front of the Crescent hotel tomorrow morning at 7 am. Hold out your hand when the man in the gray hat walks by. You will not be poor anymore.”

The guy tried it for fun and ended up with a room with a view at the hotel. He got a full year's stay just by holding his hand out. He could order anything from room service and he got the clothes to match his residence. A lady comes in every day to clean his suite and every Friday he gets a ride to any movie theater or classic theater as well as the tickets to the show. He can live like the rich man who gave him the key to success.

Weeks went by and he lived without fear of getting mugged or feeling bored. He read the Book every now and then but it never seemed to move on. The pages turned but every day it opened from the middle. The stories the book told were fun and entertaining. He even met a woman, an actress, in a restaurant one Friday night. She seemed wonderful and real. A small town girl with the whole world as her playing ground. She could do anything if she wanted. He felt bad that he couldn't help her out financially but the book gave him hints about movie roles and theater plays that were coming up. She went to the castings he told her to go to and she ended up getting 3 roles from which to choose from. The woman fell in love with the man.

Weeks rolled by and the book changed. It started warning the man about the ending. The book was not clear but it warned him every week not to finish reading it.

“Something unthinkable will happen...”

The man started having nightmares and he was afraid to read more than one page per week. He knew he had to read something, the book said so. But one morning he woke up and it looked like the book only had a few pages left on it.

“Oh my god.”

The man feared for his life and the life he thought he could have had with the actress. He thought about calling her to say goodbye but what would he say when she asked why he was leaving and where?

With trembling hands he opened the book that week and read a page every day. He thought it would be best to end this quickly. The book didn't end that week but it kept talking about the end being a horrible one and that everything would change.

The next week his girlfriend had her big opening night at the local theater. She was starring in a play about a homeless man finding a book that changed his life. Her opening words were:

“The homeless guy had nothing. Nothing to be proud of...”

He sat in the audience and cried. He was so proud of her. Her voice carried across the theater floor and sounded like an angel singing. She had found her calling. And just then the book turned to stone. Its pages no longer turned and the man could not feel anything more than a smooth piece of stone in his pocket. It was over. He was free from the book and free to live his life. His true life.

Two women

(After a weird night of almost swinging with Fran's friends, Juny can't stop thinking about having sex with a woman. Something she could have tried many times in her youth but she always chickened out.)

She looked at me. Her eyes didn't say a thing. How the hell was this going to work. Would we even like each other? Gosh she, looked good. In a girly way. Well, in other words she, looked quite normal. I wanted to say something.

”Um...” shit, I'm bad with boys but now I'm super bad.

”Come here.”

”...and do what?” (oh shit... what the hell am I talking about?!)

”Nothing. Just get here already.”

We touched. For the first time.

Sure we had bumped into each other before but now she took my hand, touched the back of my neck and kissed my lips!

We kissed. Long and slow. Her lips were softer than any boy's I've known. She tasted like strawberries and candy. Could this work? Hell, I didn't want to stop!

Her hands wandered across my body and I forgot to flex my abs when she touched 'em.

Oh gosh, I hope she won't stop.

Her fingers found the front of my pants. We stopped kissing and just held our foreheads against each other. Oh wow, she felt close and right. It was like having sex with myself!

”How should we continue?” I asked.

”Let's just relax... remove our clothing really slowly and relax. No stress, no rush... just slow enjoyment... nothing new, nothing bad...” she kept kissing my neck and gently ripping my bra off.

We eventually got rid off our shirts and bras but I still felt a bit stressed. I couldn't relax or feel normal. I really needed to be naked but not with Her. I kept thinking about my husband. His neck, his muscles, his touch, his lips... I realized I missed him. I missed him too much to do this.

Just then she managed to bite my lip, ever so tenderly. I felt a sudden gush of erotic power exploding in me and I wanted to come with her fingers inside me... Right then and right there.

”Oh gosh, I'm crazy...”

”No, you're not, honey. Just let me love you like a true lover can. Only a woman knows what a woman needs. Trust me. I know exactly what you need right now...”

”I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say I'm crazy to be with you... I just feel like I'm going to explode soon... uhh... oh god, no...”

She took off her jeans and undies. I kept hoping that she hadn't shaved for a week so her leg hair would help me escape back to my husband, my true love, my... oh gosh, she's good... how does she do that... how many arms does she possess?!  

…

Juny saved the story and closed her lap top. She looked at their wedding picture and forced herself to smile. She felt awful. Tired and dehydrated and sick of all this nonsense. She got up and went downstairs, hugged her husband and told him she loved him from the bottom of her soul.

They made love. Nothing super sexual or kinky, just your basic lovemaking.

And later they shared a shower and smiled at the bathroom mirror together. They felt the same way as when they had had their wedding picture taken.