Stay At Home Dad Ch 01

Stay At Home Dad, Ch 01

Life's weird, right? You know it, I know it, we all know it. So, how did I, a fairly competent computer programmer wind up as a stay at home Dad? Through a series of life choices and events that just seem like a movie in retrospect.

My wife Julia and I met our senior year of college, when we were both on dates with other people. We were at a party, and the term "electricity" gets thrown around a lot, maybe too freely, but that's what it was. She saw me first, or so she claims, while I will assert I saw her first. But there was both literally and figuratively an attraction there. Instantly.

In just terrible form, we left together, dumping both of our first time dates on the spot. But like I said, instant attraction. When you know, you know. I never would have said it before that night, but now? 100%. And it's weird. If you asked me what it was about her that attracted me, I couldn't tell you. I just knew somehow.

Julia has always been incredibly hard on herself, and will call herself a 5/10 on a good day, which is far from the truth. If I were forced to be honest, like I'm being with you right now, I'd say she's a 7. She has a pretty amazing figure, but she has subtle things about her face that keep her from being model pretty. But I cannot stress this enough, I literally don't give a shit. I would pick my wife over any other woman I've ever met in terms of attraction. And let me tell you, after we spent time together, I needed to spend the rest of my life with her. We will both tell you we knew right away, but after 6 months, we both really knew. So we were engaged.

We were going to school outside Chicago, Julia in finance, and me in computer science. After we graduated, we both got jobs in the city, moved in together, and about a year after graduating, we were married. Julia was always the money maker in our relationship, and was on a meteoric rise in her company, just that exact combination of knowledgeable and personable that really successful people have. If you've been lucky enough to have a manager like this, you know the type. The type of manager where she could give you negative feedback and you were actually glad to hear it. She just had that gift.

My career was a lot more typical. I was pretty gifted in the math department, and the software company I was working for found me a niche in developing algorithms for the engineering analysis software they sold. I was making pretty good money, but Julia was quite literally making double what I was making.

We lived extremely frugally, and socked away basically every penny we could, with Julia managing our portfolio.

Our lives were great. We were happy.

But to focus back on our story, we need a little more background. I was what you might call today "hypersexualized." Which is a nice way of saying I wanted sex all the time. Julia had a libido probably half of mine, which is to say on the high side of normal, which was fine. We had sex multiple times a week, and it was excellent. I had no complaints. I wanted more, of course, but I realized I was very lucky to have found someone as amazing as Julia in the first place, so I wasn't ever going to mention it. I mean, who actually meets their soul mate?

As I said. We were happy. We were about three years out of school, doing great financially. I had moved up a tier at work, and was making pretty solid money. Julia was a mid level manager at her firm already, and was making more than a half a million dollars already. At 25. I know. But Julia was just that person everybody loved. I know it sounds like I'm gushing, and I guess I'm a little fanboy, but damn, I love her with all my heart. Then we tried to have kids.

Into every life, a little rain must fall, right? Well, kids were our first challenge. Julia had always wanted kids. I wanted whatever she did, and honestly, I like the idea of being a Dad. Plus, with my job? Just a perfect opportunity. My company had pivoted to a global model a year or so previously as tools like Teams and Slack became ubiquitous, and my manager recognized that having us in an office seemed stupid, especially since my team was split between offices in Seattle and L.A. So we went remote, which meant I got to stay at home. Which was amazing. Plus, Lori, my boss, was another unicorn. She was that rare boss that literally didn't care what hours you worked, recognizing that programmers were weird. All she cared about were progress updates and the bottom line. I'd talked with her about having kids, and how I might need to adjust my schedule a little, and she was totally fine with it.

So everything was in place. Julia and I had sex every single night, and sometimes multiple times a day. I was obviously on cloud nine. Life was perfect.

About three months in to our attempts, Julia wasn't pregnant. So we went to the doctor. I'll spare you all the issues, but Julia had some things that were going to make it difficult for her to become pregnant. She cried a lot, and I just held her and told her we would figure it out, and if we couldn't put a puck into the net, we'd adopt. I did everything I could to support her.

We tried in vitro fertilization, which did not have a high chance of success, but certainly had a high price tag. I didn't care. I would have spent everything to make her happy. We tried three times, and we went 0 for 3. Julia cried a lot. We stopped having sex. I tried to support her, but I knew I needed professional help. She needed professional help. So I got us in to a psychologist who told us lots of comforting things, but who's advice could ultimately be distilled down into either get a pet or adopt.

So we started down the adoption path. Which, if you haven't ever looked into it, is very slow and expensive. But Julia was smiling again. We started having sex again. Which, for me, was big. I'd never considered cheating or anything like that, but let me tell you, when you have a biological need that's not being taken care of, it can be a problem. I had discussed this with our psychologist in a private session, and she had reassured me it was normal and fine, and gave me a lot of exercises and things to do, along with some advice that basically amounted to masturbate as often as you need to.

So we were fine again. Julia was smiling, and mostly back to normal, we were having sporadic sex, which was enough to keep me sane, and we were going to adopt.

Three months later Julia became sick. Which was crazy, because she was never sick. After a few days, it was clear she needed to go to the doctor. So we went, and spoiler alert, it was my daughter Hannah. Julia was pregnant! Like so many other couples, we had a miracle baby. Julia's sickness? A complicated but not uncommon hormonal and vitamin imbalance that was easily corrected.

Now life was really on track. We were about to be parents. We decided to adopt as well, because why not?

So, three years later, we found ourselves with two kids, two great jobs, and a whole lot of happiness. The only wrinkle was that after Hannah was born, Julia's sex drive vanished. We had spoken with our psychologist who told us it was normal for a lot of women, and could possibly be corrected through hormones. Spoiler, not her. But that was OK. I could deal. I had a ton of pent up energy, and I redirected it into weight lifting, running, and fitness. I was actually fairly successful. I could masturbate in the morning, and pretty much keep my sex drive at bay, as long as I spent a few hours exercising every day.

And so we found a routine. We would have sex maybe once a month, sometimes less, I would spend the mornings with the kids until the afternoon, when we had a babysitter watch them for an hour or two as I would grind out all my pent up energy, then we would have family time when Julia got home. Life was still amazing.

Then, our lives changed dramatically. Julia was offered a director level position in a financial services firm in L.A. Nothing could have braced me for the fact that she would be making mid 7 figures. She would be reporting to the founders of the firm, who still kept the firm private. This was life changing money. Julia was literally going to make 10 times the amount of money she was currently making. I wasn't super keen on living in L.A., but it didn't matter to me, as I was fully remote, and even if I had to go in, we had an office there. Our kids weren't in school yet, so no worries.

So that's how we wound up in L.A. We spent an absolutely obscene amount of money on a big place in PAcific Palisades, which was a concession to trying to live outside the craziness of L.A. Of course, Julia would be driving more than hour each way to work, which was not ideal, but we felt the compromise was worth it.

Now, we had been expecting Julia's job to be hard, and it turned out that the only real negative were the hours. She was going in early, to account for the crazy commute, and staying late. Apparently, the founders of the company absolutely loved her though, and her midwestern niceness carried over because she was so genuine as a person. I say this, because I was not ready for a lot of the phoniness I was seeing in L.A.

I was also not ready for the sea of bimbos around us. We were in a very affluent area, but not like the crazy hedge fund manager areas, but still, it was trophy wife central. And you can probably guess what they all looked like, right?

We were lucky enough to find an amazing babysitter almost our first day; our next door neighbor's daughter, a super sweet 13 year old, who was just an immediate fit for our kids, and willing to watch them for a couple hours a day, which was great, since we were neighbors anyway, and it let me get my exercise in.

But back to our neighbors. Ria, our babysitter, had what I would call the stereotypical high end L.A. trophy wife. Stunning good looks. Bleach blonde hair, amazing fit body. Fake boobs, but not too ridiculous. She was probably in her early 40s, but her husband was clearly in his early 60s, and Hindu. He was odd in that he dressed as a traditional Hindu, whereas Van, which I later learned was short for Savannah, dressed like all the other wives; yoga pants, sports bra, and trainers. It was a very strange dynamic. Apparently she was a model back in the day, before she became "ancient."

Over the first few months we were there, I would take the kids to the park at the end of our street, which was super convenient. The first time I went, I had been swarmed by at least five of the Moms, like I was a child predator. I definitely stood out. Once I had pointed out my kids, their attitudes pivoted on the spot to "fresh meat." About an hour and a bunch of small talk later, it was clear I was the only stay at home Dad in the neighborhood. Seemed like every other man worked ridiculous hours, and was never home. I definitely felt I could have had a few "play dates" if I had been so inclined. I definitely was not. It became hard to deflect the women, who were more and more open about their intentions. I routinely had to tell them I wasn't gay, just in love with my wife, which seemed absurd to them.

That night, I remember telling Julia, who laughed. She rattled off who some of the neighbors were, and most of the guys were older. She told me she'd overheard a term one of the founders was using for women like these: "throw aways." Apparently it was a thing. They'd have lawyers draft up a prenup, agree to pay them a few million after the husband got bored with them. All they had to do was keep him satisfied, and her affairs secret. I was kind of shocked at first, then a little depressed. I mean, these women were little more than long term prostitutes, right? I guess smoking hot 20 somethings who would sleep with a 50 or 60 year old, correct that, a wealthy 50 or 60 year old in L.A. were a dime a dozen.

Julia also shared with me the revelation that she was in her position because of her looks, which baffled me, until she explained that if she had been better looking, everyone would have distrusted her, assuming that she had the position just because she was sleeping with one of the founders. Now people just assumed because she was a woman of average attractiveness, she was extremely competent. Crazy. I mean, how do you respond to that?

And so we were happy there. Julia loved her job, and I loved her. I wished I could spend more time with her, but that's what my exercise was for, and damn, did I fit in in L.A. I would run every morning around 6, and it wasn't unusual to see 10 or 12 of the neighborhood wives out running. I never saw another man. I jokingly told Julia, who thought it was funny. They have to stay in shape, because their body is all they have, she told me. The next day, Van was out waiting for me, and I was reminded how amazingly beautiful she was. The word stunning is overused, just like awesome, but both of those applied here. She was wearing some of the smallest split running shorts I'd ever seen, along with a jog bra that was somehow sexy? I'd never seen anything like it. How do you have cleavage with a jog bra? She told me Julia had asked her to run with me, which caught me off guard, but I just went with it. We had a fun run around the neighborhood, and I really enjoyed my time with her. She pointed out all the women she knew when we were running, along with who their husbands were, and the latest gossip. Eye opening.

That night, I confronted Julia, who told me I needed to make some friends, since I never went out, and never really did anything other than exercise. I told her it seemed weird, and she told me that she knew I'd never even glance at her. I told her no, I'd most definitely glance at her, just not do anything, and we both laughed. Julia then made a joke about me masturbating to her, and to make sure that I always masturbated to her after I thought about another woman. I told her she was crazy, and there was no one in my life but her. There never would be anyone but her.

But, I got it. It was L.A., and my Jules was a woman who was not happy with her appearance. That night, I had a hard conversation with her, and she assured me she was totally fine with how I looked, but that she was worried she wasn't satisfying me, given my prodigious appetite for sex, and all the amazing women around me. I told her she had nothing to worry about. We'd been together for years at this point, and I'd figured out a system.

I thought that would have been the end of it, but Friday night came, and she gave me a folded up series of papers.

"What's this?" I asked her.

"A contract." She told me.

"For..."

"Read it."

So I did. My wife was giving me what amounted to a hall pass. She told me she'd used the firm's lawyers and had it drawn up. In a nutshell, I was free to have sexual relations with almost any woman, as long as there were no romantic entanglements, no long term relationships, no sex in our marriage bed, and I kept Julia informed of every tryst I had. She would be 100% faithful to me. The only other caveat was that Julia had first pick of any evening she wanted sex, meaning if I had plans, I had to cancel and have sex with Julia.

"I'll bet the lawyers had an aneurysm when they heard this."

She laughed. "I had to explain it twice, which is a lot for a lawyer, especially a highly compensated lawyer."

"I don't need this." I told her, and tossed it on the table.

"But I do."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It means I can't stand it any more. I'm holding you back, and I... just can't. I've thought a lot about this, and I just realized if you went out screwing all these women, I wouldn't care at all, since I know you'd be home in our bed every night. I actually had a long talk with Van about it, and that's how she told me she works it with Rishi."

"Holy shit. You talked to Van about... us?" I was definitely not cool with discussing this with other people.

"Look, I know you're mad, but stop and think. Who else would I talk to? Certainly no one at work, and Van is perfect. She's in the same situation as you are. You know she and Rishi have been married 15 years?"

Fifteen years is crazy in trophy wife time. That meant they were in it for the long haul. I totally got it though. Van seemed amazing in a way the average neighborhood wife just... didn't.

"OK. I get it. I did not know that, and I guess it's fine. You make a great point, like you always do. I just don't feel the need to go screw every wife in the neighborhood. I'm fine with what I'm doing now."

"And again, I'm not. This is about us, not you. We're partners, and I'm holding you back. I really had a long talk with Van, and it was really hard. But when I think of you and other women, I just... don't care. I don't. I thought I would, but this is just like you 'taking care of it in the shower' every morning, except it'll be much more satisfying for you."

"Except these are women with feelings?"

"Are they though? These women are empty, and would be using you for sex just like you're using them. They've all got husbands that ignore them at home, when they're wanting fucked all the time."

Julia didn't swear often, so that caught me off guard.

"You're really serious?"

"Yes! That's why the contract. I knew you wouldn't just believe me if I told you 'go screw some women on the side', so I had it made official. I knew that would get your attention. Besides, I really want details."

Now that was a curve ball. "Say what? You want to know who I was sleeping with, I get that. But like, what she was like?"

"Oh God yes. I've always loved trashy romance books, and this will be next level. I might not want sex all the time anymore, but I sure am interested in reading about it, and hearing it from you would be pretty hot. I think I actually like hearing or reading about sex more than sex. I'm so weird."

When we had moved into the house, we had installed 4K cameras in every room, except the bathrooms and my office. The bathrooms for obvious reasons, and my office because of company policy regarding proprietary data. They were so Julia could see me and the kids while she was at work. We never really talked about them.

"You're not weird. Jules, what if I were to bring a woman over here and let you watch me fuck her brains out on camera?"

Her cheeks went red instantly. She was quiet a moment. "I really want to watch you. Watch you... satisfy her."

"You really want to watch me with other women?"

"Yeah. A lot. I fantasize about it all the time. I think my ultimate fantasy might be to watch you have sex with a really hot woman, then come home and have sex with you while you smell like her. Taste her on you. In the same bed you had sex in."

Wow. I could see her really starting to get worked up.

"Is this the real reason?"

"No. It's like half and half. Maybe. I can't stand holding you back. I feel like a failure."

"You are not a failure! Don't ever think that." I decided to test the waters. "What if I wanted to have sex with Van while Ria watched the kids?"

She was silent for a minute. "That's all I've been able to think about since we talked. I'd actually give you a pass on the long term relationship with her too. She loves her husband just like I know you love me so I know there'd be no chance of anything developing there. She's lonely and tired of fishing for random people. She hinted she'd be interested. If you say yes, I'll call her and tell her she has my permission."

You know, there are moments in life you really don't see coming, and this was one of those. Pivotal moments. Tests where it feels like your life is at a crossroads, and you need to pick a direction. Here I was, married to my dream wife, living the best life, and she was giving me the opportunity to have sex with any woman I wanted. All I could think about was if I was making the worst decision of my life. For the life of me, at that moment, I didn't know if saying 'yes' or 'no' was the correct decision. I'm not going to lie. My libido was off the charts lately, and I'd had to start masturbating daily rather than every third day. I felt the devil on my shoulder telling me to 'go for it!'.