The third part of the story how the beginning of our marriage played out. If you haven't read parts 1 and 2 it might help to do so, as it puts it in context. If it seems a little slow in this chapter I'm sorry but I wanted to tell the tale without skipping parts. We are still very happily married BTW.
CHAPTER 3 - THE WILLING WIFE
The warm weather persisted. It was a lovely summer. A week or so after the conversation with Charles, I arrived home and Amy and I had just had dinner. We sat down with the remains of a bottle of wine and cuddled on the sofa. "Anything on TV?" as I picked up the remote.
"Before you do, I wanted to chat to you about something." Amy said.
"OK. Fire away."
"So... Charles' offer. I've been thinking...."
"What? You can't be serious! Stop thinking about it now! Like you said when I first told you, it's absurd."
"Look - we don't know what he actually wants, do we? Think about it. We pay Β£24000 a year in rent. That goes a long way to finding our deposit on our first place. Maybe we could get some more from him. And you earn so much more than me, so this could be my contribution to making it fairer."
"I don't care what he wants. It's not going to happen! And as for you earning less - that's not relevant."
"Well, we could at least find out what it might involve. You can't just dismiss it out of hand."
"I can."
"It's a lot of money Mark! Someone's going to get it from him - why not us?"
"No!"
"Well, I don't think you can say that until we know what's involved."
"I know what will be involved and the answer is no!"
"You don't..."
"Yes I do!"
"Fine! Mr bloody psychic!"
We descended into silence. Our first proper row.
Nothing more was said on the matter and as far as I was concerned the matter was closed.
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Amy and I made up over the next few nights. On Friday I came home, and she was dressed in one of her "outfits". A lovely and sexually adventurous evening ensued. The following week however, we had another of those 'conversations'. We were in the kitchen and Amy was pouring us both a glass of wine as I cooked our evening meal.
"So... I went to see Charles today."
"What about?"
"His offer."
"Why? I told you the answer is no."
"I just thought I'd find out what it was about before I said no."
"OK - and let me guess... it was about him having sex with you."
"Sort of..."
"Well, I don't know what 'sort of' sex is. Its either sex or it''s not."
"Yes I guess there would be a bit of that, but its not quite that simple."
"Yes it is... but go on tell me."
"He's looking for someone to be a what he calls 'playmate' for a couple of hours. I think Savannah dresses up for him. He says he's looking for someone to do the same. He says he and Savannah use sex toys sometimes - dildoes and things - not unlike what we have, you know. It would all be consensual and I'd always be able to say no."
"Amy! The answer is no right now! Even more so."
"Look Mark - this is a way for us to get a deposit for a property in perhaps a year, and move on with our lives. We both had sex with other people before we met each other. I think in fact you had loads of sex with several different women. This would be sex, not romance. And in a year or so it would be over, and we'd be moving forward."
"No! I don't want that creep near you."
"Mark.. just think about it. I've said I'll have another chat with him next week."
"No!"
"Mark! I don't want to live here for the next five years while we scrape together money for a deposit, and that amount will probably have gone up by the time we get there so we'll never get out of renting and won't be able to start a family. We could be here forever. This is a great chance for us to move our lives forward. Unless you're going to win the lottery how are we going to get the cash? You know I want a family. Do we have to wait maybe eight or ten years? Just think about it. Please."
"I'll tell you what. Before we even take this conversation further lets do some research as to what it would take to get a mortgage, and have a look at some properties on the internet and see what we'd be looking at. It may be that things can be done to work the problem in a different way."
"OK - that seems reasonable."
We avoided further conversations on the topic that evening.
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During the next week I made a few calls to see what the likelihood of us getting a mortgage was on the sort of property we wanted to buy, and made an appointment with a broker for a chat. We went to see him, and after reviewing our finances he said:
"Basically, with your incomes you can get a mortgage for Β£270k. You'll need a minimum of 10% deposit, but even the small houses you're looking at are Β£320k upwards, so you need to come up with about Β£50k. If you're looking at cheaper properties like flats don't forget the maintenance charges which can be very high, so your monthly costs rise, and that will affect the amount you can get on a mortgage, which will go down as a result. Its catch22 really. Don't forget the purchase costs too - legals and taxes - they mount up - probably around Β£6-7k - and will be on top of the Β£50k you need to get what you want."
We went away depressed.