My wife Sharon was coming up on her 50th birthday. In spite of the fact that we've been together for close to 30 years, she's still a major pain in the ass to buy gifts for. And besides, at age 50, this was a landmark event. We'd paid off the mortgage. The kids were in college. We were both in a good place with jobs that we liked. A lot of that was due to plain, old teamwork. We backed each other up. Had no tolerance for bullshit and tried really hard to do things that kept each other happy. I thought she deserved something more than a Hallmark card and a box of chocolates.
Lately, with the kids out of the house and forced into remote work from the pandemic, we'd found ourselves alone together, much more than we ever had. At first it was a novelty to be able to squeeze in sex between Zoom meetings. If she was feeling particularly adventurous she might even be game to tease me with a blow job from under the table as I struggled to keep a straight face in front of the video camera. Except for a few extra beads of perspiration on my forehead I was pretty good at pretending it was business as usual even when she tipped me over the edge and had me cumming in her mouth as my boss jabbered on about some deadline.
She had a trademark evil laugh to go along with her accomplishment.
Of course I was happy to return the favor but I have to think she was less poker faced that I was. She tried to go through the motions of conducting business as usual but there was this extra lilt to her speech that didn't quite sit right with everyone. Something about the pitch of her voice rising and falling that didn't mesh with her reporting monthly sales projections. Her pussy would be progressively hotter and wetter and she'd lock her thighs around my head in a vain attempt to keep me under some control.
"Sharon, is everything OK?" one of her coworkers broke in to ask.
"I'm fine... I think it's just this damned isolation that's finally getting to me. " even as I swirled my tongue around her clit and did lazy circles on her asshole with my index finger.
Two can play at this game, I thought.
As much fun as we were having, we agreed to call a time out for the time being. Jeffrey Toobin had just been busted for inadvertently exposing himself during a New Yorker staff meeting, a minor catastrophe that resulted from him mixing up his Zoom call with a scheduled video sex session. They got the poor bastard on video, complete with his hand on his cock and a box of Kleenex on his lap.
Vaccinations finally started in March and felt like a get out of jail free card. Sometime around April I was able to walk into a bar and for the first time in over a year and allow myself the simple pleasure of ordering a beer. There was a lot to be grateful for. We'd both stayed healthy, and even after months of forced isolation, managed to stay on pretty good terms. If I was honest with myself I had to admit that after years of good but basically safe sex, we'd managed to navigate to a place where being adventurous and trying new things was back on the table again.
I was somewhere into my third beer when a familiar voice said "Alan? Damn buddy, you look like you've just been let out of jail!"
Dan was my one of wife's ex boyfriends... maybe one of the last serious relationships she'd had before we met. They were high school sweethearts and must have realized that at that age it was too soon for them to settle down. Drifted apart more than broke up. They were emotionally mature enough to remain friends and he'd managed to stay in our orbit as we dated, got married, had kids. I liked him well enough. He came to our wedding. We went to his. Unfortunately his marriage crashed and burned after a few years. Turned him into a confirmed bachelor who threw himself into his career and travelled every chance he got.
I wondered what life had been like for him over the last year. Sharon and I had been stranded at home but at least we had each other. He'd been forced into remote work with all of his human contact filtered through the screen of his laptop.
"So what did you do for a whole year, stuck at home by yourself?"
"Jerked off a lot. Not ashamed to admit it. I had no idea there were so many different ways for people to get off! I've missed actual people but damn, thank god for the Internet."
I was feeling generous and maybe a bit sorry for him. Another round of beers and I talked him into crashing at my place. Called a cab and headed home.
"Look who the cat dragged in..." I said as we both stumbled through the door.
Dan said, "Sharon, you look amazing." My wife looked like she'd just seen a ghost.
"Dan...! How the hell are you!" as she threw her arms around him while simultaneously giving me the evil eye. It's not that she didn't want to see him as much as she wasn't wearing any makeup and still in her hang out clothes. I should have known better. She gave me a wide eyed scowl as I mouthed the words I'm sorry!
"I ran into Dan at the bar. Just spent the last few hours catching up."
He had to pee and left me with alone with Sharon. I was drunk enough to say what was on my mind.
"Want to have some fun tonight?"
"With the way I look... are you crazy?"
Still, she looked at me in a way to suggest that it wasn't completely out of the question.
"What do you have in mind?"
"I don't know. Just wanted to see if you were open to letting things happen. No surprises but I did want to get your OK before anything got too far."
She'd told me about some of the adventures she'd had with Dan when they were dating. Before him her life had been relatively innocent, making out at the movies or some random groping in the park. He was a pretty free spirit and proud about not being constrained by convention. Dan was her first real lover, taught her about blow jobs, introduced her to cunnilingus and anal sex, even shared her with his college room mate. He was bi when the stigma about anything same sex was still overwhelming. By the time I got to know her, she knew her way around a bedroom and an absolutely great fuck. I always thought I owed him something for that.
I'd had enough beer. The three of us sat on the couch as I lit up a joint and passed it to Dan. Weed was legal now and this was hi test stuff I'd picked up from the local dispensary. Sharon was a light weight... a few tokes and she was stoned. Dan and me continued to light up but somehow it was Sharon who was laughing hysterically, for absolutely no reason in particular.
Her random, out of control laughter was infectious. Within a few minutes, the three of us were blissfully silly adults. Stoned as we were it felt like the couch was trying to devour us. Sharon struggled to get up to get some snacks from the kitchen but it took a few tries before she could finally get the kinetic energy to break free... the two of us pushing her butt to help launch her into the living room.
There was something kind of sweet about this. After all the months of isolation to finally have another living, breathing human being in the same room.
