This is the first story that I've published.
Would appreciate any feedback, especially from female readers / writers on Beth's character as I have three more stories in development featuring her as the main protagonist. Thanks!
1.
New Year's Day.
The low morning sun shone through the bay window of the living room. Outside, all was perfectly still; the grass on the front lawn was gripped in a thick frost, the bare trees stood silhouetted against a bright blue sky, all the curtains on the windows up and down the street remained closed, preserving a profound sense of silence.
Jake wrapped his hands around a warm mug of tea and rolled his neck and shoulders to relieve the stiffness in his back. He was fit and healthy, a regular runner and weekend cyclist, but approaching 40, with a young family and a full-on career he was finding hangovers increasingly difficult to deal with.
While the rest of the world was buried in a post-party slumber, Jake had been woken early by the same recurring feeling that had interrupted his sleep on and off for months; an unshakeable idea in his head accompanied by an uncontrollable hardness in his crotch.
The idea had been planted there by his wife, Beth, during a session of unusually spicy sex. It was mid-summer and they'd been out with some friends, drunk way too much and returned home feeling careless and young again. Falling into bed, overcome with a hunger for each other, Beth whispered something fleetingly in Jake's ear. At first, he wasn't sure if he'd heard her right. But then she said it again.
Uninhibited by the several Margaritas she'd consumed that night, Beth continued to explore a fantasy she'd never previously spoken of. The ensuing sex was mind-blowingly good. So good that the next morning, they woke up and without saying a word to each other, fucked again.
"By the way" Beth said briskly as she got down from on top of him, "I don't really want a threesome. I was just saying that to be a bit dirty." Jake looked at her. "Fun though, wasn't it?" she added happily, swinging her toned legs off the bed and walking into the bathroom.
While the sex continued for a short while, the subject was never spoken of again. Soon enough, life took over: Beth became preoccupied with her job, the family, kids and the many mental to-do lists that kept their lives moving at lighting pace.
But for Jake, the fantasy she'd shared that night consumed him.
It locked itself into the front of his mind, crept into his thoughts and worst of all, as he closed his eyes to go to sleep at night it would totally overcome him, to the extent that he found himself in a constant state of arousal.
And so, to New Year's Day morning.
Jake had awoken to that same familiar ache. But in the bright light of a brand-new year, he made himself a resolution. Enough was enough, he thought. The only way to rid himself of this all-consuming idea was to make it into a reality. In making her fantasy come true, he would overcome its grip on him.
He got up and walked into the large open plan kitchen that spread across the back of their house. Flicking the switch of the kettle, he looked up through the skylight at the closed curtains of the master bedroom upstairs where his wife of ten years lay sleeping.
Yes, it was a massive risk, he thought: one wrong move could seriously jeopardise their marriage. But if he could pull it off, it might just be an experience they never forget.
2.
"Right, I'm off" Beth said crisply. "There are fish cakes in the fridge and salad that needs eating."
"Ok honey."
"Just make sure you check the sell-by date on the salad."
"Will do".
Beth was dressed in graphite leggings and a black retro adidas top that she wore with the collars up. Her blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail and her skin was glowing. She looked great.
"I've got my class and then I'll probably stay and have a glass of wine with Emma so won't be back until about 10pm."
January marked the start of a general wellness drive for both of them. Beth had committed to weekly core strengthening sessions with her friend Emma, a PT and yoga therapist who lived in a large red brick house in a nearby village where she had - or rather, an ex-husband had - converted one of the old farm buildings into a yoga studio.
Unlike Jake though, who liked to quit the booze, Beth couldn't abide the idea of Dry January. It was tough enough going back to normal after the Christmas holidays without denying herself the medicinal pleasure of an occasional glass of wine.
"Bye" she kissed him on the cheek.
"Bye".
The headlights lit up the front room as the car reversed off the drive then receded into the darkness leaving Jake alone to plan.
He'd spent many hours lying awake at night, plotting how to make this happen. One thing he was certain of, there was no way he could consult Beth beforehand: she would point blank dismiss him.
Instead, he would have to appeal to a different side of her.
There was a stage - before they met - during and after university, when Beth went pretty wild, travelled extensively, dabbled in drugs and had quite a few boyfriends. It peaked in the summer after graduation when she spent a month backpacking in Thailand and partied so hard that she got seriously ill and had to be flown home.
She never spoke much about those days - often saying to Jake that he'd rescued her from a life she felt was getting out of control - but when she did, her eyes burnt with a magical, mischievous light, the same light that flickered in her eyes the night she disclosed her fantasy.
If he could rekindle that light, he could reawaken a side of her character that he knew was in there but was somehow hidden from view.
It would take some serious choreography.
When.
