This is my first submission, so be kind but honest. The events in this story are based on truth, with artistic licence in places. I hope you enjoy it
Chapter 1
My name is Alison. I am 30, female and married with 2 young children. I have a busy professional working life as does my husband, which was impacted significantly by the pandemic. I was on maternity leave with my 6 month old when the pandemic started and this led to also homeschooling my eldest while my doctor husband, Michael, worked often and long hours. It was, needless to say, a challenging time.
As time went on with the pandemic, my husbands and my own mental health began to take a hit, probably bordering on depression. The lack of being able to see family and friends was taking its toll and we knew that we weren't the only ones. Seeing our friends virtually provided a welcome relief but it wasn't the same as the social interaction we were used to. Before long, we started somewhat illegally, seeing more of a couple of close friends. I should mention that our friends, Dan and Louise, were close to us prior to the pandemic but the situation, and our agreement that we would only see each other during the restrictions, brought us closer. As a bit of background, we would have frequently had dinner parties, evening drinks and spent time together as couples and also individually. Essentially, we are comfortable and enjoy each other company. Given that social contact with anyone else was prohibited and we saw it as a way of preventing mental breakdown of all 4 of us; the benefits outweighed the illegality! We called it our mental health support bubble.
It was pre-Christmas 2020 and a 2nd, or perhaps it was the 3rd lockdown, was in enforcement, preventing our regular pre-christmas gatherings with friends and family. As a compromise to this, we had arranged a virtual night of cocktail tasting with friends but Dan and Louise came to our house.
"Make sure you inconspicuously come up", Michael had said on WhatsApp. "Perhaps come in the back door in case the neighbours are watching! I've left it open for you"
"On our way" Louise had replied.
Our choice to gather inside, I should add, was met with obvious disagreement from some of the virtual attendees who were trying to keep to the rules. But others had already voiced their flouting of the guidelines meaning we weren't too heavily scrutinised to be sitting together on the Zoom call. After several rounds, we were fairly merry and not concerned about anyone's opinions of our choice to be a support bubble for each other.
"I feel much better for having a 'normal' evening" I said "it's nice to be able to see people and just have company"
"Us too" said Louise, "I haven't felt this normal for ages, it's really nice to have actual social contact as well as seeing people on Zoom". She smiled at me and then at Michael.
I was sat next to Louise on the sofa and I could see that she was sitting close on the other side to Michael. We continued to chat with our friends on Zoom but on occasion out of the corner of my eye, I could see their hands intermittently touching.
"Is anyone cold?" Michael asked, and got a blanket, throwing it over himself, Louise and me. I could tell after a while that the movements of the blanket were their hands touching and Michaels hands ran up the inside of Louise's thigh.
I've never been a jealous type of person but I started to feel heat rising up inside me. Were my husband and best friend having feelings for each other? Were they seriously touching each other when I was sitting right next to them? Through my drunken state, all sorts of feelings coursed through me and I battled with what to say. Glancing at Dan, who was on the other side of room, I could see he hadn't noticed. Through lack of inhibition and wanting to bring attention to what I had clearly noted I decided to say something.
"Michael, why are you touching Louise's leg?" I asked
"I'm not" he stammered, but looks of guilt all over his face mixed with what was obviously extreme inebriation.
Not much was said between any of us after that and before long, Louise and Dan left.
"I cannot believe you were touching her, Michael" I shouted after the front door was closed. "Do you have feelings for her?"
"Obviously not, I love you" he returned, but his drunken state was not allowing him to even speak clearly and I quickly realised arguing about it now was futile
"You can sleep in the spare bed, I'm going to our room. We will talk about it in the morning".
I couldn't actually get to sleep however. I was mad at him, I felt our trust was broken, both for my husband but also in my friend who had similarly overstepped a boundary that shouldn't have needed to have been made explicit. What was more, I was thinking about him feeling her thigh and thinking about whether he had touched more than her leg under that blanket. She was wearing a skirt. Had he lifted it and touched bare skin? Had he felt further up her leg? The thoughts were maddening and making me angry but I realised that after a time, they were turning me on. The thought that my husband was touching another woman whilst I sat on the other side of her and her husband sat only meters away. It was blatant, it was exhibitionist and wrong. Which should have continued to encourage my feelings of anger, hurt and suspicion but it was rousing other feelings that I had not previously allowed myself to feel. I was realising that I actually didn't feel as upset with his actions as perhaps I told myself I should. In fact, I was starting to feel that he had opened a door that had previously been closed. An opportunity that would not have been there before he acted the way he had. He had presented the possibility that within our marriage, we could have feelings and thoughts towards others which, perhaps we had done previously, but they had never been voiced, or certainly, acted upon. I had been aware for some time that I was attracted to other people but would never have discussed this with my husband or anyone else for fear of being seen as unfaithful or ungrateful for our lives together. I wouldn't have wanted to jeopardise our family, our children. But this gave an opening where I could discuss my feelings, knowing that he had been the one in the 'wrong' first. I fell asleep knowing that lots more conversations were needed to iron out tonight's incident, but I knew that I would be able to use this to present an opportunity for us to communicate honestly and perhaps liven up our sex lives.
The next day, apologies came in droves from my husband, ashamed of his actions and committing to our marriage.
"Nothing was meant by it at all, we all had too much to drink. I'm not sure what I was thinking" he said
"I know, we all do things when we're drunk" I said, "but all that alcohol does is lower our inhibitions, we don't do things we don't want to do. Perhaps if you are really honest with yourself, you would admit that you wanted to touch her?"
"I didn't want to, I don't have feelings for her" he continued to protest "I was just drunk and she was too"
"Look, I'm not mad at you anymore, I think I should be more upset, but I realised that it's normal to have feelings for other people, to find other people attractive" I explained, "so, I'm not mad at you, I just think you need to be honest too"
