Mail Order Grooms

Note: This story does not contain graphic sex.

*

You can call me Stella. It is not my real name, but I use it professionally. You see I run a successful small business that matches secure, older women with younger men. It all happened quite by accident. At forty-five, I had climbed the Wall Street ladder; stepping on many men and women on my way up. But then the financial crisis hit. Oh, don't worry too much about me. I was one of those 'lucky' ones with a golden parachute that made working people see red.

So it was that I found myself sunning on a beach in Barbados with a sweet but strong drink in my hand. That was also how I met Peter. He was the bartender at my exclusive four-star hotel (I forewent the five-star because of the uncertain economy, of course). He was twenty-two, with long braids and the darkest skin I think I had ever seen. He was over six feet with a body that my personal trainer would envy. As the drinks kept coming, I became increasingly bold with my appreciation...for his assets. By the end of that first day, the drinks were not the only thing that was cumming.

I had booked into that hotel for two weeks, but I stayed a month. Along the way, the most amazing thing happened...I actually became fond of my boy-toy. Peter was intelligent and funny as well as having the stamina that no man my age could match without those magical little blue pills. Our lives fell into a routine of sorts. He worked at the bar during the day. I usually did not wake up until the afternoon, because each night had been spent eating, drinking and dancing at local clubs most tourists never find. Of course, it was the hours of lovemaking when we got back to my room. How the hell Peter found the energy to work after that is beyond me?

But after a month, I could no longer justify the hotel expenses...for even the best cock. So I faced the prospect of returning alone to New York or buying a second home in Barbados. I had begun to look for a realtor when my boy-toy suggested an unusual alternative: marriage. He could then return with me to New York. I could as the saying goes...have my cake and eat it too. I was more than a tad shocked at the idea, but after turning it over in my logical mind I had to admit it had its merits. Before his death, my own father had gone through three trophy wives after his twenty year marriage to my mother. Why shouldn't women like me have trophy husbands?

We did it and with the help of my attorneys even the complicated immigration paperwork seemed to disappear in weeks. But having seen the mistakes my father made with his trophies, I had a game plan. It began with an air-tight pre-nup. Oh, I wasn't stingy. In the case of divorce within the first ten years, Peter received what would be a decent income for most people...around three thousand dollars a month. Of course, this would provide a significantly lower life style than he could have as my husband, especially in New York; which was the point after all.

Second part of the plan, I was not having Peter lie around the house or have the whole day to spend my money. So the moment we arrived in the Big Apple, I took him to a career counsellor, who performed a slew of tests to find out his aptitudes. I then enrolled him in business courses at the local college; turns out he had a mind for figures, other than my own. I am not ashamed to say I bribed him; my monthly allowance was based on his grades. Of course, I also added him to my membership at the exclusive health club where I had belonged for years. But I dropped my personal trainer. Who needs one when your husband can make workouts so much more fun?

So with college and the gym, Peter's days were more full than my own. For someone that had been working eighteen hour days for over two decades, it was getting boring...fast. The economy was not recovering as quickly as predicted. Besides I was not certain that I wanted another twenty years of eighteen hour days when I did not need them financially. I owned by loft conversion in SoHo and had more money in the bank than most people make in a lifetime. It seemed greedy and pointless to work so hard for more.

I did feel a tad guilty though so I decided to volunteer for a children's center in Harlem. They were delighted to have someone with my business acumen and connections; until the evening that Peter joined me for a fundraising dinner. The middle-aged African-American director was decidedly cooler to me after that. But I did not really care; I enjoyed the children and found meaning in my work...for a change.

As a result of my fundraising, I was also becoming re-acquainted with several of my former friends and colleagues; mature, successful women like me. Like me, a few now had to re-build their lives with golden parachutes. Others were still so caught up in those eighteen hour days that they had little to no time for a personal life. Over three martini lunches, I discovered something: they envied me...Peter obviously. They were as jealous or more so of my marriage as they had been of my professional success.

After weeks of hearing their whines, an idea began to form in my mind. I was curious what my husband would think of it though. As I said, Peter had a head for figures and was excelling at his accounting course; a fact that kept the monthly transfers into his personal account rather high, but I'm not complaining. So our pillow talk after those long hours of lovemaking turned to business. Then our conversations while we worked out at the club followed suit. Soon my days were spent formulating a business plan and doing market research; over more three martini lunches.

The idea was simple: mail order grooms. There were dozens upon dozens of international marriage brokers as they were actually called that catered to matching Western men with women from developing countries looking for a better life and a new beginning. Not a single one of them offered the reverse: younger men for mature successful women.

I was though rather disappointed when I was benchmarking the competition, if you call them that. They did only the basics to qualify either the men or their potential mates. To qualify for a bride, the men had to pay the several thousand dollar fee and have the criminal background check required by federal law. As far as the potential brides, there were even fewer hurdles. Basically if you had a pulse and showed up for the free food offered at the mixer then you were on your own with a room full of men looking for a wife...or a quick lay. This was not what I wanted for my agency. I wanted quality...in both clients and potential grooms. So together Peter and I began to sift through ideas about what we thought clients and the young men wanted.

It was an enlightening experience for me. I discovered that other than the money he sent to his mother for his younger brother and sister and some modest expenses Peter did not touch his allowance. He said that despite what I thought he did not marry me for my money; the money just made things like immigrating easier. I also found out that my husband's biggest worry about marrying me had been the fact that he realized we might never have children. I discovered too that he had his first experience with the mother of a girl he had been pursuing. She had told him that her daughter was more like her father and he would be much better off with her. In the end, he had more than agreed. He had also never dated another woman his own age after that. He said she ruined him for younger women.

By the time we went back to Barbados for Christmas, we had a firm idea about what we wanted. We rented a conference room at the hotel where he used to work and had his friends and family spread the word about what we were doing. Word of mouth was our marketing plan for both clients and prospective grooms. We felt that this insured the decorum that we wanted our agency to reflect. But I admit that I was shocked when more than fifty young men turned up for the first round of interviews. In the end, we selected two dozen that we felt might be suitable.

Then the fun began, Peter spent three days 'training' them. Our trainings are one of the things that we believe make us special. Topics covered with the young men include culture shock, budgeting, and career planning. For the clients, I prefer one-on-one interviews to discuss such delicate matters as personal allowances, plans for the future and how to handle friends and family. We also bought the rights to those in-depth personality profiling programs touted by relationship sites. We try our best to make only matches we believe will last.

Since those humble beginnings a year ago, we now offer trips to not only the West Indies, but also Belize in Central America. For a more traditional offering, we are working on an Eastern European option to begin next year. We have made almost one hundred matches so far; no divorces or annulments yet either. Peter and I are both proud of our 'baby' if you will. But perhaps some of our clients could explain that better...

As for personally, well, those early conversations got me thinking. It seemed that my husband had invested far more, at least emotionally, into our marriage. I thought I should bend a bit as well. So we decided together that we would adopt the two year old daughter of his cousin, who was in jail. Of course, you know that old wives' tale about how adoptive couples immediately fall pregnant. Well, that's exactly what happened to this old wife. So expanding the business will have to wait until my waist stops expanding. But life is good. As the movie title said...this Stella definitely got her groove back.