Author's note: Each story in this series is complete and separate, with no plot or characters in common with the others. Only one thin thread connects them.
Many thanks to bythewx for first editing and improving this story.
Special thanks to
winterhunny713
for fresh perspectives and challenges that resulted in major improvements.
*
Opposites attract. Whoever said that never met Jory and me.
I take that back. I can't think of anyone else remotely like us, so the rule must be true. We are the exception.
Sometimes our friends tease us about how similar we are, like two peas in a pod. Whatever I like, she likes. We like the same books and the same movies. Politically, we have the same opinions. If I try something new at a restaurant and don't like it, I know she won't like it either. If she tells me about a great song she heard, I know I'm going to love it.
When we make love, it's like I'm making love to myself. If I experiment with a new twist and it feels good, she'll go for it, too. When she discovers something that gets her excited, it will probably drive me wild.
There are a few big differences. Jory is all woman, and I enjoy being her man. There's no gender confusion with us. She has a great body, slim and firm and compact, except for her slightly oversized breasts. I'm eight inches taller than she is and a lot more angular.
Most of her girlfriends are also hot. When she catches me looking at one of them, she kids me, but she knows I'd never step out on her. Her libido is as strong as mine, and I sometimes see her eyes follow a well-built guy working out at the club. I don't say anything, because I can't picture Jory cheating on me.
Occasionally a woman I meet through work flirts with me, but I never flirt back or try anything. I've never seen Jory flirting, but I'm sure guys come on to her when I'm not around. It doesn't matter because, as I said, I'm not jealous.
We have different careers, but we're both in people type jobs. I'm on the road sometimes, but usually only a few days each month. I wouldn't take a job that kept me away from Jory too long.
Another thing we have in common is that we like to surprise each other, especially for birthdays or anniversaries. We pretend that we are pushing each other out of our comfort zone, but we both know that if one of us likes the surprise, the other one is going to like it, too.
About two weeks before my birthday this year, Jory told me she was working on an unusual surprise gift and that I needed to block out Saturday. Saturday was not my birthday, so I wondered what she needed me for.
Her birthday is a couple of days after mine -- we are even the same sign -- and I had already picked out an unusual restaurant that was the kitchen of a farmhouse ten miles outside of town. The farmer's wife makes dinner for only two people and only one night a week. Almost everything is grown in her garden and picked that day. I was hoping that Jory hadn't heard about the place. I knew she would love it.
The doorbell rang Saturday morning, and when I answered it, Myra was standing there. Myra was the only friend of Jory's I didn't care for.
It wasn't because she was a butch lesbian. Jory had a couple of other gay girlfriends, and we got along great. But Myra managed to turn every conversation into a lecture about men, from complaints to ridicule to utter contempt. Jory told me the reason was that she had been abused by her father and grew up thinking all men were predators.
Jory saw to it that Myra and I were seldom in the same room together, so I was a little surprised to see her there. She said, "Hi, Jory's expecting me," in her low, gruff voice and rudely pushed past me without even a smile.
Jory came out of the kitchen and said "Hi, Myra. You can go ahead and set up while I tell Ken what we're doing."
Myra, who is as big as I am and probably just as muscular, walked back out, stomping through the house in the men's boots she was wearing. Jory sat down on the couch and motioned for me to sit in the easy chair facing her.
"I got the idea for this present about a month ago," she said. "The surprise is today, but you won't receive the present until your birthday."
She laughed at the puzzled look on my face.
"Let me explain. This started the day after you came home from a four-day road trip. You were out running some errands, and I was cleaning in your office when I thought of something I needed to Google, and I saw your laptop open on your desk, so I sat down and started typing.
"My hand slipped on the mouse and by accident I clicked on 'History' at the top of the page. I started to close it, but then something caught my eye. You had been looking at 'Anal Housewives Dot Com.' I was surprised. I never knew you were interested in anal. You've never said anything to me about it, probably because I told you how disgusting I thought it was. I just figured you felt the same."
"Stop, Jory!" I said. "I can explain."
"Wait, Ken, let me finish. I went to the website and browsed around. It was just as ugly and disturbing as I thought it would be. Then I went back and looked at more of your history.
"You had visited a lot of different websites, and as I started checking them out, I couldn't believe how vile they were and how demeaning to women. There were videos of women doing things that were just plain sick. I wondered how low they could go, and as I went from site to site, I saw there was nothing so degrading that some woman wouldn't do it. I knew they were getting paid for it, but I was still amazed.
"I wondered if you were paying some of those women to do those things to them. I began to think that I didn't know you at all. You know how we joke about how similar our tastes are? Well, this was a side of you that was completely different from the Ken that I know and love. After a while, I had to run to the bathroom and throw up."
"Stop, Jory! Let me explain! When I'm on the road -- well, you know how charged up I get when things prevent us from getting together for more than a few nights.
"I never go down to the hotel bar looking for action, but I use my laptop to give me some relief. What you saw isn't the real me. It's a frustrated salesman who wishes he were back home making love to his beautiful wife."
"Oh, but it is the real you," Jory said. "It's just a different side of you. You didn't go to any sites with videos of men having loving sex with their beautiful wives, or whores pretending to be them.
"Sometimes we fuck like animals. I like it, and I thought you did, too. I saw lots of sites offering that kind of sex, but you didn't look at them either. You only watched videos that showed men doing the grossest things to women."
"Men don't go for vanilla porn," I protested. "You know that. Those sites are for women. Men are from Mars."
"Of course. It's just that I thought you were different, that you were more like me. But let me finish, because the real surprise is still coming."