____________________________________________ I can't tell you when it started. I can though identify when it transformed from occasional fantasy to obsession. I had long held a fantasy, which judging by the contents of porno magazines is one commonly shared, of seeing my wife have sex with another man. My wife, Debbie, is five years younger than me, very attractive and slim. She plays sports a lot, jogging and tennis mainly, so she has a lithe figure. She is a well-liked, if not a popular person, since she does tend to seem rather aloof and pristine. In terms of looks she has warm brown eyes and fine cheekbones, with neat shoulder length brown hair. She looks, and is, intelligent, modern and sophisticated. She is always well-dressed, perhaps overly so, since even in a pair of jeans she still seems smart. Which is not to say she's cold, she is a loving wife, a good friend and caring boss, but she does have an air of remoteness about her, which I find incredibly sexy. I met her when she was twenty and we married three years later. Now she was approaching thirty and looking better than ever. Her look and style suited being slightly older I think, she had been too mature, too smart as a young woman. Our sex life was regular, if not frequent and I always felt that she held something back, that she maintained a degree of self-control. She rarely made much noise, and even when she did have an orgasm it was usually only a faint whimper. So, I don't know when it was I had my first fantasy about her having sex with another man, but I realised that the fantasy had become increasingly frequent, taking on various guises. Sometimes when we were making love I would imagine her with one of my friends, or I would masturbate picturing her picking up a stranger someplace. The fantasy grew in richness and there were certain features I would vary, such as the number of men involved, my presence, her sluttishness, whether it was in public and so on. I didn't worry about this recurring fantasy particularly. Just as I used to have an ongoing dream regarding my sixth form teacher, I figured it would pass. I would just let it run its course. It is probably never a good idea to analyse your sexual desires too deeply. Rather like examining the creative process or love, something is lost when you strip away the layers. But I was aware enough to realise that behind my fantasy lay two contributing factors. The first was that I was probably keen to share my wife through a primitive need to display my wealth. In this view she is my treasure and only by sharing her do other men appreciate what I have. The second motivation was related to removing, or undoing her level of self-control. Where else can you really remove this than in sex? So, most versions of my fantasy involved abandonment by Debbie at some point to full, primal lust. Neither of these motivations reflects well on me, which is why I said that sexual desires are best left unanalysed for they rarely reveal noble incentives. But I was still a faithful and loving husband, it wasn't as if I secretly despised her or resented her. Some of the consequences of my motivations were quite beneficial to the Debbie who populated my fantasies, for instance, because she has to willingly abandon herself to pleasure and behave in a slutty manner, I never subjected her to anything non-consensual or any degree of sadism. It's not much I know, but I've read enough stories on the net to know that my fantasy was quite tame in comparison. This fantasy carried on for about a year, during which time I developed it and experimented with variations. It didn't increase in intensity particularly, I would guess I indulged it twice a month or so. It would build during this period and then for a couple of days it would be all I could think of, and then after some intensive sex and masturbation, it would recede for a while. Maybe it would have stayed that way, were it not for a drunken conversation we had one night. It happened just as the fantasy was reaching its zenith. I had wanked that morning about Debbie and a pizza delivery boy (a cliché, but a favourite). We were at home, having drunk nearly three bottles of Chardonnay between us. It was getting late and Debbie was cuddled against me on the sofa. We were watching a late night chat show on TV. They were discussing erotic literature and one of the feminist contributors was dismissing a book as perpetuating the old misogynist fantasy of wife sharing, as it placed the woman as a possession of the husband, to be loaned out like a set of spanners. I squirmed in my seat, feeling uncomfortable that the woman could be directing her comments straight to me but also slightly aroused. "I don't get that," Debbie slurred. "A lot of men have that fantasy don't they?" "I dunno," I mumbled. "But then they spend all their time being jealous or possessive if another bloke looks at their wife. So, why would they want someone else to have sex with her?" She was displaying her usual logical approach, which I should have let pass. "Well, it's about fantasy isn't it? It's not that they would necessarily want it to happen in real life. I might fantasise about punching my boss, but that doesn't mean I actually want to do it." This was where I probably would have stopped if I had been sober and my fantasy hadn't been goading me. Instead I added another, loaded observation, "Besides, not all men get jealous if someone looks at their wife. It can be a compliment." This gained her interest and she turned her face up to me, "a compliment to who exactly?" "You know, the woman." "You mean the man don't you? That's just what she's been saying on the telly. It's a compliment to you because you own her. Is that what you think about me?" She was now sitting upright, facing me directly. I had been involved in enough drunken arguments with Debbie to know that she could create one instantly, and seemingly from nowhere. In her last statement her voice hadn't quite obtained the steely edge it did when an argument commenced, and from where there would be no retreat, but it had elements of it. She still had a playful smirk across her broad mouth, so I knew it was retrievable. "Of course I do love. You're all bought and paid for." "You wish," she said pinching my arm playfully and then returned to watching the programme. I breathed a sigh of relief and poured us some more wine. After a few minutes of silence, Debbie took a swig from her glass and asked, "no, seriously though, do you like it when other men look at me?" I tried to stay noncommittal but the sudden tenseness of my arm betrayed me. "Depends on who's looking I suppose." I took a gulp of wine and added unconvincingly, "never really thought about it." Still looking at the TV she continued her interrogation, "but surely it shouldn't matter who's looking. It's not as if ugly blokes only look at ugly women. If someone's looking at me then you either like it or you don't. Unless you don't feel secure about our relationship I guess." "Course I feel secure." "Well then, do you like it or not?" "I've never noticed anyone looking at you that way to know whether I like it or not." She sat up again and looked directly at me in the unflinching manner she had. "You know that's a lie. I don't mean to sound big-headed but Tim can't take his eyes off me when he comes round here, particularly when he's had a few. It gets embarrassing sometimes. And I know you've noticed it too. Like last summer when we had that barbecue, he couldn't stop staring at my legs." Tim was a friend of mine from university days. He was a nice guy, quite shy and perpetually single. Of course I had noticed him staring at Debbie, and as she said, when he had a few drinks he became even less discrete about it. Naturally he had been an early star in a few versions of my fantasy - one where we shared her and one involving a chance encounter on the stairs during the night. Debbie's mention of him caused a flush of embarrassment, I felt as though she knew my secret and was trying to get me to reveal it. Flustered, I replied, "oh, well he is a bit of a legs man, I'll grant you, so when you wear a pair of shorts like that, he's bound to look." "I'm not arguing about that. What I'm asking is whether you like it or not." Then she pulled her annoying trick of sabotaging my answer, "and don't say you don't care one way or the other, because this is an either or thing." Defeated by her relentless logic, I slumped in my seat, "I guess I like it then." Once she latched on to something Debbie was not one to let it drop easily. She smiled, relishing the debate to come. It still hovered somewhere between argument and teasing, so I knew I had to monitor what I said carefully, and that I couldn't simply clam up. That was the surest way to escalate it to a full-blown row, by refusing to participate. So, I was locked in to this discussion for as long as Debbie wanted to pursue it, and when she was drunk that could mean a long time. "So, is it just Tim, or when any bloke looks at me that you like it?" She emptied the last of the bottle and passed me a fourth bottle to open as I tried to avoid the mines in the conversation ahead. "I don't really notice men looking at you all the time. I never knew that you were so obsessed by it." "Hey, don't try that, turning it back on me. A woman knows when she's being ogled, even if it's just a brief glance. Like that bloke in the pub the other night who was sitting next to us, he gave me a few glances. And I know you spotted it, because you caught him and he looked away quickly." "Oh, yes I remember." "Well, did you like it then?" "I think perhaps more to the point is whether you like it." "That's different. I am the object of it, so to like it would be to participating in it. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't. But you're my husband, you're an observer. So, I'll ask again," the hard quality to her voice was beginning to assert itself now. "Do you like it?" She separated out each word, and I knew I wouldn't be able to avoid answering again. "Yes, then I do. Satisfied?" I was foolish if I thought this would be an end to it. "But tell me then, when do you like it?" Now it was her turn to squirm slightly, "Well, if I've made an effort, it's nice to be appreciated. Or," and here she gave me a mischievous smile, "if the guy is a looker." "Oh yes, like when?" "I don't know, I don't keep a diary of them, just sometimes you feel a bit flattered if a good-looking guy gives you a second glance. But as I said, it's different for me. What I want to know is why you like it. For me it can be flattering or an acknowledgement that I have dressed well or something, but that's not the case for you. So, why do you like it?"
I always found it difficult to argue with Debbie when I was drunk. I knew I shouldn't let her turn the focus back on me, but I felt subject to her logic. "I don't know. I guess it makes me feel proud, you know, that some bloke has looked at you and fancies you, and that you are with me. And because I do feel secure in our relationship I don't feel threatened by it. Perhaps I feel flattered by proxy." I was rather pleased with this answer, so helped myself to some more wine. She pondered this for a while and just when I thought the danger has passed she said, "I suppose that is different from thinking of me as your property. But it's still strange that you like other men to fancy me. I understand that it is a reinforcement of your taste and we all need that I suppose, but I still find it a bit odd. So, when you say you like it, how do you mean? Would you like it if the bloke came up to me?" "Probably not," I shrugged. "I mean it would be a bit rude. And besides if it made you feel uncomfortable or threatened I wouldn't like that." "Okay, but say I didn't feel threatened. Say I liked it, that I flirted back a little bit. Would you like that?" God, she was relentless once she started. "No, I mean that would make me feel a bit awkward. I might not feel secure in our relationship if you were flirting with men all over the place." "Ahh, poor darling," she stroked my cheek playfully. "Alright then, say I'm just flirting, just playing around, and you don't feel insecure, you're in on it too. Would you like it then?" "Jesus, this is all getting a bit hypothetical isn't it? I don't know, I can't imagine it," I lied. "Why are you so obsessed with it? Do you want to flirt with someone?" "I'm just trying to understand it that's all. If you like it when a man looks at me, I want to know what the limits are. So, would you like it if he talked to me and I flirted a little, as long as you were in on it?" "I suppose it might be fun." Oh, now we're getting somewhere," she said, grinning. "Okay, so this chap is talking to me, and we're having some fun, I'm flirting a little bit. Then he puts his hand on my leg, in front of you. What do you do?" "I think more to the point is what do you do?" Although I knew it was probably not a good idea, I couldn't help feeling a little aroused by all this talk and imagining the scenario she was developing. "I look at you, awaiting your response. If you indicate that you don't like it, then game over. So what is your response? Does the hand stay there or not?" "Where are we? At home? In public?" "We're in a pub, say." "And who is this bloke?" "A stranger in his mid-twenties, he's alright looking, but nothing special." I couldn't help myself, I needed to see how it unfolded, "it stays." "Really?" she was astonished. "Wow. Okay, so you're letting this bloke touch me, in front of you. Then he begins to move his hand up my leg, so it's on my upper thigh. Do you stop him?" I couldn't stop him or myself now. "No," I whispered. "Good God, you're my husband. When are you going to stop him?" "You're the one letting him touch you," I protested. "Well maybe I want you to stop him, to show you care." Her voice was raising in pitch now. "Or maybe you like it," I retorted. "That's what you want isn't it? You want me to like being touched up." I tried to soothe the situation, as it would soon escalate into a full blown argument. "Look Debbie, you're a grown woman. It's precisely because you're not my property that I'm not going to intervene. If you are letting this bloke touch you up, provided you're not drunk or drugged, then I have to be adult enough to stand back." She relaxed her shoulders, "okay, fair point. Let's go back to whether you like it or not. This bloke is stroking my thigh, do you like it?" "What are you doing?" "I'm just sitting there, pretending not to notice. So, do you like it?" "Yes." "Why?" "It seems fun. A bit of a turn-on, you know." "So now we get to it," she rubbed her hands. "It turns you on that this bloke is touching me up. I never knew that about you. Okay, now imagine that we have an agreement that I won't stop it unless you take action. It's up to you to end it." "A strange agreement," I commented. "Why would we have made that?" "Let's say it's unspoken, but you understand it from the look I give you." "Okay." "Right. So not content with touching me he now takes my chin and gives me a kiss. I don't respond and look at you. Do you stop him now?" "No." "So now he gives me a full on snog, pushing his tongue into my mouth." "It takes two to snog. You can't pretend not to notice now." "Okay, I respond then, not over-vigourously, but appropriately. Surely you are going to say enough is enough now. This bloke is snogging your wife in front of you, his tongue is my mouth for God's sake!" "I'm not going to stop him." She raised her eyebrows. "Well, well. I really am finding out something about you now." I shrugged. "Okay," she continued, "this is the crunch one now. He continues kissing me and his hand leaves my thigh and he fondles my tits through my top. The people on the next table are now looking at us. Tell me you're going to stop him." "No," I was seriously aroused now. My voice was shaking so I didn't dare say more. "I can't believe this. You understand what I'm saying? This stranger is groping my tits in public, people are looking at us. And you're just sitting there?" "I like it," I mumbled. "Obviously. Alright then he whispers in my ear and then takes my hand and places it on his very obvious erection." "What do you do?" I asked quietly. "Nothing, I just leave it there. Don't tell me, you don't stop us. Okay, last chance. He stops molesting me and says `Let's go outside.' I look at you, so he says to you, `I'm going to take your wife out the back and fuck her. Is that okay with you?'. You're not going to let him are you? Come on. What do you say to him?" She was looking fiercely at me. "Debbie..." I pleaded. "What do you say to him? Yes or No," she demanded. "Yes," I groaned. She flung her hands up. "You dirty little man! It's amazing you live with someone and you don't know them. You would let this bloke fuck me in some pub car park, because you felt turned on." Then she stopped and a look of amazement came across her features. "This isn't the first time you've thought about this is it? This is your fantasy isn't it? Tell me, isn't it?" I was defeated by now. "Yes," I sighed. "You pervert! You're my husband. You're supposed to love me." "I do!" I protested, but it was all too late. She was standing up now. "I'm going to bed now, I'd prefer it if you didn't follow me." She slammed the door and stamped upstairs. I slumped on the sofa, bewildered by the conversation that had taken place. There it was, out in the open now. What I thought would be a passing, private fantasy was now public and threatening our marriage. I wondered how we would get over this particular argument, it wasn't like a simple disagreement. She had found out something about me she didn't like. As I laid down on the sofa I pondered this, then slowly my hand went inside my trousers as I thought of Debbie and the stranger in the pub...