While My Wife's Away

by James Lear

  ‘That trainer, Adrian—he’s a physiotherapist. He really helped me out.’

  ‘Oh, right. Is he good?’

  ‘Yeah.’ We were facing each other, washing, chatting, nothing unusual except for the fact that I was now at least halfway hard, my cock standing about 45 degrees from my body. I noticed him glancing down. ‘He’s got magic hands. He gave me a massage.’

  ‘Sounds great. Nothing like a good massage to sort you out.’

  ‘I should probably get them more regularly.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  That seemed to be the end of the conversation, and we were left with nothing but the sound of running water and my cock apparently trying to reach across the space between us. He was looking at it quite openly now, and when I looked over, I saw that he was also getting hard.

  ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me,’ I said. ‘This doesn’t usually happen.’

  ‘That’s OK. I’m enjoying the view.’

  I cleared my throat and felt the blood pounding in my temples. This had switched from a bit of innocent banter in the showers to something else. ‘Oh, right. You’re . . . ’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Right.’ What should I do now? Is it up to me to make the move? My cock said yes, but my shaky knees said no. The decision was made for me—the door at the far end of the changing room banged, and we both turned to face the wall. I rinsed off quickly and grabbed my towel, painfully aware that if I rubbed my cock a few times, I’d be squirting come against the tiles.

  I dressed quickly, concealed from my shower friend by a bank of lockers. Shit! What just happened? I’m not gay. I’m not even a bit gay, am I? I’ve never done anything like that. Why am I suddenly showing off my hard cock to blokes? Why did it feel so good when Adrian touched me? Why didn’t I just laugh this off instead of standing in the shower with a stiff cock and a pounding heart, not wanting it to stop, loving the fact that I was making him hard, that he was watching me and wanting me? Is this what’s been building up inside me in all these years of wanking? Is this why I stopped having sex with Angie? Is it my fault? Jesus, have I just turned gay without even knowing it? What the fuck was going on?

  ‘See you, mate.’

  He was dressed too, suit and tie, black shoes, popping his head around the lockers, a friendly smile on his face, nothing more. Say goodbye, let him go, it’s all over, nothing happened. I felt sick. The pain from my neck? Hunger after a workout? What?

  ‘Hang on a sec,’ I said, stuffing my kit into my bag. ‘I’ll walk out with you.’ The words were out before I could stop them. And in retrospect, it was those few words that changed everything. I might have remained one of the millions of middle-aged men stuck in an unhappy marriage, whose lives go nowhere once they’ve passed forty. But instead, thanks to a trapped nerve, a skillful masseur, and a friendly word from a bloke in a shower, I have a story to tell.

  We walked down to the reception area in silence. I didn’t know what I wanted to happen—I just knew that I didn’t want it, whatever it was, to end yet.

  We were at the door.

  ‘Well,’ he said, with a smile on his face.

  ‘I’m . . . I’m sorry about . . . you know.’

  ‘No need to apologize. You’re very sexy.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’

  ‘Take it from me.’ I must have looked like an idiot, my mouth agape and my brows furrowed. He laughed. ‘Look, would you like to come for a quick coffee? I live just over the road.’

  ‘Just over the road.’

  ‘That’s right. My flat.’ He pointed. ‘Over there. About a minute’s walk.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Or not. Up to you.’

  I couldn’t actually form any words.

  ‘OK. Look, I don’t want to put any pressure on you. I just thought . . . ’

  ‘Yes. I’ll come. Yes. Which way? This way?’ I was gabbling, but fortunately he took control, steered me over the crossing without letting me fall under a bus, and walked at a brisk pace toward a block of flats. Up some steps, through a door, and into a lift. I was in a daze.

  ‘What’s your name, mate?’

  ‘Joe.’

  ‘I’m Michael. It’s OK. I’m not going to do anything you don’t want me to.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  The lift went up. My knees were buckling. I’d like to say that I thought of my wife and kids, but I’m not sure that’s true. They were there in a kaleidoscope of other confused ideas, swirling through my mind as the lift seemed to shoot into space at a thousand miles an hour. The walls were mirrored, and there I was, endlessly repeated, in images of my possible future, so many different possibilities, and this was the moment that I chose one of them. I could press the button and stop the lift, or I could walk out and run down the stairs. I could tell Michael that he’d made a mistake, that I’d made a mistake, that it was just a joke or an accident . . . .

  The doors opened. I was dimly aware of brown carpet and cream-colored walls, overhead lights down a corridor along which we seemed to glide until we reached a door with dark wood, brushed steel fittings, and everything clean and silent apart from the rushing noise in my ears.

  ‘Are you OK, Joe?’

  The key was in the lock. I said, ‘Yeah, of course,’ and my voice sounded quite normal. He opened the door and I seemed to be drawn in, as if by a vacuum.

  ‘I think you’d better sit down.’

  I made it as far as a chair in the hallway—a straight-backed wooden chair with a moulded seat, the sort that cups your arse. As I sat, I was aware that my cock was still hard—harder than it had ever been before, painfully so. I looked down. My trousers were bulging in an obscene manner.

  ‘I think we’d better take care of you.’ He knelt in front of me. ‘Is that OK?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Yes. Please.’

  ‘OK.’ I tried to sound casual, but my dick was practically undoing my fly from inside in its desperation to reach him.

  Michael knew what he was doing, for which I will always be grateful. He didn’t fumble with my belt, buttons, or zipper. He didn’t rush or tear, but he didn’t prolong the agony unduly. He rubbed my thighs, squeezed my balls, ran his hand over the length of my cock, and then pulled my trousers down to my ankles. I’m fussy about my underwear; I always wear nice fresh briefs that I throw away after about five washes. It’s my one big extravagance, and I’ve never been happier about that than I was at this moment. They were pale blue with a white waistband and piping around the fly, with a dark, damp spot over the tip of my cock. Michael stroked me gently through the fabric and then buried his face in it. From that point on, I watched the proceedings from somewhere outside myself. My body was incapacitated by pleasure, my brain flooded with chemicals, but part of me was hovering up there thinking ‘this is interesting, you’re getting your cock sucked by a man, he’s doing a very good job, it feels better than anything you’ve ever experienced before, and what does this mean? Will you be the same person when you leave as you were when you walked in? How on earth did this happen? Was it Adrian’s touch? Was it something clicking in your brain when you hurt your neck? Are you gay then? Bisexual? What will happen next? I can’t wait to find out.

  And then I looked down and saw that my cock was out, bigger and harder than it had ever been, the foreskin half-retracted over the head, and Michael was running his tongue up and down the underside of the shaft, gently squeezing my balls with one hand and running his other over my hard, flat stomach. Then his tongue reached the top of my cock and found my wet, sticky hole, and I tuned out again, eyes closed, unable to comprehend what he was doing to me.

  There’s something very comforting about being in the hands of an expert. It’s like when you trust the pilot of a plane or read a book and realize (after twenty pages or so) that the writer knows what he’s doing. You settle back, relax, and enjoy the ride, confident that you’ll get to where you want to go. My experience of oral sex to this da
te had been hit or miss—Angie was never much interested, and my previous girlfriends had been either timid or rather over-enthusiastic. I’ve heard friends talking about ‘a good blowjob’ and I always wondered if such a thing existed, or whether it was just something dreamed up by the porn industry. Well, that question was now being answered. Michael’s lips were around the head of my cock, now sliding slowly down, with just enough suction, enough wetness to make it smooth, and I was inside him, all the way to the base, his nose touching my pubic hair. I must have entered his throat, but he never gagged or stopped. Up he came again, circled me with his tongue, tickled my hole, and then went down. Thumb and forefinger gripped my balls, squeezing them, pulling them gently down. They were tight. I was going to come soon. I put my hands on his head, holding him, caressing him, a sudden feeling of intimacy and affection sweeping over me.

  It’s been so long since I came at anyone’s hands but my own that I wanted to pull out of his mouth and finish myself off—it felt too strange, too intense, too personal. But Michael was having none of it: He kept my cock in his mouth, firmly moved my hand away, and kept sucking, allowing me to fuck his mouth till I thought I’d choke him. But he didn’t miss a beat, not even when spunk started shooting out of me. He took it all, swallowed it, and when I’d finished, he held me in his mouth until my breathing slowed down.

  It was only when he let me go, and my cock slipped out with a wet plop, that I started to think about what I’d just done. I couldn’t look at Michael, who had the good sense to busy himself with something or other, turning his back so that I could sort myself out in relative privacy. I didn’t know whether I wanted to run away immediately, pants around my ankles, or move in with him.

  The orgasm was over, and thanks to Michael’s skilled throat, there was no mess to clean up, so I switched into everyday mode, pretending that I was simply dressing after a workout at the gym. I was matey, even jokey. ‘Phew! Yeah, well, that was quite something, not what I was expecting when I got to the gym today, you never know what’s going to happen, do you, bit of a surprise, to be honest, but anyway, I’d better get going . . . .’ I was gabbling again, and by this time my shirt was tucked in, my fly and belt done up, and the obscene bulge was gone.

  Michael turned around and said, ‘OK then, well, nice to see you, hope that was enjoyable.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ Don’t tell him what you’re really thinking, that something in your life has changed, that you’re broken beyond repair, or that you’re mended in some strange way. Don’t pour out the confusion and fear. ‘Very nice, ta.’

  Ta? Ta? Like he just made you a cup of tea or a sandwich?

  His eyebrows flicked up a little as if he was about to laugh, but he suppressed it. ‘Well, you know where I am, if you ever want to . . . come again.’

  ‘Sure.’ I should get his number, shouldn’t I? Or will he ask for mine? What do people do? ‘OK. I’ll see you around.’ I stepped toward the door. He opened it for me.

  ‘The lift’s just down there.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  I hesitated. I was in no rush to get home. We could just talk.

  ‘Well . . . ’

  And I walked away, down the soft, muffling carpet, to the escape of the lift and the lobby and the street.

  Nobody on the train home realized that my life was breaking into pieces. I was returning to my wife after pumping my load down a man’s throat. Surely it was written all over me, the guilt, the panic. People should be backing away in horror. The train should fly off its tracks. But no—we pulled into the station on time, and there was my car in its usual place in the car park, my key slipped into the ignition, and I took my normal route home. I stopped for a bottle of wine. Angie would be home. We could have a drink and a laugh, and I might find that all I really needed to do was talk to my wife and stop taking my marriage for granted. I’d stop thinking about what Adrian’s hands had done to me, how I’d felt when Michael first looked at my naked cock in the shower, how hard it got, and then his tongue on my hole, his lips moving up and down like wet silk, his thumb and finger circling my tight balls, tugging them as I emptied myself into him. I was hard again when I got to the house. Perhaps I should just take Angie upstairs and try to relight our fire.

  ‘Hi darling!’

  Silence.

  ‘Hello? Angie?’

  The house was empty. Alex was out at a friend’s house, I knew that—but where was Angie? She hadn’t said anything this morning. No emails or texts, no note on the kitchen table, just silence and absence and emptiness. The thought flashed through my mind that she somehow knew what had happened and had left me. Of course it was impossible—nobody knew, except Michael and me, and unless he’d somehow traced her number and called her to say that her husband was gay . . . irrational of course, but that didn’t stop my heart from beating fast and my hands from shaking.

  Take a deep breath. Sort yourself out. Nothing has happened— nothing will happen. Everything in the house is normal. My marriage is failing, my kids don’t need me, I’m lonely and frustrated, but I have my home, however empty. Nobody knows. And if I make an effort, even I won’t know. I won’t go running back to Michael or book another appointment with Adrian. I’ll put it down to temporary insanity and move on. If I’m horny, I can surely find a woman somewhere who will take care of me, even if it’s for money. I don’t have to pursue a path that can only lead to ruin.

  I was hungry, so I made a sandwich. I was thirsty, so I had a beer—not something I often do at home; there’s not much point in spending all those hours in the gym if I’m going to hide my abs under a beer belly—and then I realized that I was still horny as hell, my dick had been half-hard ever since I got home. Angie wasn’t here, and short of running out onto the suburban street and ringing doorbells until I could find somebody willing, I’d have to rely on my own hand as usual. I went upstairs to the study—a fourth bedroom, according to the real estate agent, but really only big enough for a desk and a chair—and turned on the computer. Like every other man, I have my go-to sites for quick relief, all of them officially heterosexual even if I have been taking more of an interest in the cocks than I’m supposed to. But tonight I was feeling defiant. Angie wasn’t there, she’d missed her big chance to get our marriage back on track, and so, damn it, I was going to find some gay porn and wank over it while thinking about Adrian and Michael.

  It didn’t take long to find a slim, smooth, and muscular blond guy in his twenties sucking the cock of a big, hairy, and also muscular dark-haired guy in his forties. I lasted about two minutes before I shot a massive load that hit the screen, desk, keyboard, and my trousers.

  I had barely cleaned up when I heard a key in the front door. My wife was home.

  2

  I WENT THREE DAYS WITHOUT THE GYM, ON ADRIAN’S ORDERS. Three days away from any kind of temptation—I don’t get naked with other men anywhere else. I was wanking more frequently than usual, and any idea of resuming sexual relations with my wife had been blown out of the water after she announced that we might try sleeping in separate beds for a while because of her terrible insomnia. First I’d heard of it; if anything, I was the one who lost sleep because of Angie’s snoring, which is audible a hundred yards away. So for now, I decamped to Nicky’s room, sleeping in a single bed underneath posters of One Direction and Zac Efron, which she hadn’t taken down despite being away at university. This isn’t how I saw my marriage turning out, but I guess I’m just one of the millions for whom middle age is a long series of disappointments. How long would it be before Angie announces that she wants a divorce? When Alex goes to college in October? We wouldn’t be the first couple to split as soon as the youngest child leaves home. Does love have a shelf-life? Can it last more than ten, twenty years? Does parenthood kill it for good? Maybe that’s what happened to us: we just fell out of love, we turned into Mum and Dad, and now that the kids are leaving, we’re nothing. It had happened to plenty of my friends, and I could see myself going the same way, moving into a bach
elor flat a few miles up the road, leaving Angie in the family home until we’re forced to sell it, and organizing the rest of our lives around seeing the kids on their rare visits. It’s always the fathers who lose out. Nicky and Alex are closer to their mother. It’s the natural way of things. They ask me for money, but that’s about it. Soon they won’t even need that. I’ll get old on my own, lonely and desperate, paying hookers when I can afford them, and wanking the rest of the time until I don’t even want to do that anymore, and then death.

  As you can see, I get grumpy when I don’t get exercise. Everyone who knows me thinks I’m permanently cheerful, the life and soul of the party, but I can only maintain that with hard work and a lot of endorphins. Left to my own devices, without weights and treadmills and circuit training, I’m prone to the blues. Sleeping in your daughter’s bed doesn’t help either, and let me tell you, it adds a whole new dimension of guilt to any inappropriate sexual thoughts you might be having. I have to do my wanking in the bathroom.

  I’m still thinking about Adrian and Michael and what they did to me—that’s what I come back to again and again at the moment when I come, however hard I try to think about women. I don’t want to be gay—I’m not gay; I’m just thinking about how they made me feel, the only two people who have touched me recently, and they just happen to be men, it wasn’t my choice, I haven’t changed one bit.

  The thing is, I don’t really know what it means to be gay or straight or bisexual. I’ve never given it any thought. Sexuality doesn’t feature on your agenda until you have doubts. I went through my teens, twenties, and thirties as the most normal bloke you could ever meet. I know a few gay guys—one or two of my friends at university were gay, but I didn’t keep up with them. I’ve met people at parties. Angie’s close to a couple, and she goes out with them once in a while; they’re nice enough, but I hardly know them. So I really don’t have any idea how it works, what it looks like. I have the vague idea, borne out by recent experience, that it’s incredibly easy to have sex with other men, that there are clubs and saunas and apps all around us. I’ve been conscious of men looking at me at the gym or even on the street, but I’ve never given it a second thought. It’s a foreign language. I guess I could try to see Michael again—I’m sure he’d be more than happy to help. But that’s a bit too close to home. The gym is part of my workplace, and I’m not ready for that.