Rebecca's War
She would always want to be a slut. There seemed no escaping this reality of her existence. It must be hardwired beyond all morality, circumstance or grace. She would always find a man, or a woman, who would play with her. Of course she reveled in the touch, the endless variations possible between hands, lips, thighs and tongues. But she also loved the intimacy, the getting inside where no one else had the courage to venture. A playmate would always tell you things in confidence that not even their spouse would know. Then there was the adrenaline and heart rate that would go along with those moments leading up to the first touch, the first kiss, the first experience of the weight of another's breast or cock. And then the encounters themselves. Anticipated in various forms often for weeks or even months in advance. These were the sweetest moments of all. And these sentinel moments were her downfall, witnesses to her heroic ambitions. Rebecca was absolutely enraptured in the chase and the consummation. Though the battles were often brilliant, she had no idea how to win the peace.
She would often swear it all off. A noble strategy but short lived. Or she could invite the onslaught to her senses and engage in the fight to dodge the archers arrows. She longed to be like the samurai calmly practicing his poster sized script while the legions assaulted with thousands of archers sending their charges in rapid fire succession. She would thrust her mop of a brush into the bucket of bright red paint, swirl it across the massive paper arrayed before her in graceful dances that resulted in both moving messages and precision avoidance of arrow heads that would instead lodge themselves all about her. The relentless, rhythmic reports of high velocity razors spraying splinters provided music and simply made the experience that much more powerful, immediate and satisfying.
But one archer would always find their way in, close, within the reach of an artful dagger. Rebecca was swift, skilled, powerful and gifted. She would have a 99% survival rate. But that blissful 1% would find it's mark on her skin. She would hesitate, completely enraptured by her opponents beauty, grace, art and seduction. Rebecca would bask ever so slightly in the glow of the assassins skin or the admire the swirl of the blade as it traveled across the broken sunlight flowing into the studio. Then the dagger would find its mark, penetrating her armor or her pirouette would be miscalculated by fractions barely measurable and she would take a sweet hit. She would gasp, smile in recognition and surrender to the absolute delight of the moment. She would bleed gratefully, enraptured by being taken by so skillful an opponent. Then the reality of the moment would set in. Without some form of treatment, she would perish. This frightened her truly because she was never a very good patient. The same impulse that took her to the battle would keep her from the healer. Only complete unconsciousness would be sufficient to mend the wounds.
The armies would always come for her. They wanted her drenched in hands, lips, torsos, breasts, fellatio, cunninglingus and intercourse. She was fully rigged and ready for providing and receiving all the armies could dish out and more. Indeed, in moments of defiance and hubris, she would taunt them and lead them where they had not thought to go. They would come, she would fight gallantly, but the fight itself was simply foreplay, a flirt. She knew certainly that she would fight to the death for she never did anything half assed. She lived for the wars. And she proudly accepted the certain failure of that one arrow in a fight, for it meant orgasms beyond imagination. Who wouldn't want that?
Then she would fall into a kind of sanity that would preserve her marriage and integrity for another day. It was a sweet repose and a comfort laden restlessness. She prayed endlessly for God to hold the armies in check long enough for her spouse to come to his senses and be her partner in battle. But he was on the other side of the urge.
Remarkably, his self control was only matched by her lack of it. He was kind, and adventurous enough to entertain her fantasies as long as they were anonymous, remote candidates. But he rightly feared for all the players involved. These battles she wished for were not metaphorical in their capacity to wound, sometimes fatally. He loved her too much, had hurt others, been hurt himself and knew he could not engage sexually with another without being emotionally tied to them. He did not have her capacity for treating sex as a consumable.
But he also seemed to not understand her need, her desire, nor her confidence that her love and commitment to him was thorough and as everlasting as it came. She could only conclude that his reservations were his version of the same needs, desires, confidence and commitments. The two of them were frustratingly compatible in their ability to foresee the other's needs and be there way in advance. Except it was so damn hard to direct or negotiate - they kept canceling each other out! They kept outdoing each other in the consideration department while holding stubbornly to their dreamy outcomes. He hoped she would confine her adventures to pictures and stories on the internet. She hoped he would some day find his own adventures on the same medium and get through the damn hedonic adaptation already so the two of them could swing and she meant, like now!!
~ * ~
Coffee, a wistful light through the storefront. Rebecca, sitting farther back in the store, followed the light to the overstuffed chair facing the bustling square out front. The chair smartly held a woman in glasses, absently tapping her lips with a pen while studying papers. Her black sweater over a pink, knitted skirt that left the lower thigh, knee and black boots blissfully visible snagged Rebecca's imagination. The soft curves of the woman's forehead, nose, cheeks and lips worked together to gently push Rebecca away from the shores of reality. Music in her ears and the gentle sheen of hair falling across the woman's dark sweater teased Rebecca from her reports. The western wind brought the distant drumbeat of marching souls to her again. Rebecca tried to figure out what she could do with the rest of her day that might be even remotely as satisfying as a good fight.
Terminal Empires
Consternation wasn't the right word. Nor was confusion. No, frustration didn't quite cover it either. Fed up was the right idea.
Her partner had just exclaimed several contradictory and back pedaling concepts all in a short 5 minute off the cuff conversation. All this time Rebecca had wanted nothing more from her partner than to be as excited and adventurous about sex as she was. Yeah. Okay. That was asking a lot. But come on!
Troubles with her partner's body image. Troubles with her partner's lack of sex drive. Troubles with Rebecca's surfing the web - it seemed both the actual surfing and the doing it alone part. This was just too much. After years of doing the cruising quietly and discreetly - that is to say, hiding it from her partner - she was greatly relived last year to be able to finally share it. Finally! And the prospects were looking good. He seemed to enjoy looking at Rebecca's choices. Over the course of the year, this seemed to remain the case. Rebecca had even held out hopes that he would find it all interesting on it's own merit and would go cruising, get off, find his own pleasures and share a few with Rebecca. That would have been the ideal situation. It would have led to some other things.
But it never came to pass to Rebecca's knowledge. That was frustrating.
And then came the major shift. Suddenly her partner was in a different world.
It seemed impossible to reconcile. Didn't her partner know that it wasn't about looks? That it was about attitude? That what made for sexy was the willingness to "go there?" Shit, you could only go there once in 100 times if you'd just talk about the other 99 times. That was good enough for Rebecca. But not for him. Rebecca's partner was now lost in his own self loathing. Rebecca knew somehow that the effects on their sex life were just starting.
Rebecca's Epiphany
The math began its slow accumulation like it always did. Realizing dreams and fantasies required active planning and effort, and thus far Rebecca had been pretty inert outside of her own head. The feverish visions always delayed the arrival of their non-virtual counterparts. And now the math was coming together like little delivery trucks leaving little truth drenched sculptures on Rebecca's mental doorstep. All those clues he had been leaving began to form themselves into a cozy, sit-by-the-fire-and-lets-get-you-hot-Rebecca vision of romantic, domestic heat. Not a bad fantasy at all Rebecca had to admit. In fact, he was so warm, inviting and permissive that Rebecca had been really, really happy - and hot - to go with him and commit. But his was a quiet, isolated and decidedly exclusive party whose invitation list would never change. And now, sitting on her back porch, mesmerized by morning clouds, Rebecca understood the answer the equation had given.
Swinging for him would never happen. Now she knew it. There was still a faint glimmer of hope, but she knew the sooner it was faced as just that - a faint glimmer, probably a glint of reflected light from somewhere else - the sooner it would die it's natural death and the sooner she could get on with the reality of her life.
Her partner was not coming. Her partner would never be interested in actually exploring Rebecca's fantasies. Rebecca had made all these grand gestures, plans and commitments based on a deceit. Her partner, very early in their relationship, had let Rebecca believe something that only now Rebecca saw would not be realized. 7 years, marriage and now a kid, and within two years probably another, and Rebecca would never get the chance to live her fantasies without being deceitful. She had let herself be deceived, because she wanted the fantasy so badly and was so certain her partner was going to deliver. After all that was the implicit - and at times explicit - arrangement of all couples early on, "I will go wherever you go." But as time went on it had become clear her partner would never play along, or even try.
Confirmation came in the form of a confrontation he had started regarding Rebecca's behavior with a friend. He critiqued Rebecca's over the top flirting with gentleness and tact, but the message was strong - don't go there. Rebecca saw the opportunity and had received concise, explicit validation of the math - his definition of monogamy meant there would be no third, fourth or nth parties involved in their sexual life.
It was over. Now Rebecca had to figure out how to move on from here.
Rebuilding
Something was going to have to give. The choices were as plain and as they were few: go out and get it, or go on as it had always been.
Her partner was damn fine in bed. Rebecca had no issues with the domestic sex life. In fact, her estimation after comparing notes with her other friends, was that Rebecca had it great. It would, on occasion, bother Rebecca that he had no starting points of his own except Rebecca's self starting arousal. That's what turned him on - Rebecca getting turned on. This seemed odd to Rebecca, but Rebecca liked odd and only occasionally let the self consciousness overtake her. And he likewise only occasionally minded Rebecca's talk of arousing others as a couple. No, their's really was a satisfying experience every time it happened. Rebecca truly had no complaints - except for one: she wanted to fuck and be fucked by anyone she desired.
Was it that he wasn't enough? Rebecca had to concede that it may very well be true, and only hesitated to acknowledge it for fear that he would be hurt. But something bothered her about this narrow, dualistic view that she couldn't put her finger on.
~ * ~
Rebecca knew the only true path was forgiveness and mercy for herself, him and God. How she could have let this happen had to be forgiven. Then she had to stop punishing him for standing for what he believed in. There was no faulting him for that. But Rebecca faulted him anyway and that had to stop. Both of these tasks were beyond Rebecca's native abilities.
Rebecca feared that if she let go and forgave that she would forfeit her dreams and risk resenting the world over it. Rebecca had spent her young adult life making nice with others by shelving her dreams and more than once it had driven her to the depths of despair and lonliness.
He had changed all that. Falling for and eventually marrying him had meant disappointing a lot of people - the antithesis of make nice behavior. It had been one of the proudest moments of Rebecca's life when she decided to take her life for her own. And she was sure that he was an integral power of that moment. It had seemed that with him all things she had dreamed of were possible.
Slowly over the years, that vision had begun to crumble and Rebecca feared that she would have to choose her dreams or him. She knew it was irrational. She knew she was missing something. But she just couldn't see it and the lonliness was palpable.
She could no longer go on moody, petulant and distanced from herself and others. This had to be resolved. She prayed she could have both him and her dreams. She couldn't go through losing them both. She loved him too much.
"Fuck me ..."
~ * ~
She could not believe God would have wanted this and Rebecca cast about for an understanding of God's will. All she had ever known for sure about God's will was this: God did not want anyone to be miserable; God did not want anyone to hurt anyone else - Rebecca included. There was no need to punish or be punished. Punishment never got anybody anything. And Rebecca had just never seen her requests to of any of her partners work out. But she was caught with no other way of understanding how to express and achieve her desires.
~ * ~
Rebecca walked barefoot across the wooden floor. A gentle breeze through screened windows mixed the gentle fragrance of the evergreen forest, with a slightly dusty smell of the cabin and the refreshing sounds of the lake.
She had rented the cabin to listen to herself and reformulate where to go from here. She could not have been more pleased with the destination, nor the weather - a secluded, modern cabin with a south westerly view to overcast skies deliciously promising dramatic storms. Tonight was her first night of three and always the best time to play. The green silken teddy grazed her nipples, sending tingles all the way to her pussy as she reached to light the first of several candles she had placed on the side table.
Beyond the sphere of candle glow, the rain poured down and the anticipated footsteps and singsong chatter hearalded her guests arrival on the front porch. "I forgive you God for letting me do this."