Babs Ch. 01
A Not Love Story
I am not sure where to start about Barbara. I guess the most important thing, in the overall context, was that she was married to one of my employees. A direct report, no less. Which should have put her completely off limits to me. But the situation was much more complex than that.
Her husband of 12 years or so, Robert, was one of the top salesmen and sales managers at the small high tech manufacturing firm I ran. The company was getting larger, and Robert had closed some big accounts to help it grow. I must give credit where it is due. He had the ultimate never quit, never give up, always be closing kind of sales personality that winners at that game usually have. He was relentless and never let hearing "no" stop him from trying again. To him, "no" just meant he was closer to the ultimate yes. He also had some other "salesy" personality traits that were not so wonderful. He could not keep to a budget. You could not give him any authority or discretion to set pricing, or he would give away the farm to get a sale. He drank too much. He gambled too much, even though he was a lousy card player. At least he didn't smoke.
I had gone to some gatherings at his house and watched him play cards. The law of large numbers evaded him, and 52 cards was too large a probability space for him to bother keeping track of. His favorite card game was hearts, and he tried to 'shoot the moon' every time, even when it was arithmetically impossible to do it, not just improbable or a bad wager. Most telling, he lost consistently and never once considered changing his style of play.
He never did the personnel reviews on his people on time. He never really talked to them, just filled out a form. But the real problem was that he chased a lot of skirts and did not pay enough attention to his wife Barbara, who was at home with two little girls. He was on the road a lot, more than he needed to be, which should have tipped me to the problem earlier. He even tried to score with females that reported directly to him, and with some married women who worked for our customers, although I didn't learn about it until much later.
I had adapted to most of his problems, because he was a good producer, hitting sales targets and bringing in some impressive bluebirds from time to time. He could schmooze anyone and networked very effectively. But when he began to miss his numbers, I called him in for a talk.
"What's going on Robert? Your prospecting is down, reorders are down, and sales are down, even though the industry as a whole is booming, you are getting all sorts of leads and referrals, and all the other guys are up. You usually lead the pack. What is it?"
He knew he couldn't bluff me. He would usually talk about two deflections before telling me the real issue, but this time he was more direct. That worried me, and so did his answer. "It's Barbara. Our relationship, that's the problem!"
I hated this sort of stuff. My unusual best friend and fuck buddy, Sally McCord, was VP of HR at a big local firm and I could not imagine doing her job. Once my company got above 100 employees or so there was always some kind of drama going on: Illness, car crashes, dying relatives, kids arrested, affairs and/or divorces. All things that screwed up your business and you could not just fix.
I had met Sally at adult Sunday school, of all places. Right out of business school, I joined a local church for networking and community credibility. Never thought I'd meet a woman there. But Sally was all woman. At that point I was 24 and she was 40. I was a very junior new hire MBA at a fortune 500 company, and she was VP of an established local firm. There was something hot about her. She was bright, she had those eyes that moved around and took in everything, and her smile was an understated promise of good things to come. I asked her to go to lunch after church, and she surprised us both by agreeing to go. We connected immediately, age gap notwithstanding. I had never been in a serious relationship with a woman before. She had been widowed, and then remarried and divorced. I told her I wanted her at that first lunch. She looked skeptical but kept seeing me, and she eventually decided I meant it. She didn't want to get married again, but she did want a booty call buddy, and she trained me to be exactly what she needed.
She taught me more about myself, and about women, than I ever thought possible. She was worldly and wise in ways I had never considered and knew about all sorts of stuff I didn't. She also taught me how to please her, what most women want, and what most men don't understand. When I had issues with people problems, she was the first person I went to for advice.
I thought my salesperson Robert should be more than happy with his wife Barbara. She was smart, smarter than he was. She taught middle school math before she had the kids. She was nice looking, with fair skin and dark brown hair, hazel eyes, in pretty good shape and yes, I was a sexist who objectified Barbara because she had a perfect pair of breasts. Ideal 36C at just the right perky attitude. To die for!
The most egotistical plastic surgeon (and I knew a couple) would just have to smile and admit they could do nothing to improve on them. They could just take the "after" picture and forget about surgery. They were that good. Make a mold and a bust, and other patients in the office would just point and say, "I want those." You couldn't help but look at them. When I first saw her in a bathing suit at a company picnic and realized her nipples were perfect, too, it almost hurt me to look at them.
My friend Sally the VP HR had a few rough and ready rules of thumb for hiring salespeople, and one was to never hire a sales guy whose wife is flat chested. Barbara could get Robert hired anywhere under than rule. At least Robert was consistent: all the women he chased had big knockers, too. But once he caught them, he tired of them. Robert and Barbara were both about ten years older than me, in their 30's, so I guessed that maybe now he was tired of Barbara.
"Do you want a divorce, Robert?"
He looked panicked. "No! But I don't want, I mean,..." He looked even more panicked, and frustrated.
"Come on Robert. I can't help if I don't know the problem. I won't discuss this with anyone else unless you want me to, but I'll try to help."
He looked pained. He got up and closed my office door. "I'm really embarrassed. But I cannot stop thinking about it! I am obsessed with Barbara!"
"Well, good thing you married her! What's the real problem?
"I have a recurring fantasy about her. One that I just can't get out of my head!"
"A sexual fantasy? Why not tell her, or just do it?"
"I have told her, but I can't do it!"
Now I was really confused. Maybe I should hire my own HR person, so I don't have to deal with this shit.
"Well, why can't you do it?"
He just looked pained. I had an idea. Every porno I had ever watched had at least one lesbian scene to get the guys excited. "Do you want to see her with another woman?"
His expression brightened a little. Maybe he was about to tell me what he really wanted.
......
My friend Sally McCord had a stockpile of life experiences I could never imagine, and she had dealt with people problems at a company much larger than mine every day for almost as long as I had been alive, so she spotted things immediately that it took me a long time to recognize. She must have realized I loved her even before I told her, but she didn't want to hear it. "I'm too old for that, Adam. I've got a young stud who does me just like I want it whenever I let him, never gossips, and never asks to borrow money. I've got it all!"
She wasn't too old to love, because I did. She wasn't a beautiful woman to look at, but when she had worn me out in bed for two hours, sweat dripping from her brow, and her salt and pepper hair was plastered to her head, she was the most beautiful woman I had even seen. She would shiver when I would lick her sweaty armpits and tell her how sexy she was. She cleaned up very well, and always dressed perfectly.
Every time she let down her guard and told me about something in her past life, I was amazed. She had been through a lot and came through stronger. I wanted her more than two or three nights a month, but that's what she kept to. I would take her whenever I could get her. When we were together, she would do anything for me in bed, and she was delightfully shameless when she wanted something.
About the sixth time we spent the night together, she asked me why I hadn't tried to take her ass. I said I had thought about it, but I never done it, and had read that only about 30% of women like it. So, I just didn't try.
She laughed, and took my head in her hands, looked me right in the eye, and said "I am in that 30%, Adam, and I'm going to teach how to do it just the way I like it!" She taught me how to kiss her ass, work up to it, and start slow and easy and not get too forceful. When she came that way, her whole body shook through her ass and around my cock and I was hooked on it. When I came in her she cried and hugged me.
Then she got talkative. "Ass fucking is not really about sex, you know, Adam? "
"It sure seemed sexy to me!"
"It's really about territory. Dominance and submission. I gave up my ass to you and you took it! It means I trust you; I am willing to be open and submissive to you. That's a big deal. Even women that don't get off from it erotically know the significance of it. Sometimes they respond emotionally to the surrender more than the sex. It's a bonding ritual. It means you are special to me; that now you own part of me."
"I'm honored, plus its hot the way you shake when I tongue it! And I want your all, Sally, not just that."
She laughed. "I know, and you've got me, at least everything I have to give at this juncture."
......
"So, is that it, Robert? You want to see her get down with another chick while you watch?"
"No! I want to see her with another guy!"
"You mean like a threesome, you and her and another guy?"
"No! I just want to watch her! It's all I think about. It's the only way I can get hard anymore is to envision her getting off with another guy banging away at her." He sobbed. "I'm embarrassed, but I can't pretend anymore!"
I almost panicked. I did not have any idea how to handle this! Stall and get more information. That's all I could think of.
"How long have you been thinking about this?"
"Almost two years."
"When did you tell her?"
"About three months ago." Exactly when his sales numbers began to fall off.
"What did you say to her?"
He looked like his dog had died. "At first I made little comments to her about other guys looking at her. At least half the guys who see her look at her chest funny." Including me, I knew. "I told her it made me excited to have such a good-looking wife. It made her a little hot too, and we would end up having a better sex that night."
"So that was good?"
"Yeah, but soon it didn't get me going anymore. I needed more stimulation, so I started saying things like the bagger from the grocery store wants to suck on your nipples. That got me hot again, but she didn't really like it. But she still wanted me to make it with her. Then I needed her to talk about other guys doing her. That got me the hardest. Once she described a guy at her gym who she thought wanted to fondle her butt, and I nearly came without being touched!" Wow, Robert! Too much information!
He looked funny. "But now, I need her to really do it. She says she is thinking about it. I am on pins and needles all the time. If she says no, I don't know what I'll do!"
"If she says yes, will you be happy?"
"Not until she really does it and lets me watch!"
"Robert, let me think about all this, and I'll get back in touch on Monday. Okay? In the meantime, try to concentrate on your job!"
He looked downtrodden. "What choice do I have?"
I was not optimistic.
......
Luckily, I was having dinner with Sally McCord that night and staying over. My favorite kind of weekend. Did I mention she could cook, too? After dinner, she told me about having to hire a bunch of new people quickly and the pressure to get the right people without rushing into a hire.
I commiserated on HR issues. "I may have to replace my best sales guy! Marital problems. Weird marital problems!"
"I have seen them all, including a married executive who chased a single girl who turned out the be a tranny. When he found out he had a breakdown. Weirder than that?"
"Well, competitive, anyway. Sworn to secrecy and all, right?"
"Do you really have to ask, Adam?"
"No, I trust you. This guy says he is obsessed about watching another guy bang his wife. He cannot get excited unless he thinks about it or she talks about it! He has even asked her to really do it and let him watch."
Sally looked sad, incredibly sad. "What is it Sally?"
She drew in a slow breath. "I am going to have to tell you another one of my dingy life stories, Adam. I hope it doesn't freak you out."
"You know I love you no matter what, Sally."
"Yeah, but sometimes I don't love myself."
She sat up straight and folded her arms across her chest. Defensive body language.
"My first husband developed the cuckold disease too, about a year before he got sick and died."
"I thought that was when one bird laid their eggs in another bird's nest?"
"In freshman biology class, that would be right. In the real modern world, it is about sex. Well, really about dominance and submission, with sex as the medium of exchange."
"Okay. Should I refill our glasses and get ready to listen?"
"Please." I poured out the rest of the wine, most of it into her glass.
"I loved my first husband totally and completely. I would do anything for him. Our first few years together were great. But when he got past thirty, something changed. Inside him, I mean. He lost his edge. He went from a hard charger to just getting by."
I was afraid that is what Robert's numbers over the last 90 days reflected. "My guy has gone from top dog salesman to middle of the pack."
She nodded. "I thought he might be sick, but we got a complete checkup. He was fine, medically anyway. All it accomplished was getting some good baseline data for his treatment after he developed cancer later." She looked incredibly sad, as sad as I have ever seen her. I put an arm around her.
"I kept asking my husband what was bothering him. He had always been open and honest with me, but I could tell he was deflecting, covering up something. Finally, I told him we could handle anything together, but he had to tell me the truth!"
"In the end, I was sorry I said that. The truth was, like your guy, he was obsessed about seeing me with other men. He was still functioning in bed, but not like before, and he was always talking to me about guys flirting with me or looking at my ass. That was what got him really hard. It got weird. We started going out to bars and he would make me sit alone and he would sit at a booth nearby and watch guys hit on me. After two or three did without success, he would come pretend to pick me up and we would go home and fuck. I couldn't call it making love anymore."
I had never seen her so bitter.
"It got worse. He wanted me to pick one and go out to the guy's car and make out so he could watch through the window. I refused. He begged. It was pitiful. I couldn't stand to see him like that!"
She began to cry.
"I tried to shock him out of it, with heavy irony. I asked him if he wanted me to put ads in Craig's list, before they shut those kind of ads down, as a lonely wife looking for a new black thug stud every weekend, so I could meet them at Motel Six and he could video the whole thing and then clean me out with his mouth after the guy left. He lit up like a kid on Christmas morning and said I was his dream wife!"
She shuddered like when you have chills from the flu. "That's when I knew I could never respect him again. I remember thinking at the time that he had an incurable sexual disease and the best I could do was humor him. Thank God we did not have kids. That was six months before we learned he had cancer."
She buried her head in my neck and shoulder and cried hard. "I talked to a psychiatrist. He referred me to a colleague that specialized in sexual problems. She gave me the proper disclaimer that she had not met my husband and could only talk in generalities, but she painted an ugly picture of our future. He was not going to just magically get over this. If anything, his drives would become more extreme. He would likely withdraw from having sex with me entirely and become a voyeur only. He might begin to crave humiliation as a substitute for sexual excitement. I was young and stupid and still sort of loved him, still thought I should try to compromise and help him. I asked her what would work. She said professionally her advice was to leave him this afternoon and file for divorce, but if I would not do that, and speaking strictly as one woman to another, I could get a bull."
I knew Sally didn't mean start a cattle ranch. I just waited for her to go on.
"She said I could find a man to have an ongoing sexual relationship with, who could satisfy me sexually, because my husband could not anymore, and who would be willing to let my husband watch us have sex. Not a love affair, not even just a casual fling with someone nice, but just pure fucking. That way my husband got to watch, I got some satisfaction, we kept up the appearances of a marriage otherwise, and I took much lower risks than with a parade of strangers. I asked her how to find a man like that, and what kind of man I should look for. She laughed. She asked me if I had ever heard the expression 'young, dumb, and full of come' before. I had. She said I should find a young guy, maybe a junior college guy, who was not that bright and perhaps not charming enough to get many girls his age, and train him to fuck me the way I liked it. Make it clear he could not have other girls, just be with me. The tough part was apparently getting him to be okay with my husband watching."
"I told my husband what I was willing to do. I told him I could not be with a parade of strange men. At best I would get an STD and at worst I would end up strangled in some motel room. But what I could do was find one steady bull. He was overjoyed. He wanted to help me look for the guy! That drove a dagger through what was left of my heart. I told him I would decide, and he could either watch or not, but that was his only choice. He said he loved me so much more now. My heart was truly filled with rage."
"I cruised the junior colleges like some kind of driven deviant. I flirted with a dozen guys. Most of them were too nice. I was determined to get myself fucked in a truly low and degrading way, punishing myself for my poor choice of husbands. I finally found the right guy. He even looked like a bull. Heavy eyebrow ridges over eyes set a little too close together, a lopsided chin, big ears, a broad back, and a narrow ass. He even turned out to have a bigger dick than my husband, and an IQ of 90 on his best day. With even a hint of feminine wiles, I could manipulate him like a wind-up sex toy. He was panting with excitement by the time I told him about my husband wanting to watch. It didn't bother him at all. It might have turned him on a little."
"I hated my husband. I hated my bull. I used one to humiliate and degrade the other. They both enjoyed it immensely. I did not. It was a post Freudian nightmare. My bull came over every Friday afternoon. My husband called it 'date night' and he was like a giddy girlfriend contemplating my bull's arrival. First, I would help the idiot with his junior college homework, otherwise he would have never passed any classes. He was truly a bull at heart. He pounded away at me, finally making me come through sheer mechanical repetition. My husband made more noise than I did, and he came too, touching himself."r"