She was indeed beautiful this afternoon. “Oh, if only I could get under your skin—as close to you as possible,” I said to my wife, who was combing her hair in the bathroom. “You did, you did,” she laughed, and slapped my roving hand playfully.

Addendum I (March 18, 1994)

Sexually, 1982 was perhaps our best year together. We even appeared to be in love. But although our lovemaking was increasingly pleasant and exciting, Elise made it clear that she could not imagine limiting her attentions to her husband alone. Gradually, I acquiesced. At some point I not only came to accept this as unavoidable, but I persuaded myself that there was something wonderful about lovingly allowing your wife to explore her sexual appetites with others. By the end of the year I encouraged her to pursue one of our neighbors, a student from MIT, whom Elise had found irresistible.

Another thing I was encouraging her to do was to masturbate, either alone or in my presence. This was to be a prelude to more serious explorations outside our home, I presume. I remember one afternoon when Elise called me at my Northeastern office to tell me sweetly that she had just had more that thirty orgasms in a row, and that she was really thankful to me for encouraging her to explore her own body. I also remember an afternoon when I watched her masturbate across our enormous livingroom on Maple Avenue in Cambridge. She was reclining in an armchair, naked, her legs resting on the armrests. Her cunt was open, as open and trusting as a cunt can ever be. I can still see the wet twinkle of pinks and browns between her nimble fingers; I can still hear her uneven breath, her little squeals. Every time she would come I would convulse with pleasure and with what appeared to be immense love for her. In the end I must have fucked her in the same armchair and I must have come in a few seconds, like a baby.

If I am not mistaken, this was the afternoon she suggested that it would be wonderful if I would let her make love to our neighbor. Or did I suggest it myself? At any rate, I was delighted by her sweetness and I lovingly sent her to his house next door to tell him about her feelings and about my permission to ravish her—no, my delight in his eventual fulfillment of my wife’s desires. I even remember being slightly disappointed that very afternoon when she returned to tell me that he was prepared to do what she wanted, but that he felt that they needed a bit more time to become acquainted with each other. My sweet wife was not getting what she wanted quickly enough, I must have felt. In short, I wanted her to enjoy herself; I wanted him to fuck her well, properly, like a real friend; I wanted all of us to be one happy fucking family.

In the period leading up to the arrangement with our neighbor, Elise and I had truly wonderful lovemaking sessions. As soon as we would put our son to sleep, we would take a shower and scrub ourselves clean, and then we would prepare our bedroom for the exercise. In the cold months of the year we would put an electric heater on a chair and put the chair close to the bed. In the orange glow of the heater our fucking was close to divine. First I would caress her for a while, sucking her tiny breasts and licking her stomach; then I would kneel in front of her, open her legs wide and caress her cunt and her asshole; then I would lick her very gently, just to lubricate her; then I would start pushing three fingers of my left hand up her cunt and my little finger up her asshole; then I would spread her legs as wide and high as possible, and she would hold the calves of her legs while I would gently rub her clitoris and her labia with my right hand, all the way up and down her stretched-out cunt; and then I would start rubbing her faster and faster, as well as ramming and twisting the fingers of my left hand up her cunt and asshole, until she would literally start to squeal with pleasure. After several burning orgasms in this position I would finally climb her and start fucking her slowly, very slowly. She would keep coming again and again until she would start lacrimating from delight. More often than not I would come early on from all this excitement, and then I would continue fucking her for a long time without loosing my erection. On occasion I would come twice in an evening, but that was rare.

Well, our nocturnal exercises were simply incredible. I enjoyed talking to her while I was in her, although she kept rather quiet. My conversations were usually about my joy at the very thought of her fucking someone else and having real pleasure with someone else. This became one of the prevalent themes of our lovemaking. The strange thing is that I truly believed I would be transported by her pleasure with another man, and especially our neighbor. The happy contractions of her cunt became the most important thing in this world, the very core of my being. A kingdom for a contraction…

After several outings to the movies or to a restaurant, Elise and her lover-to-be became quite intimate. She would come home and tell me in some detail about their tender embraces. I would wait in bed for her to return and to tell me whether or not she had finally been fucked. We would end up making love ourselves. The very day she did come home with the happy news, the very same day she came to report to me excitedly that she had made love to our neighbor at last and that she had enjoyed it tremendously, I finally realized that all this was going the wrong way, that my whole life had started revolving around Elise’s cunt, and that the road we had taken was a deadly one, a dead-end road. Although she wanted to make love to me then and there, still wet from our neighbor, still aching and burning pleasantly after a long night, and although she had kept her side of the bargain, I simply could not even look at her, let alone make love to her. I was overcome with disgust of the entire business.

When I told her that I wanted us to split up for good, she went absolutely berserk. I have not kept my side of the bargain, she screamed. I tricked her into something horrible, she cried in despair. I have lied to her, she sobbed. And she was undoubtedly right. What she could not comprehend is that I did all this to myself, too. I was deluded. I was simply deluded by my own devices.

Addendum II (March 22, 1994)

Our neighbor’s name was Michel. He and his girlfriend, Elizabeth, moved into the building next door sometime in 1981. He was Belgian and she was French of Italian origin. Two other students shared this large flat—a Polish woman and a German fellow. All of them studied architecture at MIT, and we soon became quite friendly. They invited us to their parties, and we invited them to our parties.

Sometime in 1982 Michel and Elizabeth split up, and she moved to a small room with a separate entrance in the back of the flat. Elizabeth’s and Michel’s rooms were connected by a flimsy door, and so she must have shared much of his love life. Willy-nilly, she must have overheard Elise’s joys, too. We were all very civilized about all of this, of course. For reasons that are not difficult to fathom, Elizabeth and I started showing some interest in each other in the early months of 1983, when I had already decided to leave Elise, which ultimately led to a breakup between her and Michel. Perhaps she was trying to show me that she can be chaste if this would preserve our marriage?

Anyhow, Elizabeth and I were slowly becoming ever closer. It is difficult to figure out how one knows this, but one just knows it. I remember a nice day in May or June when our neighbors were sitting on their balcony overlooking Maple Avenue and enjoying the sunlight diffused by the lush foliage of huge maple trees. I joined them. Elise and her mother, who was visiting with us at the time, were not at home. Marko must have been at school. Elizabeth and a few of her friends were in their swimming suits. Her bikini was so ethereal that she was practically naked. At some point the two of us had a wonderful mock fight in full view of the others in which I felt her breasts, her thighs, her bare feet. She fell on top of me and let me explore her body, giggling all the while. She became my woman then and there.

The next day I went over to see her when I knew no-one else would be at home. We did not waste much time. After a few kisses, we got up from the couch in the livingroom, went to her room, and locked the door. We were already in bed when Michel unexpectedly returned home and tried to open Elizabeth’s door. Although the door was locked, we covered ourselves with a sheet and she yelled something in French toward the door. She must have told him off in such a way that he could not but figure out that she was in bed with someone he knew.

He appeared not to be indifferent about the fact that she was with someone else. By that time I was already in her, fucking her slowly through all the hubbub. All the way in, and all the way out. My memory of Elizabeth is dominated by the memory of that slow movement. In and out. I wanted her to feel the full length of my prick, from the root to the bulge of the prick’s head. In and out. Her cunt was wonderfully tight and dry. She must have been scared. All the way in, and all the way out. Michel was making a lot of noise in his room. Like a violinist, I could feel every movement of my prick in that bewildered cunt. In and out. She was so tight and dry from the tumult around us that one could almost hear the sound of our slow fuck. Michel was trying to open the door again. In and out. There was nothing sloppy or hurried about that movement. In and out again. Tight and dry. All the way in, and all the way out. When her other roommates suddenly returned home and started banging around the flat, we finally stopped and promised each other a better time and venue.

I dressed myself and slipped out through the back door into the alley between our two houses, and then onto the street. No-one saw me coming out of Elizabeth’s room. The next day I departed for Yugoslavia never to see Elizabeth again. Although she had made several attempts to get in touch with me from New York, where she was working for a while in an architectural office, I had lost my interest. That one dry fuck was just enough for me.