“It’s just something you have to do, Irene,” my mother had told me many times. “If you’re lucky, you’ll like it. If you’re very lucky, Oscar will go off it after a couple of years. But if you’re like most of us, he’ll be relentless and you’ll just have to put up with it and concentrate on the important things in marriage.”

It wasn’t the most positive advice on sex that a nervous, twenty-five-year-old virgin could have received in the weeks before her wedding but, I sighed, it had proved horribly accurate.

As I walked the through the waking streets that Saturday morning deep in thought, I hardly noticed the beautiful city of Barcelona opening out before me. The former schoolfriend whose birthday it was and who I had arranged to meet wouldn’t be in the café for another hour; plenty of time to take in the air and think before the day became too hot to do either of those things well.

Feeling the small but carefully-considered gift in my shoulder bag, I turned the corner onto the long, famous road of la Rambla and began the slow descent to the waterfront where my friend would soon be. The crush of locals and tourists hadn’t yet started; kiosk holders were opening up, café tables were being wiped down and the market stalls were still being assembled so my progress was fast, even though my attention was distracted.

Oscar’s obsession had baffled me since he had first confessed it four years ago but now it was beginning to annoy me. Hadn’t I made it clear enough that I simply wasn’t interested? Why couldn’t he accept that sex wasn’t as important for women and that his performance in bed, whatever he thought of it, was good enough for me?

We had a nice life, in an apartment in a pleasant, middle-class part of the city only twenty minutes’ walk from the beach. We had our two girls and were a happy family so why in the name of all the Saints would a man want his wife and the mother of his children, to jump into bed with someone else?

Of course, having had only my husband as a lover in all my forty-four years, I wasn’t in a position to know what sex with other men was like but if it was anything like last night’s bog-standard penetration, clumsy thrusting and rapid, messy, missionary position ejaculation, I wasn’t interested in finding out.

When we were young and first married, when sex was a new and exciting novelty – at least for me - and when the heat of passion was upon us, we had been more adventurous and had experimented with fantasies and positions. But most of these had either failed to provide more interesting stimulation from my husband’s erect cock or had made me feel humiliated and dirty afterwards.

Though Oscar seemed to like it, being penetrated from behind on my hands and knees had felt too crude and animal-like for me. Lying at strange angles or sitting in chairs had felt undignified and well as uncomfortable and as for putting his cock in my mouth… yuk!

No way was that happening again! For the last ten years it had been missionary or nothing.

And of the two; preferably nothing.

I do admit that the few occasions I had felt his mouth and tongue on my vulva had been exciting. Okay, it had been very exciting indeed. Okay, okay, I had reached one of my extremely rare orgasms quickly and intensely when Oscar had licked me down there but when the ecstasy had subsided, it had left me feeling dirty and embarrassed.

And afterwards when we kissed and I had tasted myself on his lips, my stomach had turned.

How in God’s name a man could find the acrid, fishy flavour of a woman’s vaginal secretions arousing was beyond me, but my husband seemed not only to love the taste himself but apparently wanted other men to experience it as well.

And they say we women are hard to understand!

My reflection in the shop and café windows followed me along the street as I went over my husband’s perverted obsession in my mind once again.

Oscar and I had been at school together. We had got on well but had never been boyfriend and girlfriend. It wasn’t until we got together again in our mid-twenties that the sparks began to fly. Our wedding had followed soon afterwards.

Now, at the age of forty-four, I was still in reasonably good shape despite having given birth to two girls during our fifteen-year marriage. If I had followed the traditional Spanish Catholic pattern, there would have been at least two more children and the damage to my figure would have been much more severe, but despite it being forbidden by the church, judicious and secret use of condoms had prevented that happening.

Contraception made sense in the modern world, but my more traditional conscience was relieved a few years later when Oscar had his vasectomy and the need to sin was permanently removed.

Comfortably over five feet tall but carrying a few extra pounds, I was now distinctly curvy and could no longer match the stick-thin teenage girls who flaunted their figures on the city’s streets.

I used to do aerobics once or twice a week and go to the gym too but with my busy job and a demanding family, I’d let this slip in the last couple of years. Oscar was keen for me to get back into the exercise routine again and I knew I should, but there was always something else that needed my attention.

On a good day, I could still attract the attention of men my own age, but those days were getting fewer and were more often caused by my shoulder length red-brown, wavy hair than my figure. Still, I was grateful for my crowning glory which was striking enough to separate me from the crowd. I was a true redhead too, as my neatly trimmed pubic hair could testify.

At that time only my husband knew this. But that, apparently, was something he wanted to change!

There had been a bit of a row about it last night as we lay in bed after having had what qualified as sex in our marriage those days. Afterwards, I had wanted to go and clean myself up then go to sleep but of course Oscar wanted to talk, so I had to lie there and listen while his semen oozed from me and soiled the sheets.

Another job to do when I got home.

After so many years of a happy marriage, I knew that in his post-coital state my husband would be emotionally fragile. So I just lay there and listened while once again he tried to persuade me to at least try sleeping with another man.

To a girl brought up in a traditional Catholic household, the idea of sex without love was unthinkable and outside marriage, doubly so. I knew my husband had slept with a few women before he and I had married, but until that remarkable night nearly four years ago when he had confessed his long-standing fantasy, I had seen little to suggest such thoughts were brewing inside his head.

Yes, our sex life was dull but then weren’t most couples’ sex lives dull after years of marriage? Conversations with my many female friends had revealed a wide range of sexual frequencies and appetites ranging from total abstention to near nymphomania. Neither of these extremes seemed healthy to me. Fortunately the vast majority of my friends were definitely towards the infrequent, formulaic end of the scale like me, so I believed myself to be both normal and in good company.

If I had expected anything untoward to happen, I would have expected Oscar to ask me if he could see other women so when, after a particularly unenthusiastic performance on my part one Sunday evening, he first suggested I should find a lover it took me a long time to work out whether I really had understood him correctly.

When I finally realised that not only was he serious, but that it was a fantasy he had apparently nursed most of his life, I was truly stunned. Reeling with shock at what seemed to me an extraordinary perversion, I rejected it out of hand. We went to sleep in tense silence, back to back and barely spoke to each other in the morning.

Troubled by what Oscar had said, the following evening while he was out with his friends watching the football, I found a few precious minutes of privacy and got online. It took only a few minutes’ research to find to my astonishment that a man wanting to see his wife with another lover was by no means the strange, uncommon perversion I had imagined, especially in couples like us who had been married a long time.

Fortunately for the future of marriage, it usually remained only a fantasy but in a surprising number of cases it had actually happened. I frowned, shook my head and dismissed my findings as something weird that could only happen in Sweden or America where they did everything differently.

Unfortunately, my husband had been consistent in his incomprehensible fantasy ever since. From my equally consistent, negative reactions, Oscar could be in no doubt where I stood on the matter, but this did not seem to have deterred him from his ultimate goal.

Indeed, as I crossed to the wide walkway in the centre of the road and strode towards my usual flower stall to buy a birthday bouquet for my friend, the previous evening’s post coital discussion filled my mind.

“What you need is a sexual awakening,” Oscar had said as we lay naked in the darkness, both unsatisfied.

“What I need is to get to sleep!”

I had replied angrily, hoping to curtail any discussion of the very average copulation that had just taken place; one in which there had been an almost complete absence of response from me during the hasty, short-lived penetration and almost immediate ejaculation.

I chose a medium sized bouquet from the shop and the young girl took it inside to wrap for me. It took a long time. While I waited, the anger rose up inside me; not at her but at my increasingly incomprehensible husband.

“If you had a lover who could touch those special places I can’t reach, it might help you open up sexually,” he had continued.

“What if I don’t want to be opened up sexually?” I demanded, to no avail.

“A lover would break down your defences and wake up your sexual appetite,” Oscar had insisted. “You might find real excitement and pleasure in a way you’ve never found with me.”

“Am I not good enough in bed for you now?” I growled bitterly. “Am I not up to the standard your fourteen other girlfriends set?”

The imbalance in our sexual histories had always been a sore point. I had been a virgin like all good Catholic brides should be. I knew Oscar had slept with other women before we were married but it had taken a few years for the true number to emerge. That revelation hadn’t improved my confidence as a lover and I referred to it more often than was good for either of us.

Unfortunately, the shot backfired this time; from the look on my husband’s face I could see the real truth; that our sex life really didn’t measure up to his previous experiences and current aspirations. Whatever words came out of his mouth and however much he loved me, even I knew it would not be difficult to improve on my reluctance and lack of imagination in bed.

The girl finally reappeared with the flowers. I took them, paid in cash to save time then resumed my journey along La Rambla’s central walkway towards the café where my friend would be waiting.

There were two couples walking ahead of me, both around Oscar and my age, both holding hands. Both women were dressed like me too, in colourful dresses perhaps just a little shorter than was advisable for girls their age, but which showed off legs rather skinnier than mine to what I grudgingly had to admit was good effect.

As I watched from behind, one of the men slipped his hand from her waist to his partner’s buttock as they walked along. She seemed to be enjoying the sensation more than a little if her heavily sexual body language and the way she moved closer by his side were anything to go by.

My heart ached. Part of me was affronted at this public display of affection by people old enough to know better; another, larger part of me remembered that it was many years since my husband and I had been so loved-up and sexually close.

Had Oscar been this close with his other girlfriends? Had they done for him in bed some or all of the things I now refused even to contemplate? Did the couples in front of me still have adventurous, satisfying sex lives?

Were other couples in the nice, affluent, middle-class part of the city having perverted conversations like ours every day?

And of course, the big worry; was I really that bad in bed?

“It’s not like that Irene,” Oscar had lied, not answering the question directly. “Okay I’ve slept with a few other girls…”

I snorted my unhappiness.

“But they were all before you and I got together. I’m not asking you to let me sleep with other women too. You’ve only ever had sex with me so you’ve missed out on something that you might really enjoy. I think it would be good for us both if you found a handsome, sexy, well-endowed lover who could…”

“Fuck me properly? You certainly don’t!”

My voice had been almost a shout. I had stifled the unfair outburst immediately and strained to hear whether my explosion had woken our two girls. There was a long pause while we both tried to work out what had just happened.

“Well,” Oscar eventually continued, surprised and hurt. “If you put it like that, I suppose you’re right,” he conceded stiffly. “It’s not just you. I know I haven’t got much of a cock. You can see that when we go to the beach.”

How my husband had persuaded us to go to a nudist beach was still something of a mystery but there was no denying we had visited it several times. Oscar and the girls had gone fully naked from the start but I had held onto a little more dignity by keeping on my bikini panties and going only topless.

I have to confess it had given me a bit of a thrill to be so daring, but it had also reinforced the conviction that my middle-aged body would not stand up to too much scrutiny. Though I had never let my husband know this, it had also confirmed his assertion that his cock was indeed on the small side compared with most of the naked men on view.

I had told him many times that shaving himself down there made him look even less impressive, if not actually child-like but Oscar insisted that was the way he liked it. Child-like was apparently how he felt about himself and his performance.

“If you had a lover with a much bigger erection, things would be so different,” he had told me many times. “You deserve to know what really great sex is like.”

He turned to look me in the eye, and took my hands in his.

“If I can’t fuck you the way you deserve, I think it would do us both good if you found someone who can!”

‘WHUMPPPP!’

The moped can’t have been going anywhere near its full speed but it was fast enough to lift me from the pavement and hurl me bodily through the air. I landed on my side, the worst of the impact absorbed by boxes of tomatoes and lettuces waiting to be brought into a nearby café but even so, the pain that exploded in my right thigh and hip was agonising.

While my head span and my mind tried to make sense of what had just happened, there was the tinny roar of a moped engine and a confusion of concerned voices all around me. In my dazed state I couldn’t make out much of what was being said but then a clear, commanding, oddly familiar male voice broke through the babble.

“Come on, don’t crowd her. Give her some room to breathe!”

Surprised by the firm tone, the voices fell quiet and the circle of faces surrounding me opened. A tall, muscular man of about my own age approached, knelt alongside me and looked carefully into my eyes.

“Can you hear what I’m saying?” he asked with just a trace of accent.

I nodded, biting my lip.

“Good. Are you in pain?”

I nodded again.

“Is the pain in your head or neck?”

I shook my spinning head.

“Your back?

“A little.”

“Where else?”

“My hips and bottom,” I whispered, pointing to the places that hurt so much.

“Shall I call an ambulance?”

“No!” I said firmly. “I’ll be okay in a few minutes.”

There was a pause while my rescuer seemed to assess what I had said before he spoke again.

“Okay. But just lie there for a moment and catch your breath. You’ve had a shock.”

When they saw that I wasn’t badly injured and that someone had taken charge of me, the small gathering around my rumpled figure began to disperse. The floorshow over, the concerned citizens of the city went about their business leaving me in the capable hands of... well, just who was it that had come to my assistance?

“We should get you off the street at least,” the clear, confident voice asked a minute or two later. “Can you stand up?”

“I think so.”

“Take my hands and let’s take it really slowly.”

The voice was both soothing and commanding. Instinctively I raised my hands. The man took my forearms gently but firmly in his hands then, with a lot of panting and moaning on my part, helped me rise gingerly to my feet.

The bolt of pain in the back of my thighs and buttocks made me cry out loud and totter on my heels but a strong male arm was immediately wrapped around my waist, holding me securely while my spinning head slowly gained control over my battered body.

“Come inside,” he smiled, guiding my trembling, unstable legs towards the café’s open door.

I limped alongside him, each step accompanied by a jolt of pain but despite that, as our bodies were pressed together, I could clearly smell the man’s aftershave; a dusky, masculine aroma so very different from anything my husband might have used.

He guided me through the café’s main chamber; at this time only a handful of customers sat having their morning coffee and led me towards a door at the back which he held open for me. Obediently, I limped through into a small room beyond.

“Have a seat here,” he smiled, indicating a low sofa against one of the walls.

Wincing, I let him lower me to the couch where I perched gingerly on its edge, trying to take stock of my injuries and the shock of what had just happened to me. I didn’t need to be a Doctor to know there would be bruises; large and numerous on my legs, bottom and side but the more I prodded and poked myself, the less serious my position seemed to be.

“Here,” my rescuer smiled again, handing me a long glass of cool water.

I took a small sip, then another, then downed half the glass in a single draft.

“Hey! Careful,” the voice chided cheerfully. “We don’t want you to choke! Or drown!”

I smiled, for the first time looking up into the face of my rescuer.

I found a pair of deep, dark brown eyes, full of concern, staring intently at my face and body. Those eyes were set in a strong, handsome face with a smooth, tanned skin that suggested a little North African somewhere in his family tree; something that would also explain the slightest trace of accent I had already noticed.

For a moment I was taken aback. Though by no means young, he looked tall, fit and athletic and, my still-dazed brain told me, was one of the most attractive men I had ever seen up close.

“Thank you,” I mumbled, unsettled both by my injuries and by the strange feeling forming in my belly.

I downed the rest of the water, my whole body beginning to shake as the adrenalin brought on by the accident surged then began to fade.

“You’re in shock. Just lie down for a few minutes. Get your bearings,” the voice said soothingly.

Again, I didn’t even think to argue as my rescuer lowered my upper body to the couch’s cushion then raised my legs onto its lower half. I lay there obediently, trembling uncontrollably while he placed a soft, clean-smelling blanket over me.

“Were you going somewhere special?” he asked after a good few minutes of peaceful silence.

I told him about my friend’s birthday.

“Do you still want to go? I’m happy to take you in my car if it’s not too late. But if you need to rest here, you’re very welcome.”

I looked at the clock. I had started very early so my friends would only now be gathering for the celebration. If I left now I could just about make it.

“Perhaps if I try to stand…” I began, swivelling my feet to the floor then yelping in pain as my bottom and the backs of my thighs took my weight.

“Relax,” the man insisted. “We can call your friends and explain what’s happened. The I will take you to them in my car – or to your home if you prefer. Perhaps you’d better tell me your name. I’m Ramon.”

“Irene,” I smiled, slightly embarrassed. “And thank you. You are very kind.”

***

Too bruised to make the walk the following day, it was two days later when I took a taxi to the café to give my sincere thanks to Ramon.

He had been a perfect Gentleman for the rest of the morning; calling my friends to make my excuses then, when I felt more stable, escorting me to his car and driving me home.

I refused his suggestion that he take me to the hospital first; I could feel myself beginning to heal and knew that a trip to Accident and Emergency would last the rest of the day.

When he came home, Oscar was horrified to see the saucer-sized bruises on my buttocks and upper thighs and wanted to know every detail of the man who had been my saviour. I was pleased to oblige.

“I’ll have to go and thank him tomorrow,” my husband exclaimed but I stopped him.

“I will go,” I insisted. “It was me he was so kind to so it should be me who thanks him.”

“Well as long as you feel well enough,” Oscar conceded.

“I’ll be fine,” I assured him.

In the end I was too bruised to make the trip the next day; I needed an extended siesta instead so it was actually the day after by the time I returned to la Rambla.

Ramon was nowhere to be seen when I stepped out of the taxi and limped towards the café. A feeling of disappointment filled me which to my surprise, went further than simply having had a wasted trip. I sat at a table of the pavement, wincing as my bottom touched the hard chair and waited for the waiter to arrive so I could ask where my rescuer was.

A moment later, my heart thumped when the café door opened and Ramon himself came to my table. The smile on his face was both warm and genuine; a similar smile crossed my own as he greeted me – with a polite peck on both cheeks which it did not occur to me to refuse.

“How are you feeling today?”

“Battered and bruised,” I smiled ruefully. “I just wanted to thank you in person for taking care of me. I’m sorry I couldn’t come yesterday; you were sweet and a real gentleman. You made me feel safe.”

“It was my pleasure,” he smiled again, pouring the coffee. His expression suggested that the encounter genuinely had been a pleasure for him. “How was the celebration?”

I told him I had missed a good party, but that it would have been impossible to keep in my seat with my bottom hurting so badly. I winced as I indicated the parts of me that still hurt.

“I’m sorry to hear it,” he said, apparently sadly but suppressing a grin. “Perhaps a little brandy would help?”

He ushered me through the café and into the private room at the back, calling to one of his staff for coffee and real French Cognac as we passed. The room was as it had been the previous day; clean, tidy and cool if a little old fashioned and threadbare in places. It was a comfortable room; a room to be at peace in.

“Please,” he said, gesturing towards a small round table with two upright chairs. “Or if you would prefer…” He indicated the sofa on which I had laid down the day before.

I chose the sofa and sat as neatly as I could, my bruises sending aches all down my bottom and legs. Moments later a large pot of coffee and two cups arrived, along with two brandy bowls, generously filled.

My rescuer took the tray and placed it on the table then sat opposite me, smiled then looked me straight in the eye and asked me to tell him all that had happened.

I sipped my coffee and brandy and the next hour and a half passed more pleasantly than I could remember time passing for many years. Unusually for any man, let alone the local Catalan men, Ramon didn’t just talk about himself, he asked questions about me and – uniquely in my experience – actually listened to the answers.

To my surprise, within a short time I found I had told him all about the accident, my bruises (some of which I even showed him) before embarking on the history of our family, my husband, our children, where we lived, what our ambitions were and even the colour I wanted to paint the newly installed kitchen.

I learned quietly that he was about my own age, that he too was married but that his children lived in Madrid and his wife was currently living in Mallorca, the island from which they originally came and where his wife’s ancient parents lived. At their advanced ages, she had to be almost a full-time carer but, he hinted with a sigh, it would probably not be for long.

The island wasn’t too far away but what with the pressures of the business, he seldom saw her or the kids.

I have already described how physically attractive he was, from his fit, athletic build to the deep brown eyes that seemed to enchant me even more that day, but after ninety minutes of conversation I realised I had underestimated the man’s true appeal.

It had been a very long time since I had enjoyed the full, undivided attention of any man, let alone such a good-looking example. Time flew by as we talked – or more precisely I talked and he listened.

After so many years of marriage, I had all but forgotten how good it made me feel.

When I finally and reluctantly left the café to go back to work, I was very late but was feeling very good about myself. What’s more, I had a definite invitation to continue our unfinished conversation the next day.

Despite my stiffness and bruises, there was definitely a spring in my step as I sashayed along the road.

I struggled to get Ramon out of my mind for the rest of the day. That night I could barely sleep, all I could think of was seeing him again the following lunchtime; a fact made plain by the tiredness in my face in the morning.

I had to take extra care with my make-up to compensate.

The morning at work passed so slowly I thought lunchtime would never come but eventually it did. Making some excuse about having to go home for something, I left my colleagues at the office door and, making sure I wasn’t being followed, made my way quickly and a little guiltily to the café.

Ramon was clearly pleased to see me; we retired to the back room again and, with the help of more coffee and two more large brandies, passed the ninety minutes talking about everything. From politics to pensions, from children to churros, the subject did not seem to matter; we just seemed to connect and to enjoy each other’s company.

“Aren’t you losing customers, spending all this time here with me?” I asked.

“I have brought in an extra member of staff to let me do exactly this,” he replied with a twinkle in his eye. “Serving food or talking to a beautiful woman? It’s not a difficult choice.”

I wasn’t sure whether he was serious, but the thought made me feel even better about myself in a way that hadn’t happened since my first few weeks with Oscar. No man had paid me this much real, adult attention for many years.

We were both disappointed when it was time for me to return to work. We kissed each other goodbye on both cheeks.

***

“If anything, it makes you look even sexier,” Oscar said a week later as I stood in front of the bedroom mirror inspecting the dying remnants of my bruises. “You’ll be a sensation on the nudist beach.”

I wasn’t so sure. I still ached and found the yellow tinge to my tanned skin a bit revolting but my husband seemed genuinely to like it.

“When you’ve fully recovered, we can get on with your sexual awakening,” he added to my continued annoyance. “I’ve thought about it a lot. You’ll really enjoy it because…”

I switched off while he extolled the many benefits both of us would receive from bringing another man into our sex life and congratulated myself on my recent decision to keep secrets.

Beyond that first visit to give him my thanks, I had not told my husband anything more about Ramon, though our lunchtime meetings had now become daily. It wasn’t good for a wife to keep secrets from her husband, but I knew that if I mentioned Ramon at all, Oscar would immediately want to know all about him and how I felt about him.

If he knew that Ramon and I had enjoyed each other’s company over lunch every day for over a week, I could imagine what else might go through his mind. There was no way he would believe we only talked.

If he had been a traditional Catalan man, Oscar’s first reaction might have been to try and kill the man who was challenging his Alpha Male status. Although I couldn’t imagine Oscar as that kind of person, I couldn’t be completely sure.

Much more likely I believed, was that he would see my new friend as ideal material with which to bring me the sexual awakening that had become almost an obsession with him, and which was now an almost daily aspect of our conversation.

Neither of these was in any way desirable. But then telling Ramon I couldn’t see him again was unthinkable too so, I had decided to keep that little piece of my life secret. I told myself it wasn’t because I had started to have the kind of feelings for Ramon that a married woman should only have for her husband; no, I was keeping it secret to protect my husband from unnecessary upset.

I kept it secret throughout the next week’s visits too, now entering the café through the hidden side door to avoid the disapproving eye of the regular lunchtime customers. Coffee now inadequate for our needs, we had started having lunch together at the large table in the café’s private dining room upstairs. Every day Ramon would bring me a large single dish or tapa, whatever he considered to be the finest on the main menu that day and we would share it.

We talked and laughed and enjoyed our food, adding first one glass of wine to the occasion, then a second. Ramon was both charming and increasingly daring in his conversation and I matched my temperament to his. We talked cinema, art, music and of course the obligatory subject for any Spanish man; football. All except the last were passions of my own, along with classical literature and the other obligatory subject for Barcelona; architecture.

And all the time, our eyes kept locking onto each other, Ramon’s deep brown pools making my insides melt a little more each time they met mine. Occasionally our hands would brush against one another as we talked more and more animatedly; from time to time our thighs would accidentally touch as we swivelled in our chairs.

I left each day on a high, finding the whole experience flattering, uplifting and I have to admit, more than a little arousing despite both of us being so obviously married.

It was hard to get back to work for the afternoon after such a break but I managed to avoid suspicion – at least I believed so. How long this would last was beginning to be a concern; each time when we parted, our goodbye kisses were becoming a little more involved and my heart was fluttering more and more, preventing any serious concentration.

And of course, almost every night I had to endue Oscar’s continued insistence that what our marriage really needed was for me to gain more experience in bed. That if I knew what sex with other men was like, we would both enjoy our own love life more and our marriage would be enriched.

“Where do you get these ideas from?” I demanded in exasperation on Wednesday evening. “It’s not normal, Oscar. Most husbands would kill any man who tried to have sex with their wives.”

“Then most husbands are selfish idiots,” he replied calmly. “I just want what’s best for both of us – but especially what’s best for you. You need to be fucked by other men; you need to know what it feels like. I love you too much to try and keep you all to myself; I can’t let you go your whole life not knowing what sex can really be like.”

It was the strangest proclamation of love I had ever heard. I spent half the night awake thinking about it.

***

It was the following Thursday when it happened. At the time it seemed accidental; unintentional but looking back, it had been an inevitability ever since I had returned to Ramon’s café the second morning.

Lunch had gone exceptionally well, the likely completion of the city’s famous cathedral being the most contentious topic. I was all for it; the final steps in a process that had taken almost a century. Ramon was playing devil’s advocate, challenging both the cost and the possible ruining of its unique place as the world’s only unfinished cathedral.

The food had been superb, but the debate had been so passionate that I hardly noticed. I also hadn’t noticed the third time Ramon had filled my wine glass, so I was unusually tipsy by the time I had reluctantly to return to work for the afternoon.

Ramon showed me to the back door as usual, and we turned to face each other for the usual two-kiss goodbye but something went wrong. Perhaps I was a little unstable on my feet. Perhaps Ramon was too but the result was the same; instead of kissing me on the cheek, Ramon’s lips fell firmly on mine and he kissed me.

There was no-one there to see, but to any observer it could just have been a small kiss as if saying goodbye to an old friend. But up close it was nothing of the sort.

Then he did it again, on my lips, his eyes locked onto mine, my fingers squeezed in his hands.

It was a kiss with meaning; a meaning I understood immediately. A kiss I had wanted for longer than my conscious brain had realised. A kiss that as a married woman I should not have even imagined let alone received.

It was a kiss I should not have closed my eyes for; a kiss I should not have responded to by opening my mouth and letting in his tongue; a kiss that should not have lasted for so long a time.

It was most certainly a kiss during which I should not have rubbed myself against his strong masculine form.

But I did all of these, and more. I felt his tongue in my mouth and met it with my own; I released his hands and raised my arms round his muscular neck, I felt the raw masculinity of his swelling erection against my belly.

My body was betraying me too; my nipples were firming, my belly was fluttering, my vulva was lubricating, my entre feral femininity preparing itself for…

STOP!

The realisation flashed through my brain like an electric shock. This was wrong! This was so wrong! However much I thought I wanted this, it had to end now before it was too late!

NO!

Breaking our embrace, I pushed Ramon away, tears beginning to run down my cheeks and fled from the cafe, leaving my jacket and handbag where I had left them. There was no time to stop and think; if I was to save my fidelity I had to go and go now!

“Irene, please…”

Ramon’s voice followed me through the open back door and out into the hot air of the street where, despite my heels, I half ran through the crowds back to my work.

It took a long time in the office ladies’ room to straighten my clothes and undo the damage my tears had done to my face.

***

Unsurprisingly, the incident dominated all my thoughts that afternoon and throughout the evening. I was so withdrawn even Oscar noticed it, pausing in his eulogising of extramarital sex as we lay in bed, to ask if anything was wrong.

My negative reply had been unconvincing, even to me but for the moment it seemed to satisfy – even please my husband who fell asleep soon afterwards.

I tried to do the same but sleep was not for me. Conscience is a powerful enemy and as I lay awake in the darkness, mine would allow no self-delusion. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Ramon’s fit, athletic body; his warm handsome face; his deep brown eyes.

Driven by arousal, lust and infatuation, I had wanted Ramon to kiss me. I knew that; he knew that. I had responded when his lips had touched mine. I had loved the touch of his hands on my body and had wanted him to go further; much further.

I tried to tell myself it had all been Ramon taking the initiative; that I had been a victim of his desire. There would be no more secret lunches; no more private conversations. I was Oscar’s wife, the mother of his children and would remain so.

But my conscience would not allow a lie so big to remain unchallenged. My belly was alive with excitement at the memory of what had happened, my heart was fluttering and the way Ramon had made me feel and despite all my silent prayers for fidelity, my tingling, shamefully-lubricating body was preparing itself for what it wanted to happen next.

Over breakfast, the dark circles under my eyes told the story of my sleepless night to anyone who was looking, but besides a casual comment from my husband, no-one noticed what I believed were obvious rings of guilt.

The morning passed in sheer agony. Work was next to impossible as I tried to convince myself not to go to the café again; to end whatever had started with Ramon before it became too serious; too out of hand.

But again, my body betrayed me as badly my fixated mind.

The more I thought of him, the more my heart fluttered, and my nipples became stubbornly erect, their teats stimulated by the smallest movement of my bra or my top. Worse still, the lubrication constantly seeping from between my thighs had started to leave a damp patch on the back of my skirt and even on the seat of my chair. At times I could have sworn I could smell myself too.

By the time siesta break arrived I was a quivering, emotional, highly aroused and even more confused bundle of female hormones. Knowing that every step might be leading to the biggest mistake of my life, I made an excuse to leave my workmates and half ran along the busy city streets until I reached the café.

Ramon was nowhere to be seen, and I didn’t know what I was going to say anyway. I slipped around the side of the building to the private door, turned the handle, held my breath and stepped inside.

It was dark but I knew the way: along the short, hot corridor towards the door at its end; the door to the private room. Reaching it, I stood still for a moment, my ear pressed to its wooden panels.

There were sound coming from within; Ramon must be in there.

My conscience screamed that this was my last chance to go; to leave with my marriage vows intact; to remain an unsoiled, faithful wife.

But my body was in charge, screaming out that this was the best, perhaps the only chance I might have in my life to learn what being with another man might be like. And not just any man as my husband would have; the most attractive, most interesting man I had possibly ever known.

As I turned the handle and pushed the door quietly open, Oscar’s often-spoken words rang around my brain.

“I love you too much to try and keep you all to myself; I can’t let you go your whole life not knowing what sex can really be like.”

Ramon was there. In his chinos and smart new polo short he looked if anything, even more sultry and handsome than in my broken dreams.

I stood in the doorway to the private room, looking at him silently, my mind racing. Why had I come? Why hadn’t I just kept away, at home where it was safe? Why hadn’t I stayed away from temptation?

“Irene? I thought you wouldn’t come. I thought I had upset you and…” he whispered.

No words could express what I needed to say so I said nothing. I simply closed the door, turned the key in the lock and returned to where Ramon was standing, dumbfounded.

“Irene?” he turned sharply to look at me, his voice hushed. “Are you okay?”

Still unsure of myself and my decision but determined not to go back, I lowered my eyes to the floor and slowly began to lower the side zipper of my skirt.

I could hear a soft gasp in front of me but dared not raise my eyes in case my nerve failed. As the zipper reached the bottom of its travel and the garment became loose around my waist, my pulse was racing as fast as my mind.

Had I badly misread his meaning; misunderstood his friendship? Was I making the biggest mistake of my life?

There was only one way to find out. Taking a deep breath, I slowly slipped the skirt over my hips then let it slide the full length of my bare legs to the floor. Standing only in my panties, shirt and heels, I steeled myself to look the object of my desire in the eye, unsure what I would see in those deep, dark pools.

“You are so beautiful, Irene!”

The voice was soft; perhaps slightly awed. My chest and throat were too tight for me to reply. All I could do was keep looking into those huge brown eyes. Ramon crossed over until her was inches from me. I could feel the heat of his body in front of mine and smell the deeply masculine aroma of his warm flesh. It made me shiver.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” he whispered, his mouth no more than an inch from my ear.

For a second, I felt doubt, but only for a second. My eyes still on his, I nodded.

Then he kissed me. Slowly and without another word, he lowered his head towards mine. Instinctively, I raised my mouth to meet his and our lips met. This time there was no doubt; just a little hesitation. It had been a very long time since I had passionately kissed a man; even longer since I had kissed a man who was not my husband in this way.

But any hesitation I had, evaporated within seconds. As Ramon’s long, strong arms wrapped around my shoulders; as he pulled my body against his muscular frame, instinct took over and I simply melted into him. There was no doubt now, enfolded in his arms, this time I wanted to feel the warmth of his lips and the searching tip of his most tongue between my teeth.

And he did not disappoint. Once he had adjusted to the surprise of finding a fully willing and compliant woman in his arms, Ramon took control in exactly the way I needed and hoped he would. No longer even trying to hold back, we kissed more and more passionately, our mouths melded together, our tongues deeply intertwined; my arms around his neck while his hands eagerly explored my body.

I felt warm, strong hands on my back, on my sides, on my breasts. He squeezed each globe in his fingers, cupping them then toying with my already-firm nipples through my shirt and bra.

After so many years of routine couplings, this was truly a revelation. A strong, handsome, seriously sexy man found me attractive; enough to want me; enough to take me. And I wanted to be taken by him. Not since my first clumsy encounters while in school had I felt this excited.

This was new; this was thrilling; this was what I needed after all these years.

Suddenly Ramon’s unstoppable hands were on my panties, the heat of his fingers on my cheeks. A moment later his smooth palms were inside the elastic, kneading and stroking my bare flesh; separating my cheeks, running his fingertips down the cleft between them then pulling my hot, womanly mound against his hardening erection.

His erection! Only the second erect penis I had encountered in my entire life.

For a moment I was taken aback, but Ramon gave me no time for second thoughts. Before I could react, my panties had been lowered until their waistband rested in the fold of skin between the back of my thighs and my buttocks. Then his hand moved around the side of cheeks to my upper thighs, then to my belly then over my mound and down to the downy triangle between my thighs.

I shivered in anticipation as his fingertips danced over and through my public hair, before a single finger began to advance deeper between my thighs.

My body pressed itself instinctively and wantonly against the invading digit.

My knees went weak as Ramon began to finger me, the first male hands to do so in many, many years. Our mouths parted, my legs opened of their own accord and I leaned heavily against him as his expert, confident hand explored the deep valley between my thighs and its engorging contents.

“mmm! mmm! mmm!”

I whimpered softly into his chest as his fingers touched first the base of my slit, then my inner lips, then the underside of my clitoris. He did it again, then a third time, then his finger remained on my hard, swollen nub, making little circles around its sides, sliding underneath its retracting hood and finally, rasping over its sensitive tip.

“mmm! mMM! MMMMM!”

The climax that hit me was totally unexpected. My knees buckled and I fell heavily against Ramon, my whole body jerking and twitching from a very unfamiliar kind of orgasm. Not since my schooldays had I been brought to orgasm by fingering alone, and even then it had been more luck than skill.

Ramon needed no such luck. My entire being was rendered helpless by the touch of his hand on my vulva.

I had forgotten how intense the pleasure could be. I had forgotten how potent the aroma that emanated from my groin as I came would be. As Ramon’s busy fingers worked their magic between my thighs, unrealised by me, he was slowly guiding us both towards the couch. By the time the backs of my calves touched its embroidered surface, I was almost incapable of standing, let alone showing and resistance so it was the work of a moment to release my groin and lay me bodily down on the couch’s familiar cushion.

My body still trembling from its manually-induced climax, I gazed through clouded eyes up at the man who had provided such pleasure. In a matter of seconds, Ramon had removed his shoes and socks, and was now hurriedly pulling down his trousers and underwear.

There could be no doubting what he intended to do next, or that I desperately wanted him to do it.

As he lowered himself onto my supine body, his muscular shadow falling over me, blocking out much of the light, the little voice of my conscience made one last attempt at saving my fidelity; to make me take my one last chance to remain true to the vows I had made in church so many years ago.

But I did not take it; I could not take it. I did not want to take it.

“Please… Please be gentle…” I whispered as I felt the large, smooth head of his erect cock being rubbed up and down my slit, seeking my hidden entrance.

“Trust me,” he whispered. “Just trust me.”

And I did trust him. As I opened my thighs wide to give him free access to the parts of me that only my husband should know, I knew I could and would trust this man with whatever he wanted.

My body stiffened as his smooth end passed over my inner lips and onto my over-sensitised clitoris, then back to my entrance again. My soft lips were expertly parted and I felt the pressure of his rounded end working its way into the entrance to my vagina.

Ramon paused and for a moment, looked me straight in the eye. Those deep brown pools were heart-wrenching enough to drown myself in but I was incapable of speech. Instead I spread my thighs a precious few inches wider and, my eyes fixed on his, waited for the inevitable to happen.

I gasped aloud as Ramon’s buttocks clenched, his back arched, the muscles of his chest and arms flexed and his cock slowly entered my body.

It took only an instant for my spinning brain to realise that something new, extraordinary and unexpected had started to happen. Nothing in all my years of marriage had prepared me for the sensations that rippled through me as my lover took me that first time.

Having only known my husband’s very modest endowment, I was completely unprepared for the extraordinary sensation; half-pain, half-pleasure that came from being penetrated by a real man’s, full-sized erect cock.

My hands gripped the sides of the couch in fear and excitement as Ramon’s cock entered my inexperienced vagina and I ceased to be the faithful wife I had been for so many years.

From the first tentative parting of my inner lips, my entrance was stretched tighter than I had ever imagined possible. I gasped, fearing I would surely tear, but soon felt my body beginning to adjust to the monster that was invading it.

“Am I hurting you?” Ramon asked, seeing the pained expression on my face.

I nodded.

“Do you want me to stop?”

I shook my head firmly and emphatically. However painful and shocking it might feel, I most certainly did not want him to stop, but after so many years of monogamy, I knew little about how to respond or encourage him.

Fortunately Ramon was a caring and sensitive lover. Taking it even more slowly, he began to saw himself back and forth, each gentle thrust forcing his cock a little deeper into my tight, rapidly lubricating vagina; filling my already-stuffed body a little more with his extraordinary masculine presence

“Mother of Christ help me!” I sighed as my body began to yield as completely as my mind had long ago.

An inch. A little more. Halfway. Nearly there.

By the time Ramon’s erection had sunk its full depth inside me, I felt ready to explode. The feeling of fullness was beyond belief. His cock seemed to impale me, filling my loins, hips belly and even my chest so completely I could hardly breathe.

I bit my lip hard, tears beginning to run down my cheeks as I gazed up into his deep, dark eyes. Whether they were tears of love, lust or regret at having shattered any remaining pretence at fidelity to my husband I cannot tell, but I do know that at no time did those tears make me want my complete seduction and surrender to end.

For a few moments he held himself still, his huge, unbelievably filling erection buried deeper in my body that I had ever imagined a man could be. The over-stretched entrance and tightly-gripping walls of my vagina could feel every ridge and undulation on the shaft that had just invaded it, sending a riot of sensations to my already overwhelmed brain.

Nothing had prepared me for this, not even our wedding night when Oscar had taken my virginity had felt so new and so exciting. Surely this was the ultimate in sexual unity; his huge, thick cock buried fully in my tight, inexperienced vagina. Skin on skin, flesh on flesh, nothing to separate us.

Surely nothing could feel this good...