When Eve returned from John's condo, she and Tim hugged and cried and then spread out the spring rolls and Kung Pao chicken she'd brought. They talked openly about the secrets of his sex life. She was shocked to learn Tim masturbated daily, and he'd had more orgasms with himself over the ten years of their marriage than he did with her. She fully expected he masturbated with the same frequency she did. Perhaps a couple of times a month.
"Be honest with me. Why are you masturbating so much? Am I not good enough for you?"
"Jesus, Eve. Of course, you are. I can't tell you how many times I tried to have sex with you, and you didn't want it. 'I'm busy,' you said. 'Not now' and 'Maybe tomorrow' is what you said. And then you started with this little coughing thing every time I came near you. "
"What coughing thing?"
"The one when I lean in to kiss you, and you give a little cough to discourage me."
"I don't do that. We kiss plenty of times."
"All day long, you'll never cough. Then I come to you for a hug or a kiss, and all of a sudden, you cough. We do kiss, but when you don't want to hug me or kiss me, you cough."
"Well. Maybe you want to kiss too much. I'm not always in the mood, you know."
"I know, but what really bothers me is when you give me a peck, and then you roll your eyes away from me and tum your head, so I can't see how annoyed you are, or were, whatever. It's as if you don't have time for me or you don't want to kiss me. You don't look me in the eyes anymore when we hug or kiss."
Eve was silent. She was pretty sure that everything she did was the same things other women did to their husbands. If she didn't want to kiss Tim, she didn't want to kiss him. He should be accustomed to that by now. After ten years of marriage, it was normal for them not to kiss so much and not to have sex so much. She didn't want it as much as she once did.
"I don't like it when you push me away, or you give me the two-second-hug thing. It's like saying, "Ok, you can have this much, now get out of my face." The worst part though, is we don't go to bed at the same time anymore. If we aren't in bed at the same time, there's no opportunity for us to have sex."
Eve's voice was sharp as she replied, "I'm not tired when you're ready for bed."
Tim's voice became heavy. "And it never crossed your mind, did it? That you could come to bed and we could have sex, and you could get back up to play games on the computer or watch TV? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know you love me, but you don't want sex with me the way you once did."
"You always want sex, Tim. It's never enough. I stay with you because I love you, not because I want to have sex all day long, day in and day out. "
"And I stay with you because I love you even if I have to masturbate all day long, day in and day out. That's the issue, Eve. I do what I have to do to stay faithful to you. I'm sorry I stepped over the line."
Eve swallowed hard as she realized she and Tim lived in what Lilly Cheyenne described as a Marital Weed Garden. They loved each other, and they stayed together, but they kept a part of themselves secreted away to stay together. Eve remembered Lilly writing: "Marriages like this may last decades and are functional; however, each secret becomes a weed and each weed bears a seed that becomes another weed. Over time, an untended garden bears more weeds than fruit. The marriage suffers until it's no longer productive for either one. "
Tim continued, "Six months ago, I thought we were back on track with our sex life. It gave me hope when we had sex three days in a row. When I saw you melt into Rick's arms and press up against his body, I thought to myself, It's still in her. She still wants to have sex.
"Then we came home and had sex twice that night and twice the next day and once the day after that. I realized, or at least I believed, that the problem wasn't me or you or our marriage. We needed a catalyst to get us interested in each other again. That's all. I figured we needed to add something to spice things up between us. This is when I started getting into the hotwife and shared wife fantasies.
"First, I figured that maybe the fantasy would be enough for you to get interested in me again. Then I realized it wasn't; you were never into fantasy or role-playing anyway, so that didn't work. Then I thought maybe you really needed another man to relate to. But when I pressed you about having sex with another man, you were irritated and annoyed. That's when I started interacting with couples on webcams. I pretended it was you on the monitor and that I was your lover having sex with you. I wanted you to be the wife that had a lot of sex, and I wanted to be a man you had sex with. I'm embarrassed that I did it, but it wasn't about me wanting another woman. I don't want another woman. It was about me wanting you to be the kind of wife I was watching."
Tim pushed peanuts around the vegetables in his Kung Pao chicken. He teared up again. Perhaps he'd said too much.
Eve took a bite of spring roll to give her time to think before she said anything. Lilly's book had said: When it comes to sex in your marriage, if you don't do it, someone else will. Eve understood that message now. Tim's masturbation fantasy was about Eve being a sexual wife. The woman on the screen was Eve's stand-in. If you don't do it, someone else will, the phrase echoed in her head.
Eve realized the plan to determine Tim's true nature and what Tim had just said were branches of the same sexual tree. If Tim truly believed that Eve having sex with another man would help their marriage and if Eve thought that Tim should be tested as a cuckold, then the plan was almost the same.
"Tim, I'm not over being mad at you for masturbating with Shelby on the internet, but I believe you're telling me the truth as you see it. You believe that if I have sex with another man that our marriage, our sex relationship, will be better, yes? Ok, fine. I will do this, but you have to promise me some things. If you really believe our marriage will be better, then you have to agree to them all, or it's no deal."