At the evening meal, Bill managed to hobble to the table. He didn’t have much of an appetite, and he seemed to be moody and morose.
Conversationally, Faye asked him, “Did that sex book give you a charge?”
“No,” he grunted, “I’ve seen all that stuff before… and read similar books. They’re pretty much the same!”
“Some of that I glanced at seems to be pretty far out!”
“Not really… I’ve done- most of that… already…”
“Oh?” she queried, arching an eyebrow.
“Before we were married!” he snapped. “I think that’s part of the trouble, right now… you’d never go along with doing things that are really stimulating! We’re in a rut!”
“If we are… it’s a pretty good rut!” she flared.
“Yeah… but you’ve never even tried… that’s why you ought to read that book… maybe you’d learn how to please a man… really turn me on!”
It was an old argument that kept cropping up between them, but Faye didn’t really want to argue; especially since Bill had just come home from the hospital, so she backed off from it.
“All right… I’ll read it…” She made her own mental reservations about it, though:… But, I’m not necessarily going to do what it says!
“Seriously, Faye…” he said, his face drawn. “I don’t know what’s wrong. with me… why I can’t get an erection… but I’m going to need your help… and understanding.”
“Oh, Bill… you’re really worried… Aren’t you!”
“Yeah… sort of… I even tried to get a hard-on using my hand… but nothing happened… and even the pictures in that book that should have had my cock standing straight up… there was nothing!” He got up from the table and sat down in the living room while she cleared up the dinner dishes. Morosely, he sat there for a few moments, then selected three or four books from the bookcase and hobbled back to bed, deciding he’d rather read than watch television. Anyway, he felt better when he was lying in bed; his back didn’t hurt as much.
In an attempt to fulfill her promise to Bill, Faye sat down with the sex manual Doctor Bender had recommended. She opened it and began to peruse its contents, rather haphazardly skipping about, looking at a picture here and reading a snatch there. A few sections she read, completely. The book dealt with methods of sexual stimulation (illustrated), manual and oral, indicating the areas of the body involved, various positions of intercourse (each illustrated by at least one photograph), homosexual techniques, expressions of Lesbian love, along with complete descriptions of orgasm in both men and women. It was written in a scholarly manner; she found nothing objectionable in the text. It was the depiction of explicit sexual acts that revolted her, but she looked at them, feeling duty-bound to do so. Bill seems to think so much depends on me… and I know, from what it says here… that if a woman uses her… m-mouth… it’s very stimulating to a man but I-I couldn’t bring myself to do that!
She never would have dreamed it could happen… but as she read, she realized that tiny electric sparks of sexual arousal flashed in her loins; then she became aware of the moisture wetting her inner lips and the opening of her vagina. Uncomfortable from the tumescence in her genitals, she crossed and uncrossed her legs. Her panties seemed to. irritate and stimulate her at the same time. Oh, no! I’m getting all worked up… and there doesn’t seem to be any chance that Bill will be able to… to m-make l-love to me!
Putting the book aside, she rose and went into the bedroom, determined that she would find some way to arouse him, short of those abhorrent practices she just couldn’t bring herself to consider. Ugh! That picture showing a woman with almost all of that big thing-in her mouth… why it must have been halfway down her throat!
She found her husband propped up in bed… asleep, again. Deciding not to awaken him, yet, she gathered up her things to take into the bathroom with her, selecting a daringly revealing nightgown she, had-not worn… because it was so sheer and sexy. Then, she remembered. Bill had bought it for her. He had told her, when he gave it to her, that it was as much for him as for her. He’s always wanted me to be… a sort of sexy wanton… but I just can’t let myself g-go…
In the bathroom, she turned on the shower, adjusting the spray to a comfortable warmth and began undressing. Her state of arousal seemed to be increased by the act of disrobing; there was a certain sensuousness pervading her as her clothing slid from her body garment by garment. The movements were like a series of silky caresses over her sensate body.
Standing nude, finally, she looked down the length of her lovely body as insistent keening sensations stabbed at her loins and breasts. Then she noted her nipples were distended and hard, spearing out pink and tender from the darker, crinkled areolas.
Unconsciously, her hands moved up to cup and lift the fullness of her perfectly mounding breasts, her own hands cool yet prickly on them, as she massaged and kneaded them with her fingers, the smooth, alabaster flesh pliant and sensate, and she began to feel an increased tension of sexual need. Those tiny sparks of desire in her loins were being boosted in voltage until they arced slashingly in her, her body demanding its rapturous release. Oh… I’m only making it worse… for myself… and there’s nothing… I-I can do about it… as long as Bill can’t… d-do it to me!
Her hands dropped away from the smooth, white hemispheres of her breasts, and she looked at her reflection in the mirror, young, vibrant, beautiful… and needful. A horrible thought crossed her mind; she had never considered it a possibility: Oh, God… what If Bill’s never able to do it… again!
She had, purposely, kept her own optimism at a high level to counter Bill’s more-or-less hopeless attitude. Now, as it drained away from her, she was struck with the horror of a possible situation: The rest of her married life… without any sex, at all! Oh, no…!
A rush of desire swept over her, and her hands went, again, to her throbbing breasts, her fingers plucking at the sensitive nipples, as in her imagination, she felt Bill’s mouth on them, sucking and nibbling there… as he always did. I’m too young to… to face not having anything… nothing at all…!
Caressingly, her hands moved down across the flat plane of her belly, smoothed into the inverted curve of her waist, then out over the swell of her hips to move in sensuous circles on the smoothly white globes of her buttocks; momentarily her hands were Bill’s hands, and she tried to imagine what it would be like… if he never did that, again. Even if I’m not as sexy as Bill wants me… I-I’ve come to orgasm enough t-to know… I-I need it… have to have it… pretty regular… and if Bill couldn’t do it… how could I ever get it… again?
And, then, uncontrolled, her hand crept to the triangle of her loins, covering the golden down, cupping it in her palm to squeeze tightly up against it, her middle finger going in, unconsciously, to find the sensitive, erect bud of her clitoris, hidden deeply in the fleshy folds of her cunt. Instant, flashingly erotic sensations seared her belly. It was the same delicious feeling Bill could produce in her with his finger… or the hardness of his erect penis.
Faye gasped; her mind reeled. Old prohibitions crowded in on her. It was wrong!… And the wrongness of it, in her mind… drubbed into her like old wive’s tales when she was a little girl, could not be squared with the needs of her youthful body. She took her hand away. Even if that stupid book does say there’s nothing wrong with it… I-I just couldn’t do that to myself!
The array of huge rubber penises she had seen displayed in the showcase, at the Boulevard News, where she had bought the sex manual, flashed through her mind. She saw them, again, clearly, standing straight up, literally dozens of the lifelike, fully erect cocks, some of them more huge than she could imagine any man being, and she was revulsed, again. Ugh! I suppose some women use those things t-to masturbate with… and bring themselves to orgasm!… But, she couldn’t imagine doing it, herself. I’ll just have to learn to get along without… I guess… if Bill doesn’t get well… With an effort of will, she tried to put her great need out of her mind.