Porn Therapy

I was conscious of my wife's breast on my shoulder. She was leaning over me looking at an email I was reading out loud from a friend. Foolishly, when I finished I click a new post from another friend. The picture that exploded onto the screen was of 18 entirely naked women in two rows of 9, all in the same pose, all without a smile, all with their arms down by their sides. Below, there was a tasteless, misogynist joke.

After the shock of the images wore off I sped my mouse to the corner of the page to get rid of the picture but before I got there Pat asked, "Which one would you pick?"

This isn't something my wife would say. I didn't know what startled me more, the pictures, that she hadn't freaked when it appeared or that she asked the question.

But fine, I'll play the game. I seemed to have her permission so I stilled the mouse, looked more closely at the individual pictures and pointed to the one with a pleasant, kindly face in the top row. Her rounded peasant's face was far from attractive but she did have long brown hair falling off wide strong shoulders past breasts that would nicely fit into the palms of my hands and she had nicely rounded hips parenthesizing the thickest, lushest bush of them all. "Her," I pronounced. "Which one for you?" I joked to cover my discomfort.

But she wasn't feeling discomfort, nor did she hesitate. She pointed to the one on the top right, the one with the heavy, sagging breasts and slightly bowed legs who wore a look of strong determination as if she was resolutely staring down the photographer.

"Who's second," I said, getting over my surprise that she'd actually pick one — and that we were really doing this; we hadn't spent this much time this close in over 20 years.

She looked carefully then the nail on her finger tapped on an over-weight blond with a slightly dopey look and a conspicuously swollen belly and a navel that somehow looked like it was two inches off centre. "She looks interesting," then added, "why would they do that? Why would anyone just stand there like that?"

"They didn't. They were individually shot then spliced together." It was easy to see.

"But they still stood like that for a photographer."

"For the money, I'd guess."

She continue to glare at the screen, she was obviously fascinated. "They're all someone's daughters."

"Different times, Pat. And they're Eastern European; they probably have a much different attitude towards nudity than we do, and of sex, too, for that matter." I felt a pang of regret the moment the word 'sex' came out. We didn't talk about sex. Ever.

But she didn't seem to hear me; she continued studying the figures, or I assume she was. Then she asked, "Would Janice do anything like that? Would she stand there and let herself be photographed?" Janice was our daughter.

"Not for the money, never, but if there was a principle here, or a statement she believed in, ya, she might, don't you think?" I didn't believe that for an instant, I just wanted to. But our daughter wouldn't have stood in that line-up for any conceivable reason, she's too passive, unemotional, unengaged, disinterested, joyless, just like her mother has been since the day I married her — an event I've regretted every moment since. And the daughter is just like the mother only you can throw in the word 'odd,' too.

"God," Pat still seemed transfixed. "We're all just the same, aren't we? Yet we're so different. Which body do you think is most like mine ... well, would have been at their age?"

I was over the shock of the subject now and getting depressed at the conversation. Why should I feel guilt and shame and discomfort? And why would she ask such a stupid fucking question? "I should know?" I asked with unconcealed bitterness. "I've never really seen your body, have I?" She changes in the bathroom and any sex we have ... had, was in the dark.

If she thought this was a shot at her, she didn't react. "I was like that one," she touched the most uninteresting figures in the line-up, a complete zero, plain, hair cut badly short, nice body but miraculously sexless — the every-women you pass on the street and never see. "Might explain why I've kept myself under wraps, eh?"

There was a haunting hollowness in her voice that caused me to glance up at her. "Really? That's the way you see yourself?"

"And that's the way you see me, Mike, you've never hid that from me." She stood up and walked away.

I continued looking at the figure she had tapped. The woman was certainly the most sexless wallflower of the group. But it wasn't the body. The body was good, like Pat's, nice tits with terrifically big aureolas, pleasing hips, thighs and legs and a great clavicle, I've always been into clavicles for some reason. No, it wasn't the body that got me, it was the dull, sullen disposition of the figure. She was right. Of all the women up there that one was closest to her. She and that woman had the same colourless, characterless, bovine docility. Ya, the more I studied the picture the more I agreed with her; it didn't surprise me that she saw herself that way. And she was right, that's the way I saw her, too.

But still, I searched the group for a better version of her, one who was as thin as she is, one with her nicely shaped breasts and wonderfully shaped thighs. They were there in parts, but none of them seemed to be her: all except the one she selected had vibrancy, appeal and sexiness, even in their healthy death-like poses.

I sat back, defeated. I could have had any one of these other types and better, but 26 years ago when I was 19 and stupid, I chose her and now, here I am, looking at the image of a naked, sexless woman who we both thought pretty much personified my wife.

This part of my life was a mess. What do I do? What are my choices? What do I do with a thoroughly boring wife and a nearly deranged daughter? Choices? I didn't have any. I will go the distance with her, a joyless ride to the finish, I don't know why, but I will ... and there will never be a hint of appreciation for my loyalty, not even from a daughter who should have long since seen just how loveless her parent's marriage has been.

But Pat and I still share a bed and we still get into that bed at about the same time every night, to read, to peck at the cheek, to turn over, to ignore each other into sleep, me with thoughts of bodies and acts seen on internet porn; her? Doubtless, counting black-faced sheep as they leap over a white picket fence.

But not tonight. Tonight as I was reading she turned to me and lay on her side, her head propped up by a hand. "Do you think about women ... like them. Imagine them?"

This was the first question that has ever escaped her lips to me about anything to do with sex. I looked over at her as confused as I was surprised and decided, WTF, I'd actually give her an answer. "Sometimes."

Her eyes grew a tiny bit wider. "Undress them, with your eyes?"

"I don't make a habit of it, but sure, I've done that, everybody's done that, probably women as well as men." This, I knew, would be news to her.

She seemed to digest this for a moment before saying, "You look at pornography on the internet." I noted that this was a statement not a question.

Fuck you, I'm not running from this. "Ya, I do. Discreetly." I was still holding my book in a reading position, now looking at the ceiling.

"I was talking to Ruby about pornography last year. She said all men look at pornography on the internet. That was the first I ever thought about it, that you might be looking at it, too, and I thought, ya, why wouldn't he?"

I didn't say anything. Let her think what she wants.

"Then one day I went into the history on your browser."

A jolt of guilt shot through me but it passed quickly, flickered into relief, then into indifference. It surprised me but I found I didn't give a shit that I'd been caught. It was about time.

But maybe she wasn't going to criticize because she quickly added, "Women look at pornography, too. I read up on it. A lot of them: I saw as much as 40% of viewers of pornography are women."

I stayed silent wondering where this was going with this ... and where she got her statistic; it couldn't be true.

"So I started looking at it, trying to understand it. This was last year, actually more than a year ago." The hollowness in her voice was still there, she was going to tell me now how disappointed she was in me ... and I was gong to pretend I cared.

I stayed silent, stayed focussed on the ceiling.

"It was the smiles that got me ... right away. I thought pornography was supposed to be exploitative and crude. It didn't look that way. It looked more like fun."

Now that surprised me enough that I peeked over at her, but it angered me, too, it was like the observation of a child talking about nuclear fission: pornography is a subject my wife knew nothing about, pretending otherwise was preposterous. I stayed quiet, went back to looking at the ceiling but I was developing attitude, too.

"Mike?"

I glanced over at her, barely. She can have a mousey look I sometimes find pitiful. She was wearing it now. Why the fuck is she pretending to be interested?

"Aren't we ready to move on. We've had the kid, built the company, paid the mortgage, planned for our retirement. We're only just in our mid-40s, what are we supposed to do? Wait? I mean, seriously. What? What do you want to do?"

"Wait?" I didn't know what she meant.

"What do you want to do, Mike?" she repeated, but she was more challenging now.

"About what?" I still didn't know what she was getting at.

"Do we go on as we are, or do we ... I don't know ... look, experiment, try something new?"

I laughed contemptuous, "Ah, that would be 'try something new.'" Name anything — I don't care what the fucking question is 'try something new' would always be the answer.

"I think so, too."

I bit my tongue, I wanted to shout 'YOU CAN'T TRY SOMETHING NEW, YOU HAVEN'T GOT THE FUCKING IMAGINATION TO TRY SOMETHING NEW!' But I stayed quiet.

"It's been bad, hasn't it? I mean for you."

I hadn't completely tuned her out, but it was close. "What has been bad?"

"Our life together. The sex."

Sex? Ah, sex. No shit, Sherlock. We didn't really have a sex life. This didn't rate a comment. I continued staring at the ceiling.

She persisted. "Hasn't it, Mike?"

I was controlling myself though I didn't want to. "There's absolutely no point in us talking about this, Pat."

"You think I'm hopeless."

Hopeless? Ya, as a matter of fact I do. I gave her my answer: I remained quiet.

"Answer me!" The demanding desperation in her voice had more than a little panic. "You think I'm hopeless. Sexless."

I tried to stay calm, safe. "I think we have different threshold."

"You think ..."

I almost lost it. "I THINK you've shown absolutely no interest in sex since the day we were married."

"You think ..."

I couldn't take it any more. "I THINK? ENOUGH OF THIS BULLSHIT!" I almost shouted at her. It was her depressing, wimpish mewlings about a subject she knew nothing about and cared even less — THAT I found insulting. "I don't think, Pat, I know — we've been together 26 fucking years for crissake. You have as much interest in sex as I have in talking to you about it."

"So you go to your porn."

"What are you doing?" I snorted. "Forbidding that?"

"No, of course not."

I was back glaring at the ceiling, trying to control my heartbeat. "Then what are you talking about?"

"That I want us to start trying to have sex, interesting sex."

"Oh, for crissake, Pat, you don't know the meaning of the word sex, never mind how to make it interesting."

"I'm learning."

"Learning!" I scoffed. "How?"

"The internet. Pornography. I've been going there, too. For awhile, for quite a while."

The words jolted me. I couldn't help but look over to see if she was kidding. "You?"

"I've been going online most every day ... for more than a year."

"Why?" The notion shocked me; she's way, way too straight for this. The thought of her getting off in front of a computer was ridiculous.

"Information," she said, looking at me intensely, "but the stories, too and the movies and the pictures. I've been looking at all of it."

"Why?" I repeated. This seemed absurd; she's the last person I couldn't imagine peering at a screen of porn.

"Because it helped; it helped a lot."

"Helped what?" Were we really having this conversation?

"Helped me to think of sex in new ways, interesting ways, helped me to ... I don't know, loosen up."

"Loosen up." As if there was a chance of that. If there was one woman who didn't 'loosen' anything, it was my wife.

"Yes."

It suddenly dawned on me just how stupid this conversation really was and it pissed me off. "Don't fuck around with me, Pat. I'm in no mood."

"I know."

"So what's loosening up mean? What's interesting sex to you?"

"I think we have to find that out ... by experimenting."

"Experimenting." I couldn't have been more scathing. "You want to experiment?"

"I want to turn you on, Mike. I want a sex life, a good sex life, I know it's been awful."

"So at 46 you're going to flip a fucking switch?"

"That switch has been flipped, Mike. I've read the stories, seen the pictures, watched the videos ... I have a good idea of what's possible now and I want us to start doing these things."

"You don't have a fucking clue, Pat. Honest to God, you don't have a fucking clue. By interesting sex you mean having sex with the fucking lights on."

"I'll try anything."

She had her mousey, vulnerable, fragile look. It was pathetic. She had no idea what she was talking about. "You'll try anything — you'll sacrifice yourself for anything?" That's the way it sounded.

"No. I want this."

"Anything?"

"I love you, Mike, I have since day one. But we've never made it, I know that and I know a good part of it is my fault, not all, but a good part so, ya, anything, I'm prepared to try anything to pull us together."

"We're talking sex here, right? Rutting, sweating, fucking sex?" I looked at her closely to see if she recognized the words.

"Sex is supposed to be fun. I want us to have fun."

This was all bullshit: you don't change overnight. "Give me a fantasy, Pat. One. Give me just one of your fucking sexual fantasies." I had nothing but contempt for her on this subject and I wasn't falling for it. She had never once done anything that would indicate she had a pulse, that she was anything but sexually dead.

I thought this would stop her in her tracks. It didn't. She answered immediately. "The biggest one? We're at a party. You look over at me. You want me, and everyone there knows it."

"That's not ..."

"No, but that's where I'm going and I know it's going to take a lot to get there."

Some fantasy. "So you're standing in that room, right? Why would I look over at you? Why would I want to have sex with you, Pat? We haven't really had sex since the beginning; you'd be dressed like a librarian and you'd be giving off vibes to everyone in the room including me that you don't want to be touched. Why would I be looking across the room at you like I want you? Why? I know I can't have you so why?"

"Yes you can. Wherever you want. From now on. Honest."

"Bullshit."

"Try me."

I hadn't looked at her through the last part of this, I was just too goddam mad. Words. They were just empty fucking words. Fuck it! "OK!" I jumped out of bed, reached into my sock drawer, threw the night shade I use for plane travel on the bed, then went into my closet and grabbed a handful of ties.

"Put it on, Pat, take off your nightie and lie down with your legs and arms stretched apart." Fuck it. If she wants to play with this, fine, play or shut the fuck up!

She didn't hesitate, she did as she was told, quickly and in a few frantic, angry minutes I had her tied up, then I sat down and for the first time in 26 years I looked at the fully exposed, fully naked body of my wife.

What a fucking waste. She still had the shape, the one I had fallen in love with, the sexy clavicle, the long legs, the smooth flat belly, the supremely feminine hips — she has a fabulous walk. And the great tits which I had spent next to no time with — they were hidden all the time, out of bounds, like the gash between her legs covered with brown curling hair now slightly flecked with grey, a pussy that was forbidden and unwilling but, at least, now I could actually see it.

To think what might have been. She was uncomfortable, I could see that and I'm not a prick. "Am I scaring you?"

"You're terrifying me."

It looked like it. I jumped to my feet and reached to untie her hand.

But she protested. "No, no," she, strained at the ties. "I'm terrified at what you're thinking. Why would you want to look at me? That's what's scaring me. Why would you be interested? I get that, I'm a sexless ... cadaver to you. Why should you care?" She tried to peer through her mask to find me. " Let's do this, Mike but not now, let's do this later. Now, let me do this to you. Let's change places."

Fuck it! I tried. It took me seconds to untie her then I was heading downstairs for a much-needed drink when she grabbed my arm. "I'll do that, Mike, I want to do that but I need for you to want to do it first." She bent down, picked up the ties and held the mask out to me. "Put it on, Mike. Let me do this to you first. Please."

She was nervous, ashen, tense — this was going to be the last of it, the absolute fucking last of it. I look off my pyjamas, surprised she didn't stop me, then grabbed the mask, got on the bed, lay down and put it on. When she started to tie me up I was wondering what could possibly be going through her head? She could barely ride out sex never mind initiate anything.

When she completed tying me up I could feel her weight sink onto the bed. She was totally still for almost a full minute then she said in that hollow voice. "I'm sorry, Mike. It happened right from the beginning and I didn't know how to change it. But I'm going to try now."

26 years later?

She gently ran her hand over my thigh. "First, let me get the preliminaries out of the way, OK? First, I love you, Mike, now as much as I did when I married you. It's been shitty, I know. I know I haven't deserved it; you could have left, I know that but you haven't, you've been good to me and you've been good to Janice. And you've never complained, never once. So why haven't I been fucking your lights out from the get-go?"

She has never used terms like that before. I could feel my prick start to rise.

She took my now half-stiff cock in her fingers and gently and inexpertly caressed it, then, for the first time ever, she put her lips on it. "Do you know why, Mike? Do you know why I haven't been fucking your lights out? Because you've been a fucking wuss, a grade-A fucking wuss. You should have taken me that first night and just done me because that's the kind of woman I am. You should have just picked me up and fucked me and kept on fucking me until we got it right and then we should have moved on to whatever it was you wanted. That was bullshit, Mike. You put me on a pedestal and treated me like I was some kind of fragile ... I don't know, a prissy little princess thing and I was afraid to object. Are you listening to me, Mike."

"I didn't ..."

"Fuck you. You've had your say, now hear me. You've never ripped my clothes off, never pushed me onto a bed and just fucked me, never put your hand inside my shirt and squeezed my tits, never shoved your hand up my dress and groped me, never told me you wanted to eat me, or squirt your cum on my face — all those things you watch on your videos. And have you bought me any of the sexy things those women wear? No. And you've never expected anything from me. I was sick, Mike, maybe I'll tell you about it some time, but I was sick for all those years, I needed your help, your guidance but you never did anything for me, you just allowed me to be me, pitiful, joyless me. It was hopeless."