Gary Jenkins - The Hesitating Couple

Regaining control, she approached the counter. The clerk looked up. “Yes…?” He was completely disinterested.

“Do you have a copy of this… b-book?” she asked, showing him the. title.

“We’ve got one left… I think…” He reached behind him and took a black-bound book from a shelf. It was sealed in a plastic cover. Putting the book down on the counter in front of her, he went on. “It’s one of our best items.”

“How much is it?” she asked.

“Ten dollars…”

She gulped once and dipped into her purse for two fives. The counterman slipped the book into a paper bag and asked, “That all, Ma’am?”

“Yes…”

“Thank you… come back, again…” he said, handing her the register receipt, as she turned away.

Gaining the street, Faye heaved a sigh of relief and walked rapidly up the street to her parked car. The thought struck her that the sealed plastic cover on the book was rather like buying a pig in a poke. There was no possibility of examining the merchandise before buying.

When she was seated in the car, her curiosity bubbled over, and she removed the book from the paper sack. Ripping off the plastic cover she thumbed it open. It was richly illustrated in full color photographs. The first picture she saw depicted a man and woman in sexual intercourse, the man’s hardened organ sunk deeply up inside her. The angle from which the picture had been taken, from behind the man and angled down at the woman’s naked vagina, left absolutely nothing to the imagination. Faye blushed and snapped the book closed. Ugh! How do they get away with publishing junk like that?

She gave the book to Bill. “Well… here it is!” she said. “It seems like a pretty expensive prescription… it cost ten dollars!”

Bill flipped the book open. “This is pretty good!” he exclaimed. “Maybe the old doc’s got the right idea!” He began reading and was soon completely engrossed in it.

Faye went about her household chores, but when she looked in on him an hour later, she found him fast asleep, the open book lying across his chest. Picking up the sex manual, she riffled through it, rapidly, before placing it on the bedside table; then she pulled the sheet up over her husband’s chest and left him to sleep until supper time. What she had seen of the book left her cold. I suppose I’ll eventually have to read it… to keep peace in the family.

She didn’t look forward to it; it seemed unnecessary. I don’t know what Doctor Bender intended… but it must not have interested Bill if he could go to sleep reading it.

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!