Demand could have kept expanding my business but I chose to cap class size to maintain personalized instruction from just the two of us. Profit was never my motivation yet I banked a significant nest egg despite modest pricing and occasional discounts to underprivileged families. For fifteen years, we never had vacancies and the waiting list included infants ensuring they got in when they became of age. Near the end, I was teaching the children of former students.
Matthew and I never had children of our own, not by design or intent. One of us was probably infertile but we never sought to determine whom; it was God’s will. Being childless, we never faced the time and space needs or expenses of raising kids.
Our combined career successes and unostentatious lifestyle prevailed for thirty years. We paid off our mortgage in sixteen years. Disinterested in the trappings of being nouveau riche, we didn’t feel a need to upgrade our comfortable house even as upscale remodels took over the neighborhood. We drove Chevrolets and went on modest vacations. As a result, we invested the majority of our incomes for almost ten years.
* * * * *
Our sex life was as mundane as our lifestyle. As newlyweds, we began having intercourse only once or twice a week and seldom more frequently. Our first vacation, coinciding with our first anniversary, was a de facto honeymoon we didn’t have earlier; at least, that was our intention.
Spending a week at Myrtle Beach, the first full day was the only time in our whole marriage that we had sex twice on the same day. Beginning with an unlikely morning quickie, we had sex that night and the next night too, but then not again until the last.
In the early years, I accepted the situation; but after I got past my irrational fears that sex acts would be beastly, I found I liked sex and the way I felt afterward. The sexual excitement wore off quickly but I discovered satisfaction that lasted hours.
I soon desired more frequent sex but I found out I couldn’t suggest such a thing to my husband. Matthew was the master; he wouldn’t allow me to talk about sex even as it applied to us. He rebuked me about my sinful desires when I spoke up. If I snuggled up to him in bed or undressed in his presence, he retaliated by giving me the silent treatment. It was my place to submit to his rule. I did … for decades.
I didn’t encounter many influences from the secular world. Personal computers were a novelty in the early years of our marriage. We didn’t have one in our home; I used one for bookkeeping at my studio but didn’t have an internet connection. With limited socializing, the majority of our time was spent working or daily house cleaning; Matthew was germophobic and I was a neatnik.
Also consuming hours of my daily routine were running or swimming exercises. We spent little time watching television and then only certain programs because of the prevalence of immoral material. We didn’t read anything except the bible.
About the only friends that we made were members of the church. Get-togethers with them were only for church socials, picnics, or potluck dinners. No matter the occasion, Matthew would spend most of his time bending somebody’s ear about sin and damnation. I sensed some people avoided talking to him, leaving me alone in the process.
Living in the same subdivision for over twenty-five years, we should have made more friends than we did. Other than church members living in the neighborhood, we had more than a nodding acquaintance with only three families, two of them adjoining our property. I became friends with only one person; Molly Pedersen next door seemed the most levelheaded.
I watched her raise two kids to be mannerly and respectful. Quiet and private herself, she didn’t express opinions or offer advice unless asked. I learned to trust her discretion but didn’t confide in her until the later years. Not until after I became a widow did I begin to learn her private life was very different from what I imagined.
Matthew quarantined our daily life; little outside knowledge entered our world. His puritanical beliefs suppressed my interests in exploring marital passion. Yet after decades under his rule, I began to question my husband’s sovereignty. If God gave us such pleasure in orgasms, what was sinful about enjoying them with our divinely blessed mates? Believing the sanctity of my marriage vows, I never considered divorce, separation, or an affair.
While I wished to understand my desires and explore my passion, Matthew withdrew further from conjugal activities over the years until we were having sex once a month or less. The little interest he once had in sex, waned until it disappeared entirely. His beliefs prevented him from attempting to improve, even from believing he should. He showed no consideration for my needs.
His health declined, too. Pudgy when we got married, his weight increased until he was over three hundred pounds by age thirty-five. A big eater and not very active, he never did bring his weight down even after he was diagnosed with type-2 diabetes at age forty-five.
His weight made sex uncomfortable and penetration by him in the missionary position became physically difficult. His disease eventually led to erectile dysfunction. Unable to perform on our twentieth anniversary, he stopped trying almost entirely and we never had successful intercourse over the last ten years of his life.
I found relief in masturbation but with Matthew seldom absent, I had to be secretive. Guilt bothered me on two levels. Was self-gratification a sin? My husband’s opinion and Baptist doctrines said it was but I couldn’t find definitive proof in scripture. What I didn’t deny was the sinfulness of my erotic thoughts that involved men other than my husband.
I didn’t think about other men too often at first. Such thoughts prompted profound remorse and long periods of prayerful contrition. Over the years, increasing the intensity of my pleasure became the more powerful influence. By the time our conjugal sex stopped, my guilt lost its hold on me entirely.
Over our third decade of marriage, I became more observant of people in public, using the mental imagery when I was pleasuring myself. If I observed a couple sharing any sign of affection, I wondered what sex was like for them. Seeing a man and woman kissing in public seemed wildly uninhibited. I pictured myself as the woman, receiving his affection. I imagined romance leading to arousal ending with the man naked on top of me.
I also noticed the provocative clothing some women wore; clothes that accentuated curves and exposed skin, tight shorts and leggings that left little to the imagination, and braless breasts allowed to sway and show hard nipples. How could they be in public that way with men able to see? Was that why they appeared to get excited? Why did I sometimes feel excitement as an observer?
At the health club pool, some women wore swimwear smaller than the underwear I wore. When some bathing suits became wet, the supple material created shocking cameltoe displays. A few of their suits were unlined and so thin as to be translucent when wet; I could see shadows of their areolae and pubic hair. Such exposures couldn’t be accidental to that extent; the women had to be choosing to display themselves.