The Moral Line

By Vanessa Bogenholm

"So, Alexandria, tell me how you do it? Tell me what your secret is." And one more time I have diarrhea of the mouth.  I just can't contain myself. "Because I fall in love a little bit with every man I meet and they know it."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Book Vine Press
• Release date: May 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781954941878

Book preview

Chapter 1

My husband had this little patch of soft, slightly reddish hair right above his tailbone. He slept on the left side of the bed, with me on the right. Every night in bed, I would snuggle up to my husband and slide my hand up his thigh and over his hips until I got to this little spot on his lower back, right above his tailbone. I would stroke this patch of soft hair and skin with the back of my hand. My soft little spot. This amazing spot of soft skin and hair was my little wonder zone; my little wonder zone of pleasure for both of us. Nothing felt better to me than touching my husband.

When I touched him like this, my husband would usually back up his butt into my pelvic area, and I would slide my arm over his slender hips, our warmth coming together. This would be how we would begin our lovemaking, his soft breaths of pleasure at my touch, and me wanting to feel his warmth. This was my utter comfort zone, snuggled up behind my husband. I always so wanted to be part of him, feel him, please him, and he would get lost in pleasure with me. He always told me he had never had sex like this, this joining we did when we were pleasing each other. This is what sex really is, the pleasing of each other, the connection.

But no more did we have that connection. My husband no longer found me attractive or wanted me. How did I know? The scowl on his face most of the time he talked to me? The fact that my husband always looked down at the floor when talking to me, almost as if it was beneath him to even speak to me? And he never looked at my face, let alone into my eyes. The fact that he never came to watch me play at tennis tournaments anymore? Did I wonder why that happened? Or that he never asked me about my work? Or asked me about anything? The fact that he just hated me even being in the room anymore when he watched ESPN and their talking heads for hours on end? I mean, gosh forbid I would start to talk to him when the ESPN channel was on the television. Holy crap, sacrilegious!

No, that wasn’t when I knew things were over with my marriage. We had been going through a rough patch for months, or so I thought. Married couples go through rough patches where they don’t understand each other and don’t have sex. Dry periods, literally dry, due to lack of fucking periods. It is just what happens in marriages, right? I LOVE LOVE LOVE sex, and he was, or so my husband said, just in his mid 40s and had low testosterone, or was tired from work or stressed out or whatever men claim to be going through in life. Having sex just seemed like too much of a bother for the man I thought was Mr. Wonderful, my best friend and partner.

I, though, was the opposite. I was craving sex. The lack of sex was driving me slightly insane from the lack of physical sexual satisfaction and the loss of closeness to my husband. All I could think about was that my husband didn’t want to have sex with me anymore after just two years of marriage, and my pelvic area was throbbing with desire most of the time for him.

Then I came home early from tennis one evening, I played tennis most evenings for a couple of hours or so after work and came home a little early. I could hear the shower running and thought I would jump in with him and surprise him. I loved shower sex. I mean who doesn’t love shower sex? Wet, slippery, soapy skin, warm water cascading down your bodies…It’s very erotic, the taste of clean, fresh-smelling skin. Full bodies touching, the ultimate erotic moments.

I tore off my tennis clothes as I walked down the hall to join him in the shower. But the door to the bathroom was locked. I was shaking the doorknob, mystified a t why the bathroom door w as locked. How strange, I thought; I mean, why would you even close the door when you were home alone taking a shower? How was I going to surprise my husband and join him? Then I heard it; the moaning. My husband was a quiet, shy man, ridiculously so, so this moaning was very odd. I made fun of his shyness often; how verbally quiet he was. I tried to get him to come out of his shell, laugh out loud more, tried to get him to talk during sex, tell me what he liked and such, but to no avail. But my husband was anything but quiet now. Now he was screaming to the point that I thought he was singing a heavy metal song. I was laughing. I had never heard him sing out loud before, could never even get him to sing 80s songs in the car with me, so I was laughing and knocking on the door loudly. He stopped singing cold. Then I got it. He wasn’t singing; he was moaning loudly because he was masturbating and cuming in the shower. Cuming hard from extreme pleasure at his own hand. He couldn’t or wouldn’t, have sex with his wife of two years, but he could beat off and scream in pleasure in the shower when I wasn’t home. He had never screamed in pleasure like that when he came in me; gosh knows I could never even get him to cum from a blowjob, no matter now hard I worked at it. I mean, I really, really, worked at it until my jaw and the back of my throat were sore many times.

I was horrified and felt sick to my stomach; rejection overwhelmed me as I stood outside that locked bathroom door listening to my husband cuming. Nausea. This was real physical nausea I was experiencing. I mean, when you had a willing wife, a beautiful willing wife that loved to give blowjobs and SWALLOW cum, why would you choose to masturbate by yourself in the shower? How could so many men want me all the time and not my husband? I still got looks from men on a regular basis even though I tried to avoid them with the way that I dressed and lack of contact. What had I done wrong in my marriage? But more importantly, where do we, as a married couple, go from here? How do I fix this? I felt dizzy from confusion. I sulked down to the floor on my knees outside the bathroom door, cold and naked. The dogs gathered around me, trying to comfort me in my sadness and grief. I held on to the dogs desperately. I was shaking from cold; I was naked. Then felt stupid being naked not just physically, but emotionally.

He came out of the bathroom, embarrassed, apologizing, mumbling, and making no sense. He just stepped over me, like it was perfectly normal for me to be sitting down on the floor outside of the bathroom, naked and holding onto the dogs. I stood up after he stepped over me, I got angry just looking at him. My husband didn’t know what to do, but one thing was certain, he didn’t want to talk about the masturbation in the shower to me. He walked around the house aimlessly, ignoring me and the dogs. We ignored each other for the next couple of hours until bedtime. He wore sweats to bed so I couldn’t touch him that night, which was ok, I didn’t want to touch him; I was lost in my own thoughts. His avoidance of me made me feel disgusting.

Obviously I was a disgusting person; that is why my husband didn’t want me anymore physically I cuddled with my dogs, my wonderful, always loving dogs. I was fat and ugly; that must be it. I was undesirable. I fell asleep with that thought.

Time went on; time always does. Our sex life fell apart even more after the shower masturbation night, if that was even possible. I didn’t know what to do about our lack of a sex life and didn’t have a clue how to fix my marriage. I would parade around in sexy underwear, do little dances that my husband would ignore, had some very expensive injections in my face to combat wrinkles, Botox, Juvederm, whatever the plastic surgeon recommended. I was the perfect patient spending thousands of dollars. "Fix me. make me attractive again,’ I told the doctor. The pain was ridiculous; couldn’t have imagined it would hurt this much. I mean, maybe I was just aging badly and my husband didn’t like looking at me. I would do anything to make my husband want me again. Anything. I just wasn’t attractive anymore. It was all my fault; of course it was my fault. After all, I was old now; I was 47. 1 remember how horrible I had thought my mom looked at 47 when I was a teenager, how her skin sagged around her face and her paunch in her stomach area. I looked old and felt even more worn out emotionally.

My self-esteem crumbled; the lack of love and desire from my husband was having a huge impact on all aspects of my life. Sadness had overwhelmed me. I felt like I had a grey cloud following me. My tennis failed, I was close to losing my job, and my friends shied away from my depression just in case it was contagious. I gained 20 pounds and had to buy new jeans; couldn’t get into my size sixes anymore. Candy became my best friend. I ate lots of Skittles, happy candy; it didn’t work. I was still unhappy.

A few months went by. I moved us to a new house in another city to try to make him happy. My husband didn’t like where we were living because he had to commute to work and missed his friends that now lived an hour away. I sold my motorcycle and cleaned out my personal savings so we could make the move. Of course, he had no money to contribute to the move; he lived paycheck to paycheck. I would do anything to try to make my husband happy again. I so missed him, missed our connection, and was desperate to fix my marriage. I had married my best friend, and now my best friend was gone.

The move didn’t work. We became more distant. I played more tennis and ate more junk food and sugar. My husband watched sports in a pizza parlor with his friends, drinking beer every night, anything to avoid me. He told me we had no money to go out to dinners together or have date nights. I missed my husband horribly. I was slowly sinking into depression; the rage was turning inward.

So back to the spot. My soft little wonder spot with the soft reddish hair on his lower back: my spot. I came home late one evening; I had been out drinking with a girlfriend and was oh so lonely. That sick to your stomach kind of loneliness that makes you feel like you are being swallowed by a black hole and covered with a dark curtain. I was so exhausted from pretending all night that I was happy to my girlfriend. I was so desperate to try to pretend everything was great at home, that I was happy. My marriage was so wonderful; just look at how happy I am, WooHoo. I guess I hoped that if I kept pretending, then my marriage would be wonderful again. My marriage really had been wonderful once. We really had been in love and best friends. I hadn’t just imagined that, had I? My face hurt from smiling too much around my girlfriend; I hurt inside from faking happiness. I had gotten dressed up and put on my makeup with care; all it did was make men hit on me in the bar and stare at my cleavage, which I hated. I just wanted my husband to want me, no other man.

I didn’t stay out for very long, maybe two hours. I wanted to get home to my husband. He still was my husband, so there was still a chance to save my marriage. I got home and crawled into bed; my husband was sound asleep. I pushed the dogs aside. We had two little dogs that slept on the bed with us and were laying next to him, I pushed his sweats out of the way gently, so as to not wake him, and touched my spot with the back of my hand, my little soft spot of wonderment in the small of his back. This touch, this was us; this was how we started our lovemaking, I just wanted him to want me again. I would do anything for him to want me again. And he did the most horrid disgusting thing: he did this angry grunt and wiggled away, all while staying asleep. Even unconscious, he didn’t want me and hated my touch. My touch disgusted him. I was disgusting.

I started crying, not just crying but gut-wrenching over the top, uncontrollable sobbing. The alcohol had brought out all my emotions and made them over the top. My stomach was cramping, and my body started convulsing out of control from the horror of rejection. I thought I was going to throw up and started to get out of bed; I was gagging. And then something changed. He rolled over, grabbed my arm, and pulled me over to him and started kissing me; he hadn’t kissed me in months. I was overjoyed. My heart was leaping. He was kissing me like when we first met, those deep kisses that you get absolutely lost in. I could feel and taste his tongue and the wonderful soft facial growth on his face. I felt the warmth of his whole body next to mine. I longed to get his sweats off so I could feel all of his skin, his sensual, warm skin. I was lost in desire for my husband, the slight smell of beer on his breath. He was forcing his tongue deep in my mouth, wanting to feel all of me, swallow me, taste me. I could feel the tears on my face, and I was smiling through the tears. My husband was kissing me and wanted me! And as abruptly as this make out session had started, it was over. My husband woke up. He immediately stopped, aghast at his own actions. He was completely startled, baffled by what was going on.

Was I just kissing you? he said in disgust as he tried to push himself away from me, actually pushing on my chest with his hands so we wouldn’t be physically touching.

Well, yes, I said. And I reached down to wrap my hand around his dick, which was very, very hard and throbbing. I needed him to want me, his wife.

Stop that, Alexandria, I was asleep. I didn’t mean to be kissing you; it wasn’t intentional.

He rolled over to go back to sleep, taking a dog with him to cuddle. I rolled over and started sobbing uncontrollably again, racked with tears and tremors. He ignored me for a few moments and then said, I can’t sleep here, you are too noisy and I don’t want to listen to your shit, cause this is all shit, Alexandria. Everything about you is melodrama and shit. My husband got up, left the bedroom, and went to sleep on the couch downstairs.

I was left alone with my tears and my dogs. I was freezing and shivering even in my sweats under two comforters.

That was the last night we ever slept together.

Chapter 2

So now what? Well, I did what most women try to do when their marriage is falling apart. I made over the top nice, romantic dinners, packed happy little lunches for him to take to work with cute little love notes, tried to keep the house clean, and tried to be nice to him, overly nice, sappy, sweet nice even. I bought him a couple of new shirts as a surprise and wrapped them up with pretty bows. I even bought his favorite foods.

But you can’t be nice to someone who doesn’t want you. It just makes you more resentful, and it is work, unhappy, full of resentment work. I was spending money I didn’t have on a man that didn’t want me. I knew I had put myself into a stupid, ridiculous situation. I had moved to a very expensive townhouse in another town to make him happy, and now he was sleeping on the couch every night. We had barely communicated since the evening he had pushed me away in bed. Over two months had passed since that night when he had left our bed. My husband was living in a pizza parlor, drinking beer, and staying as far away from me, mentally and physically, as he possibly could. I knew that financially I was a mess. I had been on the verge of bankruptcy for years, and this was going to push me over the top. Besides losing a husband, I was going to lose both my houses and have nowhere to live with my dogs. I just had to take care of my dogs. They loved me and needed me and I needed them even more. They were the only family I had.

Of course, I hated my day job, and it was barely covering the bills. I was also so depressed and I was doing my job so badly that I was surprised every day that they didn’t fire me. I deserved to be fired. I was desperate for money. I was getting desperate in every facet of my life. I knew my husband would be leaving soon; realistically I needed another two thousand dollars a month after he left to live. With money comes freedom and security, and I had neither in my current situation. I had blown my emergency money to move here and make my husband happy. It didn’t work. My husband hated me even more. Back to my fall back for 25 years, waiting tables and bartending. I got a second job with a catering company to pick up a shift or two a week. I was also a certified sommelier, a wine expert, so I put a n advertisement online and had business cards printed up to get jobs doing private parties as a bartender or wine person. I would quietly drop those business cards to people I knew that threw parties. If you have never waited tables in your life, let me tell you a little secret; it’s all the same. It doesn’t matter if you are working at a Denny’s or selling a $500 bottle of wine. It is all service, and you feel like a slave doing someone’s bidding. You are phony for that tip, smiling and pretending like you love taking care of them and not minding that their kids keep dropping food on the floor or that they are arguing with their spouses when you just want to get their order and get on with it. Just smile it off and hope they tip you well. It is a gross way to make a living. Completely demoralizing. As much as it physically hurts running around carrying 40 lb. of plates for 8 hours on one side of your body, the mental beat down kills you.

Well, I was lucky in one aspect of my current living situation. I lived in an affluent area. I might not have ha d any money, but the people who lived around me did. I was hired to do a private dinner party; a woman was having twenty or so friends over for a summer celebration dinner. I mean, doesn’t everyone throw quaint little dinner parties in the summer?? Could I pair the wine and pour the wine and be a bartender for the evening and do a little clean up? Of course, I would love to!! was my overly cheerful response on the telephone with her. Customers always want to hear and see a happy worker bee. I was nothing if not great at selling myself, my fake self. Sometimes I made myself sick just listening to how phony I had become to make a living.

The summer dinner party was in a beautiful Tudor-style home along the foothills. I was immediately seething with jealousy and want as I pulled up to her home. An older Hispanic man was sweeping the cobwebs off the eves of the front of the house. We said ‘hi’ in Spanish with the camaraderie of workers. We didn’t know each other, but we sympathized with the fact that we did the manual work of wealthy people and were happy for the pay.

When I truly crave something and am extremely jealous, my mouth actually salivates, and my stomach acid churns, and my eyes burn from hot tears wanting to burst. That is where I was at this moment, walking up to this beautiful home. When you grow up poor, I mean the kid that everyone laughed at in 5th grade because your clothes were cheap and didn’t fit and you came to school with bruises because your dad beat you kind of poor, it haunts you forever. It makes you want to hide your entire life or be the opposite and be overly showy. I spent my life acting one way or the other most of the time, hiding my true self, which is somewhere in between, just like every other human being I imagine. I can always see this type of pain in other people’s eyes. I recognize it because I carry it, the pain of shame. There is no other pain like the pain of shame.

For this sommelier job, I was to work and be invisible, perfect for me. A maid let me in the house, her eyes downcast as she led me to the kitchen. I smiled and met the chef. We discussed the dinner. I acted like I was just so happy just to be part of the party, so enthusiastic. The lady of the house—I mean she was in yoga clothes. Gosh, why do women wear yoga clothes everywhere, I think as I am swept in to the kitchen by her while she’s barking orders at all of us. I smiled big and introduced myself. Hi, I am Alexandria, your sommelier and bartender for the evening. She looked me over, I mean seriously up and down, nodded approval at my suit and appearance, and then she led me to the bar. I saw what she had on hand, alcohol-wise, asked her what the budget was and if she wanted anything particular, and prepared to go shopping for wine and more bar supplies. I told her I needed a minimum of $2000 to buy the wine and alcohol. She handed me her American Express, black of course, and her driver’s license. Alexandria, call if you have any problems using my card. They know me at most stores around here, and they will know you are just working for me, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Did I have a look that said I was a worker and not a thief? I wondered. No time to ponder this; dinner was in three hours. I needed to shop, decant the wine, polish the glasses, set up the bar, and make it all look like it was no effort. I got busy making her party the dream she envisioned, I mean a summer celebration, how exciting!! Whatever.

After she spent two hours getting ready somewhere in the back of the house, she came out to see how things were progressing. She was thrilled. The table sparkled with clean plates and polished glasses, and I had folded all the napkins like birds. I had used flowers out of her garden with no smell to decorate the table. I explained the wine purchases to