The one who had an open marriage

Yes, I was the other woman, or An-other woman. But I didn't want to be a home wrecker.

I met Paul at the airport when an ice storm kept me from making the last leg of my trip. Not knowing how long we would be held up, a group of us decided to band together and figure out alternate ways of getting home.

First four of us tried to get a rental car. But decided that it might not be a good idea because of the ice. So we were directed to the train, which would only take a little bit longer than driving, and would be safer and cheaper.

Paul was a normal looking guy who was coming back from a job interview. He had been in the Navy and was very outright flirty (and a little dirty). It was pretty insane. I was very embarrassed and flattered all at the same time.

He honestly explained to me that he had an open marriage with his wife. They could sleep with whomever they wanted as long as they told the other person and kept the details to a minimum.

Paul had only used this freedom only once before while his wife engaged in extramarital sex quite frequently. He said it didn't bother him. As long as it didn't detract from their relationship, it was fine.

I was intrigued, I had never been involved in anything like that before. Paul had a lot of sexual energy which I thought was hot and he was totally digging me. I believed him (my friends were skeptical) and figured as long as it was all part of the arrangement, I wasn't doing anything I would later regret. And, well, I could use some amazing sex. Couldn't we all? I was okay with the fact that it might only be that: sex.

So we made out on the train a little and Paul was an amazing kisser. I was excited to see what the future might have in store.

We emailed back and forth a few days and he ended up coming over during one day. I'm pretty sure he thought that I was this wild thing that had all of this kinky sex. In reality, I haven't, and am still learning the basics of what I like and what really works for me.

He asked me all these questions and I didn't know how to answer them, and I was kinda embarrassed that I couldn't answer them. Like, "can you have multiple orgasms?" I mean I don't even necessarily even know how to answer "what's your favorite position?" I know it's sad, and hopefully I'll know the answers to these questions. Just blame it on the one who didn't know how to make up for it (who's going to be in town soon and wants to see me, what do we think about that?? Please comment.)

And being with Paul for a couple hours in the middle of the day was not the time or place for me to spill my guts on the emotional and sexual disappointments of my previous sexual relationships. So I just got quite and said we could do whatever he wanted.

It was certainly fun, but what I really didn't like about it was that after he would finish, he would just hop off of me and head to the bathroom to clean up. No cuddling, no kissing.

I'm done and I'm dirty! Need to clean up. Thanks, I'll call you later when I have some time between classes and feeling horny!

Talk about feeling weird. Not cheap, but it was definitely strange.

I was not upset that I would never exclusively have him, it never entered my mind since it was never a possibility.

He came over one other time after that. And I'm not super proud of this, but he told his wife about me and she got jealous and didn't want to have an open marriage anymore. It came out that she had been using the arrangement as a way to make him jealous, which I assume didn't work. But he told her that he liked me and wanted to see it out. For some reason I didn't kick him out of my apartment right then and there. We had sex again, I felt the same way and didn't want to see him anymore after that. It certainly wasn't worth it.

I then started seeing the one who had been celibate for five years and Paul helped me through a momentary freak out that I had over him.

Paul and his wife moved away. He had been offered several jobs, a couple in really cool cities, but she wanted to be closer to her family and ended up in some awful suburban town in the middle of nowhere.

I definitely don't regret the encounter, but I did learn about myself that sex just for the sake of sex was really not fulfilling to me at all.

This is why I've happily made a decision to stay away from situations like that. There's nothing wrong with sex for the sake of sex, but maybe it's just not for me. It also means that I only had sex once in the year after that.