In a World Gone Mad: Tuesday 12 May 2020...2

Max did get lucky last night. For only the second time since Arthur moved in. We’ve had full penetrative sex twice since February. We’ve had sexual issues since the first six months of our relationship.  Max watches a lot of porn; he likes it young and perfect. How can he watch tiny, eighteen-year-old titties bouncing around on perfect size nought bodies and then want to make love to me? It was a huge issue between us. I suggested we try it together so that I could understand what he gets from it. He tried explaining that the perfect form is a very beautiful thing. He said that every man on the planet is turned on by pretty young women and resented the fact that I was virtually calling him a paedophile.  To be clear he only watches legal porn and the women are of legal age. We had bitter arguments about it in the early days. His pleasure of the young and pretty wasn’t limited to the television screen. When we went out, he would snap his neck if a pretty young thing walked by. When he’s gigging, he will play to them and is an outrageous flirt. He will pick the prettiest young woman in the room and stare at her all night.  It caused us a lot of problems.  I am middle fifties, I am not attractive and I’m overweight, how can he possibly want me after staring at a perfect eighteen-year-old all night?

We watched porn together—once.

A girl in a little tartan skirt, with bunches was bouncing up and down on a black man’s cock and the first thing she said was. ‘I’m not eighteen for another three years.’

‘Turn it off. Get that filth off now.’

‘Sarah, I swear, I’ve never seen this one before, I didn’t know she was going to say that.’

It was legal porn and she was over eighteen pretending to be younger.

It affected me very much.

At exactly the same time, the menopause hit me.  One day I was fine—the next I was a menopausal cow.  I went off sex overnight.

Max is very sexual, and primal with his sex, he likes to make a noise which I’ve always found off putting. It was the early days of our relationship and we were having sex every time we saw each other.  Then he moved in –then there was the porn and the flirting—then there was the menopause.  I couldn’t care less if I never have sex again.

And at the same time, I miss sex. I’ve always had a high sexual appetite and I miss wanting sex. I want those days back where I couldn’t wait to see him and had to rip his clothes off before he was properly in the door—and at the same time, I don’t.

It’s as if my mind has stopped sending signals to my lady. It’s awful for both of us and he’s not the only one whose lost something. For two and a half ears we have made love—but he knows my heart’s not in it. He still goes downstairs most nights to watch his porn. I still resent it.  But it is what it is, he has needs and I don’t meet them.  I worry that it’s only a matter of time before he has an affair and leave me.  It’s hard for him and its hard for me.

And then we had Andy living with us.  He’s been subjected to his mum and dad’s noisy sex for years and I won’t do that to him.  Even though he’s at the other side of the house, I’d only have sex when he’s out.

And then we got an Arthur contraceptive.

We rely on masturbation and Max has to lie still on his back and not move so that there’s no noise.  We’ve made love twice in three months and that was only through guilt and me feeling inadequate and not good enough.

For a few days, he’s been making noises about us having sex and I couldn’t put it off any longer. We sat Arthur in front of another nature program, and we reverted to nature in the room above him. I won’t give a blow by blow account and turn this into an old people porn story, but we did what lovers do. I braced myself against the headboard at every squeak and had already done the preliminaries to speed things up and Max hadn’t made a sound.

‘Slow down, or I’m going to come.’

‘No, don’t stop, I want you to come.’

I tried to make this sound like passion, but we knew it wasn’t. I just wanted it over with before we were disturbed.

And we managed it too—just.

We were cleaning up when we heard Arthur rushing up the stairs, he’d heard the bed banging.

‘What’s that noise? What’s going on? What’s happening?’

He didn’t knock and was rattling on our door trying to get in.

Max put his dressing gown on and flung the door open.

‘Dad go back downstairs, there’s nothing happening.’

‘But I heard a noise.’

‘Dad, you’re an adult, you know what goes in a bedroom. Don’t you dare ever try to barge into our room when you hear adult noises again. My wife and I need privacy sometimes, and not everything involves you.’

Oh great, so now Andy knew what we were doing as well.  I was embarrassed.

Everything is a problem. Even problems are bigger problems.

Andy asked us the other day. ‘I have a question, is there something you two aren’t telling me? Have you snuck off and got married on the sly? What’s all this wife business about.’

‘I know, it’s appeared out of nowhere.’

‘It just saves explaining things to my dad. It’s easier if he thinks Sarah and I are married.

I like it though. I like that he thinks of me as his wife.  I would marry Max. I’d love to end my days as a married woman. It’s no big deal though and I don’t need it to be happy. He will never ask. His wife has fleeced him, we pay half of his wage to her in mortgage and child support, historic debts and extras. He’s coming into a substantial amount of money when his dad dies. He’s careful and I don’t blame him. I’ve no interest in Arthur’s money alive or dead. It’s nothing to do with me. And I don’t need a licence to know that Max and I are okay. We’re solid and although we have our problems, we love each other. He tells me every day that he loves me—and he shows me with kindness and patience and by just being everything that I need. I still worry that I’m not everything that he needs. But we’re okay, I’ve taken on his son and his father, I keep house and work hard at my job. We take whatever comes at us and we muddle through together—that’s how I know we’re solid and on a good day, that’s how I know he’s happy with what he’s got.