Filling up my husband’s sock drawer one morning, I found some pictures of nude men hidden at the back in a brown envelope marked « bills ». They were all pictures of older men cut out of magazines or downloaded from the internet - just ordinary men really, all shapes and sizes, sometimes posing alone and sometimes in pairs or groups. In some cases they were masturbating. (Do fat, old men know how silly they look when they masturbate?) There were others of them showing themselves off naked in public in places like San Francisco or beaches. Not many Apollos among them ! One or two showed men having anal intercourse which I’d never seen before. Would Michael do that, have a man’s penis penetrate him as if he were female, I wondered? The idea disturbed me a little.

     Intrigued, I put the envelope back in its place and decided I’d speak to Michael about it that evening when he came home. We had a pre-dinner drink as usual and I told him what I’d found. Naturally, he was extremely embarrassed and irritated. He went red, scowled and  avoided looking at me. He at once denied being gay and explained that he just liked looking at nude men when he masturbated. It cost him some effort to tell me that he did that.

    Of course, I knew my husband masturbated although we’d never talked about it. There had been plenty of little giveaway signs over the 30 years we’d been married. It didn’t bother me. I thought of it as a thing that men needed to do it, a little weakness left over from boyhood. I had sometimes masturbated him myself though more so in the past when we were more sexually active together. Our sex life had tailed off in recent years so I assumed masturbation had become his main outlet and I didn’t mind.

    I told him I wasn’t shocked – I really wasn’t, I was even a little amused by his secret naughtiness – and bit by bit he overcame his initial shame and started to talk.

    He kept insisting that he wasn’t gay and still liked women. What excited him was the pleasure and complicity of shared masturbation with other men of the kind he remember from his adolescence. I was quite interested by that, that men could take a physical, sexual interest in each other without it being homosexual.

    What I wanted to know was whether he had actually done it with another man or just wanted to. Of course, it had been on my mind during the day while I waited for him to come home. Would it matter to me if Michael were unfaithful to me with a man rather than a woman. I knew I would mind if it were another woman.

    He said he hadn’t but was tempted ; he just didn’t know how to get started. It was just a fantasy thing. He shook his head when I asked if there were a man he fancied doing it with among our friends but he mentioned a man at work he liked and fantasized about. (I didn’t admit to this – knowledge is power after all - but I rather liked the same man myself .)

    Once Michael realised that I wasn’t angry or disgusted with him, he was much more relaxed and confessional. Later, when we went to bed, I made him move to the other side, the woman’s side, so that I could lie on his right. I began to masturbate him and just before he came, I whispered that we should make it happen with a man and that I would help him.

    Michael went to sleep but I remained awake for quite a long time. In my mind’s eye, I saw him and a male lover lying naked together in our house or garden, caressing and masturbating each other while I watched and encouraged them. I was the cool, forensic observer while they were hotly absorbed in their pleasure, slowly coaxing each other to spurting pleasure then stretching luxuriously, their bellies and thighs spotted with each other’s cum.

     This happened in the middle of the week and the next morning, Michael got up for work as usual. I watched him unobtrusively from bed when he came back from his shower, towelling himself dry. I saw a man of 57, medium height, fittish for his age but with a slight paunch and the beginnings of middle aged breasts. He has pale skin set off by layers of black hair on his legs, arms chest and genitals. His penis is uncut and when flaccid as it was now, his testicles hung lower than it. Hard, I would guess it is average size but I’m not an expert. I’ve seen Michael naked a thousand times but this morning, he looked  different, not a stranger but not the same either ; he was like a leopard that had succeded in changing its spots. As he got into his suit and knotted his tie, I tried to imagine him as would a lover and not with the eyes of a woman but of a man, a man who knew him with the same sexual intimacy that I do.

    When he drove off, I got the envelope of photos out again and studied them more carefully, nude men in a sort of innocent, private world of  male masturbation and cocksucking that did not depend on female cooperation or barter. These were men who had discovered independence. In this context, I realised their bodily slacknesses, the baldness and all the other physical imperfections of age had little meaning ; they even managed a comfortable beauty and attraction of their own. Even when looking foolish while masturbating  with their trousers round their ankles, they had a residual dignity of sorts, a kind of authenticity.

    I have a cousin who is gay whose boyfriend, a man called Tom,  I once met and liked. I phoned him and asked to meet and explained to him about our situation. He told me there were thousands of guys like Michael who wanted male sex and found it difficult to take the first step. « It’s probably true when he says he’s not gay, » Tom said. « But it would probably be simpler for him to start out with someone who was. If he really does like it, there are plenty of contacts to make through personal ads.» The first step, he suggested was for me to arrange a meeting so that Tom himself could decide whether he was ready to do it with Michael.  (« I don’t have sex with everybody and anybody despite what people think, » he warned.) If yes, he was pretty sure that Michael would be seducible, especially if I were there. That’s eventually what happened.

    Before that, I had several more confessional sessions with Michael late in the evening at home. We sipped scotch together and looked at gay and straight men porn on internet and I played with his penis and masturbated him while we did it. « I can’t believe you’re  so cool with this, » he said. My approval excited him. We had sex together and he agreed to masturbate in front of me which he’d never done before.
    I eventually arranged to be at a bar downtown with Michael where Tom could pretend to come across us by chance. He joined us for one drink which became two and more. Tom, who doesn’t look or act gay, was flirtatious with me and attentive to Michael. I was wearing a low cut blouse and no bra and made sure that Tom glimpsed a lot of my breasts. The unsuspecting Michael beamed his approval.

    I broke up the bar session with a suggestion we go back to our place while we were still fit to drive and then it just seemed to happen as if there had been a script to follow. We were one the couch with more drinks and low music with Tom in the middle,  joking and laughing and taking things slowly while the temperature rose. I bent forward so that Tom could see my breasts. He put his hand on my thigh. I was aware of Michael watching, flushed and excited. I reached over and undid Tom’s trousers and eased his penis out of his shorts. I kissed him but kept my eyes open. Tom’s hand slid to Michael’s crotch and deftly freed his cock. I slid away and the two men turned to each other, Tom’s mouth on Michael who was sliding his pants down, panting and grunting as Tom began to masturbate him and I watched in fascination.

    And that was it. Tom made Michael cum and then Michael made Tom cum and  they sucked each other off while I poured drinks and told them how beautiful they were which was true. Later on, we discovered that what Tom said about the small ads was true as well. There are literally thousands of guys out there panting for each other.