Never Too Late to Play: The Profile 3

Chapter 3

Hello, Gentlemen,

I am a vivacious and confident woman in her prime, looking to add some excitement to my life without disrupting my stable marriage. I’m married, and intend to stay married. No drama, no emotional entanglements, no strings.

My husband knows about this profile, and chances are will read any messages that you send me. He supports me, he loves me, was have a good sex life, and none of that will ever change=.

So why have a profile on here at all? For adventure and excitement. Variety and new experiences add an element to our relationship. I get to meet new people. He gets to hear stories about those encounters.

I’m looking for a handsome man who understands the value of discretion and respect. Someone who can engage me intellectually as well as physically. 

I am looking for a man who practices good grooming habits, is fit, and isn’t overweight. No judgment or body shaming, I am just stating what I’m looking for. Please be honest and save us all some time. Profiles must feature up-to-date photos. Do not send me a picture of your dick!

I travel for work, and will not meet you in my home town. 

If you're seeking a sophisticated arrangement with no strings attached, let's connect and see where our chemistry takes us.

Stephen read the profile over again, tweaking a word here, adding a comma there. He liked it. A bit wordy, but it captured his wife well.

They’d written it together, more or less, and that was the most fun part of the experience. She’d laughed out loud when she told him to add the restriction on dick pics, still finding it hilarious that anyone would send her, of all people, something so vulgar.

For Stephen, the thought was slightly more hysterical than funny. The idea was absolutely mind-blowing.

Ultimately, though, the experience ended in the disappointment that he’d expected. “So when should we post this?” he’d asked last night as they crawled into bed.

Julianna was reading off of the Kindle, glasses on, makeup scrubbed?

“Post what?”

“Your profile.”

“Oh.” She set the Kindle down. “Wait, you were serious about actually… putting it online?”

If he was a balloon, now was the moment that he became untethered, air whipping him about the room. “Um, I guess, yes?” He slumped into himself, a red and blushing mess. “I mean, you know, just to see what happens.”

Julianna was quiet a long moment. Stephen could have just let it go—probably should have. But they’d come too far to put it all back into a box. He turned to her, sidling closer, resting a hand on her hip.

“What if someone that knows us sees the profile?” she blurted to the ceiling, then looked at him. 

“How would they know it’s you? We’ll just make sure to crop out your head in any photos.”

“What if they recognize my, like, clothes?”

Stephen grinned. “Then let’s use just the lingerie ones. No one should recognize those, right?”

Julianna glanced at him, catching him smirking. “Of course not. But they may recognize the furniture. Stephen, this seems like a really bad idea just to her some photos of male genitalia when I have everything I want,” she slipped a hand between his legs, “right here.” She met his eyes. “And you’re turned on.”

“Just the idea of it… even just talking about a profile—not even what comes next—is so hot, Julianna.”

She still looked skeptical, but he could tell that she was slowly caving. It was the look that she’d given in back when he turned 50 and had wanted a Corvette. He still had the silvery white Z06 in the garage, and one of his favorite memories of it was looking over to see Julianna’s hair dancing wildly in the wind as they cruised along with the top down.

So he pressed just a little more. “Just think about it, okay? Don’t totally dismiss the possibility. It’ll be a fun thing we can do, the two of us.”

***

And think on it, Julianna definitely did. She couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was a crazy idea. She’d been with this man for three decades, with no intention of ever changing that. The day that he’d asked her to marry him was the happiest day of her life. She’d said yes without hesitation. She knew that Stephen was the kind of partner she wanted to spend her life with.

It hadn’t always been smooth. They’d had their bumps. No relationship was that smooth, but compared to many of their friends, their dips weren’t so serious. Stephen had been laid off just after Garrett was born, but that had led to him forming his own construction company, and all the success that came after. 

They’d bickered over household responsibilities, and Julianna could still remember the argument they had when Garrett wanted to quit the soccer team mid-year and Stephen made him play it out despite hating it.

But the biggest issues they had were around communication. They were good when they agreed on things, which was most things—politics, travel, sometimes movie preferences. But when they weren’t on the same page, their default was just not to talk about it. Sex was like that. It was always good, but they rarely got into their fantasies.

Now that Stephen had opened up about his, she didn’t want to dismiss it. That didn’t mean she was ready to jump into bed with a random dude, either.

Julianna worked as an occupational therapist, but at this point in her career, she didn’t have many shifts at the hospital or the local clinic anymore. She traveled and consulted mostly, training others across the country. She always enjoyed traveling, so when this job opened up with her company a couple years ago, she’d jumped at it. At the time, it had helped her deal with the empty nest. Now, she just liked the new experiences.

But in hindsight, knowing what she knew about Stephen’s proclivities, all of her travel had to play into his insecurities and fantasies. She’d been on the road for a few days, and he must have been at home, thinking about all the guys hitting on her and getting all angsty.

Thing was, he wasn’t wrong about the guys. They’d always been there, although most had kept their professionalism, or had been steered away by a flash of her ring. Not all, though. Before Phoenix and the profile and Stephen’s confession, she’d never thought much about any of it. After, though, everything felt so much more charged.

“You’re really good at this.” The compliment came from Noah Blake, the coordinator of this afternoon’s workshop. Julianna was local today, a guest speaker at the college on the other side of town, but she’d not met Noah before.

“Anyone can get good at something if you’ve been doing it as long as I have.”

“Please, you know that’s not true.” Noah was probably ten years her junior. She liked the laugh lines around his dark eyes, and he had an easy-going confidence that came from teaching. He also didn’t have a ring on. It was a detail that Julianna never would have looked for until recently, and she found herself embarrassed when he caught her looking.

“Um, so, thank you for inviting me,” she stammered, brushing a strand of dark, red hair across her forehead. “You’ve got a good group here. Hope at least one goes on to be an OT. We could definitely use more.”

Noah nodded. Mercifully, he didn’t say anything inappropriate. He didn’t ask her for a drink or ask for her number. But he didn’t let her off the hook entirely. “Hope to work with you again, Julianna. It’s been the highlight of my week so far.”

She smiled wanly at him and practically fled to her Jeep.

That kind of attention wasn’t new to Julianna, but her evolving reaction to it certainly was. For the first time in her long years as a married woman, she’d started to wonder what it would be like to be receptive to those subtle advances. If Noah had asked her to get coffee, what would have happened if she’d said yes?

She made sure that even in her imagination, her hypothetical answer to that was vague—laughter, the hint of cologne, a hand in hers. She expelled the thoughts before things got too hot, but the heat still lingered and her heart still raced.

She wasn’t ready to share any of this with Stephen. She knew how he’d get—it would be like pouring gasoline on an open fire. But she suspected that he sensed her shift. When they’d go out, he’d notice her noticing the lingering stares around her, the subtle double-takes of men whenever she wore something even marginally tight.

He showed more self-restraint than usual, though, and kept his comments to himself.

Then, one day she was replying to emails at a coffee shop between appointments when she looked up and met the eyes of a guy at the next table over. For a second, she thought that he was Anthony, her Phoenix friend, with his dark hair and the hint of gray, with his strong jaw and dark eyes. But his nose was wrong, and when he spoke, his voice didn’t match what she remembered.

“Hey, I’ve seen you in here before. Good place to get some work in.”

It’s funny, but she’d never noticed him before. “Yeah, it’s a convenient spot,” Julianna answered neutrally. “And the coffee’s better than Starbucks.”

“Not a high bar to pass,” the stranger said, “but I definitely agree.”

She had these kinds of exchanges all the time. Normally, she’d think nothing of it. She’d smile, go back to her emails, and that would be that. Only this time, she saw the invitation in his smile. She felt the possibility in the way that he looked at her, his eyes trained on hers, resisting the urge to check her out more openly. A ripple of excitement zipped down her spine.

“I’m Julianna,” she found herself saying.

“Jonathan,” the guy introduced. She liked his smile. “Nice to put a name to a pretty face, Julianna.”

A thrill ran through her at the compliment. She could have this man, she realized. She could lean in and ask him if he wanted to get out of there, and he’d probably go. No ring, she noticed, and he picked up on her furtive eyes. When he smiled, she grew warm and almost giddy.

“So you’re here often?” she asked, chasing away her nerves.

“Often enough to start to notice the regulars, I suppose.”

As they made small talk, Julianna felt like she was right back on the plane with Anthony. Only back then, it had been harmless. There were no stakes. She didn’t know what she did now. Talking to Jonathan, she couldn’t shake the idea that all it would take was a mere suggestion and things could get so much steamier.

“God, look at the time,” he said, checking his watch for the first time. “Damn meetings, always getting in the way.”

Julianna felt both disappointment and relief—mostly relief, though. She was on the precipice of something, but didn’t want to go any further.

“It was nice to chat with you, Jonathan,” she said as he shut his own laptop.

When he rose, though, he paused first, leaning in close. Unlike Noah from the workshop, Jonathan does make an offer. “I shouldn’t say this, but you’re absolutely stunning, Julianna. If you ever want to grab a drink or something, I’d love to get to know you more.” He smiled one more time. “Hope to see you around here again.”

With that, he walked away, leaving Julianna a buzzing, sweaty, heart-pounding mess. She watched him push out through the doors of the coffee shop without looking back. As the door swung shut, she imagined what he would have been like to tell him yes. She shut her eyes, picturing his hands on her, his mouth trailing kisses down her neck.

“No,” she says aloud. The strength of her reaction surprised her, but it was just that—a reaction. No lines were crossed, but the possibility hung in the air, ripe with promise. She could have it. Stephen would be fine with it. Could she really do it?