Gathering Rosebuds (L)

(L) – This story contains strong language. 

Gathering Rosebuds

It had been too long, nearly a month in fact, since my husband Tom and I had made love. Work, difficult people, aging parents, strained finances, and seemingly endless responsibilities had created an uncomfortable distance between my husband of 30 years and me.

I was frustrated, mildly resentful at Tom for small things like going off to work every morning and leaving the details of the house and family to me, upset that he wouldn’t do exactly what I wanted him to do and when, just the way I insisted.

We had become like two separate forces, not always pulling in the same direction. And it showed in our lack of intimate time.

I had snapped at Tom the night before, over nothing, really. We had planned to have sex that weekend. But when he approached me, I turned him down. His feelings were hurt, of course. I knew they would be. And I didn’t react well.

“You can’t just demand sex from me any time you feel like it!” I said. “I’m not your little concubine!”

I immediately regretted what I had said, but in my defense, I just wasn’t feeling sexy.

But that’s not how Tom saw it. He felt rejected.

“Anne, look, something’s wrong here. I’m not sure what it is. I love you, but I’m not going to beg you have sex with me. That’s not how it’s supposed to be. So I’m going to bed. Good night.”

I stayed where I was, in front of the stupid TV, sending random text messages on my phone, as if the world depended on me to tell it what to do.

After about an hour, I tiptoed in to apologize, but he was sound asleep. I decided to let things be, and make up it to him later.

While Tom slept the sleep of the innocents, I worried and asked God to show me how to bring us back together again.

The next morning, Tom got up before me. I could hear him showering and putting on his work clothes. He headed to the kitchen for a cup of coffee.

I knew if I hustled, I could catch him just as he was walking out the door. I jumped up, washed my face, brushed my teeth, fluffed up my hair, put on a touch of lipstick, and changed from a comfortable cotton nightgown into a black lace gown that did a rather half-hearted job of holding my boobs in.

I caught him at the front door.

“Aren’t you going to kiss me goodbye?” I asked innocently.

“Oh, sure, Babe. I thought you were still in bed,” Tom said.

“I will be in a second . . . if I can get you to join me.” I wrapped my arms around his neck and rubbed my body against him. I gave him a kiss on the lips that soon turned open mouth. It lingered just long enough to spark the reaction I was trying for.

“Wow, where did that come from?” Tom asked.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I miss us, and I’m worried you aren’t attracted to me anymore, because you are surrounded by younger women at your office, and I’m old and boring and all I do is stress out about little stuff that doesn’t seem to bother you one bit.”

For some odd reason, that suddenly got me teary-eyed, and I buried my face in his chest so he couldn’t see me crying.

Tom hugged me, then reached down and, in one fell swoop, picked me up off my feet!

“Oh my—Tom put me down!” I exclaimed in a panic. “You are going to strain your back! Or drop me! Or both!”

“Shhh,” he said. “I’ve got you.”

From that moment on, Tom did what all wives really, sometimes secretly, want—what God intended husbands to do. He took the lead. And I submitted to him, completely. What he wanted was what I wanted.

Judging from the comments and stories of the women on this amazing site, most of us are “modern” women. We know ourselves sexually and are confident, self-assured, capable, in charge. We aren’t the “little woman.” We don’t need a man to run our lives, right?

Well, at least for me, right then, WRONG.

As Tom carried me into our bedroom, I realized that the real reason I was distracted and unhappy was that I was always trying to lead, not realizing that I was created by God to be Tom’s helpmate, not his mom or his boss or his third grade teacher.

He gently laid me down on our unmade bed, relieved me of my slippers and granny panties, then unzipped his Italian suit pants, extracted his cock, and brought it close to my face. I knew what he wanted.

I began to kiss and suck him. He was pleasantly surprised by my eagerness and quickly got hard. While I was sucking him, he reached down and started caressing my boobs. 

He pulled away and said, “Let’s see how wet we can get that perfect pussy.”

He gently brushed my pubic mound, then slipped a finger lightly over my sleeping clit, which woke right up. My pussy loves this man and responds to his caresses like a loyal puppy.

Just lightly touching my clit sent jolts of electricity up my spine. I wanted him to be all over me as soon as he could get his clothes off. But he was obviously enjoying turning me on, and was in no hurry.

I scooted down on the bed a little and took his cock back in my mouth, one hand stroking his shaft, the other guiding his hand between my legs, just where I wanted him to touch me.

As I was sucking him, I made a conscious effort to look at him directly in the eyes. He was staring at my pussy, smiling, and he turned to me and matched my gaze. Then he began to move his hips back and forth, slowly, like he was fucking my pussy in his imagination. I nodded my head, his cock still moving gently in and out of my mouth. After a few more strokes, he pulled back. His cock was wet.

I rolled onto my back and watched him remove his shirt and suit. I pulled my gown over my head and lay back and waited for him. He went to the foot of the bed, and without asking (or being told what to do), he positioned himself between my legs, slid his arms under my thighs, and brought his mouth to my waiting pussy. It was so slow, deliberate, and sexy. My toes curled in anticipation, and I ran my fingers through his hair and met his eyes again.

Without saying a word, he kissed my pussy like it was my mouth. It is hard to describe now. It wasn’t like he was trying to bring me to orgasm. It was more like he was drinking from some sort of mythological fountain. I know that sounds ridiculous, like a scene in a romance fantasy novel, but that’s what it was like.

At that moment, I no longer felt old or fat or self-conscious. I felt like a princess, a queen, and Tom was my knight, who desired to drink some magical essence I carried deep inside me.

We have talked about this aspect of our lovemaking. Tom often tells me how much he loves how my pussy tastes and smells when I am turned on. He gets excited when I push my fingers inside and get them all coated with my juices, and then brush my fingers across his lips. He has turned me on to this as well.

(I’m not a “squirter”, as some girls are, but Tom swears that when I start to come, something different happens “down there.” It’s like a gush or release of the essence of the desire I feel for him. He can definitely taste it, and it REALLY turns him on. The chemistry of sex is so fascinating. There is something primal about it. We are all sexual, sensual animals, right? Smell and taste are clearly connected to desire. Thank you, God!)

Tom continued to lick and suck my pussy and then my clit. I came fast—too fast—and I was worried this would end too soon. But Tom was just getting started.

He got up on his knees. He took his cock in his hand and teased my swollen clit and pussy lips with it. My clit gets very sensitive after I come, but I clearly wanted more. I wanted to feel his full weight on top of me, his cock buried deep inside me, as deep as he could go, skin to skin.

As I am writing it all out, it sounds a little strange to say, but it was as if I needed to feel our separate selves reconnected. I was tired of being emotionally and physically apart from my husband.

There is something about having Tom on top of me and inside me. It’s as if we are two parts of a whole. There is a kind of magnetic attraction that draws us together and resists being pulled apart. I have never felt that with anyone else.

I suppose this is the “one flesh” that our faith teaches us is the spiritual object of marriage. But it’s not just a nice thought. It’s real.

Tom felt it too. Slowly, he pushed his penis inside me. It almost felt like my body was sucking him in. I could feel the head slip inside, and my muscles tensed a little. Tom is blessed with a large cock—more in girth than length—and no matter how many thousands of times he has been inside me over our 40 years of marriage, it always makes me gasp a bit when it first goes in.

Sometimes he stays shallow and edges me, but this time he slid it slowly all the way in, until our hips were grinding against one another.

Tom has mastered the “CAT”  (Coital Alignment Technique) that was all the rage in the 1980s sex manuals (The Joy of Sex, remember that? I wonder where mine is? I hope I didn’t accidentally donate it to the Church bazaar . . . but that’s another story!) Anyway, he can align himself so that the base of his cock rubs against my clit and all the nerve endings that surround it. When he’s there, I know it.

“Oh my, Baby, you are right on it. Right there. Yes. Don’t stop.”

He didn’t stop. He fucked me slowly, deliberately. I could feel that familiar feeling build again, like a roller coaster slowly ascending a long incline, increasing the sexual tension and our desire. My legs were wrapped around his, and our bodies were moving in a steady rhythm, like a rider and her stallion. His face was pressed into the pillow above my left shoulder, and I could feel his muscled body, so different from my softness as it yielded and enveloped him. My hands slid down his side as his hands went down past the small of my back and clutched my once shapely but now middle-aged ass.

“Oh God, Anne, I can’t hold back,” he said.

“Don’t,” I encouraged. “I’m your girl. Fuck me like you need me.”

That was all it took. Tom groaned in that cry of pleasure and passion that I needed to hear. My cries mingled with his, and I felt that wonderful plunge and swoosh of release!

He collapsed on top of me, spent. We lay there, entwined, for longer than we normally do. I could feel his heart pounding in his chest, and I held on to him as tight as I could.

“Don’t move. I need to feel you. I’ve missed it,” I said.

I held him until his cock slowly slipped from me. I could feel his cum dripping from my pussy, making that wonderful mess that always makes me smile when I change our sheets after a night of lovemaking and blissful sleep.

Tom usually rolls off me after we make love. But this time he didn’t, and I thought I could feel something wet on my pillow.

“Were you crying too?” I asked.

“I think we both were,” he said. “I needed that. I’m so sorry I’ve been ignoring you. I love you so much.”

I made a promise to myself that day that I would never turn down a request for intimacy from my husband ever again. This may not be the right thing for everyone, but it is for me. Desire is a funny thing. At my age, to be desired by the man I love, and to feel desire for him in turn, is an amazing blessing, and not to be taken for granted. There may come a time when we won’t be able to feel this way.

As a poet once wrote:

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.”

Robert Herrick, 1591-1674

Great advice!