“We all believe in the future, without ever knowing what it is.” – Shakespeare.
It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. When Jane Brownlow found her husband’s dirty socks on the bathroom floor for the third time that week, after she had repeatedly reminded him to put them in the dirty linen basket, she decided she had finally had enough. She was going to take a lover.
She had thought about it on a number of occasions previously, but the one thing she couldn’t really complain about in her marriage was the sex. Keith had (had always had) a healthy appetite in that direction and this made up for a number of deficiencies in others – boorish eating habits, obsession with darts and snooker, liking disgusting pub food, sport on TV etc etc.
With some husbands the idea would never work, but she was 99% certain that Kevin would never notice. And now that sex was no longer the No.1 issue – he was several years older than her – well, it was a bit like having the roses removed from the front garden. There was not a lot left – except concrete.
It was fortunate that her secretarial experience now came in useful. In the old days it would not have been easy to put her plan into action, but the IT revolution made things ridiculously easy. All she had to do was place an advertisement on the internet in the appropriate place and wait for the emails:
‘Married woman, aged 49, past her best physically but not ready to die yet, seeks exciting, romantic lover for discreet relationship. Manchester. Photo essential.’
By the end of a week she had received 19 replies, after which she decided to remove the advert. She had already decided how she was going to evaluate them. 2 she rejected on the grounds of illiteracy/ probable low intelligence. This was a shame as one, aged 28, the youngest applicant, looked pretty tasty. She wondered what they taught them in school, however, as he described himself as “very well windowed (about seven inches)”. He had a tooth missing at the front on the left which gave an extremely roguish charm, a bit like a gypsy, probably full of low cunning and very untrustworthy. No she would have to keep up some standards.
9 she rejected on grounds of physical incompatibility. Either they had not sent a photograph – either extremely inconsiderate or lacking in self-confidence – or their appearance was so unappetizing as to merit no further consideration.
4 she rejected on grounds of age. She had decided already on a limit of 50. She realized this was rather arbitrary and didn’t feel comfortable about it but one had to draw the line somewhere and the last thing she wanted was someone hormonally challenged like Keith, as she suspected. She had no problem with them herself, the HRT therapy her kind doctor had given her was producing the most amazing surges and with the right timing well… practice she was sure would make perfect. This meant regrettably rejecting a philosophy professor with impeccable credentials, very good looking ( though she wondered if the photo was recent), a fine taste in art and a small flat in London, a witty and engaging taxi-driver (also married), a photographer (unmarried – less attractive and possibly weird - he obviously had little idea how ineffective a nude photograph of herself might prove) and most intriguing of all, a Liberal Democrat MP. This last gave her considerable doubts about the wisdom of keeping her rule but the situation would also have a large potential for complications (he was married of course) and besides she was a Tory.
This left her just 4.
... to be continued...
