This week, a woman who moved to the country with her family and is wondering if she’ll find anyone attractive there: 38, married, Vermont.
DAY ONE
8:00 a.m. My husband and I moved to a small town in Vermont a few weeks ago with our daughter. We left Brooklyn after a decade there. We both lost our jobs, kind of … It’s complicated. He was the house manager for a rich family who had homes in the Hamptons and the city, and other places around the world, and I worked as a personal chef for that family. They were insanely loaded but shockingly great people. They both had health issues, and they opted to cut back on all external bodies when the virus hit. They gave us really generous packages, and a promise to employ us again when life went back to normal, so it afforded us the chance to take a risk and do something like move to the country for a couple months, or longer. Here we are.
11:30 a.m. My biggest concern is getting my daughter adjusted. She’s five and loves having friends. It’s a hard time to make new friends, but we’re going to try. Today we’re exploring our new neighborhood, with our masks on of course.
9:00 p.m. It’s sexy getting into a new bed in our new house. My husband and I used to have sex once every few weeks, mostly out of sheer exhaustion at night. Now we’re having sex every other night or so. I enjoy it but I don’t come from him. I fake every orgasm. It’s an untruth I have no guilt about. He’s a great husband and I love him and I don’t want to hurt his feelings by letting him know I’m not sexually satisfied. It’s that simple.
DAY TWO
9:30 a.m. I’m taking my daughter to the local farmer’s market in our new town, and thinking about things. Every few years, I like to have an affair. I find it really harmless. I know I’m playing with fire but it keeps me balanced. I’ve had affairs with men and women, even though I identify as straight. My husband has no idea. Again, it’s not worth hurting him or scaring him for no reason.
3:30 p.m. I’m taking a long jog around our new area. There’s no one to talk to or socialize with. That’s fine. But I do hope we’ll make friends. And I have a fantasy of some local, rugged furniture maker fucking me for a few nights until I’m sick of him. My husband and I don’t have an open marriage, but he used to travel a lot with the rich family and I’m sure he’s been in his own situations. Our marriage has never suffered from any of it, so … all good.
9:30 p.m. We’re having sex. I tell him I want him to call me a whore. I’m into kinkier things than him. He gets embarrassed by the whore thing. I then tell him to say, “I’m gonna come inside you.” He doesn’t want to come inside me because we definitely don’t want more kids. I explain that he should just say it even if he’s lying. I don’t care where he actually comes. It’s the saying it that will turn me on. He’s missing the point. Ugh!
DAY THREE
9:00 a.m. We don’t know what we’re going to do for work. We have enough to live off of for a year, each. And we’ve been too consumed by moving and parenting in this pandemic to even talk much about long-term plans. We can also see if our old employers want us back when the dust settles. There is so much in the air. We don’t even know if our daughter will be in school come September. We’re kind of free spirits to begin with so we’re just going with it and trying to stay calm.
2:30 p.m. We need a really good homemade meal so I go to a few local shops that are open for curbside delivery. The local cheese shop, the wine shop, the butcher, etc. It’s cool figuring out my new routines. No hotties, male or female to speak of.
3:30 p.m. I stop into a local consignment shop. Another mom comes in and we start commiserating over parenting right now. She mentions her “wife” and I’m turned on that she’s queer. I’m not attracted to her but I’d love to hang out with her and her crew. I ask if we can have a drink sometime, and she’s really psyched about that. I know she thinks I’m flirting with her, and maybe I am.
10:00 p.m. I give my husband a blow job tonight because it’s his birthday and we always do some funny porno-like blow job on his birthday. It’s hard not to laugh because it’s so cliché to get a BJ on your B-day from your wife, but I focus because I don’t want my teeth to hurt him.
DAY FOUR
10:00 a.m. I’m not really a social-media person but the lesbian mom friended me on Facebook and now I’m peeping at her friends and it seems like they all know how to have a good time. I can’t help but wonder if they get into weird shit. A few years ago, I had this thing with a spin teacher (go figure!). She and all her queer friends would smoke a ton of weed and all end up hooking up with each other. But that was a unique bunch — they were all young, fit, and beautiful. I had a child and just couldn’t keep up.
5:00 p.m. My daughter and I just had a heart-to-heart about all the changes in her life recently. She’s so strong and grounded. She cried a little bit, which I encouraged. I always want her to feel comfortable being vulnerable with me.
10:30 p.m. Talking about future work and stuff with my husband. The rich family we worked for has homes all over the world and even though we’re just settling into Vermont, we have options like living in France and working for them. We’d have to propose something but chances are they’d say yes. I kiss my husband good night and roll over. I don’t feel like having sex with him tonight, and he’s not trying to convince me otherwise. Sometimes I wish he’d just say, “Shut the fuck up and spread your legs.” He would never, though.
DAY FIVE
9:30 a.m. A little garden comes with this house rental so we’re trying to get into gardening. I’m Googling like crazy. I grew up in Queens and my husband is from Chicago so we don’t know what we’re doing. He knows more than me from managing all the gardeners and landscapers from the rich family, but he’s never gotten down and dirty with it. Although I’m a professionally trained chef, I’m not really the farm-to-table kind of chef. I cook that way, but I’m more about the table than the farm.
3:00 p.m. My husband drives our daughter to Target so it gives me time to lay in bed and masturbate — my all-time favorite pastime. I am into so many different kinds of porn. For a second, I try to hold off on coming because I think one of the reasons I don’t orgasm with my husband is that I get myself off so often. But I can’t watch porn and not have an orgasm. That’s just stupid.
9:00 p.m. I made a feast tonight and we had lots of wine and laughter. This always leads to the best sex with my husband. We fuck best when we’re happy. I know some people like to fight and fuck but that’s not us.
11:00 p.m. We had really great sex. I was drunk so I said some crazy shit (like, “Tell me you own my pussy!”). It always makes him a little uncomfortable when I instruct things like that but he gets over it real fast. And I came!
DAY SIX
9:00 a.m. My parents are coming tonight. They’ve been really careful and we just can’t go another day without seeing them. I need my mom’s help getting the new place together. We need the child care, too. They’re extremely close to our daughter.
2:00 p.m. Cleaned, cleaned, cleaned all day. They’re almost here.
4:00 p.m. They’re here! It’s great. I cried seeing them pull into the driveway. It’s an emotional time.
9:30 p.m. Fall asleep with a big smile on my face. My parents have their own bedroom here. That would never, ever happen in a New York apartment. I never want them to leave.
DAY SEVEN
9:00 a.m. I’m doing a Zoom intro session for this Waldorf school I might want my daughter to go to. All I can do is check out the other parents. It’s mostly to see if they seem nice and cool but also, Hmm, anyone I feel attracted to? Usually that kind of thing hits me right away. Like, I’ll look at someone and know I’m going to have a thing with them. I always know. But I’m not sure with this Zoom crowd.
12:30 p.m. My mom makes a delicious lunch for everyone. Then they tell my husband and I to go back to our rooms and watch movies or chill out, and they’ll watch our daughter. They know that relaxing and doing nothing never happens when you have kids. We gladly take them up on it!
2:30 p.m. We start having sex. I love having quiet sex like teenagers with your parents downstairs. I muffle my husband’s mouth and he muffles mine. It’s fun and I’m into it, but we’re worried about the squeaky bed so I tell him to come as quickly as he can. He rails me really hard and fast and it’s over. I’m sweaty and smiling. I tell him I love him as he tiptoes to the bathroom to clean up.
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