Literotic asexstories – Temptation by UltimateSin,UltimateSin
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*****
“Honey, I’m home,” I called out without thinking. It was only after I walked into the living room that it all came back to me. It was Wednesday. I’d slept alone in my bed since Sunday night after what happened during the weekend.
I’d been with my girlfriend for five years. Her name was Holly. We’d met at a café, one of those curious moments where she was looking for a table, asked if she could sit with me, and the rest was history. She was beautiful, intelligent, a heart full of kindness and, as I found out over the following weeks and months, incredibly loving.
She moved into my home after three years of dating, and the assumption was made by most people that I’d eventually propose, we’d get married, start a family and eventually grow old together. Now don’t get me wrong, I did genuinely love her. But marrying her wouldn’t have been fair on her. Having children and starting a family wouldn’t have been the right thing to do. I loved her, but she deserved someone who could give them her entire heart, and that was something I couldn’t do.
I would have been living a lie. Lying to myself, and in a way, lying to her. Vows I would have made would have been abandoned if the person I wanted above all finally gave me the green light, even after a decade and more of denying her feelings for me as much I lived with mine and just buried them as deep as possible.
Holly wasn’t the one person I loved above all.
She wasn’t my sister.
Although it was Holly who eventually pulled the pin on our relationship, growing weary of her family and our friends asking when I’d finally propose, she sat me down the previous Wednesday and asked, point blank, if I was ever going to propose to her.
“No,” was my blunt reply, “I love you, Holly, but I have no interest in marrying you. And while that sounds harsh, and you might now believe I don’t love you, I have no interest in marrying anyone. I am happy in our relationship, happy to live together, we share what I believe is a wonderful and loving relationship, but I don’t see it necessary to get married to show our commitment to each other.”
Everything I said was partially true. I was committed to her. But she wanted much more than I could give her. She slept in the spare bedroom that night, and when she arrived home from work on Thursday, she suggested it best I give her some space and that she was going to move out over the weekend.
“Holly, be honest with me and yourself…”
“Like you’ve been honest with me?” she retorted.
I smiled at her as, well, she was right. She just didn’t know how right she was. “I have been honest about all my feelings. I understand why you want to move out and for me to ‘give you space’. But let’s be honest about what’s really happening. There’s no such thing as taking a break during a relationship. You’re breaking up with me.”
“Is it what you want?” she asked.
“What I want doesn’t matter if you want to break up with me, Holly.”
She met my eyes, and I could see the turmoil. Was she prepared to pull the pin on five years together? Thing is that many people are willing to stay in unhappy relationships and marriages due to the time already spent together. ‘Sunk cost fallacy’ is what they call it. Some people just need to let shit go, or get out miserable relationships, because everyone would feel better about it in the end.
“I think it’s best if we just go our separate ways,” she finally said. I heard the sadness in her tone. I had a feeling she didn’t exactly want to break up with me, but she was also happy, and wanted more from me than I was willing to give her. “I want marriage and children, Mark. And if you’re not willing to give me that then I guess I need to find a man who will.”
I actually helped her move out over the weekend. It was mostly just boxes and cases of her things, and I let her take any personal items she’d bought for the house as I wasn’t going to be a dickhead or cruel to her. This was an amicable break-up, or at least as amicable as possible considering the circumstances. Her father and mother offered to pick her up as she was temporarily moving back with them. Neither of them was particularly happy with me, but Holly at least wouldn’t hear of them talking too negatively about me.
But, with a final hug by the car, I watched her get into the back of the car and she was driven away, out of my life. I would assume forever as I didn’t think we’d keep in touch for too much longer.
Word spread quickly and I was inundated with messages from around midday on Sunday. I ignored most of them as some messages simply asked ‘Why?’, others offered support, but the expected negative messages arrived, mostly from Holly’s friends. I have no idea what she told them. No doubt a version of the truth, enough to suggest that I was a bastard for stringing her along or something.
So that meant the house was quiet and felt a little emptier than it had for the past couple of years. I wasn’t going to let it get me down though. I still had friends to hang out with, and I already had plans for that weekend, a night out with ‘the boys’. My parents were offering to come around to keep me company, assuming I was heartbroken, and no doubt depressed. But while I was feeling sad, I knew we’d done the right thing.
The one person I didn’t hear a word from was my sister. That wasn’t a real surprise. Communication between the pair of us had been sparse for over a decade for good reason. Only she knew about my feelings for her, as much as I knew her feelings about me. If anyone else found out about our feelings, and what we’d done, we’d be sent to therapy, thrown in jail, disowned… Pretty much ostracised by all our friends and family.
Over the next few months, my friends did their best to make me feel better. I spent time with my parents, who naturally worried about their son who was now single again in his thirties. Given the fraught relationship I’d had with them, I was surprised they were so worried. Sure, I had a great career, owned my own house, had a fantastic car, a great group of friends, but apparently being single and childless at my age was a real problem to many people.
“Any word from Holly?” my best friend, Jim, asked over beers one evening after work.
“We don’t really speak or message as our relationship is over. I’ve heard word from one of her friends, who remained friendly with me, that she did start dating a new guy in the past couple of months.”
“Any problem with that?”
“Why would I have a problem with it? We broke up and she’s moving on.”
“Well, Linda suggested that she suggested just giving you space, not actually breaking up. From what Holly told her, you suggested a break-up instead.”
“I just put a label on what she actually wanted. As soon as she moved out, that was always going to be the end of our relationship. It was going to happen sooner or later.”
“Not tempted to dip your toe back in the dating pool?”
“Not particularly. I’m focusing on my career, I’ve returned to the gym and have started looking playing sport again, and I’m just doing what I want to do. And before anyone asks, no, I’m not lonely.”
“You have a dog and a cat, Mark.”
“I take the dog for a walk and the cat is surprisingly friendly.”
“Holly didn’t want to take the cat?”
“Her parents don’t like them, so she let me keep her.”
It was perhaps six months or a little longer when the doorbell rang one evening. It was rather late at night. Had me wondering who could possibly be visiting. Checking the time, Australia isn’t somewhere you’d answer the door late at night armed, but I still kept a cricket bat handy should it be a couple of ruffians knocking on my door with ill intent.
Checking the peephole, I pulled my eye back and took a couple of deep beaths before I unlocked and opened the door.
“Hi,” Beth stated softly, curling some hair behind her ear, “I know it’s late…”
I couldn’t really see her in the darkness, but I recognised the voice. Even in the darkness, I recognised her silhouette. “What are you doing here, Beth?”
That’s when I turned on the porch light, illuminating her gorgeous face. She tried to smile, but the marks on her cheek, and the forming bruise around her eyes, told me everything. Offering my hand, her soft hand was easily enveloped by my larger one, gently pulling her inside, using my other hand to shut the door as she buried herself into my chest.
When she started to shake, I knew she was crying. “Bags are in the car,” she whispered, “I didn’t know where to go.”
“How often, Beth?”
“It wasn’t the first time,” she replied, feeling her body wracked by sobbing, “But tonight was the last time he would ever touch me.”
“You shouldn’t have stayed after the first. You shouldn’t…”
“Just hold me, Mark.”
I did just that, holding my sister in my arms for the first time in what felt like years. For the longest time, we’d kept our distance. Birthdays, holidays, Christmas… Our parents wondered why we were distant. I received plenty of questions. I figured Beth did too. “Sorry, didn’t mean to sound like I was blaming you,” I finally said.
“You weren’t. You’ve always looked after me, even though I’m older.”
Guiding her to the living room, I sat her down and took her car keys, opening the boot of her car once outside to find a suitcase and a couple of smaller bags. I knew her leaving wouldn’t actually be a problem. Like me, she’d never married. But while I’d been with Holly for five years and had been in two other long-term relationships before that, Beth’s track record wasn’t great. Her now new ex-boyfriend was a string of idiots, dickheads and sometimes abusive partners she’d found herself with.
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