The English Teacher's Forbidden Secret

My name is Vanessa Laurent. Twenty-seven, elementary school English teacher, married to my college sweetheart, and mom to the most adorable three-year-old boy.

On paper? Picture-perfect. Stable job, doting husband, a happy little family—the kind of life people envy.

But behind closed doors? I've got questions. And regrets. And a growing pit in my stomach that won't go away.

See, my husband... wasn't exactly inexperienced before me. Meanwhile, he was my first—first love, first kiss, first everything. He was the one who taught me what intimacy was supposed to be.

So for years, I thought two minutes was... normal. I mean, we did manage to have a baby, so clearly it worked, right?

Then I accidentally stumbled onto those kinds of videos. The women in them—breathless, trembling, completely lost in pleasure. Nothing like the polite, rushed encounters I knew.

And they lasted. Really lasted.

Later, I hesitantly asked some of my coworkers—just casual, you know, girl talk. Their husbands? Twenty minutes, minimum.

That's when the ache settled in. The kind that doesn't fade.