
EROTICA / SERIAL / MARRIAGE 2.0 / SEASON ONE
Marriage 2.0: Melissa & Adam #1
A city couple looks to Marriage 2.0 to help them rekindle their passion for each other after difficulties conceiving

Welcome to Marriage 2.0 — the modern relationship, upgraded.
New to the series? Start with the Introduction >>

Who first came up with the idea to sign up for Marriage 2.0? Both of them, perhaps. Or at least, that’s the version they remembered.
They had both seen ads or commercials in various locations — magazines, cable TV shows, and a fairly lengthy one in the movie theater when they went to see the latest Marvel superheroes flick together. The commercials showed many couples having fun with each other and enjoying life because of the program.
It seemed fun, and they both knew they needed something to spark their romance after the grueling process of IVF, which had so far failed to take after four long cycles.
Maybe Melissa dug her elbow into Adam’s side while they were watching the commercial in the AMC theater on 19th St., but when she did, he was already glancing at her with a question in his eyes.
Should we try this?
Why not? It seemed like it might be fun. They were both scared of the possibility that they might need some kind of marriage counseling. That usually meant the end, right? That divorce was imminent. They were both scared even to talk about it with each other.
And yet Marriage 2.0 seemed to make sense when they saw the commercials.
They did need to upgrade their relationship.
They needed to see their marriage as the best thing that was going on in their lives. They still loved each other. It was just that they’d been through tough times recently, and it had snuffed out that spark they had for each other, completely dispelling any passion.
They needed something to take their minds off the IVF, the miscarriage.
Whoever it was that got the idea first was probably irrelevant. What was true, after they went to get tested at the facility on Lexington Avenue, was that Melissa was the one whose ‘Experience’ began first.
She was all smiley and buzzing with energy as she showed Adam the app on her phone, and the message that stated pretty simply:
Marriage 2.0: Congratulations, your adventure is starting.
When he’d seen that Melissa’s Experience was starting, Adam had been confused why the Marriage 2.0 app on his own phone showed no such message.
In the status section of the app, it still told him to ‘please wait for your adventure to begin.’
Had there been some kind of glitch?
That was what they thought at first. They were married, they had been tested together, so surely they would have the same Experience, right? So it should begin at the same time for both of them?
‘Have they told you anything else?’ Adam asked Melissa as she went into the bedroom to change out of her work clothes.
‘No, nothing else,’ she said, then corrected herself, ‘Oh. Yes, there was one thing.’
‘What’s that?’
She leaned out of the door and smirked at him as he sat forlornly on the couch. ‘I’m not supposed to tell you about any instructions they send me.’
Adam felt his stomach sink. Seriously?
‘But why?’
‘I have no idea,’ she’d said from the bedroom, and he had moved so he could see her standing in front of the closet in her plain white bra and panties, looking for something to wear.
‘You’re going out tonight?’ he said, drawing his conclusion from the fact that she wouldn’t have to search through their closet to find things to wear for hanging out at home in the evening.
‘I’m not supposed to tell you,’ she stressed, with a flash of her dark eyes.
The mystery intrigued him, especially now that he knew her Marriage 2.0 Experience had apparently started already, while his had not.
‘I can see that you’re going out, though,’ he said. ‘You’re going out without me?’
He put on a hurt expression and milked her guilt for all it was worth.
She sighed at that. ‘Okay. Look, I’m not supposed to say anything. But I’m only going for drinks with the girls. Nothing really scandalous. Ashley, Francine, Olivia.’
He nodded. ‘You haven’t seen those guys in a while.’
‘They’re all dropping kids like bunny rabbits,’ Melissa sighed, then tried to hide her disappointment that they could not follow suit. ‘This is the first night in months they’ve been able to do.’
She ended up pulling on a pair of skinny blue jeans, a black top, and her old leather jacket. A fairly casual look, but still quite chic for a simple drink or two with the girls.
‘And Marriage 2.0 told you to go on this night out?’
He had to ask. It was too much of a coincidence that her Experience had started, and suddenly she was going out without him for the first time in months.
‘I told you, I’m not supposed to say anything.’
She flashed her eyes at him again, but then giggled, which seemed to confirm that Marriage 2.0 had told her to organize this social evening.
‘Oh,’ he said.
‘Look, it’s just going to be a bit of fun,’ she said, tugging on her black top as though it didn’t fit her to her liking. ‘Maybe Marriage 2.0 believes I need some time with the girls for a change. You know — to let my hair down.’
‘Maybe,’ he said, relaxing a little. It seemed logical that an assessment of their relationship might conclude that they needed a little more space and more time socializing with others.
But why hadn’t he been told to go out for a few evening drinks with his friends?
Adam watched Melissa putting on her makeup out of the corner of his eye, while ostensibly lounging on their couch. She looked happy to be going out like this. It made him feel quite nice, that she was happy.
Maybe that was the point?
Maybe he’d get his night out another night.
He breathed. He even smiled. He liked that she was cheerfully readying herself for a night out with her friends from college. This was just what she needed.
It made him think they should have known that this kind of thing was what they needed. Before they’d gone and lost an entire afternoon registering with Marriage 2.0.
A little space away from each other and their tiny apartment. A little boost of self-confidence always came when they spent time with their friends, friends they’d known for ages.
Why did she need so much makeup, though — and perfume?
It made him realize how long it had been since he’d seen her dressed up like this. She looked good. Better than good, she looked great. He guessed that she was simply making sure she didn’t look out of place at a city bar this time of night. It was merely his primordial instincts feeding a kind of paranoia that made him think about how other guys at the bar would respond to the sight of her looking like that.
He didn’t mention his paranoia, though, of course. He simply kissed her on the cheek before she headed out the door, letting it lie.
As soon as she was gone, though, he moved to double-check whether his adventure might have started, too, and if not, why.
Alone in the apartment, he switched his phone off and on again, restarting the Marriage 2.0 app.
Still nothing.
He checked their website, which also advised him to ‘Please wait for your Experience to begin.’
He even called the Marriage 2.0 helpline and spoke to a friendly female operator who had checked the database and confirmed that his Experience was yet to begin.
He had to sit back and trust that it was simply the requirement that they have separate nights out, on different nights, and chance had decided that Melissa’s should be first.
They both needed their social lives to be rebooted. That was all this was.
But the next night, Adam wasn’t going out with his friends.
Nor the night after.
The following Thursday night, Melissa went out for another evening with her college buddies while Adam stayed home.
He started phoning various old college friends, some of whom he hadn’t seen for upwards of a year. But they were all busy. The kids. Their work. Various social obligations from their new suburban social circles. Too few of his friends had stayed in the city.
So he was left in, while Melissa started going out regularly.
Then it was happening every week.
Every Thursday night, she would come home from work, change, and then go out for a night out with the girls — while he stayed where he was. There were occasional evenings where the guys from the office would agree to a drink after work, but that was rare. They, too, were mostly suburbanites. Commuting suburbanites with houses in Jersey, or Connecticut, or Up State.
Adam felt lousy.
But hey, Melissa was showing signs of happiness and improved self-confidence. Maybe that was all that mattered.
They had sex, sometimes, when she came home from her nights out, and even on other nights sometimes. Maybe things were getting better, after all.
Was this their adventure?
Well, he’d take it. There had been a noticeable improvement in her general mood. But why had they tested Adam so extensively, including his sexual preferences, if he wasn’t really going to be directly involved in any ‘Experience’?
Then one Thursday evening, Adam felt his phone buzzing as Melissa came in from work to change so she could go out with her friends again.
He pulled out the phone to find a message on the Marriage 2.0 app.
Marriage 2.0: Congratulations, your Experience is starting! Please keep any instructions we send you confidential. Do not share details with your wife.
Well, this left him scratching his chin.
He wasn’t exactly an expert, but he assumed one of the first things marriage counseling therapists would say to couples would be not to keep secrets from each other. To maintain open communication channels between husband and wife.
How was it supposed to strengthen their relationship if he wasn’t allowed to talk to Melissa about his adventure? About their adventures?
Were they to have separate Experiences?
Sitting on the couch, pondering, Adam assumed that he would soon be ordered out to a bar somewhere to share an evening with his friends. Which friends, exactly, was a bit of a mystery since he hadn’t found any with availability much before September. Perhaps he would be introduced to new friends?
He and Melissa would work on building their own individual social lives — and then, as their ‘Experience’ progressed, things between them might be rekindled. Perhaps he and Melissa would be encouraged to start dating again, as though they were single, rather than married to each other. He’d read about couples forcing themselves to ‘date’ in order to keep the passion alive.
They would get a complete social reboot.
Adam sat on the couch, waiting for another message from Marriage 2.0 while Melissa finished getting ready for her night out. He was excited merely from the fact that he’d had confirmation that his own Experience had started. What was going to happen? How would it all start?
Even if it did turn out that he simply needed to make a few new friends before focusing on improving things in the bedroom with Melissa, it was exciting to think something might happen.
His heart rate had even picked up.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when there was another buzz on his phone, and another message came in via the app.
Marriage 2.0: Go get a drink of juice from the kitchen.
What?
He almost burst out laughing — and only managed to control himself by remembering that if Melissa asked what he was laughing about, he wouldn’t be able to tell her, which would be awkward. He was supposed to keep all this to himself, right?
But what on Earth was this damn thing doing, telling him to go get a drink from the kitchen?
Did Melissa get this kind of instruction when her Experience had started?
Perhaps it was just warming him up — getting him used to receiving instructions from the app.
He gave a silent groan and launched himself up from the couch, shuffling over to the kitchen area of their open-plan kitchen-dining-living-room before reaching into a cupboard for a glass, and then into the refrigerator for the juice. His phone buzzed again while he was pouring the juice.
Marriage 2.0: Take a look through the window.
Huh?
He glanced out of the kitchen window — and caught his breath.
He could see Melissa in the bedroom, getting changed.
The fact that you could see into their bedroom from their kitchen was something they’d discussed when they’d first looked around the apartment. It was one of the quirks of this tiny apartment in the East Village that had made it affordable for them. And at the time, they’d agreed with the real estate agent that privacy wasn’t a problem when you were looking into your own bedroom like this.
Now, Adam stood at the kitchen counter sipping his ice-cold juice, watching his beautiful wife checking herself out in the mirror. She was wearing a black lacy bodysuit with a high leg and a thong back — very racy. Certainly a little too risque for a simple evening out with the girls.
And not the kind of thing Melissa would wear for work.
What was she doing?
Was she planning a surprise for him? Maybe she was planning on a special night of passionate sex when she returned home from her night out?
Adam felt his manhood thicken while he watched her. It seemed that from this angle, she couldn’t see him watching her through the kitchen window. They’d never noticed that when they’d been buying the apartment.
Was this what Marriage 2.0 wanted? For him to spy on his wife?
For him to spoil the surprise she obviously had planned for him on her return from the usual Thursday girls’ night out?
Still, it was exciting to think she might have been shopping for some sexy lingerie. She hadn’t even done that when they’d been trying so hard to conceive.
He watched her stoop to reach for something in one of her bottom drawers. She had her back to him, and she moved with the poise of a dancer — though it had been some years since she’d last taken a dance class.
She did look good. Long, slender legs, a hint of muscles showing in her thighs, shapely behind shown off nicely by the thong back of her underwear.
She reached for the black item on the bed, and he quickly saw that it was a stocking. She wore hose often enough for work, but this was a thigh-high stocking. Lace-topped.
She lifted her leg and began rolling it over her feet, her toes supporting herself on the edge of the mattress. Rolled it up her thighs, stretching the lace band in place at the top. Then she slowly pulled the matching stocking on her other leg. It made her look overtly sexual.
She was wearing stockings for him? God. He’d never imagined she’d do that — he’d always assumed she didn’t see the point.
But here she was.
This was what pornstars wore. There was no reason for wearing stockings like this, except to arouse.
He was so hard, watching her. She was so sexy, though he felt he hadn’t recognized that in years. And yet… along with the thrill of seeing her like this, of anticipating that the end of the night would see her stripping off for him to show off this outfit… something about it was troubling him.
Why was she putting stockings on for a night out with the girls?
He glanced at the message that Marriage 2.0 had sent him about looking through the kitchen window, and it occurred to him that watching Melissa dressing up in seriously sexy lingerie was part of their Experience. It was a reassuring thought.
This was just part of their Experience.
It didn’t matter that she was going out for the evening without him. Just that he saw what she was wearing when she went out. It would leave him longing for her all evening — so that by the time she returned, he would be desperate to sleep with her.
He could see the logic in it all. It was incredible that Marriage 2.0 knew precisely where he needed to be to watch Melissa dressing like this. But then, it had sophisticated technology, right? Artificial intelligence systems.
Melissa was reaching into the closet now. Pulling out a little black dress — with an emphasis on the word ‘little.’
Of course they had given Marriage 2.0 their address. And if you typed their address into Google, it brought up the website for the building they lived in. There were often apartments in the building available for sale — and when apartments were available, the details would be on Zillow, or Realtor.com, or whatever. Since most of the apartments in this building were of fairly standardized design, Adam could conceive how Marriage 2.0 might work out exactly where he should stand in their apartment while Melissa changed.
She was stepping into the dress, pulling it up her body, smoothing it into place. It was much shorter than anything Melissa would usually wear, particularly for a casual night out with friends. The hem of her dress only just covered the lace tops of her stockings.
Again, Adam watched her checking herself out in the mirror. She tested the dress to make sure it did just about cover her stockings. Based on the woman he knew, he assumed she would decide the dress didn’t work. It was too short, there was far too much risk of it riding up to provide a glimpse of her stockings. She’d reach into the closet for a different dress.
But she didn’t.
Instead, she found herself some shoes — black, high-heeled shoes. Apparently, she was happy with the dress. God damn it. As she was putting on her shoes, she bent over, and the dress rode up so high on her thighs that he received a view of her stocking tops and her delicious behind. Enough to remind him that she was wearing thong underwear.
He was shocked. Turned on, too, but shocked.
Now, as she did her final pre-flight checks in front of that full-length mirror, Adam found himself wandering slowly into the bedroom.
‘Oh, hey, honey,’ she said, brushing her long, black hair out of her face, pulling it together into a ponytail.
‘You look amazing,’ he said.
She smiled. ‘Ashley wants us to go out to a nightclub,’ she said, knowing that the dress warranted some kind of explanation, though it was clear she didn’t know he’d seen her underwear.
‘Should be fun.’
‘Thought I’d better wear something a little more… glam. You know how it is.’
He nodded, although he wanted to say that she’d never worn anything quite that glam while he’d known her — even when they’d been dating, and they’d gone to nightclubs together.
He handed her the little black purse she had sitting on the edge of the bed.
‘Thanks,’ she smiled, and now she was stretching the neckline of the dress upward in some vain attempt to minimize the cleavage on show. ‘Actually, I’m in a bit of a rush.’
‘Oh, okay.’
‘What?’ she smiled. Feeling guilty? ‘You don’t like the dress?’
‘Oh, I like it…’
She laughed. ‘It’s just a dress. It’s warm in those nightclubs…’
‘Right.’
She leaned in to kiss him, and he breathed in an all-new perfume. Nice. Sweet. Exotic. Designed to make men notice her from across a room.
Adam’s cock throbbed in his pants.
He figured this was all part of Marriage 2.0 working to amplify his desire for her. He could roll with that.
‘Don’t wait up. I might be home a little late,’ she said, kissing him again. Her kiss was warm, affectionate, reassuring — and seemed to promise him something would happen on her return.
He watched her leave, gave her a little wave from the doorstep. Stayed there until she’d gone around the corner to the elevators, his analyst’s brain working on the problem.
He was curious.
Suspicious?
He was also turned on. Was Marriage 2.0 trying to make him jealous? Making him notice her, desire her, by engineering some vague suspicions that she might be going out with her friends to a nightclub to dance with other men. And maybe make him think she’d be tempted to fool around with one of them.
But Melissa wasn’t the type to cheat.
She’d always been a fiercely loyal wife, while her generally conservative upbringing had made the idea of a broken marriage anathema.
As the evening progressed, he felt increasingly sure that Marriage 2.0 was purposefully playing the jealousy card. It was a logical way to drive a man’s desire in a woman, wasn’t it? Some might even say it was cliché. The stuff of Hollywood romcoms.
It reminded him of the articles his sister always used to read while they were in high school and college. How to Keep Your Man, How to Make Him Crazy About You and Five Ways To Ensure He Never Leaves You, things like that. Make him jealous, and he’ll want you more and more, they used to say in those magazines.
And yet Adam wasn’t, strictly speaking, jealous, was he?
Sure, there was an underlying tension within him. Waiting for her to come back, lounging around the apartment. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. About what she might be up to. But that wasn’t jealousy, was it?
The strange thing was, part of him hoped she really was attracting attention from other men. Making other men desire her. Perhaps even that she would dance with other men.
That wasn’t jealousy, was it?
It was definitely building up his desire for her, though. All credit to Marriage 2.0 — what they were doing was clearly working.
It made him feel reassured. Whatever happened, it was part of the program. It was designed to strengthen their relationship.
Would it be that easy?
As he waited for her, Adam couldn’t help trying to work out how their Experience was being put together. He sat there watching NCIS on the TV, taking in nothing of what was happening in the world of Naval criminal investigation. He thought about how Marriage 2.0 must have told Melissa what to wear tonight, might even have suggested she check that her new outfit fit properly using their bedroom mirror.
They had positioned her so that Adam could watch her dress.
God, but they’d really been playing the long game. It had been weeks since she’d started going out regularly with her friends again.
Still, you had to hand it to them. It might be a cheap trick, but it seemed to be working for Adam tonight.
Later, still unable to do much other than think about what Melissa might be doing on her night out, Adam wandered aimlessly into their bedroom. He caught the lingering whiff of her new perfume, and, after a brief search, found the bottle in the bathroom. ‘Captivating,’ it was called.
It looked expensive. Imported.
Back in the bedroom, he casually glanced through her drawers. Along with underwear he recognized, there was plenty he didn’t. New items. Sexy items.
He fished out a little white lace thong. Then an even tinier black silky g-string. Wow. He put it to his nose and smelled the clean scent remaining from the laundry detergent. Did that mean she’d worn these already? They’d been washed.
She hadn’t worn them for him.
His heart stepped up a gear, beating twice as fast. In amongst the hose, he found thigh-high stockings. Sexy as hell.
Was this Marriage 2.0 messing with him?
Perhaps Melissa had started her ‘Experience’ so much earlier than him just so she could get all this shopping in. Did she actually wear any of this stuff, or was it all a prop for their Experience? Did she wear it at work? On nights out with her college buddies? He had heard that sometimes wearing sexy underwear made a woman feel sexy, more confident. That it might improve her career by fostering a general confidence boost, even if she never showed it to anyone else.
He calmly sifted through a few of her other drawers, not really knowing what he was looking for. Was he invading her privacy? A little. But it wasn’t as though any of these drawers were locked.
He opened the little drawer in her bedside table, and his heart froze.
There was a little box of Trojan-brand condoms just sitting there toward the back. Where the Gideon bible might be if you were staying at a hotel.
What was she doing with a box of condoms?
They had been trying for a baby. They had been going through IVF. Why would she ever need condoms for sex with her husband?
The answer was, of course, she wouldn’t. She’d never mentioned condoms to him — not once.
Adam felt his heart pounding against his chest wall as he picked the box up. The condoms were supposed to be ‘Ultra Thin for Ultra Stimulation.’ Box of three. He opened it and found only one condom remaining.
That made him gasp, audibly.
Suddenly every breath he took in seemed to be cold, like the temperature in the apartment had suddenly dropped ten degrees.
Had she actually cheated on him? Or was this merely Marriage 2.0 continuing to mess with him?
He was trembling. And yet, at the same time, he was hard as a rock.
If this was Marriage 2.0 trying to play the jealousy game, it was working. He was clearly being made to feel so insecure at the possibility that Melissa might be tempted by some other guy that his subconscious was making him sexually aroused.
Was that how the jealousy thing worked?
For Melissa, if he was jealous it would no doubt demonstrate his love for her, and that would reinforce her feelings for him. It might even fire her libido, knowing how much he wanted her because of all this.
But why were these suspicions getting Adam hard?
After another sit-down, he felt a little calmer.
He was pretty sure she wouldn’t actually cheat. Marriage 2.0 wouldn’t set anything up like that, would it? She was just toying with him. This was some kind of role-play thing to get him all revved up.
It was all calculated by the Marriage 2.0 program. Melissa was only doing what she’d been told to do by a program they’d both signed up for — and all this was based on extensive tests of their preferences.
So even if she danced with other men in a nightclub somewhere, it wasn’t Melissa’s fault.
Whatever happened, it was all consensual — on both their parts.
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