14 comments/ 21563 views/ 11 favorites I Remember Her How She Used To Be By: SuperHeroRalph This is a Summer Lovin' contest story. Please vote. To my new muse and the reason why I wrote this story. I dedicate this story to Susan. A man finally realizes the love that he's always had for his wife. * Rather than dwelling on how she is now, as if frozen in time and no longer aging, returning to the time when and the place where we first met, I remember her how she used to be. Total opposites, she was always so damn positive and I was always so damn negative. In her calming voice with her reassuring force, my safe harbor in my raging storm of drinking, cheating, and lying, I was always so out of control difficult. She was my rope, my safety net, and my anchor pulling me back from going overboard. Without her, I'd be long since dead and buried. Without her, I never would have turned out to be the man that I am today. Without her, I wouldn't have had the good life that I had. I don't know what I'm going to do without her. Why she stayed with me, I'll never know. Actually, I do know and I always knew. Even in my darkest hour and at my lowest point, she saw something in me that brought me back from my self-destructive behavior to make me want to be a better man for her and my children. "You're the one, Tommy. I've been waiting for you all my life," she said talking to me in that sweet, melodious voice, before giving me that soft, sensual smile that softened my impenetrable resolve not to fall in love with her. Every time she flashed me that smile, I'd want to take her in my arms and kiss her. Every time she smiled at me like that, I'd want to get down on one knee, ask her to marry me, and promise her that I'd forsake all others and be true to her. Every time she smiled, I'd want to make love to her. That smile confessed that she knew things that I didn't know but should have known. That smile was all the evidence I needed to know that she loved me. Later in life, her soft smile would make me do anything, go out in a raging snowstorm to buy baby formula, accompany her to family functions that I didn't want to go to, and wake up the pharmacist to get her medicine, when she had suddenly taken ill again. Her soft smile, forever constant, was the one thing that transcended all the years we've known one another and saved the one memory that returned me to the day we first met. I'll never forget the first time she flashed me that smile, when we were at the county fair and then again, when alone in her barn. "I'm the one? What do you mean by that, Becky? How do you know I'm the one you've been waiting for all your life?" Too soon in our relationship, if there was to be a relationship, to understand how she could feel that I'm the one for her, when I didn't see her as the one for me. I just wanted to get laid. When I still had a long line of women that I wanted to bed, it was unsettling for me to hear a woman I barely knew say that I was the one. She turned my head right away alright, but I thought she was crazy. Perhaps wanting to get away from her life on the farm and use me to move to the big city, I thought she was just trying to entrap me with sex and hold me down with love. Only, contently happy living on her farm, the big city was the last place she wanted to go. Unable to see what she saw in me myself, when looking in the mirror, I couldn't see how I'd be anyone's prize, especially back then. "I just know," she said with confident assurance, as if she was privy to a spiritual revelation. "I don't know how you can say I'm the one, when we've only had the one date, Becky," I said. Wanting to believe her, thinking about being her man and being with her, then thinking of all the good times I'd be missing out on, if I settled down now, instead of waiting to tie the knot later, I was reticently resistant. How did she know that I was the one? How could she possibly know that I was the one so soon? Now that we've been together for so very long, I know she knew that I was the one because with her being my one and only, I believe that I was her one and only, too. Different than all the other women I knew, she haunted me with her damn smile. Smiling at me like that, even in my dreams, I thought about her all the time, when not with her and even when with someone else. Even when thinking about and talking to other women on the phone, I'd be mindlessly doodling Becky's name. Disconcertingly upsetting, what's that all about, I didn't know? Yet, knowing now what I should have known then, I always loved her, right from that first time we were together. Different than how she normally looked, when she wasn't smiling, the first time I saw that smile directed at me, was as if it were a magical light bulb that lit up her face and warmed my heart. When she smiled at me like that, I felt lighter on my feet when walking with her and happiest when talking to her. Whether in the sunlight that glistened the highlights of her blonde hair from pale yellow to bright blonde and to every golden shade in between, or in the moonlight that teased me with her shapely shadow, her soft, sensual smile was a light that only shined upon me. When looking deep in her big, blue eyes, every time I looked at her, I remember thinking how pretty she was. Sort of like staring at and being mesmerized by the flames in a fireplace and seeing beauty with every flash of color and flicker of flame, or seeing something different, when looking at the changing colors of the ocean or watching white, puffy clouds changing shape in the sky, as they rolled by, I couldn't take my eyes from her. Doing my best to prove her wrong, she left me scratching my head. I'm the one? How could I be the one? How could she know I'm the one, especially when I didn't believe she was the one? I couldn't believe she thought that I was the one. If only she knew me for the real, cheating, lying, and drunken bastard that I am, she'd know that, if I was anything, I was the wrong one. Back then, for sure, I was no one's special someone but Becky somehow knew that I was her one and only. Prettier than any woman I had been with before and thought about being with now, unlike anyone I ever met before, she wasn't regular pretty. She wasn't made up pretty, in the way that some women suddenly get ugly early in the morning, before putting on their face, or late at night, when taking off their makeup. She wore that same pretty, hauntingly familiar face all the time, before dazzling me with her smile. Born beautiful, she didn't need any of that store bought junk to make herself pretty. Her pretty face, with her eyes not too close together or too far apart, her small nose, and her full lips, were already permanently there in place, as if sculpted by a sculptor. Differently beautiful, every time I looked at her, as if seeing her in a different light, was as if looking at her for the first time. There was always something new about her that I hadn't noticed before or a new expression that I hadn't seen. Spending a lifetime doing double takes, whenever she got dressed for a function, a party or a wedding, or walked down the stairs in a new, sexy nightgown, she always had a way to keep me interested and mesmerized. The fool that I was, even after being married to her for a while, I thought it was lust, but now I know it was love. Even if I was mad at her for one stupid reason or another, every time I looked at her, she excited me and I forgot why in the Hell I was mad at her. Every time I touched her hand and felt her fingers against mine, she moved me to want to make love to her. Having that look of a model in a catalogue or an actress on TV, weirdly interesting and sexually arousing, she looked different every time I saw her and in every picture she took. Whether it was the outfit she wore, the way she wore her hair up or down, the makeup she applied, or how she posed, she made me feel that I was with a different woman every time, even though it was still her on the inside. More than that, knowing she'd be there waiting for me in a clean house with a hot meal, her smile made me work two jobs to support us through the tough times. Working for her and for the kids, it was a good feeling to know that I was working for something and for someone. When I think about it, we had our share of tough times, but so long as I made it through them with her by my side, our hard times weren't so bad. The best thing about living life was that I was living life with her. Reliving our past by how our future turned out to be with us now not able to do all that we used to do when we were younger, now that I compare the hard times we shared in the past to the hard times that we've been through today with all of our health and financial issues, those perceived hard times were some of the best times in our lives. Without doubt, I'd exchange some of our perceived good times today for some of those bad times we had yesterday. Only, the first time she said that I've been waiting for you all my life, a place where she was already, a place where she needed me to be, and a place where I wouldn't be for a long while, I wasn't there yet. With love and lust in the air, she filled with love and I filled with lust, our first date was a trip to the county fair on a hot, summer day. Then, later with the faraway sounds of calliope music and the distant, bright lights of the fair that gave stark contrast to the absolute darkness of the night, as if it were a blazing inferno in a dark forest, we returned to her Daddy's barn on the pretense of checking on the cows. By then, as if she knew me in another life, as if we had already made love and were married with children, it was obvious to me that she already had a soft spot in her heart for me that I didn't yet have for her. Being with her then, just by the way she looked at me, told me she loved me. Feeling guilty, she made me feel that I was deceiving her by lying to her, when I told her that I loved her, too, when I didn't, even though, in hindsight, I did. Yet, I didn't feel bad enough about lying to her not to take advantage of her sexually. Back then, unable to love anyone, when I didn't even love myself, I couldn't love her then in the way she loved me and in the way that I love her now. Too preoccupied by other women, too wild to give way to a rope lassoed around my neck, I needed to roam, run free, and go hog wild. With my sexual desire for her interfering with my love and romance, unable to see the real woman standing before me that she was, oblivious to the good woman she was inside, I only saw her in bits and pieces, tits, ass, pussy, hands, and mouth. Back then, with me being so immaturely young, my heart was a black hole and as empty as my head. With all the self-centeredness that I had for myself, I had no room in my heart to love her or anyone. Thinking with my cock and my horny hands, instead of with my brain and my heart, I just wanted to have sex with her. I just wanted to strip her naked, while touching her and feeling her everywhere, before pushing her down to her knees and filling her beautiful mouth with my swollen cock. With my lust for her blocking me from feeling the love I had for her, instead of sailing down a smooth highway, we started out on a rocky road. "Blow me, Becky. Suck my cock. I need to cum in your sweet, pretty mouth." Treating her in the same way that I treated all my other slutty women, I didn't realize she was my special one. I just wanted to get laid. Oh, yeah, considered a bad boy, a four F kind of guy, find them, feel them, fuck them, and forget about them was my motto back then, that is, until I met Becky and until she branded me with her smile and tied a leash, albeit a long, loose noose, around my neck. Yet, it was still some time before she hogtied me down with an ultimatum to marry and live with her on her Daddy's farm. "If you don't settle down with me, Tommy, we're done and it's over. You decide right now if you want me and our baby or your wild life." Not much of a choice, thinking about all the women, the sex, the drinking, the drugs, and the days filled with good times without responsibility, I was considering returning back to my old ways, that is, before she called my life wild. As if that one word was a splash of cold water to my face, before giving me a dose of electrical shock therapy, it was then that I realized she was serious. The immature dope that I was, if I didn't stay with her, if I didn't repent, reconcile, and make my claim on her and my baby now, I'd lose them for good. In an instant, I realized all that I already had with her was what I was looking for with someone else, another who wasn't even as pretty or as good, pure, and honest inside. Fortunately, I realized the better life that I could have with Becky, instead of the worse life I could have with someone else, someone who was just as wild as I was then. It was then that I realized that Becky and our baby were the best pieces of my perceived pie and the biggest pieces of the puzzle missing from my life. If I didn't make my claim now, not having them in my life, I'd stood to lose everything I could have wanted. My choice was an easy one to make. Struggling to resist the truths she already somehow knew from that first date she was with me and from the unflappable insights she possessed, as if she were clairvoyant, when I think back, because of my immaturity, we had so little time and I wasted too much of the time that we could have had together. It took me too long to grow up to be the man that I am today and the man that she saw and needed me to be, when I was still just a horny boy. Even though the sex was good, the best sex I ever had, now that I'm older, I realize that the sex was the smallest part of what we shared. Lucky to have found one another so early in our lives, we were lucky to have shared something special, something deeper, something more meaningful, comfortable, and pleasurable, and something that so few people ever experience, and something that I never had and never will have with anyone else again. More wanting to do things with my friends, never was I comfortable enough just sitting with a woman and talking, as I eventually grew to be with her. She was comfortable staying home and doing nothing, that is, if you call cooking, cleaning, taking care of our baby, and making a better life for us doing nothing. I always needed to go out and to do something, that is, if you call wasting my time and my money by hanging out and drinking with the guys doing something. What I thought was doing something then was more like doing nothing now. With our relationship evolving to be more of a love bond than a sexual one, quickly growing to be my best friend, I told her things that I never told anyone else, not even my best buddies that I've known all my life. Compared to her, every other woman was an empty shell and just a vessel for my cum. I never clicked with another woman in the way that I clicked with Becky. A Thanksgiving Day seven course meal with the sex being the cherries jubilee, the other women in my life were just fast food that gave me indigestion, instead of love. Yet, compared to everything else she gave me, the sex wasn't even the cherry on the sundae. The sex, the holding, the talking, and the cuddling was more the glue that connected us, when we suddenly found ourselves unraveling, pulling apart, and coming undone over something stupid. In hindsight, as if we just wanted to and needed to fight to clear the air and to have makeup sex, now that I have the time to look back with renewed insight, our disagreements were always over something stupid that got blown out of proportion. With the sexual pleasure placating the pain we both felt from growing up poor and in dysfunctional households, the sex was sometimes what we needed to reinforce that there was a reason for all that we suffered through to be together now as man and woman, husband and wife, and lifelong lovers and partners. If it wasn't for her insisting that we were meant to be, I would have made a mistake by being with someone else, no doubt. If she hadn't forced fate by telling me that I was the one and telling me that she loved me from our very first date, I never would have known that then, as I truly believe that now. Our good times sitting on the front porch and having a cup of coffee, playing whist, or a game of Scrabble and talking dwarfed whatever pleasure we had from having sex. The content happiness from the warmth that I felt being with her throughout the day far exceeded the pleasure I received from the few minutes of humping and sweating we did late at night or early in the morning. Sometimes and more as I grew older, I looked more forward to those quiet times with us talking, holding hands, and hugging, than I looked forward to us having sex. We never could watch television or a movie together without remembering something that made us start talking and laughing over the things we saw, heard, or did. Talking about everything and laughing over nothing, I never had that comfortable closeness with anyone but her. It was the conversation that helped grow us closer by knowing more about one another than if we were brother and sister growing up in the same house. It was our words said in private to one another that cemented our relationship in an unbreakable bond of unified trust. We shared our secrets and fears with one another. As if the words were the bricks and the sex the mortar, we had built a strong foundation. Writing this now, I didn't have to tell her that then, she knew all of that already. I was the one always playing catch up to what she already knew. Compared to her, I was the one who didn't know anything. She was the oracle and I was the fool. Even though she had beautiful breasts, the most beautiful breasts I've ever seen, felt, and sucked, I grew to look more forward to holding her hand and playing with her fingers, while walking and talking, than holding her breast and fingering her nipple, while making love. As if making a permanent connection with our lips, putting an arm around her waist and kissing her meant more to me than putting a cock in her mouth or pussy and fucking her. Now that I think more about it, I couldn't treat the woman I loved and the mother of my children as a whore, in the way that I did with the other women that I was with before her. Different from all the other women I've been with, we never fucked. We always made love. Maybe the fear of falling in love is why I resisted her. Having such strong, strange feelings was new to me. Never depending on a woman before, always feeling superior to them, and now looking to Becky to fulfill most of my sexual, emotional, and spiritual needs, wants, and desires that I never knew I needed filled, made me feel less of a man in the beginning. I just wanted to have sex without having the accountability for everything else, the commitment of being with just one women, the complexity that comes with a relationship, and the responsibility for the happiness of someone else that went along with love. Having to expose myself so openly, more terrifying than facing a linebacker on the open football field or fighting a professional heavyweight boxer in the ring, she frightened me, when she told me she loved me. As if she drove an icicle through my brain and another through my heart, having a sudden and detached aloofness that comes with severed emotions, feelings I couldn't give in to and share with her or with anyone else at the time, she froze me into inaction. Loved me? How could she love me, when we just had the one date? She doesn't even know me. Obviously, I can see now that it was all meant to be and I was too tempted by and preoccupied with others to see that the one I loved was standing right there in front of me. Thinking that love had to be more complicated than that, thinking that I'd have to scour the countryside, search the planet, and be with and make mistakes with dozens, before I found the right one, we were lucky to find one another right away. Had I known then what I know now, things between us, especially in the beginning would have been differently better. I Remember Her How She Used To Be As if my shoes were cemented to the floor, too stubborn to take them off and follow her in my bare feet, I couldn't walk the path that she wanted me to walk. Too self-centered in my thought and too stingingly selfish with my emotions, I needed to take a different route, before meeting up with her on the other side of the hill, where the fork had me go one way and she in another. I'm glad that I finally decided not to turn away from her again and to accept her hand and walk with her finally, because I wouldn't have become the man that I am today without having had her in my life. Without doubt, my life would have been shitty without her in it. It breaks my heart to think of me without her and immobilizes my brain to think of her with another man. Had I made that decision early on to embrace her and to believe all that she said as the truth, for sure, I wouldn't have hurt her in the way that I did by rejecting her and disrespecting her by not wanting her. Only, afraid to admit it, spinning around with other women, wanting to play the field first, before settling down with one woman, I did want her. I always wanted her. When not with her, even when with another, always comparing her to other women and with every other woman falling short, I always thought of her and how better not only the sex was but also how better my life could be with Becky in it. Our intimate times together were always soft, special, loving, and memorable moments and not rushed and desperate, as all my other sexual encounters had been. Calm and soothing, without any head games, name calling, cussing, or unkind words, best of friends, we talked as if we had known one another since forever. Compared to the other women, the sloppy rushed sex I had, after getting drunk, paled in comparison to just kissing Becky. Thinking about them now, I couldn't even recite their names or remember what any of them looked like. Compared to Becky, they were faceless, anonymous women and our brief unions together meant nothing. In the beginning, when it was more about sex for me, intimate times with Becky was more about love for her. As if my feelings for her were just bulbs planted in a garden, Becky patiently waited for my love to bloom and blossom. As if awakening from a drunken stupid or a drug induced sleep, love was something that came later for me than it did for her. While kissing her and having sex with her, when I thought that there was nothing that could possibly make our times together better, it was then that I finally fell in love with her. As a bonus or a surprise firework display that lit up our private skies when making love, intimate times with Becky was akin to unwrapping a package at Christmas. Wrapped in pretty paper with ribbons and bows, her gift of love came inscribed personally to me. Always a surprise, never was our love making the same, and/or routinely boring. Our times together were as different as they were exciting the first time. Still, in the case of love, especially in the beginning, she was way ahead of me in that regard. She looked at me with love and I looked at her with lust. Thinking that I was way ahead of her because I thought I was taking advantage of her, but heading in the wrong direction, I was already running a race that I couldn't possibly win. As if she had already run this race with me before, carrying me along with her, with me in one arm and our baby in the other, she knew where to go and which turn to take, so that we could win the race together and as a family. While I struggled with drugs and alcohol, got lost with other women along the way, and disappeared forcing her to fend for herself as a single mother, she was planning our wedding, while thinking about our future together. She never faltered in her love for me, in her belief in me, and in her desire to stay with me. When I think about the past now, she was always out front and way ahead of me, while I lagged behind interested more in looking at and being distracted by the scenery than in concentrating on the prize. Where I had to experience other women to realize how special Becky was, she didn't have to experience other men to know that I was the one she wanted forever. Now that I've lived my life with her, she was, by far, the biggest prize of all and the best thing that could have happened to me in my life. Yet, in the beginning, just as I wanted to bed her, she wanted to marry me. As if she was Medusa and could turn me into stone from wanting and desiring other women, I avoided looking her in the eyes for fear that I'd fall in love with her. Focusing more on her shapely figure than on her pretty face, every time she looked at me, I could tell she loved me and, as if I was doomed to be with her, her look frightened me. Too young for marriage and children, what I thought was my doomsday with her then was my salvation now. I remember focusing my attention more on her breasts than on her face. Even though she had a beautiful face, I feared that if I looked at her, really looked at her, she'd find me out for the fraud that I am. I feared she'd see that I didn't love her, when somehow she knew I did. She knew more about me than I knew about myself. She knew that I wasn't a fraud, but just needed a bit of prodding and guidance to find my way. For me, especially in the beginning it was all sexual and we had sex nearly every day. Feeling safer by the sexuality of her without the commitment, if I stared long and hard enough, if I focused more on what she looked like on the surface, instead of what she was saying and who she was inside, I could see the impressions her nipples made through her blouse and bra. Because her breasts were so big, at least a C cup, her breasts pushed open her blouse and I could see her sexy bra. I remember riding the merry-go-round, the Ferris wheel, the rollercoaster, and sitting on the park bench talking and laughing, while eating our ice cream cones. The horny guy that I was, I made sure that I sat on the left side of her, so that I could have a constant view of her lacy bra and the top portion of her breast, between her stretched open button holes of her blouse. Every time I looked at her, instead of seeing the beauty within, I saw the outside package, while imagining her tits. More enamored with the surface of her, her blonde hair, blue eyes, and big tits, I was so immature. Every time she looked at me, she saw her husband and the father of her children, no doubt. Every time I looked at her, I thought about her naked and on her knees. Polar opposites in what each of us wanted and expected from one another, trying to bring us together in the beginning took a lot of tears, questions, and conversations. Finally, it was with the realization that I truly was in love with her that we were both finally on the same page. Oh, I was in love alright, but not with her and not with who she was. More interested in bedding a beautiful blonde, I didn't even know who she was. Too busy drinking, having a good time with my friends, and preoccupied with sports, I never took the time to find that out, until much later. I wasted too much time and money with foolishness, time and money that I could have shared with her. If I loved her at all in the beginning, I loved her form, her fashion, and her image. I loved what she looked like in a pair of tight jeans. I more loved the outside package. I loved her sparkling blue eyes and her full ruby lips. Especially in the beginning, not giving a care to if she was happy and how I could make her happier, I wondered more about what she looked like naked than how I could be a better man. Putting a face to the image, more beautiful than Kim Basinger, she resembled her more than anyone I knew. She was a real beauty and I was smitten with her, but I didn't love her then, in the way that I do now and always will forever. Needing some maturing to be the man she saw that I was, could be, and finally turned out to be, I was stupid. I wasted too much time trying to get others to have sex with me, when Becky was there waiting for me to be her one and only man. When I think about it, who wouldn't love someone who looked like Kim Basinger? Only, I was too young for love, didn't even know what real love was. Bedding a variety of women, getting high and drunk, while pounding my chest and bragging to all my friends, I was clueless. When most men never find their one and only, I had found Becky or, more appropriately, she had found me from the beginning. Back then, her smile didn't have that magical hold on me that it would have later in life. Back then, I only translated her smile as beauty, something tangible, instead of the person she was within, something intangible and something I couldn't see but depended upon so much later. Yet, later in life, glowing brighter with time and experiences, there were so many joyous emotions behind her flashing me that smile. It took me years to see the real woman behind the smile. She could have been anyone for all that it mattered, but one in a million, few women looked as good and was as good as she was, inside and out. Yet, that was then and this is now. Now I get it. Now I know that not only was she beautiful on the surface but also she was beautiful on the inside, too. Truly, it wouldn't have mattered what she looked like, so long as I could put a translation to that smile and her smile spoke to me without words. "You're the one," she said with eyes that made me want to believe her but also that made me question her sanity. "I knew you were the one the first time I saw you and positive you were the one the first time I kissed you," she said with that little smile that made me want to kiss her and, for the sake of sex, tell her that I loved her, too, when I didn't then in the way that I did later and still do now. "I'm the one? What one? Which one? How can I be the one, when I'm no one? You don't even know me." "I know who you are, Tommy. I see you differently than you see yourself. Trust me, we were meant to be together." How could she know that I'm the one, when I didn't even like myself all that much? No doubt, she saw something different looking at me than I saw when looking at myself in the mirror. By what divine providence does she have that she could see so far into her future, my future, and/or our futures together to know that I'm the one? How dare she tell me that I'm the one. She has no right to tell me that I'm the one. Truth be told, I didn't believe her. Truth be told, I didn't deserve her. I remember kissing her, when she told me all that in the moonlight and under the starry sky that peeked through the dilapidated roof of the barn. With her first kiss forcing me take another and closer look at her, she crumbled my resistance with each kiss. I remember thinking, she's been waiting for me all my life. "Wow!" She thinks I'm the one and knew that from the first time she saw me. Kissing her again and again, I reached around behind her and rested my hand on the top of her firm, round ass. If only I knew then what I know now, thinking that I was taking my time, when I was rushing things, I figured I'd feel her ass with our next kiss "Wow!" I'm getting lucky tonight, I thought. Ready to push Becky back in the soft hay and have my wicked way with her, I was ready to feel and touch her everywhere through her clothes, before stripping her naked, while kissing and kissing her. Much like all the rest of the women I had my way with, I figured our time together would be easy, when it was the most difficult, albeit most enjoyable time that I ever had with a woman in my life. As if being mixed in a blender and no longer able to separate the ingredients, even though I tried to pull us apart by remaining distant and difficult, we made an indelible memory that first night together. Then, over the years and through all the tears, I nearly ruined that memory. Oh, I was the one alright. Truth be told, I was the one who ruined our first kiss. I was the one who made our first time together unbearably uncomfortable and almost our last time together. I was the one who took advantage of her by forcing myself on her, or so I thought. In hindsight, she was the one who showed me the way by allowing me to be with her, so that she could teach me what true love was. Otherwise, I never would have known. Truth be told, had Becky not loved me, I would have wandered through life alone and lonely. Even if I was to get with another woman, a woman lesser in every way than Becky, just going through the motions with disconnected emotions, while pretending that I was in love with her, I'd be thinking about Becky, no doubt. If it wasn't for Becky knowing all that she did about me from the start, we never would have been together now. As if there was something missing from my life, as if I had forgotten my wallet or lost my dog, there was always a nagging feeling of something not right, whenever I wasn't with Becky and especially before we were married, when I was cheating on her with someone else. Reluctant to solely be with her, I always thought about her. Fighting her superiority in her knowing we were supposed to be together, not wanting to be so dependent upon her and always resisting her self-assured notion that I was the one, I did my best to disprove that idea by proving to her what a real bastard I was. Still, no matter how much I hurt her, as if she knew I'd soon become the man she needed me to be, she always forgave me. "Kiss me, Becky," I said grabbing her breast with one hand and wrapping my other arm around her waist. Ready to stick my tongue down her throat, ready to show her the man that I was by the lover I had become by bedding other women and, yet, another woman, I pulled her to me with a hand to her ass and my fingertip reaching between her legs from behind. Only, when I leaned down to her and closed my eyes for my kiss, she slapped me hard across the face. "Don't be disrespecting me like I'm some slut you picked up drunk from a bar and fucked in a back alley, Thomas," she said pushing back on my shoulders and knocking me over a bale of hay. "Sorry, Becky," I said getting up and rubbing my face, as stunned as I was embarrassed. Making me feel, as if I was a child, she always called me Thomas when she was riled up like that. All the other times she called me Tommy, never Tom, except for those times that she fell ill. Then, she called me Tom, as if that was all the energy she had left to utter. Never having been slapped by a woman, it was as if she threw a bucket of cold water at me. Her way of giving me a cold shower, no doubt, she awakened me from out of my horny state. Having never been rejected before, I looked at her, as if seeing her for the first time. Who is this woman? So soft and so feminine, yet so strong and so powerful. I never knew she had it in her to talk to me in that way and to knock some sense in my head with just one slap. "If you want me, you must treat me with respect," she said staring me down, before unbuttoning her blouse. When she slapped me, I figured I had blown my chance to be with her. Then, when she started unbuttoning her blouse, I felt such sexual excitement for her that I've never felt for any woman before. The thought of her rejection mixed with her sudden obvious consent overwhelmed me with lust and desire for her. I watched her undressing with my eyes bugging out of my head. "I'm sorry, Becky," I said not believing what I was seeing. I couldn't believe she was unbuttoning her blouse. I couldn't believe all that she was exposing. I couldn't believe I was seeing her cleavage, her bra, and then the entirety of her bra clad breasts. I'm gonna get lucky tonight, I thought. Always having to struggle in a wrestling match and grope at a woman to get her naked, I couldn't believe she was voluntarily removing her clothes. "You've only just fucked sluts, Thomas. You must learn how to make love to your woman and not disrespect your woman by forcing yourself on her. Love is a beautiful thing, when both want it and are ready for it," she said removing her blouse and hanging it over the horse stall. Love? With this just our first date, how could she be talking about love already? I didn't want love. I only wanted sex. Yet, willing to say and do anything to have sex with Becky, I was too excited by watching her undress. "Okay," I said, the only word I could think to say. I was stunned that she was standing there in her sexy bra, without having had to wrestle with her and pin her down to undress her. After she removed her blouse, she unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans. Watching her undress that first time was just as exciting as watching her undress for bed thirty years later. As if lit up with a black light, as if they were magical, florescent panties, I remember clearly seeing the top of her white bikini panties in the moonlight, as she slowly lowered her tight jeans and stepped out of them. Oh, my God, she had such a fabulous body, the best body I've ever seen. Standing there in her bra and panties was the first time she allowed me to touch her, actually feel her soft, supple skin. My favorite place to hold her was just around her waist and just above her hips. More groping her, I was so clumsy in touching her, but she was a good teacher. She helped me by taking me by the hand and showing me where and how to touch her, so that she could enjoy the experience, as much as I did. Then, we kissed and kissed and kissed. Never has just a kiss excited me as much. Never have I been as sexually aroused by any other woman, as I was with Becky. From the first time we were together, she allowed me to stick my hand in her bra, fondle her breast, and feel her nipple, before allowing me to feel and squeeze her ass through her panty. Normally, with the other women I had been with, even with all the wild women I've known, I'd have to liquor them up and take them out a few times before hitting a homerun and making my way around the bases. Then, as if I was having a hands on sexual education course, she lowered my hand to her panty clad pussy. Taking me by the finger, she had me trace her pussy slit and then pushing down harder on my finger, she had me finger her clit and rub her bean through her panty, as we kissed and kissed. Not allowing me to rush, slapping my hand away, when I tried going too far, too soon, she finally allowed me to part her panty and reach inside to feel her warm wetness. Feeling as if the first time with Becky was the first time I had sex with a woman, never have I had sex with a woman who was so willingly helpful. The difference being that we weren't having sex. We were making love. It wasn't until I had her sufficiently heated up to where she needed to be that she reached down and fondled my cock through my jeans. Excruciatingly waiting for her to touch me, when she finally felt me, I thought I was going to shoot my load in my pants. By the time that I had reached this point with another woman, every other woman I had been with before would already have had my jeans unzipped, my cock out of my pants, and would have been sucking on it some by now. Only, mindful that I was already ready and waiting, she slowed down the action by taking our time and never have I had such an erotically pleasurable time making love to Becky than I did fucking the other women in my past. It was more exciting feeling Becky's tits and fingering her nipples through her clothes than it would have been had she been topless. She made me realize all the excitement I had missed by rushing the sex I had in the past. As if having sex with a prostitute, too many women I were with stripped naked, before I so much as touched them. It was differently better with Becky. Feeling her through her clothes first, while kissing her and not removing her bra and panty, until I respected her enough to wait until she was ready, proved that this is how to have the best sex. When Becky was aroused, she was wilder than any wildcat I had bedded. Wilder than Betty Jo and Bobby Jean, more wicked than Mandy, Amber, and Sue Ellen put together, never have I had such pleasurable and long lasting sex. I Remember Her How She Used To Be That night of the country fair was the first time we made love. As if the backdrop of carnival lights were our nightlight and the calliope music our romantic serenade, I'll never forget our first time together. Of course, being that it was fated for us to be together, Becky became pregnant with Elizabeth. We were so young but if it wasn't for Becky knowing that I was the one and that we were supposed to be together, I wouldn't be standing here and talking about her today. Having just left her, I miss her already. As my mechanism to help me through my sorrow, when I think I don't love her anymore and when I question why I married her in the first place, I remember how she used to be. Then, I'm proud to have been her man. I'm proud to have found and spent years learning how to love the love of my life. Just as I'm glad she told me that I'm the one, I'm glad she showed me how to love her. She was the one, my one and only, my special woman and I was her special man. Never have I loved anyone in the way that I loved her. Never will I love another. She knew before I did that we were meant to be together, but now I know better. Fortunately, I saw her light before it was too late and before it dimmed from her eyes for the last time. When I tried to awaken her that morning of her death was the first time in her life that she didn't have that smile and didn't greet me with a kiss and an I love you. With the death of her, her smile was seemingly gone forever, but not from my mind, from my heart, from my soul, and from my dreams. With the death of her, I thought it would be the death of me but now I know that I must continue to show her the man she spent years to make of me. Whenever I think of her and see her in my dreams, she'll always be smiling that smile that made me fall in love with her. As you all know, I buried Becky this morning on the hill on the other side of the barn, where we first kissed. The carnival is back in town and it was this time 30 years ago that we attended the county fair. Becky loved the county fair. In celebration of her life, I plan on attending the fair to ride the rollercoaster, the Ferris wheel, merry-go-round, and even sit on the park bench to eat an ice cream and, I welcome you all to join me. Becky would have wanted me to do all that and she'll be there in spirit by my side, while I'm doing all that. Celebrating her life, by paying tribute to her in her death, she'd be happy knowing that I did that for her and remembered her in that way. In the course of our marriage, there's been other women I've thought about and have been tempted by, but once I married Becky, I never crossed that line of mistrust and disrespect. Our marriage vows too sacred, some things are more important than a quick roll in the hay and a blowjob. Besides, just as she knew I was the one, she'd know if I cheated on her with another. I met with the funeral director and gave him her picture. I wanted her to have that same soft smile she had I met her and when she met her maker. It's funny how her smile never changed and was the last thing to go. Thank you for all coming to this church memorial service. * Please don't forget to vote, make a comment, and/or add me and this story to your favorite lists. Thank you for reading and voting for my story.