I Am Not A Wimp Pt. 01

"Jenny, I've been struggling with just how to handle this. I'm not sure how to do it best, so I've decided to tell you right out and have you react so I know what my next move should be." he began.

"I want to give you an engagement ring for Christmas but I don't want to put us in the position of you having to say no, if that's your answer, in front of your family."

I had been expecting exactly the opposite and was unprepared for what he told me. He took my hesitation as a "no" and said with a visibly embarrassed look, "I'm glad I let you know. I'd be pretty upset to have you turn me down in front of your folks."

I came to my senses quickly.

"Ted, there's no way in hell I would turn you down. I love you and I want to marry you more than anything else in the world." I said as I rushed into his embrace. "Do we have to wait for Christmas?"

His face brightened as I answered, then grew serious. "Jenny, I have been happier these last few months than I have ever been. Christmas was just a sort of romantic notion I guess."

Then he took a box from his jacket pocket and opened it to reveal a beautiful diamond ring. "Jenny, will you marry me?"

The ring was incredible and it fit perfectly. When I asked him later how he managed that he said, "That's a mechanical problem. I just borrowed the size rod from the jeweler and put your grad ring on it when you left it in the ring cleaner jar."

I was happy and excited but even more so when Ted said, "Let's call Rob and Diane then go see your parents."

He was as excited about telling them as I was.

My family and our friends were, of course excited for us and over the next few months we fell into planning the wedding. Ted is a leader in almost everything but when it came to the wedding, he was a follower and agreed to let Mom and I take care of everything.

One night Ted raised the issue of dealing with some practical matters and to tell you the truth, my business sense was prodding me and I had been fretting over how to raise the subject myself.

I needn't have worried. Ted was as practical as I was and we seemed to comfortably deal with each issue.

We both love my house and he pointed out that it was mine and if anything went wrong, it should still be mine. He also pointed out that although his business was growing and providing him with a decent income, he had not yet been able to put away anything for the future nor did he, at least at that point, make as much as I did.

We jotted some notes and I was somewhat giddy with relief that I didn't have to raise the issue and possibly hurt his feelings. We agreed to turn the notes over to my lawyer as Ted's was a corporate lawyer and wasn't comfortable doing it for us.

I was a little alarmed at the pre-nuptial agreement we got back. It seemed so cold and impersonal for a document related to two people about to marry, but Ted seemed unperturbed and signed it after reading it carefully a couple of times.

That night he told me that he thought it was fair and appropriate and that we could always redo it at a later time when our circumstances changed and, of course, if we wanted to. We agreed we would like to have kids but we both realized that would have to wait as I wanted to pursue my career and he wanted to build his own business.

There are plenty of examples of a woman having her first child in her early 40's and both of us were willing to consider adopting if it came to that.

Ted also told me that he believed in monogamy, that two people should only agree to marry if they agree that that is what they both want and if things change later on in life, which they sometimes do, that a straightforward statement should be made rather than having an affair behind the partner's back.

I couldn't agree more. It seemed kind of odd, but we actually discussed how ending the relationship should happen if feelings change later in life. Odd perhaps, but strangely comforting that I had a man who felt strongly about such things and that they would be the same feelings I so strongly held.

The wedding was exhausting but fun. My dad was so proud he couldn't stop the smile. Being Dad, he insisted he and Mom would pay for it and Ted, after expressing some concern, agreed to let him have his way.

Our guests were mostly my family and mutual friends. The only ones from Ted's family were his Aunt Babs, her daughter Karen and her husband Pete. Babs was his father's sister and the three of them were the only family Ted had since his Dad died.

Although they were not particularly close it was clear that Babs thought the world of her nephew and Karen had been brought up to understand he was a remarkable man.

Well, I knew that firsthand but it was nice to have it confirmed.

We spent two glorious weeks in Cairns, Australia mostly because we discovered it was somewhere we both wanted to go.

On our first night in Australia, after having spent the previous 13 hours either on an airplane or in an airport, we were exhausted. Ted snuggled up to me and held me as I went quickly off to sleep. I was ready to make love if he wanted and although he said I should rest first, I know he wanted to as several times in the night as I stirred, I could feel him pull away so that his erection wouldn't continue to poke me in the ass.

I intended to wake him with a blowjob but he was up and showered before I woke. I had him come back to our bed where I proceeded with the blowjob but we ended up with him on his back and me riding him "cowgirl" so he could play with my tits. It didn't take long for him to boil over and I would have been happy with that but I've learned that Ted is not afraid of his own cum and almost always insists that I orgasm as well.

He ate me that morning to two delicious orgasms.

In our bed it seemed like Ted was determined to make married sex even better than we had been having beforehand. He confirmed how much I like oral sex and how much I love to have my nipples licked as my excitement builds.

I thought we had done most things while dating but Ted had other ideas. We showered together, tried sex in a hot tub and out on the balcony of our room among a great deal of other things.

After discussing it we decided we would be comfortable on a "bathing suits optional" beach. We were so much into each other at the time that I don't recall being at all shy and neither was Ted.

Much is made of some of the beauties that sometimes adorn such beaches and I guess there were a few but, if anything made me at all uncomfortable, it was the amount of female attention Ted attracted. He seemed oblivious to it but I sure as hell saw several women, both old and young, who seemed to stroll by quite frequently staring at my husband as they did.

Overall the honeymoon was wonderful but toward the end of it I noticed Ted was making more and more calls to Katie, his one and only employee at the time.

Business was good but it was becoming more than she could manage on her own.

We returned to what was now our home and for the next 5 years we built his business and my career and for the most part it was good.

Just after our 5th anniversary I began to notice that our relationship had begun to deteriorate. Ted's business had grown exponentially and he now had 14 employees and a large office building he shared with a local cable company here in the city and 8 employees and an office in Savannah, which he visited on Wednesdays and Thursdays by flying down Wednesday morning and returning Thursday evenings. He was working anywhere from 10 to 15 hours a day, 7 days a week and when he wasn't working he was exhausted.

My immediate boss retired and I was made Vice President of Operations. For a while I was too busy myself to realize that we had become two separate people living in the same house and occasionally sharing the same bed.

When it occurred to me what was happening, I decided to do something positive about it and began to look for effective ways to delegate tasks at work. After a few months, not only had I reduced the time demands from my job but we had also improved our operational effectiveness and I was rewarded with a larger salary and more stock options.

Once I had done "my share" I demanded some of Ted's time and pointed out what I had seen in our relationship and what I had done and asked him to do something similar.

He agreed at once and for a while he spent time hiring some more help, the most significant of whom was my brother Rob.

Rob had been building his own financial services business but after 9/11 he suffered some severe losses in clientele and finally gave it up. He began working for a large mutual fund company but was unhappy with it.

Ted changed all that and after only 6 weeks on the job, my brother started to take some of the load and Ted planned a small holiday to celebrate.

We had a week in a remote cabin in the mountains in northern Georgia and it was like heaven on earth. The scenery was breathtaking. The cabin was built into the mountain by a large pond or small lake which was fed by a waterfall from above the cabin.

The water was freezing even in August but we had an old Jacuzzi that we went into first and once we were warm we ran naked to the lake. We warmed up by making love afterwards, sometimes in our bed and once or twice on a mattress by the lake.

We took long walks and sometimes in the heat of the day I wore a "T" shirt and a short skirt and nothing else. My husband responded accordingly and a few times we made love just off the trail. It was exciting but I was pleased my husband is a practical man and later that week he carried a soft quilt to save me from the pine needles.

I found that I just loved that cabin and a few evenings we discussed buying something like it for ourselves. It was less than 3 hours drive from Atlanta and there was a small airport with local service only 40 minutes away.

Our "dream" cabin had all the scenic advantages but with all the modern conveniences too and it was great fun planning it with Ted.

Things were great for about 5 or 6 weeks after that. Ted wasn't always able to get away but he did so more often and that was good enough for me. I began to think I should talk to him about me resigning and starting a family. I had a great job and I worked with great people but I was beginning to think I had had enough career success outside our home and wanted to have some at home.

I also encouraged Ted to do some positive things for our relationship on his own without prompting from me. I loved him unconditionally but I knew in my heart I wanted him to actively work at it as well.

He agreed enthusiastically.

I can't pinpoint when things started to go south after that but it may have been the first week that Ted took Rob with him to Savannah. In order to get Rob acquainted with that part of the operation they would be gone until Saturday. That wasn't so bad but that one extended trip became two and then three and so on until it was commonplace for Ted and Rob to be gone most weekends.

Clearly Ted was not living up to his promise to work on our relationship so I had to find a way to get him back on track.

I started to go to his office once or twice a week when he was in town, to grab lunch or even just a coffee with my husband. He seemed to appreciate the visits but not much else changed.

While I was at his office he was sometimes busy when I arrived so I waited in the staff lounge and it was there that I met Jerry Craig.

Jerry is good looking but in a "flashy" sort of way and he was quick to flirt even with the boss's wife. I wasn't really attracted to him but he helped to pass the time while I was waiting for Ted.

One day Jerry was beginning to get all too familiar. He had moved close to me and was putting his arm around me. I was about to pull away and tell him firmly that his advances were not welcome when Ted came into the room.

His look of consternation made Jerry pull away quickly but Ted's composure returned and we went out for lunch. That night Ted was very attentive and he actually took the following weekend off and we played golf together for the first time in months. We went out for dinner and ended up making love on the living room floor as we had worked each other into a level of excitement that wouldn't wait till we got upstairs.

That, however, was short lived as Ted fell back into being gone for the extended weekends with Rob once again.

I tried talking with my brother Rob as he and I have always got along but he just assured me that he would be able to operate on his own soon and Ted wouldn't have to make those trips much longer.

One afternoon I went for lunch at the sandwich bar near my office and was shocked to run into Jerry Craig. He resumed his overly familiar manner and I pushed him away but perhaps more gently than I should have.

A vague idea was forming in my mind that I might use this weasel to get some more attention from my husband. I had absolutely no compunction in using him like that. I didn't like him and felt he wasn't the sort of person I would have in my business. In fact, it did briefly occur to me that he wasn't the sort that Ted would have in his business either.

Jerry said he often ate there and that he might see me again sometime.

I should have put a stop to it but he was such an ass that using him to get me more attention from my husband didn't bother me a bit. At the time, however, I had no idea how to go about doing that, so I continued to string him along making sure I was firm. Lunch only!

Two days later, not only did he arrive at lunchtime but he had a small bouquet of flowers for me.

It occurred to me that too much of this so close to my office wasn't a good idea and I told Jerry I wasn't interested in continuing. I suspect he had figured out what was wrong and managed to mention an incredible gourmet lunch counter about 20 minutes away. I felt that that was not a good idea but I still had this vague idea that I still might use him to spark more interest by my husband, so I once more made it clear that, as long as he understood this was lunch only, I would meet him there.

Over the following week we were there 3 more times and the week after that, a couple more times, each time he arrived with a flower or a small bouquet.

It was at the last of those lunches that he asked me out for dinner the following night. It would be Wednesday and the slimy bastard knew Ted would be out of town.

I answered honestly that I was busy and that I wasn't interested.

The following night I represented our company at the Atlanta Business Leaders Ass'n dinner at the Havencroft Hotel just on the outskirts of the city. Jerry was there, although I have no idea why, but he was clearly surprised to see me too and with still a vague plan in my mind to use Jerry to make Ted pay more attention, I joined him for a late dinner.

In a moment of foolishness, thinking I needed time to figure out how to get Ted's attention, I agreed to meet Jerry the following Wednesday for dinner, adding clearly that it would be dinner ONLY.

He agreed.

That weekend when he got back late on Sunday instead of the normal Thursday, Ted seemed even more worn out than normal but it began to piss me off that I had made the effort to join him for coffee or lunch at his office and not only had he not reciprocated, he was taking Rob on another of those extended trips the following week and wasn't getting back until Saturday.

He did ask how my weekend had been, but a combination of being pissed at his intent to be away the following week and my lack of a definite plan for how to use Jerry, led me to toss off the question and not mention my dinner companion.

Instead of canceling my dinner with Jerry, I went that next week and even more foolishly, I went to the lounge where there was dancing. I had one drink and actually danced with him about a half dozen times. Later that evening I could feel him pushing his erection against me so I, said goodnight and left.

The following week there was more of the same. Ted was going to be away until Saturday again!

I think I had begun to suspect that this vague idea to make Ted jealous was not going anywhere but I didn't make the decision to break it off until later that last Wednesday night, the third time we had dinner and the second we were dancing.

It all came together for me when Jerry blatantly said it was time I went with him to his room for the rest of the week.

There was no way in hell I was going to do that!

I knew that subconsciously, I picked the slimy bastard because I wanted to do something that would shake up my husband and force him to be more attentive to our marriage, but I did it with Jerry because deep down I knew I would never get into his bed and I would never get seriously involved with him.

I had chosen well however. He was very complimentary. He called often just to say "Hi." And he slipped me a note now and then that had the "I'm thinking of you!" theme. He always had a flower or flowers for me ever since that first lunch.

It was actually fun to watch his expression as I calmly told him that not only was I not going to his room to fuck him but that I was never going to meet him again for lunch, dinner or for any other reason. .

I had covered myself well. I always drove my own car and I always put the notes, cards and flowers into the nearest dumpster or shredder as soon as I was out of his sight.

Using him was a stupid idea anyway.

Ted might be jealous in his own way but he might be more likely to be pissed at me than change his own ways.

As I drove home that night, I became firm in my realization that I would rather have Ted the way he is than be without him and although I had never even come close to getting into Jerry's bed (and I never would) I hadn't exactly been a model wife lately and I was determined to make it up to my husband.

If he wasn't very romantic, I would be romantic enough for both of us!

It's funny but I had been at lunch, dinner and dancing with a man who is very attentive and who does all the little things I would like Ted to do and never once was I even mildly excited, yet during those last few minutes just thinking about doing romantic things with the husband who has pissed me off with his lack of attentiveness, I was so excited, I was getting wet.

Go figure!

Damn I had been dumb those past few weeks, thinking that attention from another man might kick start my husband to work a little more on our relationship. That was really a very stupid thing to do.

By the time I drove into our driveway thinking about the things I was going to do with him I was horny as hell and determined to do myself a few times to keep me balanced until my husband got home on Sunday.

As I drove into the garage I noticed the porch lights were off.

I thought I had left them on.

I entered the house and turned on the hall lights intending to head straight for the bedroom and get myself off before the excitement got to be too much to bear. I burst into the bed room and almost screamed in fright before I saw that Ted was standing at our bed where his suitcase lay. He was apparently unpacking from his trip although it seemed odd that there were an awful lot of his clothes on the bed.

Still at least a little in shock I blurted out, "Ted, I'm surprised to see you home. I thought you were staying in Savannah the rest of the week."

He turned to face me and with an incredibly sad look said, "That's a coincidence. I'm surprised to see you home too. I thought you were staying at the Havencroft with Jerry Craig for the rest of the week."

Chapter 2 Ted

"I can't live without her!"

"I'll never love anyone like I love her."

"This pain will never go away."

Bullshit!

It's all bullshit.

Sure, I'm hurting. It hurts like hell, but I know that with time the hurt will fade and eventually go away and there will be others to love and to love me.