Gypsy

We came to a stop sign, I looked sideways at my wife Beth. My quick glance was to gauge her mood. We hadn't spoken so far during the car ride. We were on our way to my families Saturday night dinner. I know, most families have their big dinners on Sunday, but my family was a little different.

My fathers family had moved to the US from Romania during the time of uncertainty after the Iron Curtain came down. They got out with forged documents in 1988. My father, his two sisters, his parents, and a small assortment of relatives all moved to the US to make a new life.

My grandparents, my father and my aunts all spoke English with an Eastern European accent. When they all got to the US they decided to live near the Romanian Orthodox Church in our city. The sense of familiarity helped them adjust in a new country. Many liked minded people of Romanian heritage settled in the same neighborhoods.

By trade my family are jewelers. Fortunately precious gems are easy to transport and when we fled we had a lot of capital in inventory. My grandfather is a craftsman on the verge of an artist. My father was more a businessman and worked with our suppliers to get the best stones at the best prices. I followed in my grandfather's inclination and was developing my own more contemporary artistic designs. The name of our business is Stoica Gem Designs.

Beth was a good old multi-generation American. I believe at first the exotic foreignness of the Romanians was of interest to Beth, but exotic becomes commonplace with repeated exposure. I think my family bored her.

"Beth honey, we don't have to stay too long." I told her.

All she said to that was "Good."

"Come on, you haven't seen my family in months, it's not that bad." I added. "Is something bothering you?" I asked.

Though it had been a few months since Beth had joined my family for Saturday night dinner I made it almost weekly. This gave Beth a chance to have a girls night out on recent Saturdays. Beth had been hitting the gym lately and was sculpting her slightly plump body into a solid 9 on the female physique scale. She looked good and lately, in my opinion she may have been flaunting it a little too much for a married woman.

"I'm fine," she replied. "Now I agreed to do this. No more questions."

Fortunately we were almost there so the silence within the car was short lived.

The scene at my parents house was typical for one of our family dinners. Lots of loud talking, children running around, my mother holding court in the kitchen and "Aunt" Dina perched in a single chair in the corner silently appraising all activity.

The moment we got there Beth made a beeline to my cousins wife Morgan. One of the few people Beth will talk to at these events. There is a simmering contemptuous attitude she projects and does not care who sees it.

I, on the other hand, am sincerely glad to see my family and I spend time making the rounds to all the relatives with hugs and brief conversations.

"Nicholas," my mother asks. "Can I get your Beth something to eat or drink? I want to make her feel at home." She goes on.

My mother's family are also Romanian but she was born and raised in the US and speaks with no accent. My Mom has a big heart and even though Beth is acting stuck up, my Mom wants to know if she can help her in some way.

"No Mom," I say. "She's fine. She can be a little shy at times." Not specifically truthful but it ends the conversation about Beth's mood.

"Aunt" Dina (pronounced Dee - Naw) is one of my favorites and I make my way to her perch on a single straight backed chair in the main room.

Dina is a singularly unattractive elderly woman except for her eyes. A shapeless body, gray hair with black streaks pulled back. A severe angular face with a pronounced nose and a sharp chin. Several moles be-speckle her dark complexion sprouting black hair. But, she has big beautiful dark eyes. Her eyes seem to be able to see deep inside when she looks at you.

Nonetheless I give her a big hug and a kiss on her cheek. She hugs me extra long.

"Nico," she says in her heavy accent, "What is the matter with your bride?" She asks.

"Dini" I say, using my pet name, "you know how she is, she doesn't like to mingle. She's fine." I go on.

I look at Dina and she's watching Beth with great concentration. Dina I'm convinced has some type of psychic powers. More than once she has given me advice that has worked out exactly as she had predicted. Shortly before I proposed to Beth, Dina had warned me about marriage. It created a little tension between us for a short time. Obviously I disregarded her advice on that occasion.

"I think there is something wrong." She states as she stares at Beth. "There is going to be trouble for you Nico. You be careful and you watch that one." She nods towards Beth as she says this.

"Dini," I say, "everything's fine. Thank you for thinking of me but you don't need to worry." I give her a hug and a smile as I continue to mingle.

As I'm about to move away she touches my elbow and I feel an electric sensation like when you hit your funny bone. Almost as strong as a shock. It startles me and I look at Dina. She is staring back at me with her beautiful deep black eyes, her index finger is lightly tapping her nose. I'm not exactly sure what all this means, but I feel it is some type of warning.

Throughout the evening I am mildly troubled by my encounter with "Aunt" Dina. This is accentuated by Beth's coolness to most of my family and to me.

Driving home I know not to question her attitude. I'm still holding out hope for a little sex tonight. It's been a few weeks.

"What are your plans for tomorrow?" I ask her. A safe subject.

"I will be at the gym from 2 to 5." She states without further comment.

"I could join you. I haven't been lately and maybe we can get something to eat afterwards." I think this sounds like a good idea and I look over to see her reaction.

She stares straight ahead and says nothing for perhaps a full minute.

I say "Beth?" thinking maybe she didn't hear me or something.

"Nick, I've got a personal training session tomorrow and I'm not sure how long it will last. I will just meet you at home for dinner." She says with a forced smile.

Now I'm getting a little pissed. She acted like a bitch at my parents house, I tried to create a little togetherness for doing something SHE likes, the gym, and I get shot down. I am on the verge of saying something about it when all of a sudden her whole attitude and posture change from ice queen to loving wife.

I know it may be just an act, but I cling at any hope of the old affectionate Beth.

"Sorry honey," she says in all of a sudden a sweet, sexy voice, "maybe we can do that on a different day."

She starts rubbing my thigh and is staring at me in her sexiest way. Her hand has now reached my balls and she starts tickling them with her long fingernails. Fortunately we are on neighborhood streets and I slow way down. Not sure if my auto insurance coverage includes getting in a wreck while receiving a hand job.

She is now rubbing my erection through my pants and I am at full mast. Up and down with the palm and heel of her hand, alternating with tantalizing scratches with the fingernails.

"Beth, um," I whisper out. That's all I can get my mind around to say.

"What's wrong Nicky?" She asks in a singsong voice. "Am I distracting you? Maybe I should stop." And momentarily she disconnects contact.

"No, no!" I practically shout.

She laughs and is now unzipping me. I feel the cool air on my naked cock. At this point I'm doing no more than ten miles an hour, fortunately we were in the suburbs. About 10% of my brain is focusing on driving while the rest of it is focused on her stroking the length of my erection.

I pull over at a park near the tennis courts. It's dark and there does not seem to be anyone around. I stop.

She bends over and engulfs my cock in her mouth. Beth has this great blow job technique where she alternates bobbing up and down on my erection and then takes the head in her mouth and sucks hard. She starts doing that.

The initial frenzy has passed and she gets in a nice rhythm of bobbing up and down and then the intense sucking. My hand is on her big tits under the sweater and I've pulled the bra down for complete access. Her nipples are hard and I can tell she's into it.

All of a sudden I open my door and drag her outside.

"Nick, what are you . . . " she begins.

I lift her off the ground, throw her over my shoulder and set her on the trunk of my BMW. She's mildly protesting. I grab her skirt and panties and yank them off, then I pull her sweater off. She's nude except for her shoes at 9:45 in the evening in a public park.

I grab her legs, spread them, pull her towards me and in one stroke I have roughly violated her pussy. She screams with alarm and ecstasy. I continue to pound her with pent up sexual energy. Her cries are a staccato "uh", "yes!"

After a few moments we are lit up with a flashlight. I look over my shoulder and here's some retired guy walking his dog. The dog yaps at us.

"Everything okay here, I heard some noises." He says.

"Nick" Beth says to me and stops.

I look over at the guy who is clearly ogling Beth's bouncing, lit up tits.

"Everything's fine, I haven't fucked my wife in quite some time and I'd kind of like to finish if you don't mind." I tell him.

"No sir," he says. "Mind if I watch?" He says.

"Knock yourself out," I tell him.

"Nicholas!" Beth says and struggles to get up. I keep fucking her and just to give the guy a real show at the point of climax I yank it out and ejaculate on those big heaving tits.

Beth hurriedly grabs her clothes and ducks inside the car.

"You two plannin' on coming back anytime soon?" The old guy hopefully asks. I don't reply.

Beth is back to her quiet mood on the way home. Any post coital glow appears to have dimmed for her. I tell her how great it was to make love to her.

"Make love," she says. "You fucked me. And in front of that old geezer too. What If someone we knew had seen us!?"

She's trying to start a little fight. I'm not taking the bait. I needed her badly and I know a couple of things. Point 1: the whole seduction scene on her part was a way to distract me from the fact that she didn't want me to go to the gym with her for whatever reason. Point 2: I also know that she is exaggerating how embarrassed she was that we were caught having sex. I know there is a part of her that likes exhibitionism.

So for the moment I was satisfied. But I knew full well that it would not take much deep thinking to discover we had some serious problems with our marriage . . . . .

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Beth and I actually went to high school together but traveled in different crowds. In high school she was slim with big boobs and a shapely ass. Not a hard body but very soft and womanly, attracting most of the guys in our high school.

She was a cheerleader and hung with the cute girls and the jock guys. The in crowd. I didn't really have a crowd. I wasn't smart or boring enough to be a nerd. But I wasn't a good enough athlete or quite cool enough to be a jock. I was kind of in between.

One thing I was, was infatuated with Beth. She and I had biology together our senior year and I sat near her. I tried to think up ways to interact with her any way I could. A mediocre student, I focused on biology so I could help Beth with her homework.

She accepted my help. We would go to her house and sit at the kitchen counter. These sessions were the highlight of my week. I was so glad to be near her. I barely paid attention to the fact that half the time I was supposedly tutoring her, she was talking on the phone. More times than not I just did her homework.

Towards the end of senior year we had been getting together to do homework for several months. When I walked by Beth in the school hallways she would say hello and call me by name. I mistook that friendliness for true affection. I found out abruptly that I had misjudged her affection for me.

At the end of lunch period one day I saw her outside near the front doors. She was for once not with her gang of friends. I thought this would be my chance and walked up to her and asked her if she wanted to get together on Saturday night.

She looked at me with a confused expression. "Saturday?" She asked. "I don't study on the weekends." She told me.

"I mean, um, we could do something other than study." I say. "We could see a movie or get something to eat." I tell her with hope in my voice.

She just stared at me searching my eyes to understand the nature of my question. In her mind we were of two separate castes. My social strata and hers were on different planes. The co- mingling of our popularity was not comprehensible.

When she finally processed all this she merely said. "Sorry I'm busy." And walked off.

I never tutored her again. She never greeted me in the halls again and it was several years before I ever even saw her after graduation . . . . .

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The week after the dinner at my parents Beth seemed to accelerate her frequent workout schedule at the gym. We had originally joined the local fitness club together. I had always been lean and not particularly muscular. Beth had gained some weight since high school and was constantly in a battle to shed the excess.

I enjoyed the workouts, but more than anything I just liked us doing something together. Her work schedule changed and she started going in to work early and getting off at 3:00 PM. My hours at the family business, Stoica Gem Designs, followed more traditional retail hours. In at 9:00 AM closing at 6:00 PM most of the time.

For all intents and purposes I quit going to the gym. Occasionally we went together on the weekends but anyone who had ever spent much time working out knows it takes dedication and discipline. The occasional visit does not work.

Before we were married I had purchased an older house. It needed a lot of repairs and updating and I spent my free time working on the house. Originally I thought it was fine that Beth and I had different hobbies. I worked on the house and tried to make it better for her to enjoy and she worked on her body, all the better for me to enjoy.

It worked at first.

As time passed her attitude began to shift. Beth was always a prima donna, my memories of high school and her unofficial membership with the in crowd never quite went away. I treated her like a queen and she seemed to enjoy my attention. Early in our marriage it was fun, a game of me worshiping her and both of us laughing about how I would do anything for her.

I remember one Saturday night shortly after we were married. It was late and we had eaten an early dinner. It was about 9:30 and we were on the verge of going to bed and all of a sudden she had an intense craving for a strawberry milkshake.

"Will you go down to DQ and get me a milkshake, please?" She asked.

"Beth, no, I'm in my boxers, I'm getting ready for bed. We can get one tomorrow." I told her.

"PLEASE, Nicky do this for me, I really want a strawberry milkshake," she pleaded turning on her sexy voice.

As I said I treated her like a queen but this was ridiculous. If it had been something important, I would have done it. But a strawberry milkshake! Forget it.

"Please Nicky, I'll give you a blowjob," she said in a singsong voice.

All of sudden I stopped moving towards the bedroom. Huh, the ante just went up. As I may have said in our family business my grandfather was the artist and my dad was the businessman. I had learned from both of them. I remember my dad saying "never agree to the initial offer."

"No thanks," I said.

"OK, a blowjob and I'll masturbate for you." She upped the offer.

"Masturbate, blow job and you've got to answer the door nude." I countered.

She didn't even bother to think about it, "deal!"

She agreed and I drove all the way to Dairy Queen with an erection. Driving back with the shake I saw her blessedly nude waiting on the front porch with the overhead light on for all to see. I pretended to not get out until she started rubbing herself. I got the blowjob and we had a memorable evening.

Somewhere along the way the fun part of the relationship dwindled and then died out. Too often I was getting the shitty attitude like I got at the family dinner. Not often enough I got the sex that I so desperately received on the way home that night.

One thing was for sure, the shapely but chubby girl I married was transforming her body with the gym workouts. And it seemed like this; the more she worked out, the better she looked. The better she looked, the more attention she got. The more attention she got from others (mostly men) the less attention I got.

There is the old story about the frog in the pot. The temperature slowly increased. The frog didn't realize it was boiling until it was too late. That was what was happening around our house, except it wasn't boiling, it was freezing. Our relationship was what she was figuratively freezing to death.

As I say it wasn't always like that . . . .

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After graduation from high school I went to the local university and lived at home with my parents. I heard all the stories about friends who went away to college and their experiences. Parties, girls, drinking and what sounded like - lots of sex.

Meanwhile I was commuting back and forth to college and working part time in the family jewelry business. I dated a little and had a few girlfriends my first few years of college, but nothing serious.

Though I wasn't a virgin entering college I could not be described as experienced. One thing about a university in an urban environment was there were a lot of older students. Including women. I dated a lot of women in their late 20's and early 30's.

While I was getting my bachelor of science in business I was figuratively working on an advanced degree in women's sexuality. I found two separate older single women who were willing instructress's. By the time I entered my junior year I knew what it took to get a woman off. My confidence grew and I also was able to get a date when I needed one. But so far, nothing long term.

During my junior year I received a shock when I happened to see who I thought was Beth in my sociology class. It sure looked like the Beth I remembered from high school, only larger.

After our second sociology class of the term the larger Beth approached me.

"Nick, I thought that was you after the last class, how are you?" She said.

As I have said the Beth I remember was attractive but stuck up. I had not spoken nor even seen her since the end of high school. I was not prepared for the chubbier, friendlier version.

Another thing that changed was me. In high school I was 5' 9" and maybe 150 lbs. At the time I was tutoring Beth I was sexually inexperienced and did not have a lot of confidence.

Since high school I had grown 3 inches and had started working out. I was now 6', 175 lbs and fairly lean. Also my sexual tutelage by the older women had given me much more confidence with the opposite sex.

We ended up talking and having coffee together. She said she had gone away to college out of state. I knew the college she went to was a party school. She told me that the class sizes were too large and she decided to come back home to finish her degree.

Translation: she partied too much away from home, bombed out, and her parents are making her go to the boring commuter college in town.

Nonetheless we had a nice pleasant conversation. I think my positive changes physically and self confidence and perhaps her academic failures and increased weight had put us on a similar socio- strata. As you may recall we were on different levels in high school. No more.

Despite all this I was reluctant to ask her out other than casual coffee's after class. The pain and humiliation of my high school attempt had been a deep wound and I had not forgotten it.