I Deserved to Know

The first time I met Julie I fell head over heels in love with her. She stood five foot six inches tall, even taller on heels, she had long blonde hair, deep blue eyes, and a body that looked like it had been sculpted by an artist. She was absolutely breathtaking.

I first laid eyes on her at a party in college and after mustering up the courage to approach a woman that I knew was way out of my league I started talking to her.

We had a great conversation that night. It was one of those typical college parties where everyone gets drunk and stumbles off somewhere hoping to get laid and I guess I was no different.

She lived less than a block from the party so I walked Julie home and when we got there she pulled me into the apartment with her. We shed clothes as we moved to the bedroom and we had the hottest sex that I had ever had that night.

She woke me in the morning with a kiss and as I looked up at her smiling down at me I couldn't help myself.

"Will you marry me?" I asked.

"Don't you think we should date for a while first?" Julie asked with a slight giggle at my question.

"If you need time to decide I guess that would be alright, I've already decided that I want to spend the rest of my life with you." I said.

"Well aren't you sweet. Come on, get up, I want you to meet my roommate Nicole." Julie said.

We got dressed and walked out to the kitchen where a pretty brunette was eating breakfast.

"Good morning Nicole, I'd like you to meet Adam." Julie said.

"Hello Adam. Julie, I was unaware that you were planning on having company." Nicole said sternly.

"Don't get snippy, I met him at a party last night and he came home with me." Julie said.

"What about our rule?" Nicole asked.

"Look, I don't want to fight about this. Adam and I had a good time, I really like him." Julie said.

Nicole gave Julie this dirty look like the shit was about to hit the fan.

"Well, I'd really better be going. Nicole it was nice to meet you, Julie I had a great time and I'd love to see you again, maybe I could take you to dinner or a movie." I said.

"I'd love to." Julie said.

Nicole seemed to become even madder at that so I started towards the door.

"Wait up Adam, I'll walk you out, I need some air anyway." Julie said.

We walked outside.

"I don't mean to pry, but Nicole seemed awfully pissed." I said.

"Oh she just watches over me like a mother hen. We have a rule about not bringing people back to our apartment when the other one isn't around, you know, just in case there is some trouble. I wasn't worried about you though, I get the impression that you wouldn't hurt a fly. I'll call you later to set up our next date." Julie said.

Julie and I started dating. You might think that two people that had ended up in bed with each other a few hours after they had met would have had a very sexual relationship, but that wasn't the case for me and Julie. I'd say that on average we had sex once a week for the first few months that we were together.

It didn't really bother me because the sex we did have was so great, and spending time of any kind with Julie was better than sex with any of my previous girlfriends. I felt like the luckiest man on Earth as I felt that I had found a woman that was way out of my league that liked me.

Nicole on the other hand didn't seem to like me at all. In fact at first she seemed to hate me. I didn't understand it; I mean I thought I was a pretty nice guy, I never did anything to hurt Julie, but Nicole still didn't seem to like me.

I was a little troubled by it and after it had been going on for most of the year I talked to Julie about it.

"Julie, I think we need to talk about Nicole." I said.

"What about her?" Julie asked.

"Well, she's your best friend and roommate, and well it seems that our relationship has strained your relationship with her. I don't want to be the cause of any trouble between you." I said.

"Oh Adam, you're so sweet to be thinking of my relationship with Nicole like that. You're right; being with you has strained my relationship with Nicole. She feels that I'm spending entirely too much time with you. She gets really pissed off after one of the nights that you and I have sex. I just laugh at her." Julie said.

"Well I'm not laughing about it and I don't think Nicole is either. I'm genuinely concerned that our relationship will drive a wedge between the two of you, or that Nicole will try to do something to drive the two of us apart. There are two really wonderful relationships on the line here, and I don't want you to have to lose either of them because Nicole has a problem with our relationship. If you choose to break it off with me to save your friendship with her I can accept that, but I would hate for either her or me to be responsible for the painful end of either relationship." I said.

"You're really concerned about this aren't you?" Julie asked.

"Yes, I really am." I said.

"Okay, since she's the one that's been causing the trouble, I'll talk to her about it and try to set some things straight." Julie said.

I wasn't there for the conversation, but Nicole's disdain for me seemed to vanish overnight. We still weren't exactly buddy buddy, but she would talk to me when I called their apartment, if I saw her on campus we would say hello, and if I came to take Julie out and she wasn't quite ready there wasn't an awkward silence as we sat in the front room together waiting for her to come out.

Things between me and Julie were going great, I was happier than I had ever been in my life and she was very happy as well. We stayed for summer school, and then began our last year in college.

A little over a year after we had first met Julie and I went out to a romantic dinner.

"This night has been so perfect." Julie said.

"Yes it has. This night could get a whole lot better or end on a sour note depending on what happens in the next few minutes, but Julie, will you marry me?" I asked.

Julie was speechless for a few seconds. She obviously hadn't been prepared for me to propose that night. She looked deep into my eyes for a few moments, and then she looked down at the ring that I was holding out towards her.

I was growing worried that she was trying to come up with a way to say no without hurting me when a smile came across her face, a tear ran down her cheek, and she nodded slightly.

"Yes. Yes Adam I'll marry you." Julie said.

"Oh Julie, I love you so much." I said as I slipped the ring on her finger.

"I love you too Adam, I'm so happy right now." Julie said.

We basked in the happiness of the moment for a while then we headed home. We had to stop twice to make love in my car. When we got to her apartment we were floating on air, but Nicole burst our balloon.

When Julie told her of our engagement the cold stare returned to her eyes. It was obvious that Nicole was not happy about our news.

"Adam, I am so happy right now that I could just burst, but I think that you should probably go home now so I can talk to Nicole." Julie said.

"Okay, I'll see you tomorrow." I said.

I left, but as I got to my car I could hear the argument taking place. I couldn't make out the words, they were muffled by the walls, but they were both yelling.

In the middle of the night Julie let herself in to my apartment and crawled into bed with me.

"Hi." I said.

"Hi. Nicole and I had a huge fight, I can't be around her right now, do you mind if I stay here?" Julie asked.

"You can stay here as long as you want to, but I really hope that you and Nicole can work things out, the last thing I want is to drive a wedge between you two." I said.

"You're so unbelievably sweet. I'm so lucky and so happy to have a great guy like you, but it tears me up inside that she can't be happy for us." Julie said.

"Well, maybe it's time I talked to Nicole. Maybe she just doesn't believe that I love you as much as I do." I said.

"I don't know if it will help anything, but I love it that you're willing to try." Julie said.

She kissed me and we went to sleep.

The next morning I slipped out of bed and drove over to Nicole and Julie's apartment. When she saw it was me at the door Nicole tried to shut the door in my face, but I pushed my way inside.

"Get the hell out of here, Julie isn't here." Nicole said.

"I know, she's asleep in my bed right now. I came here to talk to you." I said.

"We have nothing to talk about." Nicole said.

"Yes we do. Last night was the first time Julie has ever come over and spent the night at my apartment. We've spent all of our nights together here. The fact that she came to stay at my apartment is proof enough to me that the two of you had a big fight about our engagement. Nicole, why can't you just be happy for us? Why can't you see that I love Julie and she loves me? It's not like you're losing her. Hell, I hope the two of you are able to see each other as frequently as possible; I don't want to destroy your friendship. What I do want is to marry Julie and to spend the rest of my life in happiness with her. I'm not foolish enough to think that all she needs to be happy is me. She needs you Nicole. You're the only person she'd even consider to be the maid of honor at the wedding, she tells you things that she'll never tell me, she's very happy to be engaged to me right now, but it's killing her that you can't be happy for us. Don't you see, she wants and needs both of us in her life now." I said.

Nicole sat silently for a minute, and then looked into my face and I watched as the bitterness and anger melted away.

"You're right Adam, I'm sorry, I've been an idiot. I thought I was protecting Julie when really I was trying to drive a wedge between the two of you to keep her for myself. I can see now that you truly do love her, and I can understand why she loves you, you really do care about her feelings and her relationship with me. I've been a fool, but I promise that those days are gone. Go back over to her, be happy, but tell her that I want to talk to her." Nicole said.

I returned to my apartment and found Julie still in bed. When she got up we spent the whole day together before I told her about what had happened when I went to talk to Nicole. Julie was very impressed and she agreed that she should go back to her apartment that night to talk to Nicole.

After that things were great for me and Julie and for Julie and Nicole.

Julie and I got married after graduation. We had jobs lined up close to one another; my parents even gave us a house in a nice neighborhood. As it turned out Nicole got a job just down the street from Julie and she found an apartment within a few blocks of our house so it worked out that they got to see each other every day for lunch and often times after work as well.

Tuesday and Thursday nights were their "girl's nights" and I trusted Julie so it didn't bother me that they were going out without me like that. Friday and Saturday nights Julie and I would go out, and Wednesday nights Julie and I would stay in and have a nice cheap at home "date".

Being married now and having dates with my wife three times a week was great. Our sex life had more than tripled, from once a week to at least three times per week. We were pretty regular with our Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday sex, but we also had frequent spontaneous sex at all hours of the day on pretty much any day of the week.

The exceptions were Tuesday and Thursday nights. Julie wouldn't get home from her "girls night out" until after 1:00 a.m. most of the time and either I was sound asleep or she was too tired to do anything when she got home.

The "girls' nights out" continued, even when Julie became pregnant with our first child. I was a little concerned about her going out dancing when she was eight months pregnant, but she assured me that she wasn't dancing, that she and Nicole were just going out to movies or dinner and having a good time talking.

She still wasn't getting home until after 1:00 in the morning though, which also concerned me a little as I was unsure of what her odd hours might be doing to the baby.

Our daughter came out just fine, and so did our two sons later on.

The "girls' night out" seemed to take on more meaning with one, two, then three kids in the house. Julie is a great mom, and she loves it, but she wants no part of being a stay home mom so she still works. With all of the stress of a long week of work, and still being an attentive and active mother she needed some time to unwind and her two nights a week to get out and cut loose with Nicole seemed to be just what she needed.

Not that I wasn't helpful with the kids when Julie was home, but she was so motherly that I was almost in her way. I didn't have any trouble handling things the two nights a week that I was on my own however, and in fact I took great pride and derived great pleasure from being so active with the kids.

Of course with kids come changes in a couple's life together. Our three dates per week became two when the kids were born, and one of those was the Wednesday stay at home date that we would have after the kids had gone to bed.

That meant we were down to having sex twice a week for the most part, we were still spontaneous when we could be, but with young children in the house it's kind of difficult to make love on the couch in the living room on a Saturday morning.

So slowly that I almost didn't notice it was happening our Saturday night dates went from every week to every other week, then once a month. By our tenth anniversary we were down to our Wednesday night date and the other major dates in our lives for having sex. My birthday, her birthday, our anniversary, and Valentine's Day.

Now every couple probably goes through a transition like that where their sex life becomes less and less, but it wasn't the change in frequency that bothered me, it was the change in quality.

From our very first time together the night we met all the way through the first several years of our marriage having sex with Julie had been incredible. It almost seemed like it got better each and every time. As the number of times we were making love each week dwindled the effort Julie was putting in also lessened.

She had always been very energetic in bed, but it seemed that she just wasn't into it anymore.

At first I thought that it was something about me. I had put on 20 pounds since we'd gotten married so I started working out and after six months I was in better shape than I'd ever been in. It didn't seem to make any difference.

I grew worried that maybe she didn't love me the way she used to so I sat her down one day to have a talk.

"Julie, I'm concerned about our sex life. I've noticed a steady decline in the frequency and the quality of our love making. I thought it might have been because I had put on some weight, but I lost all that weight and more and you didn't even seem to notice." I said.

"Oh Adam, I did notice, I was very impressed." Julie said.

"Julie, do you still love me?" I asked.

"How can you ask me that? I love you more today than I did yesterday and each day before that." Julie said.

"Then what is it? Why has our sex life become so...well...boring?" I asked.

"You think our sex life is boring?" Julie asked showing genuine concern.

"Well...yes. We used to make love for hours at a time. We'd wake up in the middle of the night and make love until sunrise. We used to take showers together in the morning and make love under the warm stream of water." I said.

"Oh Adam, I didn't know that you felt this way." Julie said.

"Well I do. I'm really concerned too. Is this something that just happened over time, or have you been gradually reducing our sex life because you don't want to make love to me anymore?" I asked.

"How dare you imply something like that Adam. I love you and I would never..." Julie said.

"I'm sorry; I went too far with that. I just know that my desire for you has not lessened; in fact it has increased, even as the frequency of our love making has decreased. Do you have any idea how long it's been since we made love more than once in the same day?" I asked.

"Not really." Julie said.

"If my memory is right, it's been three months Julie. Three months. And lately our love making can barely be called that, in truth it was just sex. There has been no foreplay, we don't talk or cuddle afterwards, and it's just quick and dirty sex to reach orgasm then off to sleep. We haven't had oral sex in nearly four months Julie. I remember a time when we couldn't keep our mouths off one another, but now..." I said.

"Adam, you're right, I hadn't realized how far things have slipped. I guess with work and the kids and everything it's just easier for a wham bam thank you ma'am kind of sex life. But that's not what I want Adam; I want us to make love the way we used to. I want to feel the world move the way it did when we were together for the first time. I love you Adam and I want us to express our love physically. I'll call Nicole and ask her if she can take the kids today so we can have some time alone." Julie said.

"That sounds wonderful." I said.

Nicole was a single mother with two kids of her own at that point. Her son and daughter were very close to the same age as our two sons. For their "girls' night out" Nicole left her children with her neighbor who had kids the same age.

Nicole came by and picked up the kids to take them to the park for the day.

Julie and I spent that day making love and it was wonderful. It was like we had rediscovered each other after years of being apart. We made love all day and were holding one another when Nicole called to see if it was safe to bring the kids home yet.

For several months after that our love making was as good as it had ever been if not better.

Several months later Julie's birthday was approaching and I wanted to make it a special one to show her how much I loved her. As it turned out however her birthday was on Tuesday so she wanted to either celebrate Monday or Wednesday so she could still have her "girls' night out" with Nicole.

"Sweetie, I really want to be with you on your birthday. Why don't you just go out with Nicole Wednesday instead so we can be together on your birthday?" I asked.

"Oh honey, you know that Nicole and I always go out Tuesday nights. What does it matter if we celebrate my birthday a day early or a day late, the important part is that we'll be celebrating together." Julie said.

I really wanted to spend her birthday with my wife, but I also didn't want to get into a fight over something silly.

"Well maybe we could get a sitter and I could go with you and Nicole. I know it's your girls' night and all, but I really want to spend your birthday with you." I said.

"Oh Adam, why are you making such a big deal about this?" Julie asked.

"Because you're my wife and I want to be with you on your birthday." I said.

"You will be, we can make love in the morning, and you can wait up for me to get home, I promise I'll be home by midnight." Julie said.

"Isn't there any way I can convince you how much I want to be a part of your birthday?" I asked.

"You are a part of my birthday; we're just going to celebrate it on a different day this year." Julie said.

I knew that if I pressed it any further we'd end up having a fight so I reluctantly gave in.

"Okay, I guess we'll do it Wednesday then." I said.

"Wednesday it is. I'm really looking forward to it." Julie said.

I was saddened and confused. Why did my wife not want to spend her birthday with me? What reason could she have? I thought back to the decline in our sex life and I immediately found myself wondering if she might be cheating on me.

I dismissed those thoughts almost as soon as I had them. I hadn't seen any signs that would lead me to believe that, the decline in our sex life was easily explained by the stress of work and family. Besides Julie loved me, she'd never cheat on me.