I Never Should Have Taught Her

I suppose that my only excuse for this is that I've read too many Loving Wives stories. Parts of this are true, although it was a friend who taught my fiancé the lesson. While my wife sometimes threatens me with it when she is annoyed, she has never actually done it.

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I was lying on our living room floor, dazed and rubbing my jaw. My wife was kneeling next to me, alternately begging me to be okay and yelling at me for being such a jerk. I guess that's the price you pay for being both a husband and a fool at the same time.

Let me go back to about two minutes earlier. It was a Friday evening and I'd worked late again. I was doing a lot of that these days, but I was working to get ahead and I thought she understood. My wife and I had been talking about starting a family soon, and if she quit her job there would be just the one income. I needed to do my best to stay employed and get ahead. I came home exhausted every night, but I came home. I was sober. I didn't stop off for a drink or worse. I just worked late. That's all I did.

Walking through the door, I couldn't help but reflect on my wife and my life of late. She'd been distant and withdrawn. She seemed distracted, but then I suppose she might have said the same about me. Our sex life had dropped off in recent months as well. Maybe that's normal for a couple four years into marriage? I had noticed, but I'd been too tired to say anything.

Like I said, I came through the door and my wife was sitting in the living room. I hadn't even had time to put down my briefcase and she says, "Honey, we need to talk."

My blood ran cold. I thought to myself, "Oh, fuck, not that! Not the 'We need to talk' talk! Four years of marriage and all those years before when it was her and only her, and now 'We need to talk'?!"

"No! No, damn it, no! You can't! I won't! If you want someone else, then just pack your damn bags and leave! I won't sit at home waiting for you to come home from your dates. I won't share you. I won't be your damn cuck! If you want someone else, then get your ass out!"

That's when she hit me.

I never should have taught her how to throw a punch. By the time I saw it coming it was too late. She caught me on the left side of my jaw. She's just a little thing, really, but I went down for the count and I hit the floor hard. By the time I got my wits about me she was holding my head in her lap, gently rubbing the side of my head, and crying her eyes out. "Baby, baby, are you okay? Oh please, God, let him be okay!"

"Uh, ah hah, I think I'm okay."

She jumped up and dropped my head on the floor again. Oh, that hurt!

"You jerk! Stand up and I'll hit you again!" No sooner did she say it, but she was back on her knees, crying, "Are you sure you're okay, baby? I'm so sorry. Please forgive me."

My head was spinning, and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I think I married a schizoid. One minute she's knocking me out and the next she's crying over me.

"I'm okay, sweetie, just please don't hit me again."

She just knelt beside me, holding my head and bawling her eyes out.

As I lay there, my mind went back to the night I taught her how to throw a punch. We were both still in school and I was having dinner with her parents for the first time. I was trying to make a good impression and I thought I was doing pretty well. Oh, who's kidding, they were interrogating me, but they did it with a smile, and I was trying to pass inspection. Her mother had asked me something about my old girlfriends. She does that sort of thing. She loves to catch someone off guard and see how they handle it. I told the truth and made a flippant remark about how I had a history of dating psychos. That's when I felt the jab in my left arm. I looked over and Elizabeth was holding her fist in front of me. Well, if you can call it a fist... Like many girls, she had her thumb inside her fingers. If she hit someone hard like that, she'd dislocate her thumb and cause herself more pain than she inflicted on her attacker.

I was trying not to laugh. "What are you doing?" I sang it in that way young men speak to women when they are trying not to be condescending.

She looked embarrassed. "I punched you."

"No, you didn't. Didn't your brother ever teach you how to throw a punch?"

"No?" It was as much a question as a statement.

"Look..." I took her hand in mine. It was a good excuse to hold her for just a moment. "Open your hand. Now, fold your fingers." As I said it, I held her thumb back. "Make them tight. Now, fold your thumb over your fingers... Not like that... Closer to the fingertips. Lock the fingers in with your thumb. Okay. Now, make the back of your hand straight with your forearm." As I said that, I ran my hand along the back of hers and part way up her arm. She has a lovely arm. Like I said, I was enjoying the excuse. "Just like that. Now, this time hit my hand with these knuckles." With that, I ran my fingers across the knuckles closest to her wrist.

I held up my left hand in front of me. "Just hit my palm."

"No. I don't want to hurt you." Boy, in hindsight that remark is almost laughable.

"You won't. Hit me."

She gave a half-hearted punch. I smiled maybe a bit too much.

"Hit my hand!"

She hit it harder. Actually, she hit it significantly harder. I don't think she likes taking orders.

"That's better. Do it again."

She was still doing that classic punch and pull back, so her hits weren't doing any damage. I put my right hand up. "See this hand?" She nodded. "Try to hit it through my other hand." I then put my right behind my left. Her punches were getting better fast.

"Okay, now this time as you punch my hand, I want you to rotate your fist, like this..." I made a motion almost like I was backing out a screw. "It will bring your elbow up and help you put your shoulder into it. Throw your back into it and hit me hard."

She was getting the hang of it and she was enjoying it. In hindsight, I should have remembered that...

"Now, one more thing. Smile."

"What?"

"Smile. If you ever need to hit a guy, you aren't getting into a fist fight with him. He's stronger than you. You get one punch, and if you're lucky you catch him off guard, and he lets go of you. Then you run like hell and scream your head off. Now smile. He'll look reflexively in your eyes and he won't see it coming."

She smiled the sweetest smile... and then she clobbered me. She missed my hand completely and knocked me off my chair. Both she and her mother were worrying over me, but her father couldn't stop laughing.

"Oh God, I'm so sorry! Are you okay? I'm sorry. Please forgive me."

At some point, even I had to laugh. "I think you got the hang of it."

"Let's do it again!"

"I don't think so. Hit your father for a while." I looked over at him and thought, "Laugh at me, will you...?"

She looked at her father and turned into his little girl. "Daddy, let me hit you!"

I turned to her mother and we both started laughing. We couldn't help it. I quietly said, "Daddy, let me hit you. No, she's not manipulative." Her mother had her hands over her mouth, and she was looking at her husband as if to say, "She's your daughter, now let her hit you!"

Her father braced himself, raised his hands, and she got in about another dozen good hits before he called a stop to it and rubbed his palms together. "I think you got the hang of it." By now we were all laughing, and she had the biggest smile on her face.

So that's how I taught my future wife to throw a punch. I thought I was being a good boyfriend. A girl needs to know how to protect herself these days. Lying on the floor in our living room, I couldn't help but think that I never should have taught her that.

Well, back to the night in question. I was lying flat on my back with my wife kneeling beside me and bawling her eyes out. My jaw hurt like I'd been kicked by a mule. Damn she learned her lesson well!

"I can't do it, Beth. I just can't share you with someone."

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" She never curses, so that line caught me by surprise to say the least. "I don't want you to share me, you big jerk!" I was still a bit out of it, but I think she gut punched me. I felt the air rush from my lungs and I nearly doubled over from the blow. "What the fuck is wrong with you? You're my husband! I don't want someone else. What put that stupid idea in your head?"

I couldn't answer her. I knew the answer, but I was gasping for breath.

"Well?"

"Can't... breath..."

"Oh, baby, I'm so sorry. You made me so mad!"

I just tried to nod and wave my hand to acknowledge that I understood.

When I finally caught my breath I said, "I guess I've been reading too many of those stories online. The wife starts ignoring her husband; then she's having an affair and the next thing you know she's telling him she wants the boyfriend to move in with them. It always starts with, 'Honey, we need to talk.'"

That's when my head hit the floor again.

My wife ran up the stairs and moments later I heard the bedroom door slam. Oh, yeah, I'd stepped in it now.

I lay there for a while, clearing my head and catching my breath. How did all this happen? Why did she hit me with "Honey, we need to talk." if she wasn't going to drop the bomb on me?

It took me a while. I was finally standing, still gathering my wits, when I looked in the direction of the stairs. Elizabeth was standing there, eyes red, tears streaming down her cheeks, and arms crossed. Oh, yeah, she was mad.

Very slowly, enunciating every word, she said, "What gave you the idea that I wanted to have an affair?!" Her voice rose toward the end of it.

I tried to explain myself. "It's just that we haven't been having sex very often lately and you seem distracted and distant. I just figured..."

"I was distracted because you're always so tired that you've been ignoring me. It hurts! I've been distant, as you call it, because I'm trying to be patient. I know you're working hard, but you're always so tired and it hurts me that you just go to bed and fall asleep right away."

"You're not having an affair? Then, what did you want to talk about?" I was almost pleading now.

"I wanted you to put your briefcase in the closet this weekend and pay attention to me. I'm feeling neglected. I feel unloved. I want you to make love to your wife, you jerk!"

Now I was the one crying. I completely misread the entire situation. I raised my hands to try to explain, but she didn't give me the chance. My loving wife crossed the room in just three steps, moving fast, and threw herself into my arms. She gave me a kiss that would raise the dead, and that's exactly what it did. Dingus had been too tired to play for weeks, but not now! He jumped to attention before the kiss ended.

She broke the kiss. God knows I wasn't going to. She looked into my eyes, laughing, and said, "I see you're not tired anymore. Any chance we could take this upstairs?" She was still sobbing, but she was smiling.

I didn't take time to answer her. I picked her up, cradled her in my arms, and I ran up the stairs two at a time. The kisses on my neck fueled my climb.

I don't know if you can pack weeks of missing sex into one weekend, but we damn well tried. I drank orange juice and ate steak and eggs to rebuild my strength and carried my bride back to bed. Friday night until Monday morning, we did just three things: we ate, we slept a little, and we made love. Okay, we did take a few showers in between, but considering that we spent more time playing in the shower than scrubbing, they count more as sex than anything else.

Late Sunday night we just collapsed and slept. When I awoke Monday AM, Elizabeth was still in my arms sleeping just as she had been when we fell asleep seven hours earlier. I don't know how either of us managed to do any work on Monday. All I knew is that I had my wife back, not that I ever really lost her, and I wasn't going to put work ahead of her ever again. I wouldn't repeat that mistake, and my jaw couldn't take it if I did.

There is one little postscript to this story. You see, that was the weekend we conceived Henry. My God, I love this woman! I love her so much, it hurts...