It's No Big Deal

{Not much sex here, just a heads up.}

Gary was nearly 38 years old by the time he finally decided that he hated women.

Not hate in the idea of refusing to enjoy sex with one of them from time to time, but he was sick and tired of being told one thing and finding out that the truth was quite different.

Way back in high school, he really liked Shelly Martin. There wasn't any sex of course, it was holding hands and two straws in the milkshake, always Chocolate because Shelly liked that best of all.

Gary really enjoyed the holding hands part. They also went to the school dances in the gym that were held at lunch break once a week. He could actually hold her in his arms, although the few inches apart had to be maintained or the teachers would get upset.

Then one evening they were underneath the bleachers during a football game and they were holding hands and talking quietly.

It was pretty dark behind there, but he could see her face in the reflection of the lights on the field. Her hair smelled of shampoo and there was a hint of a perfume.

She looked so pretty, he pulled her closer, she stopped talking and smiled up at him. Nearly hopelessly unsure of himself, he leaned in for a kiss, hoping. She leaned forward also. It was one of those pressing together of the lips that is magic when a boy is in his teens.

She giggled, then she kissed him again. That was all it was, but it was really a big deal to Gary.

It was daydreams all that night and the next day, which was Sunday. Sundays around their house meant Church, so Gary dutifully climbed into the back seat and off they went like always.

After, he asked his Mom for three dollars, he wanted to walk over to Shelly's house and see if she would go down to the ice cream shop with him for a soda. It would be his treat, with three dollars he could buy each of them one, a Strawberry one for himself and a Chocolate one for her. That way she could have a whole one all to herself.

Then maybe, just maybe she would let him kiss her again later on.

There were some of the guys from school at the ball field, playing catch. Like always, the game was progressing to the point where the ball was coming in hot. That was fun, watching them catch the ball and then shake their hands to ease the sting, then fire one back.

Gary stopped to watch for a short period.

That was when he spotted Shelly, she was behind the back of the bleachers. He started to head that way, then he realized she was talking to Jack Branston, one of the upper crust jock types.

As he watched, she leaned in for a kiss, and it was a very long one, nothing at all like the one Shelly had given him the night before in almost the exact same place.

Gary ran all the way home, went to his room.

"What's the matter, honey?" His Mother called out through the bedroom door. She had instantly noticed that he was upset.

"Nothing!" He answered. She left him alone, figuring whatever it was, he would get over it.

He didn't, not really. He was completely crushed by what he had witnessed.

Gary never told Shelly what he had seen, and he also refused to talk to her.

"You haven't talked to me for days, what's wrong?" She asked him as he was opening his locker a few days later.

Gary closed his locker door and walked away, not answering. After a few attempts, she gave up and paid no attention to him at all.

Then several days later he saw Shelly in the halls holding hands with Jack.

At the end of his junior year, the big discussion was Junior prom night. Shelly shocked him by coming up to him as he was opening his locker and asking him if he wanted to take her.

"No!" He said, before he could even stop to think.

She got a mad look on her face and walked away.

Gary didn't even go to the Prom that year. It was much later when he heard that she had broken up with Jack and went to the prom by herself.

+++

A quiet and boring Summer went by, then the last long year of school. Gary managed to make a "B" average, his Mother was pleased with that.

"It's going to be a little bit hard to make ends meet for college but I can send you money and you can get a job, nearly anyone will hire a big strong good looking man like you." She told him, touching his hair like she did all the time.

When it came time for the Senior Prom, he wasn't going to go but his Mother encouraged him. He had not been out on a single date all of his Senior year so he had no idea of who to ask.

"It's the one night in your life you don't want to miss, honey. Please?" She insisted.

So Gary asked Charlette Webb, she was kind of heavy and wore thick lens glasses, but she was nice and besides she lived right next door. She was one year younger so she wasn't even in his class.

Charlotte was not one of the popular girls, she was mousy and kept mostly to herself.

She always wore the silliest looking clothes, sweaters and heavy skirts, colors that didn't match.

Her Father was a policeman and he was raising her by himself.

Plain described her pretty well, and she was a bit of a bookworm, always getting straight "A's".

Gary had never really paid any real attention at all to her except to say hello. One time when it was really hot out she had invited him to use their swimming pool, so he went over there.

She wore a full body bathing suit that made her look huge that day. It had a built in fringe around the bottom and heavy seams with stitches on the bodice.

Charlotte looked funny in that outfit.

But they talked sometimes and she was nice, he liked her and she was just a friend, someone he knew. Her Father was right there and he watched them like a hawk, but he did always treat Gary nicely.

Gary was floored when he saw Charlotte that night of the prom. She had on a blue frilly evening gown, the tops of her breasts were on display which embarrassed him a little bit. Somehow she appeared far more slender than he thought she was.

Without the heavy dark framed glasses she appeared completely different.

His hands were shaking as he pinned the corsage on her, his face flaming. Gary carefully turned his fingers outwards towards the cloth like his Mom had shown him.

Charlotte's face turned pink as the back of his fingers barely brushed her bare flesh but she never moved. He got the corsage pinned on, but it was a little bit crooked, her Father reached in and fixed that.

On the way there in his Mom's Ford Fairlane Gary complimented her on how nice she looked, mentioning that he had never seen her dressed like that.

"My eighteenth birthday was three weeks ago, so Dad said I was an adult and can wear pretty things now. He even picked this out for me." She looked down with a blush but a smile crossed her lips.

"Where did you learn to dance so well?" He asked her at one point. She was like a feather, every motion he made she made somehow. His own efforts were pretty terrible normally, but with her it was easy. His mind flashed back to trying to dance with Shelly Martin, he usually had to give her a push to get her to move the direction he wanted to go and sometimes even that didn't work.

"My Dad taught me, he loves to dance." She smiled at him.

Gary knew of course that Charlotte was being raised by her Father. He didn't know anything about her Mother.

He did understand that, he was being raised by his Mother, no Father had been around since he was six. He had only seen his own Father a few times, and got a card at Christmas with a few small bills, and also on his birthday. Never a letter, never a note.

His Father did send money, that came as a check from the State.

That night after the all night party, he took Charlotte home. Most of the other kids had been pretty drunk but Gary didn't have any at all and neither did Charlotte. Still, it was fun, especially watching the goofy antics of the other kids from school. Some of them kept wandering off, Gary had a pretty good idea of what they were doing, too.

That was the very first party he had ever been to where no parents were around.

He half expected her Father to be up, waiting since it was terribly late. But he wasn't.

It was nearly 5 in the morning, by then they were both very tired. She turned to him with her lips pursed and her eyes closed, so he leaned forward and kissed her right on the lips.

When she leaned back, she smiled shyly.

"That was my very first kiss, I am glad it was you, Gary." Then she hurried inside.

It was his one and only date with Charlotte, even though he wasn't speaking to Shelly Martin, he still thought of her a lot.

+++

Gary met Melissa at a night club when he was barely 21. Actually, he didn't meet her, she met him. He was sitting there mostly holding a Rum and Coke, it was awful but by taking tiny little sips he could get it down.

There was a very pretty blond girl sitting at a table nearby with an older woman, he was trying to muster up the courage to ask her to dance and she kept looking up at him.

He was just about to get up and go ask the woman to dance when his life took a turn.

Suddenly this dark haired young woman was standing there looking at him. Gary looked behind himself, then he realized she actually was talking to him.

"Huh?" He managed.

"I said, are you just going to sit there making funny faces or are you going to ask me to dance?"

"I don't..I haven't ever really done much...." He actually wanted to dance, try to meet someone but the sudden confrontation threw him completely off stride.

"Oh, horsepoopie! Come on!" She laughed, grabbed his hand and practically dragged him out there. Gary did his best to move his legs and wriggle his hips to the music.

Later Melissa led him back to his chair which embarrassed him even more since she was sort of tugging him along, then she plopped down and introduced herself.

Looking over at the nearby table, the blond woman was gone. Melissa had just sort of grabbed him.

In short order, Gary was relaxed and talking up a storm.

Four hours later he discovered what sex was like.

That was amazing, he had no idea at all that there were women like her on the planet. She wanted to have sex and she was not going to take no for an answer.

It could have been called a rape but after a few seconds he realized what was happening and let her.

That first time was just a few seconds, Gary was so excited he had no control at all. He was also painfully shy, so his first experience with her couldn't have been very good.

Melissa was not the type to go for that, though. She did things to him that he had no idea people even did, and in short order youth and virility allowed another attempt. That one was much better.

The romance was a whirlwind, insane, crazy. They had sex in an elevator, in a park. Once in a bathroom at the mall, trying to be quiet when someone came in and used the stall right next to them.

Gary never really asked her to marry him, somehow it was mentioned, then it was going to happen, then they were.

At the reception her Father came up to Gary and shook his hand.

"Stay right on top of Melissa, son. That's a lot of woman to handle there!" He grinned.

+++

It turned out to be true, as Gary discovered.

The first upset was at a party when Melissa came up missing and Gary went looking. He found her in the back yard with some man he didn't know, kissing. He broke that up and dragged her home, it was obvious she was drunk on her ass.

There was no point in whipping the guy, he was also drunk. He just shrugged and stumbled back towards the house to see if he could find someone else.

There were a few days of upset but Melissa apologized, saying she was only drunk and it wouldn't happen again.

A month later he followed her downtown on a Saturday, his mind full of suspicion. She wandered around a mall for a half hour but bought nothing, then she went into a small cafe there and sat down.

A few minutes later she was joined by a man, they sat and talked and then he put his hand on her leg. She smiled, they got up and left.

Gary lost track of them in the parking lot, by the time he got down the escalator and to his car they had made it to the street.

Which way, he didn't know. He picked one and tried to catch up but it was clear his choice was wrong or they were going like the hubs of hell.

Back at the parking lot, he drove to the upper deck, walked to where he could see her little Volkswagen and waited.

It was three long hours, the man dropped her off, they kissed, and she climbed into her car.

There was one hell of a fight when he got home minutes behind her. At first she denyed all of it, then she changed to telling him it was no big deal, it was just sex.

That conversation ended when he slapped her face.

It was a bit more than a slap, she went down and stayed there for several seconds, twitching.

That frightened Gary, he had never really hit anyone before, he did that in a blind rage.

"Get away from me!" She started screaming when she came to, Gary had a damp cloth and was washing her.

He felt horrible about it, even though he was still furious with her.

She went down to the courthouse and got a restraining order, so she ended up in the house and he ended up in an apartment. She also got a lawyer whose idea of a 50/50 split was 90/10.

When Gary blew his stack and violated the restraining order for the third time they made the 90/10 stick, too.

The marriage was over, it had lasted just 14 months.

He had also learned a lesson.

Government does not bother with making a local jail cell comfortable and their idea of food would turn off most canines.

+++

Gary was 24 when he saw a slender woman at one of his gym classes. He had taken to working out twice each week when he noticed his belly getting soft.

Sitting in a cubicle did nothing for him physically, although the pay was fair. His hopes and dreams of a position in upper management were a very long ways off.

The woman was very pretty, and from the clothing she had on she obviously was not there to work out.

Looking her way, he realized that she had noticed him, also.

She was sitting on a bench waiting when he came out of the showers.

"Excuse me, are you one of the trainers?" She asked.

After a bit of conversation, she introduced herself as Lee. She told him she wanted to apply for a position as the on staff massage therapist, having just graduated from a trade school.

Gary told her to ask Stan, the man who owned the facility, then they chatted some more. Finally when Stan arrived, she went over and talked to him.

Gary hung around, curious. She was excited when she came back out, having gotten the job.

"Let's go get some Coffee, OK?" She asked.

She beat him to the question.

That ended up with two dates before he kissed her, the fourth woman he had ever kissed in his life. Well, five counting his mother but that was always on the cheek or the forehead.

"I don't usually...I mean...oh, hell. You know what I mean! Would you like to..come in?" She actually blushed at asking him.

Gary knew he would like to very much.

Unlike his former wife Melissa, sex with Lee was gentle and sweet, she wanted the lights down low at first, showing all the signs of being shy.

He realized later that Lee was not shy at all.

Every time he went down to the gym there was a solid string of men going into the back room for a rubdown. Gary didn't really even think of that, by now he was taking her out 2 to 3 times each week, and every single date ended with sex.

A man can get comfortable with regular sexual activity, and Gary was quite comfortable for a month or so.

Then in the men's dressing room he overheard two of the other guys talking. At first he paid little attention until one of them mentioned Lee's name.

"She does hand jobs? Really?"

"All it takes is a $30 tip." One of them said, laughing.

"Really? I guess I will try that next time." The other one answered.

Gary fastened his jeans and pulled on his T-shirt, stepped around the corner. The two men looked up at him, blushed and said nothing more.

The one man he knew slightly, he was one of Lee's regulars, he didn't know the other man.

When Lee came out of the back room he was waiting.

"Hi, honey. Want to go do something?" She asked.

"Yes, we need to have a talk." He answered. He walked with her down the street a block to a quiet little cafe.

He told her what he had overheard, and asked her point blank if she was doing that.

"Yes, but I assumed you knew. That's why I went to school, to get my license so I don't get bothered by the State. But it's no big deal, I don't do anything else with them, it's you I love." She told him bluntly after he asked her flat out.

"Gary! It's not a big deal!" She repeated more loudly when he slid back his chair and walked away.

He had heard those words before. At least this time he wasn't married, although he had been contemplating asking her.

He also never went back to the gym.

+++

Gary was 27 when he married Marie Osaka. She was part Japanese, a tiny little thing barely 5 feet tall. Marie was a few years younger, and she came with a huge eyed little girl named Trish who was barely four years old, which Gary didn't mind one bit.

He had dated women he met a few times over the years, but each time the relationships approached anything serious he discovered that he was not the only male around.

He had learned by then to pay attention, if he was dating someone and another guy showed up in the mix, that was always the end from his point of view.

A couple of those breakups ended with arguments.

One girl named Kathren was only 19 at the time, he should have known better anyway.

"You don't own me!" Were her exact words when he caught her with a young man he didn't know. The man had just dropped her off at her apartment at 2 in the morning, he took one look at Gary walking up to the car and left with a squeal of the tires.

One woman named Farina he actually really did like. She had an exotic dark skinned look about her, and sex with her was rather furious.

But she broke it off, telling him she needed a man who could take better care of her, whatever that meant. Then she walked across the parking lot they were in at the time and climbed into a newer Mercedes driven by some man who looked to be forty or so.

Farina didn't even look back as they drove away.

Gary felt that flash of anger, he had wanted to slap her one but he controlled that.

He was already a bit soured by his experiences, and he had also learned that it was easiest to just move on, his reactions to his first wife's infidelity taught him a lesson.

Marie was hired at his office as a temp for when his secretary was on vacation. She was tiny, no way was she his type at all.

But she was extremely efficient, and always had a bright happy smile on her face.

One day on impulse he was heading out for lunch and he asked her to go with him. She seemed to be very happy at being asked. That was a very enjoyable first date, and he found out that Marie had been married once before, and had a very young daughter.

It was a month later, long after she had gone on to another temp job for the agency she worked for that he invited her to his new home he had bought the year before.

The idea was a nice quiet dinner, years of doing his own cooking had helped him become quite good at that.

By then Gary headed up the department with all the little cubicles. He had nearly given up on women by then, and instead applied all his excess energy into his work.

She was suitably impressed with the just over 4000 square foot ranch style home, it had four bedrooms, a large living room, well landscaped yard.

Gary had bought it, hoping to one day find the right person to fill it. Several women had been invited over, none of them lasted very long.