The Secret

"Mary will you marry me?"

"If you need time to think on it that's fine. I've sprung a lot on you."

But without hesitation she replied,

"With or without money I would always want to marry you. The answer is yes."

We were married 6 months later. By then we had both graduated. The wedding was small. It was a Church service with the reception in a local French restaurant. Just my parents and sister, Mary's parents and two brothers, Bruce, my best man, Jill, Mary's bridesmaid, and a few good friends including Denise had been invited. I had half expected Denise not to turn up at the Church, but there she was in a smart new dress, well made up, and with a smart new haircut, and when I looked across at her she was no longer beautiful.

Beauty is only skin deep. English Proverb

And then I looked at Mary standing awkwardly next to me in her long cream wedding dress with a radiant smile on her face. And I thanked the fates that had given me this beautiful creature to be my wife.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. English Proverb

Whoever I love is the most beautiful. Georgian Proverb

Two conversations I had at the wedding reception have stayed with me.

The first was one that I had with Bruce who confided in me that he couldn't begin to count the brownie points he would be given by his auntie now Mary was married to me. After all he was the matchmaker.

The second gave me pause. Mary's mum took me too one side and quietly said how happy she was that Mary had finally got the man she always wanted. I asked how she knew this, and she explained. And I finally understood what had happened at the New Year's dinner when I had visited with Denise. Mary's mum had asked Mary what had happened to the young man who had been coming to see her and had appeared to be so interested in her. She hadn't known it was me and Mary had been hurt and embarrassed when the conversation was overheard by Denise.

I am so happy that I did not know until then how I had hurt Mary, because If I had known earlier I suspect I would never have invited her to the Spring Ball. I would never have wished to risk hurting her twice.

And she would not have become my wife.

Postscript

It is now over ten years since I first met Mary and outside of our home she is sophisticated and well dressed. This is not because she wears designer clothes or uses society hairdressers. She has a horror of wasting money and does not wear expensive jewellery, and our wealth has not changed her.

At home she likes to wear jog pants and loose tops and often no makeup, and for me she is the most beautiful person in the world. Her beauty goes to the very core of her existence.

A good character is real beauty that never fades. Burmese Proverb

She is an amazing lover.

Her tricks include slipping her top off unannounced and going on her knees to give me a blow job when invariably her jog pants soon follow her top to the floor.

But when she wants a good, hard, long fucking she will wait for an evening when we are not going out, cook a pasta dish, maybe with arancini, lay the table, and then put on an evening dress and sit in front of her dressing table with her cosmetics and "make herself beautiful."

It never fails.

Women are as beautiful as flowers when they are forty years old. Chinese Proverb