Valentine Gift to Loving Wife

Jared saw Lisa's distress but also noted the absence of her rings. Not sure what to say, he blubbered, "You're looking good, Lisa. Maybe a bit different from when I last saw you in that beautiful dress," he said before thinking why he would lead with something so stupid.

"Yes. A bit different. But no one will ever see that dress or anything else I wore on Friday. I trashed my entire outfit. I bought those things for you but then wore them for another man, and I can no longer even look at them, much less wear any of it."

"Why would you do that Lisa? I knew when we left our home, even if you did not, that you would be wearing and taking off your outfit for Russell. I was resigned to that, and you did nothing wrong."

"I did something wrong and that is why I am here." Lisa now tried to remember the words that she had formed in her mind earlier that day. "It is beyond my ability to fully fathom the depth of your love for me that you demonstrated this Valentine's Day. But this weekend has been an awakening. Know this my dear husband that I love only you. I made a terrible mistake. I thought that I was in love with Russell, but that was a phantasm that I came to believe as true because of our history and the way that we broke up. I was still living in high school. I did not love Russell, but had a childish infatuation morphing into some ideal that was not real. But you are real. You were with me the whole weekend. You showed me that Russell was a delusion. Your Valentine's Day gift not only cemented forever your devotion to me, but also opened my eyes. Being with Russell only unsoiled my mind and allowed me to recognize how much you mean to me and how much I want to be with you and only you. The Russell demon has been banished forever, and the thought of any other man repulses me. Please forgive me."

"What was the message that you left a few hours ago on the voicemail?"

"I am very sorry for what I said. I did not mean any of it. Love and hate are simply two sides of the same coin. I was angry because I felt that you had abandoned us, you would not fight for me, for us. I wanted to spend the rest of life with you, my mind perverted your sacrifice into an abandonment. I started to imagine that you wanted to get rid of me to be with another woman. I lashed out because in my mind you were denying yourself to me and giving yourself to someone else. I was hurt and I was jealous. I wanted you and you were not there and that was painful. What you heard was me crying because I thought that I lost you. That fear is a terrible feeling."

"I did not fight because I thought I had already fought for your love and had lost. Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result and I hoped I was not insane. Fighting a losing battle can only bring more pain. I was giving you the last of my love. I thought I heard you clearly say that you were staying with me as an obligation, and I could not live like that."

"I know you did honey, and I understand. I cannot say enough about how sorry I am about what I was thinking and what I said. I now understand that all this was my and only my fault. You heard my telephone conversations, and I am so sorry to have subjected you to them."

"Lisa, you told Russell and your mother that you were staying with me because of duty or pity, and I could not live like that."

"I know that you heard that. But, in my heart I now know that it was not my duty as a wife that stopped me from cheating or getting a divorce, but my wanting to be your loving and faithful wife. If I did not realize or say it before honey, I love and adore you."

"As boring as I am?"

"I am sorry about what I said about life being boring with you. It isn't. It is predictable and repetitive, but it is predictable because we plan it like that and repetitive because we like it. I enjoyed our boring life. I will try anything you want so long as we do it together. The only thing I ask of you is that you to love me in the same way that you showed your love this weekend. I want to be one with you."

Jared put his hands around Lisa's shoulders and together they moved to sit next to each other on the sofa. There were still some images in Jared's mind, and nothing could be worse than what he imagined, and so he thought he would address his worst images and, whatever the answer, get closure, hoping that reality would be better than his imagination. "It really doesn't make much difference, but did you use a condom with Russell?" he asked, hoping that perhaps Russell and Lisa were not sufficiently trusting of each other.

Lisa looked down before raising her head again. "This was supposed to be forever with him. I am sorry for the additional pain that this brings, but I must be honest with you. The answer is no condom. And, yes, oh god I am so sorry, but I felt him coming in me ... repeatedly." Lisa was looking down, afraid to look and see the pain that her honesty had to inflict.

"Was it good?" Did you orgasm?

Lisa now started to sob. "Why are you asking that? I hurt already and I do not want to hurt you."

"It will help if I know and don't have to imagine anything. We need to address everything to have closure"

"I don't know why you need this torture, but if you must know, and I have to tell the truth, it was very good. Russell felt good and he went for a while. I don't know how many times I orgasmed on his cock." Then sensing what the truth was doing to Jared, Lisa added, "But it was not better than you honey. I promise you that by the end I was thinking of you on top of me and my clutching you." Lisa silently prayed that Jared would not ask her if Jared had the bigger cock or gave better orgasms. She did not want to hurt Jared anymore. But Jared has started down that road.

"Is Russell bigger than me? Was he better? Did you come more or better with him than with me?"

Lisa wrapped her arms around her head and pushed her face against the sofa, sobbing loudly, and screaming "Please, no, no, no, no more, please." Jared recognized that Lisa was not answering his questions with a "no" but was begging not to answer the questions. He had gone too far. He put his hands around Lisa, and hugged her as she drenched his shirt with her tears. Lisa then pushed herself away and dropped down on her knees again, spreading Jared's knees and putting her lips to his crotch.

"Sex with Russell was good, but left me empty. I now know that only you can fill that emptiness. I know I have committed adultery, and am soiled goods with another man's sperm in my womb. But I can't undo what has happened. You may never see me the same way again, and never love me the way you did before. But I call on your vow to me. We married for better or worse, and this was that worst which we swore to each other we would survive. I can only ask that you forgive my worst and that we may continue living our vows."

"Will you be satisfied with me now that you had better sex with a bigger cock?"

"The better sex is just a bitter memory. Fucking Russell was sex at a high-school level with a lot of arousal and nothing substantive. It felt good at the time, but it did not stay with me. You are my husband, and we make love. It is mature and it is real, and I feel totally warm and at peace afterward. It stays with me for days thereafter. It is not lust, but a deep sharing of our minds and bodies. That is where real pleasure comes from. My memory of Russell is not the hot sex, but a sick feeling that I betrayed the only person I love. Being with Russell was exciting and sex was enjoyable, but ultimately the experience was disappointing and unsatisfying. I never again want to go through the emptiness and hurt that was my time without you."

"How did your desire for Russell suddenly turn to such aversion?"

"I became infatuated with Russell. He was my first and took my virginity. We had great times and that included great sex. I truly loved him, even after I broke up with him because I did not think I could trust him. But I now see that it was a young love, where lust and excitement is all the matters. We are older and more mature now. Excitement and lust no longer drive me. Great sex for a couple hours a week is fine for the time that you are fucking, and for a bit of time thereafter, but then there is the rest of life. I want and need more out my life, and Russell could not provide that. No man can provide that other than you."

"How can you be certain that I am that person? How can you now say you love me when you were never able to do that a few days ago?"

"My wonderful husband, I have apologized several times and will say again that I am sorry for what I said and did not say. You have been a wonderful loving boyfriend and husband. I stupidly believed that I still loved Russell, and I think that put a boundary around my feelings. Russell is now gone, and I am free to see life as it is and without the constraint of a false love. And what I see is that I have always loved you, even though I could never express it. Most importantly, when I thought I lost you this past weekend, it hurt, and what hurts even more is the hurt that I put on you. I will never hurt myself or hurt you ever again. I now know what real love is and that is the deep yearning to be with someone and with no one else, and the need to give you everything that I have, and those are the feeling that I have for you."

"Forever?"

"Who knows my darling what may happen. Death is the only certainty. We cannot know our futures. We have to play the odds, and the present odds of us living a wonderful married life together with our kids and then our grandkids are great and the odds of anything interfering with that are presently non-existent."

"I guess we learned a lot." Jared then smiled and added, "If the weekend ultimately brought you closer to me then perhaps the fucking was worth the fucking."

Lisa smiled. "That is the silver lining. Fucking Russel proved that I could never be happy with anyone but you. Russell is now gone from our marriage. There never will be any other man. I will do whatever is required to make this right with you. Anything."

"Anything? You should be careful about your words."

"I did not misspeak. You had given yourself totally to me. I was taking everything from you, but giving back only that which I was happy to do or thought you needed. I did not realize that I was only hurting myself by not giving myself completely. But it has now hit me that I will be so much happier by giving myself totally to you in the same way that you have given yourself to me. You can have me at any time anywhere in any way that you wish .... And that includes any of my three openings. You had always asked me what I wanted; I will now ask you and hope that you will tell me your true desires. Nothing can be so dark or kinky that I will draw the line, because if you willing to do it, so am I."

Russell was thinking of his response, when Lisa added, "I also know that I had sex with a man outside my marriage. That is a fact, and it does not matter that you brought me to him So, just as you displayed your love for me, as my ultimate penance and expression of my devotion to you, I give you a permanent hall pass. I hope you never use it because it will pain me indescribably, but you were willing to bear the pain of my being with someone else, and, if you choose to accept the pass, I will gladly suffer the same pain that you did."

"I cannot believe that anyone could substitute for you, my sweetheart."

"I can only hope that your love for me remains strong enough for us to get past this Valentine's Day massacre."

Jared looked into her hopeful eyes. Shit happened, but life is not perfect. Lisa had matured over the weekend in a fundamental way. He and Lisa were strong and could deal with the truth. They did not need to dwell in the past, but could live in the present.

"Only the wimps and weak links cannot get past another person's mistake or weakness. No one is perfect, and you will have to accept my weaknesses and mistakes too. When one of us fails, we need to be there to provide the strength to keep going forward."

Lisa reached for her purse and pulled out the rings she had removed the prior day.

"Will you place these rings back on my hand? Take me back?"

Jared slipped the rings on the fourth finger of Lisa's hand. Then placing his hands around Lisa's face still moist with her tears, he got up taking Lisa up with him. He kissed her gently on the lips, and took her hand to lead her to the car and to their home to reaffirm their marriage.