I Hate Surprises Ch. 01

Jennie slept sweetly that night in my arms, and we showered and made love again in the morning. From then on we were nearly inseparable, or as much as two busy college students can be. We made love whenever we could, which was often! And I loved everything about being with Jennie—little things like watching her eat a yogurt, and daintily clean the spoon with her tongue, filled me with happiness.

As our relationship got more serious, we talked in general terms about our future plans, without quite coming out and saying that we would be together. I intended to work in the business world after graduation, probably back in Missouri where I was from; Jennie didn't know what she would do, but wanted a career that involved working with people, and with some flexibility in her schedule.

I was already thinking about marrying Jennie, but it seemed far too soon to raise that subject with her—both of us still had lots of college left.

Our first big fight came in April when we discussed the upcoming summer vacation. I was committed to an internship with a company in St. Louis, which might lead to a good job offer after graduation. Jennie had promised her parents she'd come home to her small town in Pennsylvania, and take up her usual summer job as a secretary in a law office.

Would we continue our exclusive relationship while we were apart for three months? I said yes, Jennie said no. We argued.

"I'm not talking about sleeping with anyone else, Brad!" she told me. "But I don't see why I should sit home every evening, when I could go out casually with someone and have some fun—see a movie, or go to a party!"

"Isn't our relationship important enough to you to sacrifice a little 'fun'?" I replied heatedly.

We went on in that vein for some time, both of us increasingly irritated. Then Jennie won the day, by saying something I really couldn't disagree with.

"OK, Brad. Listen to me for a minute. If I promised you I'd only go out socially with women friends—to movies, to dinner, to a party—would you be comfortable with that?"

I said without hesitation that I would.

"Well," she continued, "why wouldn't it also be fine to go out with men friends—as long as I give you my solemn promise that it will only be as friends? No kissing, no making out, no hand-holding, no sex? Just friends."

She looked at me, and I reluctantly conceded.

"Yes, Jennie, you're right." I sighed. "I love you, and if you give me your word I will trust you." She smiled and gave me a kiss.

"You can trust me, Brad. I love you too, and I promise not to do anything that you wouldn't approve of. I will behave as though you're always in the room with me."

"All right, sweetheart. But I need to say one more thing, OK? You are not just any woman—you are extraordinarily beautiful, and there's not a man in the world who wouldn't want to be with you." Jennie beamed at me. She knew all that, of course, but she still really liked to hear it!

"So that means you really have to be careful, OK? You have to think about what you're doing, and not let any guy get the wrong signals."

She smiled again at me, almost pityingly, which stung a bit. "Believe me, Brad, I've been handling male attention for a long time. It won't be a problem."

Then, seeing that I was still a little concerned, she came and sat on my lap, putting her arms around me. "I love YOU, Brad. Do you want me to say it again? I love YOU—I am your woman, all yours."

The only thing left to do was to kiss her, hold her tight, and make love to her. A great way to end an argument!

********

The summer was hard, but it went by fast. I worked my tail off in St. Louis, learning the ropes at a large food-service company that supplied hotels and restaurants in the area. I managed to visit Jennie twice, both times staying the weekend with her parents, who seemed to have taken to me. But I was pointedly assigned to their guestroom. Only once in those two weekends did we manage even a half hour for a quickie; the rest of the time we frantically grabbed and kissed one another in every private moment!

In between visits we managed with regular phone calls. I tried to do little surprise things, like sending her a cute "Thinking of You" card or putting a single Hershey's Kiss in a large box and mailing it to her. I made her laugh by sending her a fake letter from the IRS, informing her that she owed $90,000 on her taxes for the previous year. She thought it was very clever, and showed it to her parents.

Next fall, my last year at Penn State, we more than made up for a summer apart. I had a small apartment off-campus, and Jennie pretty much lived with me, so we could have sex whenever we liked. Things just got better and better between us, and I was sure I had found the woman for my lifetime.

In April I asked her to marry me and she happily agreed, asking only that we delay the marriage one more year until her graduation. Both her parents and mine were very happy with our news.

But first we had to endure a year apart: Jennie doing her senior year at Penn State, me working in the food-services business in St. Louis. She visited me three times during school breaks and long weekends, and I made trips to see her at least every other month.

There was only one really bad moment during that year. I arrived at Penn State early one Friday evening in February, about an hour ahead of schedule, and hurried to Jennie's room. Her roommate told me she was out, probably at the Cafe in the Student Center.

When I came into the crowded room I looked around, and there at a small table near the back was Jennie, sitting over two cups of coffee with an extremely good-looking guy in his early 30s. Probably a faculty member, from the looks of him.

I was on the verge of going right over to her, when something in their body language stopped me. I was picking up a little more intimacy than I was happy with—so I sat down alone at a table 40 feet away, out of their line of sight but so they couldn't avoid seeing me if they left. I wanted to know more.

There was nothing obviously inappropriate in their behavior—they were talking and laughing, drinking their coffee. But their heads were awfully close together, and my gut feeling was that something wasn't quite right.

After some time, the guy reached out for Jennie's hands and held them in his, talking to her earnestly all the while. She laughed and pulled them away; but he kept talking, looking directly into her eyes, and after a minute he reached for her hands again.

This time she didn't resist, letting him hold her two hands in his as he continued to talk seriously to her.

After a couple more minutes she looked at her watch, and she must have told him she had to go. She withdrew her hands and stood up. I watched very carefully as she said goodbye, but there was no kiss or further intimacy, and they didn't seem to make a date to get together again.

As Jennie headed for the door she spotted me at the table where I sat, just looking at her. Her smile froze and she hesitated, almost coming to a stop. Then she pulled herself together and ran over to me, saying "hi, sweetie! You're early!"

All my life I have been able to summon coolness and control when I am upset. I think it goes back to days in childhood when my father taught me to box. He had been an excellent amateur boxer, and he trained me seriously for a number of years. I boxed in some novice Golden Gloves events, but never pursued it after high school. My main sport had been lacrosse, where despite being on the small side (about 5'9") I twice made the All-County team.

But my boxing training had helped me learn to stay calm in tough situations, never to panic or get emotional under pressure. It's a trait that has proved very valuable over the years, both in personal matters and in business.

As Jennie approached me I was filled with anger and jealousy, as well as doubts about her faithfulness. But instead of lashing out at her I simply said, "hello, Jennie", and let her give me a hug and a kiss without getting up out of my seat.

She sat down across from me and began talking rapidly, about what a hard week it had been, how glad she was to see me, how had I gotten to town so early, etc. It seemed as though she didn't know how much I had seen, and was rattling on while watching me closely, wondering how to handle the situation.

My continued silence clearly worried her. Finally she stopped talking and said, "honey, are you all right?"

I just looked at her and said quietly, "Jennie, maybe there's something you need to tell me?" I had learned a long time ago that you can get better results when you don't show all your cards first. I was angry, and I was going to let Jennie worry about what I knew rather than tell her.

"You saw me with that guy?" she asked, blushing. I didn't reply, just kept looking at her, and finally she went on. "His name is Jamie Atherton, he's my professor in the English Lit class I'm taking.

"He suggested we get together for a cup of coffee, to talk about my last paper. I wrote an essay on Dickens that he thought was really good, and he wanted to encourage me to expand it and think about publishing it. Really, Brad, that's all there was."

I continued to stay silent, and she grew more uneasy. Finally I said, "why don't we take a walk?" We buttoned up and headed out into the cold, in the direction of Jennie's dorm rather than towards the campus hotel I always stayed in when I visited.

I neither spoke nor took Jennie's arm, just walked along briskly, so that she had to make an effort to keep up. As we neared her dorm she said anxiously, "please, Brad, aren't you going to speak to me? I've been looking forward so much to seeing you!"

I said only, "I'll call you in the morning, Jennie. Maybe we could have breakfast and talk then. I need to do some thinking in the meanwhile, and perhaps you do too."

I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and walked away. I heard her say "Brad, honey, please wait!" in a quavery voice, but she didn't follow me.

It was a rough night for me. I thought a lot, and slept very little. What had I really seen? A guy coming on to Jennie, and her letting him succeed just a little bit too much for my taste. He hadn't kissed her, and there was no reason from the body language to think he was sleeping with her. On the other hand, she hadn't withdrawn her hands from his the second time, and clearly she wasn't displeased by his attentions.

I knew that Jennie was used to large quantities of male admiration; I could hardly blame men for being attracted to her, or for trying in my absence to get somewhere with her. But she was MY fiancée, wearing MY engagement ring, and I wasn't happy that she had let that clown's advances get as far as they did.

Jennie called me at 8 am, asking in a trembling voice if we could have breakfast. When I met her in front of her dorm she threw herself into my arms and started to sob.

"Brad, please, honey, talk to me! I know you're angry. I know I was wrong, but ... really ... it wasn't very much. Please, please, let me explain everything!"

She continued to cry and I held her, secretly pleased and relieved by her outburst. What I wanted was for her to feel guilty, to tell me everything, and for me to find out that there really was as little to it as I hoped.

"OK, Jennie," I said soothingly, stroking her hair. I got out a handkerchief and wiped her wet cheeks. "Let's go sit and eat, and we can talk."

She held my arm tightly the whole way to the restaurant, and insisted on sitting next to me in the booth so she could hold onto me. Once we had ordered she started right in.

"Honey, what I said last night is the truth. He IS my professor, and he did say he wanted to talk to me about my essay. It's the only time I've ever been anywhere with him outside of class.

"But ... but that's not the complete truth, either. I knew that he was interested in me—that if it were some other student's Dickens essay he wouldn't have invited her out for coffee.

"It just seemed ... harmless to me, that's all. I was flattered by the attention, and I knew nothing would happen. We were in the middle of the Student Center, for gosh sakes! So I just drank my coffee and let him go on and on about my talents.

"Honestly, Brad—I knew I'd be seeing you in an hour, and this was just something to do to pass the time. Then towards the end," she looked up at me, "I don't know if you saw this, but ... he started talking about how beautiful I am, and he ... reached over and took my hands."

I nodded, indicating I'd seen it.

"Well, I pulled away from him—but after a minute he took them again, and ... I just let him do it. It seemed too prissy somehow to yank them away again. So I let him go on with his nice words, I was so lovely, both inside and out, blah blah blah. Then after a minute I looked at my watch and saw it was nearly time for you to get here, so I had the perfect excuse to get away from him.

"I swear to you, honey, that's all there was! I said goodbye and was headed out the door when I spotted you—and you looked so calm, so silent, you frightened me!"

I had heard enough to feel a lot better. I embraced Jennie gently and gave her a big kiss. "I was pretty upset at the time, Jen—but I'm feeling better about it now. Thank you for telling me the whole story."

She looked incredibly relieved, and I realized how frightened she must have been.

"I can understand it was harmless flirting, and it didn't go a great deal too far. But it DID go a bit too far—do we agree about that?"

Here I looked at her, very seriously, and she bit her lip and nodded. "Yes, Brad. I shouldn't have let him hold my hands. I'm sorry—truly."

With peace restored, we enjoyed our breakfast, catching up on the weeks since our last visit. I knew that Jennie was used to lots of male attention, that she expected it and basked in it. But I needed her to know that she had to control how far that attention went, especially when I wasn't around. And when we headed back to my hotel after breakfast, I brought up the subject again.

"Jennie, do you remember the discussion we had before last summer, when you talked about dating guys back at home? The promise you made me was that you'd always behave as though I was right there in the room with you."

She nodded, undoubtedly knowing what I was going to say next. But I surprised her by merely adding, "that was a good way of putting it."

She pulled me tightly to her, there in the middle of the walk. She put her mouth to my ear and said, "I understand, honey. I'm really sorry! And we won't have to have this conversation ever again."

Then, pulling back so she could look at me, she smiled and said, "could we get back to your room? There's something I need, something I've really been missing..."

Once again, make-up sex was just about the perfect way to end a fight!

********

JENNIE'S FIRST AFFAIR

The first few years of our married life were unbelievably happy. We were married in her parents' backyard two weeks after Jennie's graduation, took a ten-day honeymoon in Maui thanks to my parents, and settled in a small house in the suburbs of St. Louis. I was doing very well in my food-services job, and after a couple of months happily working on setting up our house, Jennie decided to study for her realtor's license and work selling houses.

Within six months of joining a local real-estate firm, Jennie was their third-largest producing realtor. This was no surprise to me—she was so beautiful that clients, especially male ones, were eager to work with her. When she suggested to sellers that they drop the price just a bit, or to buyers that they go up a few thousand dollars, people were more than willing to take her suggestions. In no time she was showing, and selling, as many houses as anyone in her firm.

Our life together was a joy. Jennie continued to be the same lively, funny, affectionate person I had fallen in love with. We had a nice group of friends, mostly from her work or from mine, and we spent just enough time in company that our time alone felt like a treat.

Sex with Jennie was always sweet and fun, if not all that wild. She loved the intimacy and closeness of sex, and was less interested in new positions or role-playing or sex-toys or anything like that. In other words, the physical pleasures of sex mattered much less to her than the emotional closeness.

She was also somewhat conservative, in part because of her upbringing. She never swore, was uncomfortable when I did (so I pretty much gave it up), and didn't like to talk explicitly even in bed. About the farthest she ever went was one night during our honeymoon. We'd had quite a bit of champagne, and as I was climbing on top of her in bed she giggled and blurted out, "fuck me, husband!". Then she laughed some more, delighted by her daring.

In later years she would occasionally whisper "fuck me" or something like that in my ear during sex, because she knew it excited me. But it never came naturally to her. She was just not a particularly open person sexually, nor ready to experiment.

But if that meant that she rarely initiated sex, and almost never surprised me by greeting me naked in the kitchen, say, or suggesting that we have sex late at night out in the backyard—we still made love regularly and with great pleasure. The intimacy of it, her little murmurs and groans, the way we looked at one another, all these things became very precious to me.

I had learned early on in our relationship how much Jennie liked surprises, both big and little, so I made sure from time to time to bring home flowers for no reason, or to show up at her office on a Tuesday afternoon with a pint of Forbidden Chocolate ice cream and two spoons. A couple of times she returned from work and found that I had come home early, made a special dinner, set the table with candles, and was waiting for her in my tuxedo!

And once, for her birthday in the second year of our marriage, I arranged a surprise birthday party, complete with both sets of parents and a dozen of her closest friends from college. I sent her off to the mall on a Saturday morning to do an errand, and when she returned, there we all were in the back yard. There were balloons and a "Happy Birthday" banner, as well as some really good catered food. She absolutely loved it.

Frankly, surprising Jennie in this way was something I did not only out of love, but out of concern. She had been so used to ceaseless male attention, virtually all her life, and I didn't want her to start to feel deprived now that we were married. I knew that being out in the world, dealing with a lot of people in her real estate work, was a good thing. But by the same token I wanted to keep giving her attention in special ways that she would notice.

One of the ironic things about living with a beautiful woman is that you inevitably begin to take it for granted—you become less aware of it than the people who see her only occasionally. I didn't stop noticing, but it didn't bowl me over the way her looks did for people meeting her for the first time. Still, there were moments when I gazed at her in absolute wonder. How lucky I was that this extraordinarily beautiful lady was mine!

In our third year of marriage we conceived Diana, our daughter, who forever changed our lives for the better. We both took to being parents, despite the usual sleepless nights and worries about not knowing what we were doing. Jennie worked very hard to get back to her pre-pregnancy weight, and when Diana was six months old Jennie went back to her real estate job a couple of days a week, while Diana was watched by a wonderful Irish grandmother who lived a few doors down from us.

When Diana was about three I left my job, took out a bank-loan, and started my own small food-services company. I had pretty much learned everything about how my large employer did its business, and I was convinced that I could work harder and smarter and do a better job of it myself.