I Remember Her How She Used to Be

This is a Summer Lovin' contest story. Please vote.

To my new muse and the reason why I wrote this story. I dedicate this story to Susan.

A man finally realizes the love that he's always had for his wife.

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Rather than dwelling on how she is now, as if frozen in time and no longer aging, returning to the time when and the place where we first met, I remember her how she used to be. Total opposites, she was always so damn positive and I was always so damn negative. In her calming voice with her reassuring force, my safe harbor in my raging storm of drinking, cheating, and lying, I was always so out of control difficult. She was my rope, my safety net, and my anchor pulling me back from going overboard.

Without her, I'd be long since dead and buried. Without her, I never would have turned out to be the man that I am today. Without her, I wouldn't have had the good life that I had. I don't know what I'm going to do without her.

Why she stayed with me, I'll never know. Actually, I do know and I always knew. Even in my darkest hour and at my lowest point, she saw something in me that brought me back from my self-destructive behavior to make me want to be a better man for her and my children.

"You're the one, Tommy. I've been waiting for you all my life," she said talking to me in that sweet, melodious voice, before giving me that soft, sensual smile that softened my impenetrable resolve not to fall in love with her.

Every time she flashed me that smile, I'd want to take her in my arms and kiss her. Every time she smiled at me like that, I'd want to get down on one knee, ask her to marry me, and promise her that I'd forsake all others and be true to her. Every time she smiled, I'd want to make love to her. That smile confessed that she knew things that I didn't know but should have known. That smile was all the evidence I needed to know that she loved me.

Later in life, her soft smile would make me do anything, go out in a raging snowstorm to buy baby formula, accompany her to family functions that I didn't want to go to, and wake up the pharmacist to get her medicine, when she had suddenly taken ill again. Her soft smile, forever constant, was the one thing that transcended all the years we've known one another and saved the one memory that returned me to the day we first met. I'll never forget the first time she flashed me that smile, when we were at the county fair and then again, when alone in her barn.

"I'm the one? What do you mean by that, Becky? How do you know I'm the one you've been waiting for all your life?"

Too soon in our relationship, if there was to be a relationship, to understand how she could feel that I'm the one for her, when I didn't see her as the one for me. I just wanted to get laid. When I still had a long line of women that I wanted to bed, it was unsettling for me to hear a woman I barely knew say that I was the one.

She turned my head right away alright, but I thought she was crazy. Perhaps wanting to get away from her life on the farm and use me to move to the big city, I thought she was just trying to entrap me with sex and hold me down with love. Only, contently happy living on her farm, the big city was the last place she wanted to go. Unable to see what she saw in me myself, when looking in the mirror, I couldn't see how I'd be anyone's prize, especially back then.

"I just know," she said with confident assurance, as if she was privy to a spiritual revelation.

"I don't know how you can say I'm the one, when we've only had the one date, Becky," I said. Wanting to believe her, thinking about being her man and being with her, then thinking of all the good times I'd be missing out on, if I settled down now, instead of waiting to tie the knot later, I was reticently resistant.

How did she know that I was the one? How could she possibly know that I was the one so soon? Now that we've been together for so very long, I know she knew that I was the one because with her being my one and only, I believe that I was her one and only, too.

Different than all the other women I knew, she haunted me with her damn smile. Smiling at me like that, even in my dreams, I thought about her all the time, when not with her and even when with someone else. Even when thinking about and talking to other women on the phone, I'd be mindlessly doodling Becky's name. Disconcertingly upsetting, what's that all about, I didn't know? Yet, knowing now what I should have known then, I always loved her, right from that first time we were together.

Different than how she normally looked, when she wasn't smiling, the first time I saw that smile directed at me, was as if it were a magical light bulb that lit up her face and warmed my heart. When she smiled at me like that, I felt lighter on my feet when walking with her and happiest when talking to her. Whether in the sunlight that glistened the highlights of her blonde hair from pale yellow to bright blonde and to every golden shade in between, or in the moonlight that teased me with her shapely shadow, her soft, sensual smile was a light that only shined upon me. When looking deep in her big, blue eyes, every time I looked at her, I remember thinking how pretty she was. Sort of like staring at and being mesmerized by the flames in a fireplace and seeing beauty with every flash of color and flicker of flame, or seeing something different, when looking at the changing colors of the ocean or watching white, puffy clouds changing shape in the sky, as they rolled by, I couldn't take my eyes from her.

Doing my best to prove her wrong, she left me scratching my head. I'm the one? How could I be the one? How could she know I'm the one, especially when I didn't believe she was the one? I couldn't believe she thought that I was the one. If only she knew me for the real, cheating, lying, and drunken bastard that I am, she'd know that, if I was anything, I was the wrong one. Back then, for sure, I was no one's special someone but Becky somehow knew that I was her one and only.

Prettier than any woman I had been with before and thought about being with now, unlike anyone I ever met before, she wasn't regular pretty. She wasn't made up pretty, in the way that some women suddenly get ugly early in the morning, before putting on their face, or late at night, when taking off their makeup. She wore that same pretty, hauntingly familiar face all the time, before dazzling me with her smile.

Born beautiful, she didn't need any of that store bought junk to make herself pretty. Her pretty face, with her eyes not too close together or too far apart, her small nose, and her full lips, were already permanently there in place, as if sculpted by a sculptor. Differently beautiful, every time I looked at her, as if seeing her in a different light, was as if looking at her for the first time. There was always something new about her that I hadn't noticed before or a new expression that I hadn't seen. Spending a lifetime doing double takes, whenever she got dressed for a function, a party or a wedding, or walked down the stairs in a new, sexy nightgown, she always had a way to keep me interested and mesmerized. The fool that I was, even after being married to her for a while, I thought it was lust, but now I know it was love.

Even if I was mad at her for one stupid reason or another, every time I looked at her, she excited me and I forgot why in the Hell I was mad at her. Every time I touched her hand and felt her fingers against mine, she moved me to want to make love to her. Having that look of a model in a catalogue or an actress on TV, weirdly interesting and sexually arousing, she looked different every time I saw her and in every picture she took. Whether it was the outfit she wore, the way she wore her hair up or down, the makeup she applied, or how she posed, she made me feel that I was with a different woman every time, even though it was still her on the inside.

More than that, knowing she'd be there waiting for me in a clean house with a hot meal, her smile made me work two jobs to support us through the tough times. Working for her and for the kids, it was a good feeling to know that I was working for something and for someone. When I think about it, we had our share of tough times, but so long as I made it through them with her by my side, our hard times weren't so bad. The best thing about living life was that I was living life with her.

Reliving our past by how our future turned out to be with us now not able to do all that we used to do when we were younger, now that I compare the hard times we shared in the past to the hard times that we've been through today with all of our health and financial issues, those perceived hard times were some of the best times in our lives. Without doubt, I'd exchange some of our perceived good times today for some of those bad times we had yesterday. Only, the first time she said that I've been waiting for you all my life, a place where she was already, a place where she needed me to be, and a place where I wouldn't be for a long while, I wasn't there yet.

With love and lust in the air, she filled with love and I filled with lust, our first date was a trip to the county fair on a hot, summer day. Then, later with the faraway sounds of calliope music and the distant, bright lights of the fair that gave stark contrast to the absolute darkness of the night, as if it were a blazing inferno in a dark forest, we returned to her Daddy's barn on the pretense of checking on the cows. By then, as if she knew me in another life, as if we had already made love and were married with children, it was obvious to me that she already had a soft spot in her heart for me that I didn't yet have for her.

Being with her then, just by the way she looked at me, told me she loved me. Feeling guilty, she made me feel that I was deceiving her by lying to her, when I told her that I loved her, too, when I didn't, even though, in hindsight, I did. Yet, I didn't feel bad enough about lying to her not to take advantage of her sexually. Back then, unable to love anyone, when I didn't even love myself, I couldn't love her then in the way she loved me and in the way that I love her now. Too preoccupied by other women, too wild to give way to a rope lassoed around my neck, I needed to roam, run free, and go hog wild.

With my sexual desire for her interfering with my love and romance, unable to see the real woman standing before me that she was, oblivious to the good woman she was inside, I only saw her in bits and pieces, tits, ass, pussy, hands, and mouth. Back then, with me being so immaturely young, my heart was a black hole and as empty as my head. With all the self-centeredness that I had for myself, I had no room in my heart to love her or anyone.

Thinking with my cock and my horny hands, instead of with my brain and my heart, I just wanted to have sex with her. I just wanted to strip her naked, while touching her and feeling her everywhere, before pushing her down to her knees and filling her beautiful mouth with my swollen cock. With my lust for her blocking me from feeling the love I had for her, instead of sailing down a smooth highway, we started out on a rocky road.

"Blow me, Becky. Suck my cock. I need to cum in your sweet, pretty mouth." Treating her in the same way that I treated all my other slutty women, I didn't realize she was my special one.

I just wanted to get laid. Oh, yeah, considered a bad boy, a four F kind of guy, find them, feel them, fuck them, and forget about them was my motto back then, that is, until I met Becky and until she branded me with her smile and tied a leash, albeit a long, loose noose, around my neck. Yet, it was still some time before she hogtied me down with an ultimatum to marry and live with her on her Daddy's farm.

"If you don't settle down with me, Tommy, we're done and it's over. You decide right now if you want me and our baby or your wild life."

Not much of a choice, thinking about all the women, the sex, the drinking, the drugs, and the days filled with good times without responsibility, I was considering returning back to my old ways, that is, before she called my life wild. As if that one word was a splash of cold water to my face, before giving me a dose of electrical shock therapy, it was then that I realized she was serious. The immature dope that I was, if I didn't stay with her, if I didn't repent, reconcile, and make my claim on her and my baby now, I'd lose them for good.

In an instant, I realized all that I already had with her was what I was looking for with someone else, another who wasn't even as pretty or as good, pure, and honest inside. Fortunately, I realized the better life that I could have with Becky, instead of the worse life I could have with someone else, someone who was just as wild as I was then. It was then that I realized that Becky and our baby were the best pieces of my perceived pie and the biggest pieces of the puzzle missing from my life. If I didn't make my claim now, not having them in my life, I'd stood to lose everything I could have wanted. My choice was an easy one to make.

Struggling to resist the truths she already somehow knew from that first date she was with me and from the unflappable insights she possessed, as if she were clairvoyant, when I think back, because of my immaturity, we had so little time and I wasted too much of the time that we could have had together. It took me too long to grow up to be the man that I am today and the man that she saw and needed me to be, when I was still just a horny boy. Even though the sex was good, the best sex I ever had, now that I'm older, I realize that the sex was the smallest part of what we shared. Lucky to have found one another so early in our lives, we were lucky to have shared something special, something deeper, something more meaningful, comfortable, and pleasurable, and something that so few people ever experience, and something that I never had and never will have with anyone else again.

More wanting to do things with my friends, never was I comfortable enough just sitting with a woman and talking, as I eventually grew to be with her. She was comfortable staying home and doing nothing, that is, if you call cooking, cleaning, taking care of our baby, and making a better life for us doing nothing. I always needed to go out and to do something, that is, if you call wasting my time and my money by hanging out and drinking with the guys doing something. What I thought was doing something then was more like doing nothing now.

With our relationship evolving to be more of a love bond than a sexual one, quickly growing to be my best friend, I told her things that I never told anyone else, not even my best buddies that I've known all my life. Compared to her, every other woman was an empty shell and just a vessel for my cum. I never clicked with another woman in the way that I clicked with Becky. A Thanksgiving Day seven course meal with the sex being the cherries jubilee, the other women in my life were just fast food that gave me indigestion, instead of love.

Yet, compared to everything else she gave me, the sex wasn't even the cherry on the sundae. The sex, the holding, the talking, and the cuddling was more the glue that connected us, when we suddenly found ourselves unraveling, pulling apart, and coming undone over something stupid. In hindsight, as if we just wanted to and needed to fight to clear the air and to have makeup sex, now that I have the time to look back with renewed insight, our disagreements were always over something stupid that got blown out of proportion.

With the sexual pleasure placating the pain we both felt from growing up poor and in dysfunctional households, the sex was sometimes what we needed to reinforce that there was a reason for all that we suffered through to be together now as man and woman, husband and wife, and lifelong lovers and partners. If it wasn't for her insisting that we were meant to be, I would have made a mistake by being with someone else, no doubt. If she hadn't forced fate by telling me that I was the one and telling me that she loved me from our very first date, I never would have known that then, as I truly believe that now.

Our good times sitting on the front porch and having a cup of coffee, playing whist, or a game of Scrabble and talking dwarfed whatever pleasure we had from having sex. The content happiness from the warmth that I felt being with her throughout the day far exceeded the pleasure I received from the few minutes of humping and sweating we did late at night or early in the morning. Sometimes and more as I grew older, I looked more forward to those quiet times with us talking, holding hands, and hugging, than I looked forward to us having sex. We never could watch television or a movie together without remembering something that made us start talking and laughing over the things we saw, heard, or did. Talking about everything and laughing over nothing, I never had that comfortable closeness with anyone but her.

It was the conversation that helped grow us closer by knowing more about one another than if we were brother and sister growing up in the same house. It was our words said in private to one another that cemented our relationship in an unbreakable bond of unified trust. We shared our secrets and fears with one another. As if the words were the bricks and the sex the mortar, we had built a strong foundation. Writing this now, I didn't have to tell her that then, she knew all of that already. I was the one always playing catch up to what she already knew. Compared to her, I was the one who didn't know anything. She was the oracle and I was the fool.

Even though she had beautiful breasts, the most beautiful breasts I've ever seen, felt, and sucked, I grew to look more forward to holding her hand and playing with her fingers, while walking and talking, than holding her breast and fingering her nipple, while making love. As if making a permanent connection with our lips, putting an arm around her waist and kissing her meant more to me than putting a cock in her mouth or pussy and fucking her. Now that I think more about it, I couldn't treat the woman I loved and the mother of my children as a whore, in the way that I did with the other women that I was with before her. Different from all the other women I've been with, we never fucked. We always made love.

Maybe the fear of falling in love is why I resisted her. Having such strong, strange feelings was new to me. Never depending on a woman before, always feeling superior to them, and now looking to Becky to fulfill most of my sexual, emotional, and spiritual needs, wants, and desires that I never knew I needed filled, made me feel less of a man in the beginning. I just wanted to have sex without having the accountability for everything else, the commitment of being with just one women, the complexity that comes with a relationship, and the responsibility for the happiness of someone else that went along with love.

Having to expose myself so openly, more terrifying than facing a linebacker on the open football field or fighting a professional heavyweight boxer in the ring, she frightened me, when she told me she loved me. As if she drove an icicle through my brain and another through my heart, having a sudden and detached aloofness that comes with severed emotions, feelings I couldn't give in to and share with her or with anyone else at the time, she froze me into inaction. Loved me? How could she love me, when we just had the one date? She doesn't even know me.

Obviously, I can see now that it was all meant to be and I was too tempted by and preoccupied with others to see that the one I loved was standing right there in front of me. Thinking that love had to be more complicated than that, thinking that I'd have to scour the countryside, search the planet, and be with and make mistakes with dozens, before I found the right one, we were lucky to find one another right away. Had I known then what I know now, things between us, especially in the beginning would have been differently better.