The Gemstone Girls

This is my second entry to the April Fool's Day Contest. Please be kind with your ratings! The more stars that you feel you can give, the better.

*********************

There was no question my ex was pretty. Everyone agreed about that. Her green eyes, her long dirty blond silken hair, her high cheekbones, and her puffy lips, all combined to make a radiant face. Her body was classic. She had smooth and soft skin, curves in all the right places, and she knew how to dress to present herself in the best light. In short, my ex was a knockout.

I've discovered that pretty, sexy women can have strange taste in men. Take me, for example. I'm fairly ordinary, with a nice build, average height, good hair, and while not a handsome face, at least an expressive one. I guess you could say that I'm handsome from the neck down. With my ex-wife, one could imagine her gracing the cover of Vogue, whereas my image is better suited to the cover of a Marvel comic book, as a villain.

So why were we a couple? I'm a superficial jerk, who fell for her looks, and loved having eye candy on my arm. My ex, in contrast, wanted nothing more than a successful man, and while I'm not a prize in the looks department, I am quite a success in the financial sector. To put it simply, I'm a rich man, which is remarkable, since I am self-made and only 28 years of age. I'm not talking billions, or anything, but I do have more than enough income wealth to be a member of the top 1% who will benefit in a big way from the new tax cuts. So now that I don't need money for anything, I'll get lots more of it.

And why is my ex-wife now my ex? The simple answer is that we had nothing to talk about. My ex is not stupid, but she is not interested in anything that I'm also interested in. We each had what the both of us thought we wanted out of a partner, but we had nothing in common, and evenings would pass where neither of us even wanted to talk to the other.

When such situations for couples like us occur, one of the partners inevitably gets restless, and sets about to find a substitute, or perhaps a supplement. The easiest way to do that is with sex. Traditionally it's the man's role to have an affair, while the wife at home wrings her hands and complains to her friends. Social norms are changing, however, and given my ex-wife's looks, she had little trouble attracting men to her bed. Her bed was our bed, and that was kind of a major problem.

It was a Thursday, and I had a business meeting not far from our apartment in Manhattan, so I decided to go home for lunch. I texted my wife to let her know, but there was no reply. I was not surprised, since she often had her phone on vibrate and in her purse, so she neither heard the text nor saw it.

I knew something was wrong when I entered the building. The doorman looked at me with alarm in his face, but he did not say anything. I wished he had.

The doorman's inadvertent facial expression was enough to put me on alert, albeit a confused alert, and I entered my own apartment with more caution and quiet than I normally would have. The first thing I saw was one of my wife's blouses on the floor. There was a trail of her clothes, as well as some men's clothes that were not mine, leading to our bedroom. Those were my second clue, and a big clue at that.

There's a certain kind of music my wife likes to listen to when we make love, and that was on the stereo. It's part of the Opera Carmen by Bizet. She likes me to time my thrusts to certain passages. It's kind of cute, and I always found it sexy. It was on the stereo, with the volume turned up loud. That was my third clue, and if I had not figured it out by then, I was an idiot.

I had of course figured it out, but I could not bring myself to believe it. As I got closer to the bedroom, I heard the groans and moans of my wife's acoustic soundtrack for making love. Of course, she could just be masturbating, I transiently thought, but I remembered the male clothing trail on the floor. Who wears Dockers these days, anyway? With this last, fourth clue, it was blatantly clear to me what was going on, even if I still found it hard to believe.

Perhaps it should have been clear to me much earlier, but the whole idea she would do this was just not an element in my collection of possible lunch activities for her. She must have wanted a liquid lunch of seminal fluid I thought to myself. Had she looked at her phone, she could have had mine.

I knew I should have quietly left at that point and given my cheating wife some privacy. If you see your wife in the act of cheating, it can never be erased from your mind. I knew that, too, but I just had to see who the man was, and what he looked like. I went to the bedroom, and Maria had left the door wide open. How thoughtful, I reflected.

He was humping her rear entry while she was bent over the bed. I got a brilliant profile of the two of them. The man wore Dockers, and he was a fat slob. He was ugly, too. This is who she chose to cheat on me with?

Don't be a superficial jerk, I thought. Maybe he has a foot-long cock? I looked carefully. It was tricky, because his cock was pumping in and out of my wife rather quickly, but one could still tell, you know? Nope, his cock was average.

Maria must like him for his personality. Maybe he too likes to watch Project Runway reruns all day long? Maybe they could hump together to Tim Gunn? I went back to the living room, and sure enough the TV was turned on to Project Runway, but it was on mute, so as not to clash with Bizet's Carmen, I assume. I guess they did not hump watching Tim Gunn because the neighbors would have seen them doing it, since the blinds were up.

I went to his Dockers in the front hall, fished out his wallet, and took a close-up cell phone picture of his ID. It was an expired New York State Driver's License. Then I went to the bedroom and took a few cell phone pictures of the two of them humping, and then I went to the local coffee house and called my financial adviser. He referred me to a good lawyer, and now she's my ex.

I did have one insight while at the coffee house. My wife's lover's Dockers were comfort fit. Her father wears Comfort Fit Dockers, too. My wife's lover had the same beer belly her father had. His oily, dirty hair reminded me too of Maria's father's hair. Maybe Maria had an Oedipal complex of some mild kind, where she was attracted to men who, while much younger than her father, nevertheless were similar to her father? That comforted me, just as his Comfort Fit Dockers probably comforted him.

When the doorman saw my face as I left the building in a state of shock and anger, he remained silent, but his face showed pity. God, do I hate it when someone looks at me with pity. I truly do hate it.

I do admit it, however. It was kind of hot watching another man fuck my wife. It would have been even hotter if she had been my neighbor or something, and not my own wife. Or would it? Sexuality is so very complicated, isn't it? It took quite a while for my erection to subside. There's a woman who lives in our building who probably could have helped me solve the hard-on problem, but I was a married man, although not for much longer at that point, but I don't do things like that. Also, it's not good to get sexually entangled with neighbors.

The upshot is that now we are divorced, due to her marital infidelity. We had not yet had children, so that made things simpler. I am now alone, and my ex-wife is now somebody else's problem. Or maybe not? She may have found a man better suited to her tastes, in which case I say good for her. One typically wants one's ex to be miserable, but I think that it would be better for all concerned if she were to be happy.

The irony for me about my ex-wife is that with all the beauty she possessed, she was not even that good in bed. After some reflection, I think she does not enjoy sex, or she does not enjoy it with men, or at the least, she did not enjoy it with me. I know for a fact that she did not enjoy sex with me. She told me that, in some detail, occasionally even hurtful, graphic detail, during the divorce. Perhaps another man might do better at getting some sexual interest from her. I wish him luck.

At first, I enjoyed being alone. I had not realized how hard on me it had been to live with Maria. Being alone now came as a relief. I enjoyed the silence, now that the television was not always on, and I was catching up on my reading. I listened to music, but destroyed my CD of Bizet's Carmen. I went for walks.

I also, however, had nobody to talk to, and I ate alone. Obviously, I also slept alone. I missed having the intimacy of a warm, soft woman in my bed. I was beginning to get lonely. I was finding myself trying to have conversations with cashiers in stores, and waitresses at the greasy spoons where I would take myself out to eat. This alarmed me.

There are aspects to being young, rich, handsome from the neck down, and divorced that are thrust upon you. You become "a catch." Gold diggers from all over the place come after you. Without realizing it at the time, since I was young and a bit naive, I had been there and done that with my first wife, and I wanted no more of it. For a while at least, I was off women.

Two consequences of the divorce were that I got sympathy and pity. I did not mind the sympathy, but the pity I could have done without. It took a couple of months, but then the matchmaking began. The beginning was not even close to being subtle enough. One early attempt at match making was when my friends Bill and Sarah invited me to dinner. They also invited Joe and Louise, and a single woman, Crystal. I was seated next to Crystal.

I was still in gold digger dread mode, but Crystal was herself well off, and she gave no indication of being a gold digger. Bill and Sarah knew me well, too, and they both knew of my new aversion to gold digging women, so it would have been surprising if they had tried to match me up with another one. Therefore, I was relaxed in the presence of Crystal, who was, incidentally, a beautiful woman. I thought to myself, here is a possibility. I got hopeful for the first time since the divorce.

Crystal was not your ordinary woman. Her clothes and the way she carried herself spoke of old money. She could let you know she was from the aristocracy simply by the way she moved her head. Her clothes were not fancy, just elegant, and they were made of the best fabrics. Her jewelry was minimal and refined, probably solid gold and sprinkled with diamonds. I suspected the necklace came from Bulgari.

Don't get me wrong. I like bling as much as the next man. I enjoy seeing shiny things on women. But the real jewelry, the expensive stuff made of 18 carat gold with real gem stones plucked from South American mines and assembled by artisans in Italy, well those sorts of things were designed for the Crystals of the world.

Crystal had a pretty face, and she pretty clearly had a nice body under all of her clothes. She was sexy without being cheap. She somehow looked sexy, and at the same time looked as if she were trying not to look sexy. Her eyes were sexy and the way she moved was sexy. She would never have to show any cleavage or any skin to be sexy. I'm not saying it would be a bad idea to show some cleavage. I like a little cleavage as much as the next guy. I like it more, probably.

Crystal wore her hair pulled back into a French bun. She wore no make-up, and she gave off all the warmth of a cold fish. It was clear from the get-go that she had absolutely no interest in me and she was disappointed when it turned out to be me occupying the chair next to her at the dining table. She had probably known about me in advance. My divorce was in the news, and all over the tabloids.

Don't ask me how, but one of the tabloids got ahold of one of my cell phone pictures of Mr. Comfort Fit Dockers fucking my wife. The tabloids somehow delighted in exposing the misery of the rich. Most of them were not printable even in a tabloid, but one of the pictures was not too explicit, even if it was obvious what was going on. Some bastard got all five of the pictures I snapped, and posted the explicit, graphic ones on a website. I suspect the Russians were behind it, of course.

The problem was that I was beginning to get horny, but I was in no mental shape to deal with a relationship just then, being depressed and discouraged. I did not have the mental nor the emotional energy to try to get to know Crystal, especially given her obvious lack of interest. A quick roll in the hay might have been welcome, but not with all the baggage that went with one, especially with a girl like Crystal. It was all moot, anyway. There was no way on Earth I would get anywhere, anywhere at all, with Crystal.

Sarah, who had invited me, had not mentioned who else was invited, and it was clear that we were intended to be three couples: Bill and Sarah, Joe and Louise, myself and Crystal. It would have been nice to have been warned. What do you do in such a situation? It's awkward, and I felt for Crystal. She was in the position of being humiliated if I were to show no interest, even if I felt such interest was doomed from the start.

Acting my assigned role, I tried to make conversation and to show some interest. As I mentioned, I was getting horny, and it might have been nice to take Crystal to bed, since she was not unattractive. Mostly, however, I was being nice in consideration for my friends and hosts, Bill and Sarah. They had gone to some effort on my behalf, and while they had failed spectacularly, I did in fact appreciate the gesture.

Maybe Crystal, unlike my ex, would be one of those women who liked sex? Crystal, however, seemed determined that I was not to find out, and she did her best imitation of an icicle. Now that I think about it, she was more of an iceberg than an icicle. It's not hard sometimes to break an icicle in half and to look at the ice inside. An iceberg is a whole different story. It's a whole different scale. The iceberg that sunk the Titanic comes to mind. Well, at least the food was good. Sarah is a good cook, and as Bill pointed out when I complemented Sarah, he himself had made the salad dressing. Sarah smiled and readily agreed. "Nice job," she said to Bill, teasing a smile from her lips.

The only thing I learned from Crystal is that her friends called her Kristy. She did not, however, ask me to call her Kristy, even if Bill occasionally called her Kristy during the evening. Adele was careful always to address her as Crystal.

Sarah was crushed over Crystal's behavior, and she called me the next morning, apologizing profusely. I resisted scolding her, so I did not tell her that she had blindsided me. I ended up reassuring Sarah. She's a sweetheart, a good friend, and she had meant well.

I suppose one could call it a learning experience. I would get invited to more dinner parties, and there is an old saying, 'Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.' I always enjoyed the version of our former President George W. Bush, however, who had a unique talent with words, "There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again."

I was ready for the next time someone did this to me. It's a good thing that I was ready, too, because it happened right away. Mary Jo and Zack invited me to dinner. Zack was an old friend from college, and I liked Mary Jo fine, although of course I knew Zack much better.

At this dinner I was paired with someone who could have been Crystal's twin sister, separated at birth. Her name was Ruby. At first glance, I thought she actually was Crystal again! In contrast to Crystal, though, Ruby wore her long hair down, and it cascaded beautifully around her shoulders. She also wore lipstick, eye makeup, and perfume. I found her easier to relate to than Crystal, even if I was still not ready for a relationship.

Unlike Crystal, Ruby returned my polite conversation with more than monosyllabic words, but she made it clear that she had absolutely no interest - none - in seeing me once we had both escaped our sentence of forced and awkward, but polite conversation for the evening. One nice feature of Ruby is that she spoke French. So too did Mary Jo, and not realizing I myself was fluent (I had a French mother), Ruby spoke sotto voce in French with Mary Jo about me. That was the best eavesdropping I had ever enjoyed.

Ruby was upset. How dare Mary Jo try to set her up with someone fresh off a divorce! Yes, she was attracted to me, and she would love to take me into a bedroom and make 'beautiful love' to me for forever and a day, but she would never get involved with a man on the rebound. Thanks, but no thanks.

Ruby spoke school-learned French with a Third Republic flair. I was beginning to regret letting her get away, even if I had never had her to let her escape in the first place. Circumstances (ie, my recent divorce) led her to have a total lack of interest in me, and I did not have the emotional capital to try to break the through the invisible shield that surrounded, enveloped, and protected her.

Idiot that I am, I continued to go to the dinners when my friends invited me, which was often. One particular dinner stands out. I went to this particular dinner because it was thrown by my casual friends Stefan and Adele, and I agreed to go because Adele is a woman who is the salt of the earth. I had never met another person, man or woman, who had a purer soul. When Adele called to invite me, I could not say no. It would have been like telling an angel no, I'm not interested. It was not something I could do.

At the dinner party, I was paired with another beauty, probably a first cousin of the 'sisters' Crystal and Ruby, this time with a name that I found hard to believe. She was called Sapphire. She looked just like Crystal and Ruby, but she was not like them at all. No, Sapphire reeked of sexual sensuality. She wore her red brown hair in two long braids, tied at the ends in satin bows, showing off her diamond encrusted giant gold hoop earrings.

She also wore a necklace of interlocking gold hoops that I recognized as a $14,000 Buccellatti necklace for sale at Bergdorf's. I know, because I considered buying it for my wife when I was still trying to save our marriage. While I was thinking about it, I found her in bed with her lover. That saved me a hefty chunk of change. It's a beautiful necklace. Imagine my surprise to see Sapphire wearing it? Maybe it was a sign?

She wore a dress made of the most beautiful colors and fabric. When I asked about it, she told me it was designed by Kenzo, and she actually smiled, thanking me for my interest. Sapphire's smile was dazzling, and it turned my heart of moldy peat into one of radiant sunshine. I realized neither Crystal nor Ruby had ever smiled. Sapphire's smile was meant for me. Somehow her smile simply captivated me and soothed my soul. The way she smiled at me made me want to be around her and never let her go.

Her dress went up to her neck but it had an open back. She was not wearing a bra, and the dress caressed her boobs. What I could tell as I tried to check her out as discretely as possible, was that her boobs were as close to perfection as boobs can be. I became a happy, smiling man that evening, and I was even gregarious.

Sapphire and I talked up a storm at that dinner. She was surprisingly frank, and I discovered I liked everything she had to say. We had a lot of things in common. She was well spoken and she spoke in this sexy low voice, kind of a contralto husky voice. If there ever is love found at a first evening together, this was it. I had no idea why such an effervescent beauty of a woman should be interested in me, but she gave every possible indication that she was! It was, in actuality, enormously exciting for me.