Thoughts on Suzanna

"Sam, where are the kids' passports?" I could hear Justine's voice from where I sat upstairs on the third floor in my home office. Her French accent made the "the" sound like "zee."

"Check the top drawer of your dresser," I hollered back.

After a few moments, I could hear her answer, "Found them! We can't plan a trip to Disney World without these." Though the last word sounded more like "zees."

"Yeah ..." I answered back absentmindedly, hoping that would be the end of the exchange. I turned my attention back to the photo on my computer screen.

Orange. Bright orange. Or was it vermilion? Who the fuck cared! What ever color it was called, it looked damn good. She looked damn good. Wearing a bridesmaid dress that would have looked hideous on almost any other woman. But somehow she managed to look like a total knockout. Small waist, toned tanned arms, impossibly long bronze legs. Dark hair pulled back in a sophisticated updo. How on earth did Suzanna look better in her mid-thirties than she had at twenty-five? Or twenty-one? Or eighteen, even?

Don't get me wrong, Suzanna had always looked good. She was tall with a pretty face. Long, thick, wavy black hair. Big dark brown eyes. Beautiful olive skin.

But she had always been a little more on the voluptuous side for my taste. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not attracted to women who're skin and bones. But I've always been more turned on by petite women with slim builds and fair complexions.

Now, I know what you might be thinking. You probably have me pegged as a superficial asshole who is all about looks. You might think I have ridiculously unrealistic beauty standards for women. What about personality? It's what's on the inside that counts, right?

Well, sure, personality is immensely important in a relationship. Maybe THE most important thing in a relationship. But physical attraction is important, too. You're not going to get to know someone's personality unless there's something that draws you to them first. And that first thing is often looks.

Now you might be wondering how I got to know Suzanna since she's not physically my usual type.

At college, we had been on the debate team together. I was a junior and she was a freshman. Being on the debate team together, you really get to know someone's personality. And I learned pretty quickly that Suzanna was smart, funny, assertive and quick witted. You kind of have to be all those things to be good at debating. She was outgoing to the point of being almost aggressive. But balanced it out with a hilarious (and often times racy) sense of humor.

We met her first week of college. All of the school's clubs and teams had set up booths along the main drag of the campus. They were trying to get freshmen interested in signing up for various extracurricular activities. I had been tasked with running the debate team's booth. My memory of that day was of a tall, curvaceous, dark haired girl strolling up and casually mentioning that she had been a member of her high school's drama club. But she felt like college would be a good opportunity to try something new and was playing around with the idea of joining another club.

I explained to her that the debate team was just like the drama club in many ways. You still performed in front of an audience. It still involved public speaking. You still needed passion, enthusiasm and creativity. But there was just one exception. On the debate team, you learned an actual skill.

Suzanna seemed intrigued and insisted that I elaborate.

I told her, "On the debate team, you have to learn real facts. Not some fictitious story that someone else just made up. You learn to think for yourself. Not just speak the lines other people have written for you to say. You learn to put words and ideas together on the spot, because you don't always know the subject in advance. But when you act in a play, you're just reciting a script that you memorized."

Once I got revved up, I just kept going. "However, learning to win an argument will help you out in your career if you're presenting an idea to your boss. If you're a lawyer it will help you to win a court case. In a marriage it'll help you to get your spouse to see your side of things. If you have to deal with any sort of management ..."

"Alright! Okay! Enough already!" she cut me off laughing. "You've convinced me. I'll sign up. If you can teach me to argue half as well as you do, it'll be worth it!"

And that was the beginning of our easy and comfortable friendship.

I'll admit that even though Suzanna wasn't the sort of girl I'd normally date, I did still find her attractive. I feel like a complete douche bag for admitting this, but she was the sort of girl that I would have no problem sleeping with. She just wasn't the type of girl I'd want to have as my girlfriend.

Before you go screaming at me that I have a Madonna-whore complex (and maybe I do), in my defense, I don't think I was the type of guy Suzanna would normally go for.

During the years that I hung out with Suzanna, while she was still living in Chicago, she had always seemed to have a thing for tall muscular black guys. (What woman doesn't?) Or olive skinned Mediterranean men. Or tanned Hispanics. I remember in her last year of college, she dated a tall Chinese American guy. Then there was the time she hooked up with a Brazilian man at a club when we were out celebrating a mutual friend's farewell party. Any tall muscular guy who had dark or olive skin with black hair and brown eyes seemed to turn her on.

Now, I work out regularly and have a physique I am proud of. However, I'm not a hugely muscular guy - I'm compact. But not scrawny. Thanks to regular exercise, I've gained an impressive amount of muscle over the years. But you can't gain height. And at five foot seven with pale skin, dirty blond hair and green eyes, I highly doubted that Suzanna had any feelings for me beyond liking me as a friend.

And it wasn't just physical appearances that stopped me from asking Suzanna out. While Suzanna and I got along great as platonic friends (with a little harmless flirting thrown in every now and then) I didn't want a wife or girlfriend who was so aggressive. I tended to be more drawn to feminine demure girls who let me be the leader. It made me feel masculine and more confident.

And Suzanna seemed to be more attracted to guys who were kind of bohemian. Musicians, artists, guys who didn't hold down real jobs. She often teased me about being too conventional and mainstream. But all of that didn't seem to matter since we were just good friends. And as far as I could tell, it was going to stay that way.

So, while I will admit to feeling something of an attraction towards Suzanna, appearance wise and personality wise, we simply weren't each other's ideal types. You can call me a shallow if you want. But I simply cannot help the fact that I like petite, fair skinned, demure feminine women.

That was what had originally attracted me to Justine. I met my French wife a few years after graduating from college. I had been working for an international accounting firm. Justine had been transferred to Chicago from the Paris branch.

I remember the first day Justine walked into our office. She stood at no more than five feet two inches tall. Her tiny waist and slim hips were hugged by her snug fitting pencil skirt. Her long shiny blond hair was down and loose but still sleek and professional looking. Her crisp white blouse was fitted, but not clingy. (Not that I would have minded if it had fit tighter.) On her feet she sported kitten heals. Sophisticated but modest. Cute but also sexy. She was totally my type and I was absolutely smitten.

As I approached her to introduce myself, she looked up at me with big blue eyes. Her face was made up. But not too made up. Her jewelry was simple and elegant. Her face was youthful with delicate features. I knew within moments of meeting Justine that I just had to ask her on a date.

And I knew within months of dating her I just had to ask her to marry me.

And within months marrying her ... it began to dawn on me that I may ... have made a mistake. Things didn't fall apart all at once. But it didn't happen all that slowly either.

Before Justine and I married, she always commented on the differences between the way French people ate and the enormous portions that Americans shoveled in their mouths. I pointed out to Justine that it was much easier to eat less when you had a habit of smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day, which was helping to suppress her appetite. She rolled her eyes and groaned. But she promised to quit smoking before our wedding.

However, to be fair to Justine, she did have a point about typical American food and portion sizes. While we were dating, whenever Justine invited me over to her apartment, she always cooked healthy well balanced meals. Her cooking was simple and, at times, even a bit bland. But her food was at least nutritious. And since I've been into healthy eating ever since I was a teenager, it was something we had in common.

I was also impressed with the way Justine kept her apartment. She would often tell me about how small the apartments in Paris were and she stressed the importance of not acquiring too much junk. She kept her apartment clean and elegantly decorated. When ever I slept over at her place, she always made sure to pick up any clutter and vacuum.

I couldn't help but smile smugly to myself when I thought about how I managed to land a beautiful slim French girlfriend who wasn't only a sexy career woman but also a domestic goddess.

However, after we got engaged and began living together, things began to change. And not for the better. Suddenly, all of those healthy meals Justine used to cook for me began to become less and less frequent. We started eating out much more and I noticed, when we ordered our meals, Justine was not exactly making the healthiest choices.

I still made an effort to cook for us every other night. But for some reason, whenever it was Justine's turn to cook, she usually made some excuse. She was too tired. She had a stressful day at work. She was too busy with wedding preparations. Quitting smoking made her crave certain unhealthy foods. She usually came up with some reason for us to eat out.

On evenings when she did bother to cook, more often than not, it was something instant that came out of a packet or a can or a jar. Physical activity also seemed to become less and less a part of her life.

One day I decided to broach the subject with her. "You know," I began hesitantly, "when we first began dating, you made a big deal out of cooking healthy meals from scratch. Remember how you said you didn't want to pick up bad American eating habits? And you used to be alot more physically active compared to now ..."

"Sam," she cut me off, "I work full time, we've just moved into our new house, and I'm in the middle of planning a wedding! I'm exhausted! And all I want is to have a smoke, but I can't," she said through gritted teeth. "Would you rather me have a cigarette or a burger? I'm sorry I don't have the time or the energy to cook for you every single night!" she said exasperated.

"Hey now," I said, trying to calm her down. "I'm not criticizing." I hoped I sounded diplomatic. "It's just that I want both of us to be as healthy as possible. I love you and I want the best for you."

"Things are just really crazy right now with planning the wedding. When things settle down, I'll get back into my old routine," she promised.

The wedding came and went. I have to admit, Justine looked absolutely beautiful in her wedding gown! Even if she was a few pounds heavier than she had been when first I met her. I just figured with the stress of the wedding over, I'd get the old Justine back.

I waited ... and waited. But "the old Justine" remained elusive. Not only did she remain uninterested in healthy cooking and exercise. She also seemed to lose interest in housework. Now before you go thinking that I'm a sexist pig, just to be clear, I do my fair share of chores around the house. I wash the dishes, I vacuum, I take out the garbage and so on. I'm not saying Justine did absolutely nothing around the house. But her efforts to keep our home clean were infrequent and mediocre at best.

During this whole time, Suzanna and I remained pretty good friends. Even though I'd graduated college, I had continued to hang out with some members of the debate team. I also continued to socialize with some other former classmates and teammates who'd already graduated. As a group we had become quite a tight little circle of friends. And since I both lived and worked not far from the college campus, it was easy for me to meet up with the group for drinks and nights out. Often Justine would come along with me to these night out as well. She and Suzanna seemed to get along quite well, which made me happy.

A few months after Justine and I had gotten married, Suzanna made an unexpected announcement. She was moving to Germany. She had been accepted to a university in Berlin for graduate school and was getting ready to move there at the end of the summer.

The night before Suzanna was scheduled to catch her flight to Germany, she and some of our other mutual friends from the debate team came over for dinner. Justine cooked (shockingly) for everyone. We all ate and drank and reminisced. It was a fun night.

I tightly hugged Suzanna goodbye before she left our house. While I was sorry to see her go, to be honest, I really did not give it that much thought. I had so much going on at work and at home, trying to get Justine to readopt her former good lifestyle habits. And while I certainly thought of Suzanna fondly, my friendship with her wasn't exactly my top priority. It was unfortunate to have to say good-bye to a friend, but I was much more focused on my marriage and my career at that time.

As the months went by, I noticed that Justine's food choices were becoming even worse. She ate salty snacks and sweet desserts way more often. She sipped on fizzy sugary soda during meals. And her portion sizes were getting bigger. And so was she. I know I must sound like the biggest asshole in the world right now. But every time I looked at my ever expanding wife, the words "bait-and-switch" would echo through my mind.

Every once in a while Justine would make a half-hearted attempt to get back into shape. She would insist on going for a walk every night after dinner. But after about a week or so, she would find some reason or another to curl up on the couch with the TV remote the moment we finished eating supper.

She would see an infomercial for some fitness guru's workout DVDs and enthusiastically order them. She told me that conventional exercise could be so boring. But with the excitement of a fresh new workout program, she would surely find the motivation she needed to exercise regularly. Similar to her evening walks, the exercise DVDs were were put to use for about a week or two. But then, eventually, they were shoved onto a shelf with the rest of our video collection.

As more months passed and more pounds were gained, I began to lose my patience with Justine. By the time we reached our one year anniversary, I no longer recognized my own wife. She had gone from being a five foot two lithe nymphet, to being a short and stocky frump. Being as chubby as she was, she could no longer fit into her stylish wardrobe. I could see that she was losing her confidence and she began dressing in a way to hide her body.

When I would have conversations with her about her weight, my tone went from being fairly diplomatic to being rather critical. When I spoke to her, I loathed the way I sounded. But I just could not wrap my head around why she was making unhealthy choices. "Don't you want to look and feel the way you did when we first met," I asked, frustrated.

"Sam, we're planning on having kids soon," she countered. "You know I'm going to gain a bunch of weight when I get pregnant. What's even the point of me slimming down now? I may as well just get pregnant first. After I give birth, that's when I should focus on losing the weight. It would be a waste of time and energy to lose it before then."

"Of course I know that when you get pregnant, you're going to gain weight. But if you do get pregnant, it's also important to be healthy! You'll no longer be feeding just yourself, but also our child."

"What?" she spat back. "You think I don't know that? You think I'd deliberately do something to endanger the well-being of our child?"

"No," I said uncertainly. "But the way you eat now isn't exactly ideal for pregnancy."

I could see the tears welling up in Justine's eyes. I absolutely hated how I sounded. I felt like such a judgemental piece of shit. I just wanted my wife to be fit and healthy. But I didn't want to make her feel horrible about herself.

"Sam, it's just been really tough, you know?" she sniffled. "Work is stressful. Quitting smoking was hard. I live in a country far away from all of my family and friends. I guess I'm just an emotional eater. I don't want to be this way," she said as the tears began to roll down her cheeks.

It broke my heart, seeing my formally beautiful and confident wife reduced to tears. And even though I was definitely less physically attracted to her, I still loved her.

"I promise," she sobbed. "I'm going to change. I'm going to be healthier. I'm going to be better. For our family."

I pulled her towards me, kissed the top of her head and caressed her upper arm. "I know you will," I soothed. "I know." But if I'm to be completely honest, I wasn't so sure.

It did not take Justine long to get pregnant. A couple a months after we stopped using birth control, she was late for her period. She took a home pregnancy test and, sure enough, the result was positive.

I hate to admit this, but I was actually really relieved that it did not take long for Justine to get pregnant. A few months after we had gotten married and Justine had put on a significant amount of weight, our sex life had definitely slowed down. We had gone from having sex a couple of times a week to having sex maybe once a month.

Sometimes not even that often.

However, when we were trying to get pregnant, we needed to have sex much more often. Especially around the time of the month that we thought she might be ovulating. And, to be honest, I wasn't always confident that I would be able to perform with Justine looking the way she did.

Just to be perfectly clear, I love my wife. I love her personality. I love her intelligence. I love her knowledge about different subjects. I love how responsible she is with money. I love her sense of humor. I love how sweet and kind she can be. But at the critical moment when I needed to get it up, I simply did not get turned on by being sexually intimate with her.

I found myself watching porn on my laptop while Justine wasn't in the room. During our love making, in my mind, I'd replay various scenes that I had watched earlier. Scenes involving women of various body types. Slim and fit. Buxom and curvy. Flat-chested women. Big busted women. Skinny. Athletic. Soft. However, the one body type that I wasn't into was fat. And that was exactly the body that my wife had.

I understand many people will think I'm complete dick for admitting that. I realize lots of guys are into big beautiful women. And that's totally cool! If you're a chubby chaser, you'll get no judgement from me. But the fact is I simply do not have a fat fetish. You can love someone unconditionally. But you cannot force yourself to be attracted to someone unconditionally.

As I positioned myself between my wife's thighs, I closed my eyes and thought about a video I had just watched moments earlier. It was of a blond girl with an hourglass figure pleasuring herself and moaning for the camera. As I penetrated my wife, I thought about that adult film actress. Her tapered waist and generous hips, her well proportioned breasts heaving up and down as she panted. As I worked up to my climax as quickly as possible, I imagined slipping my cock between the porn star's pouty pink lips and thrusting it down her throat. As I pumped in and out of my wife, I pretended that I was thrusting into the mouth of the girl from the video. And as I ejaculated into my wife, I envisioned cumming all over the face of the blond porn actress.